Always You (Adair Family 3)

Regan snorted. “Would I do that to you?”

“Yes, you would.”

She chuckled and bent to pull the bacon, sausages, black pudding, and haggis out from under the grill. Rotating them as she spoke, Regan continued, “How did you meet the last man you dated?”

The thought of Guy made my stomach churn. “He worked for Lachlan.”

Realization dawned on her face. “The chef guy?”

“His name was Guy.” I noted the flash of anger in her eyes and sighed. “Thane told you.”

“Is that okay?”

“I guess he tells you everything now, right?”

“I would never tell anyone else,” she promised.

“Good. Because some people don’t know, and I don’t want them to.”

“Mac.”

I didn’t reply in the affirmative, but I was indeed referring to Mac. Guy had been Lachlan’s chef at the estate. The night he attacked me, I felt ashamed for so many reasons. Mostly for being blind to who he really was. Mac didn’t know about it. He didn’t know he was the reason Guy assaulted me in a jealous rage. He didn’t know he was the reason I even said yes to a date with Guy in the first place, even though my feelings for him were lukewarm at best …

* * *

Fifteen months ago

* * *

As I pulled up to the sports center in Inverness, my phone beeped in my purse on the passenger seat. Switching off the engine, I rummaged through my bag and saw it was a text from Guy.

I frowned.

Maybe I shouldn’t have given him my number that night we met at the Gloaming, Gordon’s pub and hotel in the village. Our local.

Just one date.

That was all the text said. Guy had been pestering me to go on a date with him for weeks. He’d been the chef at Ardnoch for six months, and he’d flirted with me since his arrival. He was good-looking and had this sexy Australian accent. But he wasn’t who I wanted to be with.

Yet the man was nothing if not persistent.

I sighed, not sure how to respond. I decided to think about it later.

Instead, I looked up at the entrance of the sports center and smiled to myself.

Mac taught a jujitsu class in Inverness every Thursday evening. When he lived in the States, he’d won the US Jujitsu Championships three years in a row. I was considering learning just so I could be close to him. Not that we weren’t close. A secret smile prodded my lips. One reason I didn’t want to say yes to a date with Guy was because Mac and I were growing closer.

Despite my vow to him all those years ago that we would be nothing but friends, something had changed in the past year. We found excuses to spend time together more often. We talked about things that worried us. He confided more about his daughter, Robyn, who was a police officer in Boston. They hadn’t been in contact for years, but I continued to prod him to do something about it. Gently, though. Mac was not an easily offended man, but Robyn was a button I knew not to push.

Out of the blue, two days ago, Mac dropped by my work site with a packed lunch for us. He’d taken time out of his busy schedule as head of security on the estate to sit in his SUV with me, laughing and eating sandwiches he’d bought from Morag’s deli counter in the village.

His gaze kept dropping to my mouth, something he couldn’t seem to stop doing lately. There was always an underlying tension between us. Had been ever since that New Year’s Eve all those years ago. But lately, it had intensified.

It gave me hope.

After all, I was thirty now, thirty-one next month. Maybe Mac realized our thirteen-year age gap didn’t feel so big now that I was older. Maybe he realized he was the reason none of my relationships lasted. That those guys would never be right for me because they weren’t him.

I was wearing Mac down. I grinned giddily, thinking about a future of waking up in his bed, of being free to love and touch him, to reach for him whenever I needed him. I could almost taste that future on my tongue.