Page 7 of Hunter

“Is that who you want me to be?” Hunter now deflected.

She smiled, revealing straight white teeth between those delectable cherry-red lips. “Ooh, you’re good,” she admired before sobering. “You also managed to not answer my question.”

Because Hunter was somewhat at a loss to know how Zoey had so quickly made the connection between himself and his brothers, whom he now realized she must have met at some time before she left Scotland a week ago.

Neither of his brothers had mentioned the meeting, but then, to them, she would just have been one of the group of young people in the Highlands to celebrate Hogmanay with the McGregor family. Lachlan and Ranulf would not have known that Zoey was his true mate.

Still, Zoey’s astuteness in making that connection was admirable. Yes, the brothers were all tall and muscular, but otherwise, their coloring was vastly different. Hunter also liked to think, with his hair cut in a modern style and his biker clothing, that he had at least attempted to look as if he was part of the twenty-first century.

Zoey’s question said he hadn’t succeeded as far as she was concerned.

Was that because she saw something in him others didn’t?

Did she recognizehimas being her future?

It was a little hard for Hunter to think at all when her heady scent had now permeated all his senses.

“Because if you are their brother Hunter,” she continued lightly before he replied, “then your appearance here in Cornwall, specifically at my uncle’s house, is far too much of a coincidence to actually be one.”

She was right. It was.

But no less so than her own presence here in the home of Edgar Wallis, the man she called uncle, and whom Hunter knew to be involved in the theft of the journal from Belle followed by Ben McGregor’s death.

Much as Hunter disliked the idea, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that Zoey might somehow be connected to both those events.

Although her earlier conversation with Wallis and the reason Hunter had decided to make his presence known didn’t sound as if Zoey had been part of the theft or murder.

Hunter would need to be sure of that before he could reveal his true self to her.

“Would you—” He broke off what he had been about to say when the same butler, who had answered the door earlier and admitted him to the house, now came into the room with a tray laden with a pot of coffee, cups, and plate of biscuits.

The man placed the tray down on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Your uncle has asked not to be disturbed again this morning but said he will see you at luncheon,” the butler informed Zoey.

Hunter already knew from having watched the house the past two days, and listened to conversations within it, that Wallis was a man who tended to be rude or condescending to the people who worked for him. Either that or he ignored them completely as being beneath his notice.

But Zoey was his niece, and she had driven all the way from London to see him. She was also obviously still traumatized by the untimely death of Ben in the Scottish Highlands. Only to now be informed her uncle was not to be disturbed.

Unfeeling bastard!

But also, Hunter hoped, confirmation that Zoey wasn’t in cahoots with her uncle.

“Don’t ever play poker,” Zoey told him once the butler had left the sitting room and closed the door behind him. “Because you really don’t have the face for it.” She chuckled.

Hunter scowled. “Your uncle sounds like a selfish bastard.”

“He is,” she confirmed without hesitation as she sat down on the couch to pour the coffee into two cups. “But he was my father’s best friend, and no matter how inconvenient it was to him, he did choose to accept guardianship of me after my parents died twelve years ago.” She shrugged. “So, he must have some kindness inside him. Very deep inside him,” she added wryly when Hunter eyed her skeptically. “Or my father wouldn’t have liked him enough to have named him as my guardian.”

“So he isn’t your uncle by blood?” It would explain why Hunter hadn’t known of Zoey’s connection to the other man until today.

She eyed him quizzically. “That’s a strange way of putting it.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Please sit down and help yourself to milk and sugar,” she invited after handing him one of the cups of coffee. She tried not to outwardly wince when the chair he sat in gave a protesting creak at both his weight and size. “Wow, your blood comment made me think of something.” She sat forward on the couch. “You and your brothers aren’tvampires,are you?”

Hunter drew back. “Vampires…?”

She nodded eagerly. “You’re all so big and muscular, and there’s something…different, about all of you. It would also explain your comment about blood.”

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