There with You (Adair Family 2)

One day he’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 him.

“I’m kinda excited.” Regan pulled him out of his musings. She grinned as she put the key in the door.

He followed her in. “Keypad.” He 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.” He 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?”

His 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, he 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.

He waited in her tiny sitting room, placing her luggage by the sofa as she wandered through the annex.

“Holy …” He heard her say as she stepped into the bathroom.

When Regan reappeared, she grinned at him. That damn gorgeous smile of hers made it difficult not to smile in return. “You were holding out on me, mister.”

Thane 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 his mind out of nowhere, and he guiltily threw it off. Where the fuck had that come from? He scowled at himself.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded, unable to meet her eyes. “Fine, fine. Eh … okay … so”—he 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?” he teased.

He saw understanding dawn, and she grinned. “Right.”

They didn’t have any neighbors around to tap into their broadband services.

“This”—he 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,” he 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 his thoughts.

He cleared his 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.”

He 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 his heel, he 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.” He liked to be the one to wake them in the morning. He never wanted six thirty in the evening to be the first time in the day his babies saw their dad.