Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have been concerned about her parent; under normal circumstances her mother would be here helping to run the place and look after baby Jamie, while continuing to run her own pottery business. Multitasking was Grace Henderson’s middle name and Flora wished she had a fraction of her resourceful parent’s energy.
But these weren’t normal circumstances. Her fiercely independent mother was operating on crutches with her leg in plaster and grieving deeply for her firstborn. Flora took comfort for the fact that, although the croft was remote, her mum had several good friends who lived close enough to be called neighbours who would no doubt have checked in on her.
Flora gnawed gently on her full lower lip as she weighed the option of putting more peat on the already smoking open fire before she went to bed. It was a matter of freeze or choke. She was trying to recall where the spare portable heaters she would need to put in the baby’s room were stored, when there was a loud bang on the front door she had bolted after Fergus had left, there being not much point the chef staying when all the diners had cancelled.
Feeling ashamed that her first thought was a selfish, please don’t wake the baby, she rushed across the room, reading desperation into the loud urgent-sounding thuds. She fumbled with the door bolt, urgency making her fingers clumsy as the banging continued.
‘Hold on, hold on, nearly...’ As the door opened the wind blowing in off the sea loch that lapped the shore on the opposite side of the narrow road hit Flora with a full icy blast.
The physical force snatched the breath from her lips and made her stagger backwards, her arms flailing as she struggled to keep her balance. She barely heard the sound of the heavy oak door hitting the wall above the combined roar of the wind and the sound of invisible crashing waves feet away from the door.
It was to this wild soundtrack and out of the heavy swirling mist that the stranger entered.
He was a stranger... For one awful split second she’d thought Callum... It wasn’t, of course. The local boy made good, thanks to an ability to kick a ball and increase the sales of everything from breakfast cereal to cars by smiling into the camera, lived in Spain—or was it Japan?—these days, and anyway there was no real resemblance beyond the impression of height, athletic muscularity, the dark hair and her imagination.
If it had been Callum she might have pushed him back out into the storm, but the man who hadn’t broken her heart didn’t look pushable!
He stood for a moment framed in the doorway, the top of his bare head touching the door frame, his broad shoulders filling the space as the long drover’s-style overcoat he wore, caught by the wind, flared out behind him dramatically.
If this wild elemental storm had taken human form it would have looked like him.
Before her dazed brain could take in any more details he reached out, pulling the heavy door closed being him, making the effort of competing against the gale-force wind look effortless.
The deafening roar was instantly reduced to a dull distant moan and the fire, which had briefly flared to life with the influx of oxygen, died down as it blew out a cloud of acrid eye-stinging smoke, which under normal circumstances would have made Flora think about the damage it would inflict on the fresh white paintwork.
But she wasn’t thinking about paintwork or actually anything else much. The adrenalin surge that held every muscle in her body taut to quivering point had thrown her nervous system directly into flight-or-fight mode, though neither would have done her much good against this man who, now the door was closed, seemed even taller.
He stood there for what felt like hours but might have been seconds, long enough at any rate for the details of his face to imprint themselves in her memory. The moisture that slicked his short dark hair against his skull trembled in droplets on the end of his dark, ludicrously long lashes and covered his face, making the olive-toned skin glow gold in the subdued lighting. Even if you had taken the incredible mouth and the dark deep-set eyes from the equation, the combination of hard planes and fascinating angles, emphasised by the shadow on his square jaw and hollow cheeks, was overtly sensual and overpoweringly male.
Refusing to acknowledge the hot sensation in her stomach as sexual awareness, she tried to kick free of the oddly hypnotic, cold, heavy-lidded eyes that held her own.
‘Who are you?’ she blurted when her vocal cords started working. Her voice lacked the welcoming Highland warmth that happy tourists frequently mentioned in their five-star reviews of the establishment, but, in her defence, she was in shock...or something?
She swallowed and brought her lashes down. Despite the protective sweep she continued to be conscious of those dark eyes with the glittering, deeply disturbing gold lights.
Oh, yes, she thought, grateful for the layers of clothing that muffled the sound of her heart hammering against her ribcage, this was definitely something. Not a big, significant something, just an ‘opening of the door to find the most good-looking man she had ever seen or even dreamt existed standing there’ something.
Was this a good time to discover that you still had a built-in weak spot for a pretty face? No, Callum had been pretty, this man was more...was beautiful. Too big a word...?
No, it wasn’t, she decided, studying the perfect bone structure of his strongly carved face with its high carved cheekbones, square jawline and aquiline nose, her stomach dipping uncomfortably when she reached the sensual outline of his wide mouth.
Though actually what had really thrown her was the shock wave of overt sexuality his large presence in the low-ceilinged room created. The surface of her skin prickled with it and her knees were shaking.
Great! Just what she needed!
Fate decided losing her dearest sister and brother-in-law, inheriting their business and their baby son was not enough! Mr Dark and Brooding had to turn up on her doorstep and kick into life the embers of her dormant libido!
Admittedly, not dark and brooding’s fault, but she struggled to view the intruder who, as supplying the last straw, she felt might just make her fold, with any objectivity.
Mouth closed might be a move in the right direction, Flora.
‘I booked a room.’
His very low, deep voice had an almost tactile quality and held an intriguing almost accent. A wave of deep sadness tightened her throat—much deeper and harsher, but it reminded her a little of her late brother-in-law, Bruno. But Bruno’s voice had been warm and filled with laughter; the stranger’s voice held about the same amount of warmth as his cold dark eyes as he waited for her to respond.
She gave herself a mental shake, and dug deep into her reserves of professionalism. It wasn’t normally an effort—she’d cut her hospitality teeth working shifts in a bar in Edinburgh when she was working her way through university. Several recent guests had commented online about her ‘friendly efficiency and warmth’.
So why was she standing here like a tongue-tied idiot?
True, to date none of the guests she’d immediately felt at ease with had arrived wearing a suit that screamed designer beneath a long, equally expensive-looking coat that hung off shoulders a mile wide. And none had...no, she decided not to even think about the sexual aura he exuded, hoping that she’d wake up tomorrow after a good night’s sleep and discover it was a sleep-deprivation thing. The odds of this happening were pretty good, because, though her ex-fiancé’s opinion on most things counted for zero with her, on one thing he was probably right—she wasn’t really a sexual person.