As he took the stairs two at a time, I tried to ignore the uncontrollable butterflies in my belly.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered under my breath, hanging my head in despair.
Ten minutes later, Thane returned downstairs, and I tried to be more professional. “If you let me know what time you get up in the morning, I can make your coffee so it’s ready,” I said as he filled a to-go cup.
“Thanks, but no need. Just switch the coffee machine on.” He disappeared down the hall and returned a minute later in a fitted leather jacket that was just so yum—
Looking away, I focused on cleaning the kitchen. “I had a coffee. Hope that’s okay.”
“Of course.” He approached, forcing me to look at him. I kept my expression blank and didn’t stray from his face. Not that it helped with my sudden problem. “Help yourself to whatever you like. And if the kids are not down for breakfast in ten minutes, go get them. Sometimes Eilidh needs help to get ready in the morning too.”
“No problem. I’m going to braid her hair today. Maybe a fishtail—or a mermaid tail, as Eils prefers—or I could do a braid crown …”
He didn’t ignore my inane rambling. In fact, he didn’t seem to find it inane. His expression softened. “I don’t know what that is, but I’m sure she’ll love it.”
Oh, boy, the tender look was even worse than the laughter.
“Okay, you better go, right?” Go, leave, now!
“Breakfast: cereal. No need to get fancy. I always treat them to a big breakfast at the weekend. Cereal is in the pantry. Lew likes Corn Flakes, no sugar. Eilidh likes Froot Loops.”
“Got it.” I gestured toward the door. “I have everything handled, I promise.”
Thane frowned. “We haven’t gone over your domestic duties.”
“Do laundry, clean house, cook dinner, right?”
“Right.” He eased backward. “But just lightly dust in my office. I want nothing moved.”
“You got it.”
“And Eilidh likes her bears arranged on her bed and around her tepee exactly so.”
My mouth trembled with laughter. “She and I will have a good talk about that.”
His eyes widened, as if a thought just occurred to him. “The kids are learning to clean up after themselves, so if their rooms are a bomb scare, no dessert after dinner. That’s the rule and they know it.”
“Good to know.”
“Lachlan should have a car for you in the drive, and Robyn said she’d guide you to the school so you know where you’re going.”
“Great.” I was a little nervous about driving in a foreign country.
“And—”
“Thane,” I cut him off. “We’ll manage for one day. And then you and I can talk tonight. You’re going to be late for work. Don’t worry—Eilidh and Lewis are in excellent hands. I promise.”
Anxiety flashed in his eyes, but he quickly shrugged it off. “Right. See you tonight.”
I waved, ignoring the fact that his adoring, caring dad thing was extremely appealing.
When the door closed behind him, I slumped against the counter.
“You can just stop that kind of thinking right now,” I muttered, irritated with myself.
I’d inhaled a bowl of cereal between getting Eilidh and Lewis ready for school. After a far too lengthy discussion about what I’d put in their packed lunches (and a promise to have a serious conversation about their likes and dislikes when they got home from school), I’d just gotten them into their shoes when the doorbell rang.
It was then I remembered Robyn was guiding us to school. My nerves dissipated at the thought of having my sister near. The familiar and comforting was always nice in an unfamiliar situation.
“You’re here!” I threw my arms around her as soon as I opened the door.
My sister seemed a little bemused but hugged me. “You okay?”
I pulled away, nodding, walking back to the mudroom. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, just first-day jitters.”
The kids were already making their way down the hall toward the main living room, so I stopped and waited.
Eilidh’s pretty face lit up at the sight of Robyn, and she went running to her for a hug.
“Hey, sweetie,” Robyn greeted, lowering to her haunches for the hug. She caressed one of Eilidh’s fishtail braids. “Look how gorgeous your hair is.”
Her big eyes sparkled. “Ree-Ree did it! They’re the best pleats ever. Maisie can’t make fun of my hair now.”
“Who makes fun of your hair?” I queried before I asked Lewis if he had everything he needed.
He nodded while Robyn reached out to tug on his hand. “Hey, you.”
He gave her a small smile.
“Maisie!” Eilidh answered, turning to me. “You have to meet Maisie, Ree-Ree. She’s my first best friend. Anna is my second best friend. Well, Maisie was my first best friend, but now you’re my first best friend, Maisie my second, and Anna my third. But we won’t tell them that.”
Heart melting in my chest, I met Robyn’s gaze, and she grinned at me.
“You’re my best friend too,” I whispered loudly in her ear, “but don’t tell Robyn.”
“Robyn can hear you.” My sister pretended to be affronted, making Eilidh giggle.
“Right, do we have everything?” I asked them again.
They nodded.
“Okay, then.” I grabbed the house keys off the kitchen counter and gestured for Robyn to lead the way.
To my shock, she led us to two Range Rovers. Hers, I recognized, a shiny black Evoque. The one behind it was larger—a silver Velar.
“You’re kidding, right?” I said as she smirked and handed me a key fob.
I took it, dazed.
“Lachlan’s fleet at the estate is all Range Rover,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Trust me, you want an SUV that can handle the roads here.”
“Is this your car, Ree-Ree?” Eilidh ran up to the silver vehicle and slapped it.
My eyes bugged out as I turned to Robyn. “I’ve never even driven on this side of the road, and you want to put me in a $70,000 car for my first try?”
Seeing my genuine anxiety, Robyn grimaced. “I’m sorry. I should have known it would freak you out. I’ve just accepted that Lachlan is crazy generous. Um … okay, here’s what we’ll do: you’ll follow me carefully to the school, and then once we’ve dropped off the kids, I’ll take you for a driving lesson.”
“I have household duties.”
“You’ll get them done. If you’re going to be driving the kids around, I’m sure Thane would agree it’s important that you know what you’re doing. Especially on roundabouts.”
Trying not to freak out, I nodded. “Okay. Okay. Right, well, we need to get the kids to school.”
Once Eilidh and Lewis were happily loaded into the back of the luxury vehicle with its black leather seats and new car smell, I went to get in the passenger side. “Nice start,” I muttered to myself, rounding the hood. The next problem occurred, however, when once I’d gotten my seat and mirrors adjusted, I didn’t know how to turn it on.
“There’s a big button by the wheel.” Lewis pointed at it from the back.
Great. A seven-year-old was offering driving instructions.
Finding the engine start button, I pressed it and nothing happened. Except a message binged on the fancy little screen behind the wheel. I needed to put my foot on the brake, it said, before starting the engine.
Sweat gathered beneath my arms and in my palms. Finally, I got the car going and put a thumb out the window to let Robyn know we were ready.
To be fair, the fancy SUV drove like a dream, so quiet, and glided down the narrow country road. While Lewis was silent, Eilidh chattered constantly but thankfully was happy for me to just make agreeable noises now and then as I concentrated on following my sister and sticking to the correct side of the road.
It was so weird!
When we slowed on approach to a roundabout, my pulse leapt. Robyn switched on her ri
ght turn signal and I followed suit, and we drove onto the circle the wrong freaking way! Except it was the right freaking way here.
“Oh my goodness,” I said under my breath.
“Are you okay?” Lewis asked, interrupting Eilidh’s monologue about how her friends were going to react to her hair.
“Fine, fine,” I assured him. The kids didn’t need to know the person looking after them didn’t know how to drive in Scotland.
To my everlasting relief, less than ten minutes later, we arrived at the school. It felt like a year.
Robyn turned into a large parking lot adjacent to the school and by a miracle found us a few spaces.
Sweaty and a little shaky, I got out of the car and unbuckled Eilidh while Lewis got himself out. “Come around my side,” I called to him, and he did so. Giving him a tender smile, I turned to Eilidh and lifted her out of the car. She threw her arms around my neck before I could lower her to the ground.
“Can you come to class with me?” She pouted.
I was pretty sure that face got her anything she wanted, but unfortunately, she couldn’t have this. “I’m sorry, gorgeous, you know the rules. No parents and no besties older than five allowed.”
Her frown was so deep, a person could arrange coins along the ridge in her forehead.
I snuggled her close. “But I’ll be here to pick you up from school, and guess what I’m making for dinner tonight?”
Eilidh’s eyes lit up. “What?”
“Chicken nugget mash.”
Her voice deepened as she pressed her forehead to mine. “Chicken nuuuuuuggets.”
As I laughed, the tender pull in my chest was so deep, it hurt.
And I realized something scary.
It was the first day on the job … and I was already in love with these kids.
“This is wrong,” I said as Robyn and I got out of our SUVs. We’d parked them on the main square outside the Gloaming after the driving lesson. “I’m supposed to be working.”
“And you will work,” Robyn promised. “But first, you’re having coffee and breakfast with your sister.” Suddenly, she frowned as we walked down Castle Street. “Is that … how can—Dad?” she called out.
Following her gaze, I saw Mac walking down the street toward us. “I thought he was on a trip.”
“I thought so too.” She picked up the pace and I hurried alongside her.
A woman ahead of us passed Mac with her stroller and glanced over her shoulder at him, obviously checking him out.
I chuckled, and Robyn groaned. “Seriously. It’s everywhere we go. Women fall all over him.”
“You have a hot dad.”
“Don’t say that.” She shoved me playfully. “He’s like a stepfather to you. That’s like me saying Seth is hot.”
“My father is very handsome,” I replied defensively.
“Yeah, he is. But there’s a difference between noting a father or father figure’s handsomeness versus his hotness.”
I nodded in agreement. “I won’t say Mac is hot again.”
“Please don’t.” Mac drew to a halt before us, having overheard that last sentence. He gave me a teasing look. “It’s weird for me.”
Face burning with embarrassment, I shrugged it off. “Hey, it’s weird for me too.”
“Speaking of weird”—Robyn rescued me by changing the subject—“aren’t you supposed to be in California?”
“I got to the airport, and they told me my flight out of London was canceled. Hurricane over the Atlantic. Had to reschedule the meeting for next week.”
“Oh. Well, what are you up to right now?”
“I was going to grab coffee and a pastry from the bakery. You ladies?”
“It’s Regan’s first day as Thane’s nanny.”
Mac raised an eyebrow as he looked at me with those penetrating hazel eyes. Robyn’s eye color was an exact match to her father’s, and today the sunlight made his (and Robyn’s) a forest green. “You’re looking after Eils and Lew?”
“Yeah.” I heard the slight note of concern in his voice and assured him, “I’m a good nanny.”
“So I’ve heard,” he finally said after a long moment studying me. “Congratulations on the new job.”
“Dad, why don’t you have breakfast with us?” Robyn asked.
“I really should get back,” I argued, guilty about slacking on my first day on the job.
“The housework will still be there when you get back.”
“Robbie—”
“Robbie’s right.” Mac stepped toward us and then gestured across the street to a café. “No harm in having some breakfast first. And you and I haven’t had a chance to really talk.”
I wasn’t sure that was a bad thing. I still didn’t know how I felt about Mac, even if he and Robyn were on great terms.
Still, for my sister’s sake, I followed them into the café. And Robyn was right. The owner, Flora, an attractive woman around Mac’s age, flirted ferociously with him while we ordered. As soon as she left the table, Robyn shook her head at her dad.
He shrugged as if to say “what?”
“She is a married woman,” Robyn teased.
Mac grinned a wicked smile I’m sure devastated women of all ages. “There’s nothing wrong with a little harmless flirting.”
“Just not in front of me again.”
Eyes gleaming with amusement, Mac shook his head and turned to me. “So, how are you liking Ardnoch so far?”
We exchanged small talk while we waited for our breakfast to arrive. As soon as I’d put my fork into some scrambled egg, my straightforward sister said, “Let’s cut to the chase. Regan is out of the loop on a few things about you and me.” She gestured between her and Mac. “And I want it all cleared up.”
Mac swallowed a bite of his breakfast roll and nodded in agreement.
They both looked at me. I asked, “You mentioned something about Mom and Mac?”
Robyn exchanged another look with her dad and then exhaled slowly. “Mac wrote to me for years, tons of letters. He sent gifts—not just to me but to you too—and she sent them all back to him without telling me.”
I stared at her in disbelief. Since the age of fourteen, my sister believed Mac had completely abandoned her. While she hid her pain from the rest of the world, I was the one whose arms she cried in when his rejection cut her to the soul. And now she was telling me he’d kept in touch, and Mom had hidden it.
“No.” I shook my head, sitting back in my chair, the food in front of me at once unappealing.
“I have the letters. The gifts.” Robyn gave her father a melancholy smile. “Mac kept them.”
Seeing the pain flicker in Mac’s eyes, anguish he didn’t hide, my heart lurched. “Please tell me this isn’t true.”
Robyn grimaced. “Mom admitted to it. When I came back to Boston, we talked it all out, and she apologized.”
“And you forgave her?” I huffed.
“I’m trying to, yeah.” My sister reached for my hand. “I don’t want you to hold this against her. She … Mom is not a bad person. She’s just … she just thought she was protecting me.”
“No, she was protecting herself.”
“Ree—”
“I can’t believe this.” I shoved my plate away. “All that time that was lost between you and Mac because she lied.”
“You have to remember,” Mac spoke now, “I hurt Stacey deeply when we broke up. She didn’t want it to end. And when I left for California, she saw it as me abandoning Robyn too. Yes, she made it impossible for me to see my daughter. Yes, she lied and hid my correspondence. But she genuinely believed she was protecting Robyn.”
“That’s the thing about Mom,” I seethed. “She doesn’t see the world and the people in it as they really are. She sees them as how she’s made up in her mind she wants them to be.”
“Don’t we all?” Robyn asked softly.
“No. The rest of us judge people based on their actions, not on how we perceive those actions based o
n our own fucked-up insecurities. Pardon my French.”
“This is about more than just Stacey keeping letters,” Mac deduced, watching me carefully.
“It is,” I agreed. “It’s about her projecting this idea of who I am onto me since before I was even allowed to develop into the person I wanted to be. Robyn was the capable, responsible one. I was the silly, frivolous, wild child. And that’s not me. And it wasn’t Robyn’s place to parent me, but Mom put that on her too. It’s like she turned me into a problem that didn’t even exist but then made sure she had someone else to blame when I messed up. That’s wrong.”
“You need to talk to your mother,” Mac advised sternly. “You can’t go around with this resentment hanging over you, Regan.”
I knew he was right. The intensity of my reaction to Robyn’s revelations about Mac’s letters surprised me. “Do I have to right away? It’ll ruin my job vacation,” I joked.
“Not right away,” Robyn answered. “But soon.”
“I’ll talk to her when I see her again,” I decided. “This isn’t a discussion you have over the phone.” As if on cue, my cell beeped in my purse. “Sorry, let me just check that.”
I opened it to discover a text from Thane, and weirdly, it soothed my agitation.
Bringing takeout for dinner. Chinese. Arro is joining us and you’re welcome too. Just let me know what you’d like.
I smiled, realizing he was giving me an easy time on my first day by buying takeout. As I texted back that I’d love to join them, along with my selection, I didn’t realize I was grinning until I looked up and saw my companions studying me.
My cheeks flushed. “It’s just Thane. He’s doing takeout for dinner, which means my workload just got easier today.” I played off my reaction to his text as happiness about the latter.
But Mac narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, and it was as if I were caught like a rabbit in headlights. Was that suspicion in his expression?
No way.
I’d just replied to a text. Nothing else. My feelings for Thane were … so what if I … ugh!
I wrenched my gaze from Mac’s and listened to Robyn talk about a hike she wanted to take me on when I had a day off.
Seriously.
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