A Sense of Duty

Faint sounds of a meal in preparation came from the kitchen and clashed with the peaceful aura of the evening outside. Regan tried to turn his thoughts away from the diminutive brown-eyed woman who’d bewitched him, though not with her charm, he conceded. She’d been brusque with him. But she’d piqued his sense of challenge and he wouldn’t get her out of his thoughts easily. He didn’t want to think about how long it had been since he’d spent any time in the company of a woman. No wonder she intrigued him. There was just something about her that brought out the devil in him. But consideration of Hannah Lindsay’s finer qualities wasn’t why he was here in Braemar. A deep sadness tugged at his heart. If only he’d known all those years ago that he’d fathered a child, his life would have been so different. A family of his own. Something he’d longed for. So much had been taken from him without his knowledge. And now, instead of enjoying a close relationship with his daughter, he was a stranger, and she kept him at a distance. The courtesy call he’d paid on her this afternoon had gotten him nowhere. No wonder he was angry. A loud crash and a desperate groan from the kitchen interrupted his thoughts. He leapt to his feet and headed towards the door in the back wall, almost afraid of what he might find. The door swung open to reveal his host staring at him. She looked flustered. “I hope you like your eggs scrambled,” she said in a tight voice as she looked at the mess spread across the slate floor. His hostess stood amid a scatter of broken china and the seeping mixture of runny yellow egg combined with little lumps of red, green and something else colourless and less definable. His first thought was that she might strike him with the wooden spoon she held in her hand, she looked so cross. She turned and threw the spoon at the sink. It missed and clattered loudly against the back wall before landing on the bench. She cursed as she turned around to face him again. Regan’s gaze locked with hers. She had such lovely eyes. Dark honey and warmth. He’d thought so when he’d first seen her, but now with anger’s fire in their depths, they held a special kind of attraction for him. “Do you want some help?” he asked. Her bottom lip quivered slightly and he thought she might cry. He hoped not. What would he do if she did? Was she the kind of woman who liked a man’s arms around her when she was upset, or was she the kind to push a man away?