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Zoey shook off her thoughts of the past to look across the desk at Edgar. “It came to a tragic end, unfortunately.”

“Oh?”

She grimaced at the lack of emotion or interest in his voice. “Ben, the guy whose family we were staying with, fell to his death from a mountain nearby.”

Light brown eyebrows, speckled with gray, rose over Edgar’s pale blue eyes. “How awful for you.”

Zoey snorted. “I believe it was more awful for Ben and his family.”

“Well…yes,” her uncle conceded briskly. “But somewhat disturbing for his guests too.”

“Of course,” she conceded, knowing it would be useless to point out that she found Edgar’s reaction to be more than a little emotionless.

But it was Edgar’s nature to be emotionally cold. It always had been. Not just to her but to everyone.

“I—” She broke off what she had been about to say when Penrose, having knocked briefly on the door and been invited to enter by her uncle, now stood in the doorway.

“Yes?” Edgar prompted tersely, obviously irritated by this second interruption to his morning.

“A gentleman has arrived at the house, Mr. Willis,” Penrose answered mildly, used to his employer’s abruptness. “His car has broken down some half a mile away, and so he walked here to ask if he might use the telephone to call for assistance.”

“Doesn’t he have a cell phone?” Edgar bit out.

The butler shrugged. “Apparently, it is in need of charging.”

Edgar’s nostrils flared as he muttered under his breath about “so-called modern conveniences” and the “incompetence” of the people who used them.

“I didn’t like to just say yes without asking your permission first,” the cautious Penrose added.

“You have it,” Edgar dismissed impatiently, obviously already tired of the subject.

“I’ll come with you, Penrose.” Zoey stood up.

“Perhaps our visitor would like a cup of coffee while he’s waiting to be rescued,” she added as she followed the butler out of the study and closed the door behind her.

“I think my uncle’s social skills are getting worse,” she joked dryly to the butler as the two of them walked down the hallway toward the front of the house.

“He has been more distracted than usual of late,” the butler conceded.

“I trust you at least asked our visitor to wait in the sitting room rather than leaving him standing outside in the cold?” she teased.

“I did, yes.” Penrose smiled. “Shall I bring through coffee and biscuits for you both?”

“Perfect,” she approved before veering off to the right of the main entrance hall in the direction of the sitting room, while the butler headed left toward the kitchen. “I am so sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr.—”

Zoey, having entered the room where their visitor was waiting, had come to an abrupt halt, both verbally and physically, the moment she set eyes on the man standing by the window.

He was exceptionally tall, standing at least six and a half feet.

He had very wide and muscular shoulders that were barely contained by the black T-shirt he wore beneath a black leather jacket.

He also wore black jeans with biker boots.

Not exactly suitable attire for the cold weather outside, but probably warm enough for traveling in a car.

His dark hair was shaved short at the sides and longer on top, his handsome face appearing as if it were hewn out of rock, and he was staring back at her with the most piercing dark eyes Zoey had ever seen.

But what was even odder about those eyes had been the flash of silver flame Zoey was sure she had briefly seen in those dark depths. Not gray or pale blue, but an actual glittering silver. Except his eyes were dark, and flames weren’t silver in color.

Were they…?

There was also something vaguely familiar about him. Not that Zoey believed for a moment she had met him before now, because there was no way she would ever have forgotten meeting such a powerfully handsome man.

No, it was more a case, despite his already powerful build and impressive height, of him somehow seeming more ?—

It wasn’t the first time she’d thought that about someone she’d recently met…?

It was on the very edge of her consciousness where and when she’d had this same feeling of more . Or been hit with that invisible aura of size and power?—

Zoey stilled.

Dear God, the last time Zoey had thought this about someone, well, two someones, it had been in Scotland a week ago when she couldn’t stop staring at the two tall, muscular, and very handsome Drake brothers.

Zoey’s gaze sharpened as she continued to stare through narrowed lids at this unexpected visitor to Tregarthen House. The man who claimed his car had broken down and was now asking to use the telephone to call for assistance.

His coloring, being dark-haired and dark-eyed, was different to the two Drake brothers she had met. But otherwise, he possessed that same powerful aura Zoey had only previously sensed in Lachlan and Ranulf Drake.

Could that possibly make him Hunter, the third brother she hadn’t met in Scotland?

The possibility of that being the case was so far removed from probability as to be laughable.

But the evidence in front of Zoey, of her sensing this man’s unusual but unmistakable power and majesty, was just as undeniable.