Lachlan’s indignant expression did it for me.
I laughed, and hearing Thane’s laughter join mine just made me laugh harder.
* * *
“I am stuffed.”
I turned from my seat on the steps of Lachlan’s back deck to see Eredine slipping through the bifold doors before closing them behind her. She smiled, illuminated by Lachlan’s deck lighting, before sitting beside me.
“I think Lachlan and Robyn made all that dessert to distract us.”
My lips twitched. “There is no distracting anyone from the fact that they most likely conceived a child in the same week. It’s fucking hilarious.”
“Not for Mac.” Ery nudged me. “Give the guy a break.”
“You laughed.”
Eredine snorted. “Who wouldn’t, to be fair?” She glanced at me. “Hey, you’re going to be an uncle again.”
I grinned at the thought. I loved Eilidh and Lewis. In fact, I felt sad when I thought about all the years I’d missed with them. But I was trying my damnedest to make up for it. “I’m looking forward to more miniature Adairs running around. If they are as funny as the current minis we’ve got, it’ll be grand.”
“I don’t think there will ever be another Eilidh and Lewis Adair.”
“Truth.” I thought about the hardship those two wee ones had been through. Not only had they lost their mother to a brain aneurysm months after Eilidh was born, a man who was stalking Regan had traumatized them. He’d taken the kids and tied them up in the guest house where I was currently staying. Just the thought of anyone touching those precious kids filled me with rage. “They amaze me, you know. So resilient.”
“They are.”
The night it happened, Eredine was babysitting. The intruder, Austin, hit Ery over the head, twice, with a baseball bat. She was so damn lucky there was no permanent damage. A miracle, in fact. If that bastard hadn’t toppled over the edge of a cliff while fighting with Regan, I’d hunt him down and kill him myself.
“So are you.” I pressed my leg against hers. “You amaze me too.”
Eredine looked down at where our legs touched.
“Ery.”
“Mmm?” Her gaze moved toward the sea. The moon rippled over the water, and we could hear the waves hitting the cliff bottom.
Lachlan and Thane had built mirror-image houses on the land here in Caelmore, a tiny plot not far outside Ardnoch. Land stretching along this part of the coastline belonged to the Adairs, and Thane, an architect, had designed two more houses a little farther down the coast. One for Mac and Arro, and one for me. Planning permission had been slow, just as it had been for the Gloaming, but we broke ground on the houses a few weeks ago.
Thane had a contractor project-managing the whole thing, and I was trusting my brother to get the house done so I didn’t have to think about it on top of the Gloaming renovations.
I was looking forward to no longer living in Thane’s guest annex.
Studying Eredine’s profile, I thought of how I’d asked for her input with the house design and how she’d shyly but slowly offered her opinion. I’d thought I’d made serious progress with her, that I was the one person she could truly trust.
But something happened, and she hadn’t told me about it, and it was pissing me off beyond reason.
For so long, I was not the guy people trusted.
I needed to be that guy for her.
But I didn’t want to force it.
“Nothing,” I murmured, staring out at the water.
Silence fell between us as I stewed and tried not to grow visibly frustrated, thinking that maybe I’d never get past Ery’s walls. That nothing would ever happen between us.
Then I felt the press of her knee against my thigh, and I turned to look at her.
She looked unbearably sad.
I hated seeing her like that. “Ery?”
“You can’t tell anyone because it’s club business,” she said, “but I had an altercation with a member this week.”
Anger, instant and blazing, lashed through me. “Altercation?” I gritted out.
Eredine squeezed my arm. “Nothing physical,” she assured me. “It was with Iris Benning.”
I frowned. “The actor who stopped us outside the Gloaming?”
“Yeah.” Eredine proceeded to tell me what happened between them.
“That scummy wee cow.” I glowered in outrage. How fucking dare she! “What happened? And if you say Lachlan didn’t boot her off the estate, then I’m afraid I’ll have to rip my brother a new one.”
She leaned into me. “You know Lachlan better than that.”
I relaxed infinitesimally.
“But he couldn’t just throw her out like he did with Sebastian Stone. Mac had to stop him from doing just that and reminded him he had a board to consult. Thankfully, between Mac’s accusations of harassment and what occurred between me and her, they didn’t take long to come back with their unanimous decision to cancel her membership and have security escort her out of Ardnoch.”