Here With Me (Adair Family 1)

“Not ones I’m willing to discuss with an outsider.”

Anger flared, but I kept it buried. “If it has something to do with what happened to my father, then I have a right to know.”

“Then it’ll be up to Mac to tell you himself. If he wants to. For now, all you need to know is that his attack is most likely tied to these incidents.”

His vagueness frustrated me. Instead of engaging in an immature spat, I opened my purse and retrieved my phone.

“What are you doing? Who are you calling?”

“My mom. I have to tell her Mac’s in the hospital.”

“No, you don’t.” To my shock, he grabbed my phone out of my hand.

Indignation roared through me. “What are you doing?”

Adair leaned into me, all pretense of politeness gone. His face was a mask of controlled fury. “The police have agreed to keep the incident with Mac quiet. As fucked-up as it may be, no one cares about a random man being stabbed. What people do care about is a man being stabbed in one of the safest villages in Scotland. A man who happens to be head of security at Ardnoch Estate. If you tell your mother, it’ll be all over the news.”

“You’re protecting your club?” I sneered. “My father is in surgery with multiple stab wounds, and you care about your goddamn club?”

“Don’t.” Adair slipped on an obdurate countenance. “Don’t take that high-and-mighty attitude with me. I’ve been by Mac’s side for seventeen years. You don’t know the first thing about him, but I do. And he was the one who wanted to keep all this from the police and the public. I’m just trying to obey his wishes.”

Keep all of what from the police and public? “Funny how his wishes coincide with your best interests.”

“Believe what you want. But you’re not calling your mother.” He held up my phone, captive in his big fist. “It would be hypocritical to say she’d give a shit.”

I flushed. Because he was right. “Give me my phone back.”

“Are you going to call her?”

“No.”

To my surprise, he returned the phone but followed it with, “Are you here because of obligation or because you care about Mac?”

I scoffed, ignoring the hurt his question elicited. “I don’t owe you that answer.” I marched away, cursing my heels for slowing me down. Just as I rounded the corner that led out into the waiting room, a doctor approached from the opposite direction and called out, “MacKennon Galbraith’s family?”

“Here!” I hurried to him and felt the heat of Adair at my back. “I’m his daughter.”

The doctor lowered his voice, his expression neutral and therefore unreadable. “Ms. Galbraith, I’m Dr. Chiu, your father’s surgeon. Your father suffered three stab wounds to his abdomen.”

I attempted not to flinch at the imagery those words conjured.

“By some miracle, no major organs were hit, but an artery was. I had to perform surgery to stop the bleed, and I’m glad to say it was successful. Your father has been taken to a private room to recover.”

Relief flooded me. “He’s going to be okay?”

“Yes.” Dr. Chiu gave me a polite smile. “Your father is young, healthy, and fit, and I expect a quick recovery, considering. You can visit, but it might take him some time to wake up, and when he does, he’ll be groggy.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“You’re welcome. Nurse Bukhari”—he gestured to a woman in scrubs standing off to the side—“will show you the way.”

Once the doctor had gone, I approached the nurse and felt all three Adair siblings move with me.

The nurse lifted a hand. “Two at a time, for now.”

I heard Arrochar make a sound of frustration in the back of her throat, but I couldn’t focus on the Adairs. I just wanted to see Mac and make sure he was okay.

Unfortunately, the eldest Adair decided to follow me in.

The whole time, I’d been fixated on the cause of the situation. Why had Mac been stabbed? By whom? What was going on at Ardnoch Estate that had led to this?

But stepping into that hospital room, memories flooded me. Waking up with tubes coming out of me. Feeling real fear for the first time in my life. The nightmares and perpetual sensation of being in peril, a feeling that had taken months of therapy to work through.

Staring at Mac, I took a shaky breath.

This wasn’t about me.

It was about him.

Processing the IV inserted into Mac’s hand, the wires connecting him to the machines, the steady beeping of said machine that told me his heart rate was good, I tried to relax, and failed.

Mac was such a big guy. They said people looked diminutive in hospital beds, but not him.

The only change to his appearance was the paleness of his usually olive-skinned face. There was strain around his mouth even in his sleep.

I reached for his hand that didn’t have the tube in it.