Chapter 7 #3
I waited for her to stop rambling and explain her presence.
Regan’s smile wobbled at my stony nonresponse, making me feel like an utter arse.
“Sorry.” I shrugged apologetically. “What brings you next door?”
Her brows pulled together. “I start tomorrow.”
“Yes …”
“Well … don’t you want me to move into the guest house tonight?”
Now it was my eyebrows that almost hit my hairline. I’d assumed because Regan was living next door that she wouldn’t want to move into the annex. “There’s really no need.”
Disappointment flooded her expression. Another surprise. “Oh.”
“You want to live in the annex? While it’s fairly comfortable in there, it’s not a luxury guest suite with incredible views of the Ardnoch Firth.”
“I just thought it would make things easier for the job and …” She glanced over her shoulder at my brother’s home.
“I don’t want to cramp their style.” Regan looked back with a little shrug.
“They don’t need me sharing their space for six months.
They just got engaged. I thought if I lived in the guest house, we’d all have our space. ”
Her consideration toward Robyn and Lachlan was nice to see. I stepped back to allow her inside. “Come on in, but be quiet. The kids just went down.”
She nodded and walked past me, suitcase rolling at her side. I reached for it, brushing her hand away from the handle. Regan seemed perturbed by the gesture, but realizing I was taking the luggage from her, she gave me a grateful, dimpled smile.
I nodded and followed her as we moved through the house. When we reached the main living area, she waited for me as I pulled open a drawer in the kitchen and grabbed the spare key to the annex with a key and fob to the main house. “Yours,” I murmured, presenting it to her. “This way.”
I led her down the narrow corridor behind the main staircase, the one that led to a tiny sitting room with an enormous picture window we called “the snug,” a downstairs restroom, and the utility room.
A side exit door led out from the utility room.
Smirking, I said quietly, “You’ll soon be well acquainted with this room. ”
Regan threw me a grin as she took in the piles of laundry waiting to be done. “Good thing you pay so well.”
Chuckling, I opened the side entrance and hauled the suitcase down a paved path toward the annex.
Fran and I built the guest suite with her parents in mind.
She wanted them to have a separate place they could live when they made the long drive from the Borders to the Highlands to visit.
Tragically, Fran’s dad, Heath, died of cancer only months after Fran’s death, and her mum, Liz, of a heart attack three weeks after her husband passed.
I knew Liz’s heart just couldn’t take the stress of losing her husband and only daughter within months of each other.
I had talked about redecorating the annex, hoping it would suppress some of those sad memories. But I’d never had time. Not with working from home while also caring for Eilidh and Lewis.
One day I’d returned from dropping the kids at school to find a team of decorators in the guest building. Lachlan had sent them and paid for the whole thing.
Always looking after me.
“I’m kinda excited.” Regan pulled me out of my musings. She grinned as she put the key in the door.
I followed her in. “Keypad.” I stopped her in her tracks and tapped the small box on the entrance wall. “Code to set the alarm when you leave is 2324.”
“2324,” she repeated.
“To alarm it on exit, put in the code and then press the A button.” I pointed at it and she nodded. “To alarm the annex when you’re sleeping, punch in the code and hit the B button.”
She frowned. “What if I need to get up to pee?”
My lips twitched. “The night alarm is only triggered by force on the doors and windows. But there’s also a smart device in the annex that will do it for you. I’ll show you.”
“Nice.” Regan nodded, wide-eyed. “But can I check out the rest of the place first?”
Laughing softly at her impatient giddiness, I nodded and gestured for her to go ahead.
The small hallway/mudroom led into the primary space.
There was a farmhouse-style kitchenette along the wall to the right, and next to that a two-seat sofa facing a wall-mounted TV.
It was hooked up to a DVD player and to the TV service the main house used.
Beyond that was the king-size bed overlooking sliding glass doors that led out into the yard.
She had a partial view of the water at this angle.
A dividing wall next to the bed hid a small walk-in and a stylishly refurbished bathroom.
I waited in her tiny sitting room, placing her luggage by the sofa as she wandered through the annex.
“Holy …” I heard her say as she stepped into the bathroom.
When Regan reappeared, she grinned at me. That damn gorgeous smile of hers made it difficult not to smile in return. “You were holding out on me, mister.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“This place”—she gestured—“is amazing.”
“You think so? It’s half the size of Lachlan’s guest room.”
“So what?” Her big, shining brown eyes danced around the space. “Look how gorgeous and cozy it is. And that bathroom! I think I might never come out of that walk-in shower.”
An image of her naked, water sluicing down her no doubt beautiful body, entered my mind out of nowhere, and I guiltily threw it off. Where the fuck had that come from? I scowled at myself.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded, unable to meet her eyes. “Fine, fine. Eh … okay … so”—I gestured to the TV—“you’ve got access to all the channels plus the streaming apps on here. We set up the Wi-Fi. Password is RescueRiders. Both r’s in capital letters, the rest lowercase. Eilidh chose it.”
Regan chuckled. “Maybe you should make your password more difficult.”
“So Lachlan doesn’t steal it?” I teased.
I saw understanding dawn, and she grinned. “Right.”
We didn’t have any neighbors around to tap into our broadband services.
“This”—I pointed to a tablet mounted to the wall beside the kitchen—“is the smart home device. You can voice activate it and it’ll turn the lights on and off, put the window blinds up and down, even set the alarm.
It will switch on the underfloor heating,” I continued, pointing at the floors.
“It’s on a schedule, but you can change the settings on here.
Or just voice activate it. If you have any issues, let me know.
The voice activation will switch on any technology in the annex. ”
“Very high tech. I never noticed this in the main house.” She studied the tablet curiously.
“It was an experiment in here. I hoped it would convince Fran to put it in the main house, but she thought it would make the kids lazy.”
“She was probably right.” Regan stole the words from my thoughts.
I cleared my throat. “Anyway, I wasn’t expecting you to move in, so nothing is stocked except some basics. I’ll leave money for you tomorrow so you can get what you need.”
Regan frowned. “You don’t need to do that. You’re paying me well enough. I can get those things myself.”
I nodded. “Speaking of, you need to open a bank account so I can pay you.”
“Sure thing.”
“Right. Well. That’s all I can think of at the moment.” Turning on my heel, I strode toward the exit. “The kids are up at seven for school, so I’ll need you here around six thirty to make their breakfast. I’ll get them up and out of bed before I leave for work.”
“I can do that if you need to leave earlier.”
“I can manage.” I liked to be the one to wake them in the morning. I never wanted six thirty in the evening to be the first time in the day my babies saw their dad.
“Okay. Thanks again.”
I turned at the door as I opened it. “You’re the one helping me out of a jam.”
Regan gave me another dimpled smile. “We’re helping each other.”
“Right, right. The key and fob I gave you will let you into the house via the side entrance. Just swipe the fob over the white box on your right as you enter, and it will deactivate the night alarm.”
“Great. Will do.”
“Okay. Night, then.”
“Night,” she called softly as I followed the paving stones back to the house. “See you in the morning.”
I lifted an arm in a good-night gesture without looking back, and a strange uneasiness fell over me as I let myself into the main house.
Perhaps it was just the action of trusting another human being, one I didn’t know all that well, with the care of my children.
Letting her into my home. Lachlan had called me as I was driving back from work to tell me Regan had hashed everything out with Robyn, and the sisters were in a good place again.
That had made me feel better about offering Regan the job, and Lachlan, who had grown even more mistrustful of people since Lucy’s betrayal, seemed to warm to my soon-to-be sister-in-law.
There had also been a hint of envy in Lachlan’s voice as he spoke of Robyn’s reunion with her sister. I knew my brother well. He was thinking of Arran and Brodan. He worried we were losing our younger brothers.
Walking around the house, I switched off lights, checked the doors and windows, grabbed a glass of water, and set the night alarm before making my way upstairs.
I quietly peeked into Eilidh’s room to find her spread across her bed like a sea star, already deep in dreamland.
Love ached fiercely in my chest. She’d been so excited to hear Regan was their new nanny, I’d wondered if she would even fall asleep.
But I shouldn’t have worried. Eils could fall asleep just about anywhere.