Page 90 of Forbidden Bond

“I don’t want him to lose who he is.”

Strat put his coffee down. “You’ve always been a stubborn mare.”

“Thanks, Strat, that really contributes to the current discussion.”

Her friend snickered and touched her hair. “We used to sneak around together, you remember?” She nodded. “You kept us quiet, on the dl.” Which meant? “You protect your brother, as much as he protects you. Me, the boss,” he semi-nodded Conn’s way, “your father being dirty, you expended a lot of energy keeping secrets, projecting the illusion of life you thought the cop wanted to see. You wanted him to be proud of you, so you hid anything that could hurt him. Shit, after your attack, you sent him out of the room, you sent every McLeod out the room.”

And asked for Strat. “I remember.”

“You don’t see the irony in that versus this? You hid who you were to protect him. Ever think maybe he did the same thing? Hid anything maybe… unsavory about himself?”

She didn’t want to believe there were things she didn’t know about her brother, but Strat was right. And it wasn’t just her. Everyone, in some way, could be accused of hiding things about themselves, keeping secrets.

“He doesn’t have to hide anything,” she murmured. “I love him.”

“Yeah, he’d probably say the same about you, but there was plenty he didn’t know.” Strat’s hand slid over hers on the table. “You love me, and I’m about as shady dealings as you can get, you never had a problem with that. And your boyfriend… think it’s safe to say he lives in the gray.”

She got it. Her friend squeezed her hand and Conn was still there, glass near his lips.

“Lach’s hurting and being a guy about it, he has nothing to hold onto right now.” Guilt, worry, she couldn’t just switch them off. “His whole life is… He worshiped our father, everything about him constrained Lachlan. There was a mold, one shape, one way to be. Now he’s learned my father never fit the mold he was forcing on his son. Everything Lach held dear was a crock of shit…”

“How did you feel when the truth about us came out?” Conn said, slow, shrewd. “Tell Strat.”

It was a sentiment she’d shared with Lach. “Liberated,” she whispered the word Conn used to give clarity to her feelings that night. “It freed me.”

Strat bobbed his head. “Could be that mold forced your brother into being something he’s not.”

“But he always was—”

“Doesn’t matter, maybe he is exactly like that, maybe he isn’t. This, all the truths out, gives him a chance to learn what’simportant to him. Without those lines tying him down, he’s free to figure out who the hell he wants to be.”

She picked up Strat’s hand to hold it on her cheek for a second. “I can still look out for him, right?”

“He’s family, Macushla.” Those words from her love’s lips meant so much. As she relaxed into a smile, he put his glass in the sink and strode from the kitchen. “Strat can stay.”

And there was her best friend, now terrified.

She laughed. “He’s kidding.”

“He does that?”

“Sometimes.” She stood up. “I’m going to get changed, I want to set up a meet today.”

“Set it up yourself? Is it my birthday or something?”

She bowed a little to murmur, “You may think so when you see who we’re meeting.”

TWENTY-NINE

HIS DAUGHTER. What father didn’t want a surprise meeting with their youngest child? Not that her friend knew who they were waiting for just yet.

At Vyne, they ordered drinks and waited.

“Im loves this place, talks about it all the time,” Strat said, scanning the space. “Have you eaten here?”

“Uh, yeah, maybe.”

“Maybe?” he asked. “You’re not listening to me.”

---