Here With Me (Adair Family 1)

Another cryptic comment about the estate.

“I’ll come back later,” Adair insisted.

Stubborn asshole.

I found myself caught in Adair’s impossibly blue gaze that continued to lack that wicked, mischievous twinkle from his movies. “I hope you’re not here to interrogate him. He still needs his rest.”

“I guess I should abandon my plans to waterboard him then, huh?”

My father snorted.

Adair narrowed his eyes. “I’m serious.”

“I noticed. You should reconsider how serious you are. It’s interfering with the heroic efforts of the Botox in your forehead.”

I was pretty sure Adair didn’t use Botox. And I was also pretty sure I was being immature.

Yet I couldn’t help myself.

He cut my father an exasperated look. “I’ll see you later. No shoptalk until you’re fully recovered.”

Mac didn’t agree. “We’ll talk later.”

Adair lifted his chin at him and then strode out of the room without acknowledging me, though he couldn’t hide the way he bristled as he departed.

I smirked.

It was petty, but I liked that I had the ability to irritate him.

Mac noted my smugness and shook his head, though amusement glittered in his eyes. “You’re baiting him.”

“He makes it so easy.” I finally sat down, relaxing back in the chair. “So really … how are you?”

“I feel lucky.” Mac surprised me. “It could have been much worse.”

That was true. He could have been like me, fighting for my life for days in the ICU.

Guilt pricked me more than ever.

Mom hadn’t called Mac when I got shot.

She later told me she’d had no intention of calling him unless I’d died.

I hadn’t thought much about that until now. Now that our situation was reversed. Knowing that if I hadn’t been here, the Adairs wouldn’t have contacted me unless Mac died.

And that would have really hurt.

Damn it.

“I feel like a fool,” Mac whispered, glowering at the wall. “A trained bloody bodyguard, and I let the fucker blindside me.”

I leaned toward him, touching his arm in comfort. “You don’t have to tell me, but if you’re up to it, I’d like to know what happened.”

“I’ve told the police and Lachlan. Why shouldn’t I tell you?” He turned his head toward me. “I’d just stepped out the front door, on my way to meet you for dinner. And it was like a black blur, he came at me so fast. He must have been waiting at the side of the door. I felt the pain of the blade going in. Three quick jabs.”

Police training assisted my maintained neutral expression. Inside, however, I flinched at the thought of Mac’s attack. It just seemed unreal. When I was a kid, Mac was this invincible presence.

“There was no time to react, to defend myself. Then my neighbor, Jim, started shouting, and the guy took off. I managed to show Jim my wounds before I lost consciousness.”

I was going to legally eviscerate the fucker who’d done this. “And you have no idea who it was?”

Mac shook his head. “Head to foot in black clothing, gloves, and a black ski mask. I looked into his eyes—the bastard wore purple contacts.”

“Contacts? Are you sure? Some people have a purple tinge to their eyes.”

“Definitely contacts. It was an unnatural hue of purple. And something about the way they sat on his irises. They were contacts.”

“Mac.” I sat forward. “That suggests you know this person. Why go to the effort of concealing his eye color if he didn’t think it might identify him?”

“Aye.” He smirked wearily. “I came to that conclusion myself.”

“I want to know more, but we’ll wait until you’re feeling better.”

“There’s no need, Robyn. The police have been informed, and my men are still investigating. You don’t have to stay, sweetheart. I know you probably only intended a short visit.”

“That’s true. But I also didn’t expect my father to get stabbed and almost killed, for Arrochar Adair to tell me someone had tried to hurt Lachlan Adair and decided to take you out in order to succeed. I’m staying. I’m staying until I find out who did this to you. I’m staying until I bring them to justice.”

“You’re not a police officer anymore. And even when you were, you weren’t a detective.”

His comment stung my pride. “I could have been if I’d wanted.”

“I believe it. I meant no insult.”

Silence fell between us.

Then he smiled, that handsome, roguish smile I knew had fooled my mother, a twenty-year-old college student, into believing Mac was three years older than the sixteen-year-old he actually was. “You’re not going anywhere, are you?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

“Then let’s work together.”

“You can’t.” I gestured to the bed.

Mac’s expression turned obstinate. “And you can’t expect me to lie here and do nothing. We work together on this, or I tell you nothing.”

That made me grin even as I shook my head at him. Shit. I was more like my father than I’d realized. “I can’t believe you’re bargaining with me.”