‘It’ll take as long as it takes,’ Lachlan said, trying and failing to concentrate on the oatcakes he was cutting.
‘But what if he’s still stuck like this next week? And the next?’ she persisted. ‘We’llallbe stuck if some major witch-stuff comes up. I’ve already had to turn away a farmer in Moray who’s convinced his cows are being hassled by fairies. What if it’s something bigger than cows next time? And Cam is supposed to be checking in on the cairns around Argyll later this month. I put it on the calendar…’
Meredith prattled on, oblivious to the aggravated twitch of Lachlan’s brow. She’d repeated the same qualms and questions every time she visited, which lately had become far too often for Lachlan to tolerate.
Lachlan knew his impatience toward her was unkind. Meredith was doing her best to help, and she clearly saw it as her duty to show up for him and Cam in their time of need—regardless of whether she had any tangible assistance to offer. It meant he’d allowed her behind the Teapot’s counter again just to keep her occupied, much to the bemusement of his regulars. He had a sneaking suspicion that Meredith had talked Helen and Donald (or Helen, at least, with a view to vexing Donald) into signing up for some kind of couple’s spiritual massage. Lachlan could only hope she didn’t expect to use The Lucky Teapot as the venue for it.
He couldn’t bring himself to ask her to leave. In truth, he wanted everyone to leave. Cam’s absence was agonising. And with the fact thatall these peoplewere making it even harder to see him… Lachlan was only one overworked cake batter away from shutting up The Lucky Teapot, barring the doors, and building a wall around his tiny corner of the loch, so that he and Cam could simply exist together in peace.
But this wasn’t Meredith’s fault, and Lachlan wouldn’t burden her with his internal mess of frustrations. Hecertainlywasn’t going to divulge the very telling dream he’d had the previous night. One in which he and Cam swam naked in the loch under a silver moon, kissing and fondling each other’s slick bodies… before sinking beneath the surface for an underwater sex marathon that had left him with an excruciatingly stiff hard-on upon waking. Confusingly, Lachlan felt he’d occupied his old Loch Ness Monster shape for parts of it, and later in the day found himself grasping for the vague memory of how the dream had supposed that situation would work.
He realised Meredith’s stream of conversation had changed note, and tuned back in.
‘Did you hear me, hon? I said another package arrived from the Wulver,’ she repeated. ‘I picked it up from the cottage on my way over. It’s in my bag if you want to look at it.’
‘Not really,’ Lachlan grumbled, slapping his rolling pin down with more force than necessary. News about Bryce was thelastthing he wanted to add to his already crowded plate of concerns. He rolled the dough too roughly, causing it to shred in the middle.
Meredith went silent, watching him tear up and re-work the oatcake dough for the fifth time.
‘It’s more newspaper cuttings,’ she said carefully. ‘Another house burned down in Sutherland, and a burned body was found in the hills near Ullapool.’
Lachlan sighed, finally pushing the failed mixture aside. ‘And I suppose there’s no compelling evidence to link those incidents to Bryce? And even if there was, we can’t predict where he’ll strike next. So, what’s even the point?’
‘Sounding a bit hopeless there, hon. That’s not like you.’ Meredith dried her hands and joined him at the countertop.
‘This won’t work,’ Lachlan mumbled, beginning to scrape up the dough to dump into the bin. ‘I’ve overworked it. The oatcakes would only crumble to pieces.’
Meredith placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. ‘You need to stop blaming yourself.’
Lachlan shut his eyes—because he was tired, he told himself. Not because of the sudden prickling threat of tears.
‘Everything about this is my fault, Meredith. Bryce being freed from the loch, that was my doing in the first place.’ Lachlan stepped back, dusting his hands off on his lilac apron before scrubbing them over his face. ‘Camisthe monster, because of me. Not just because I gave the curse to him, but because he was trying to protect me. He’s always trying to protect me. And the Redcap, I can’t help but think that if I wasn’t there at the time, Cam wouldn’t have been caught off guard by it. Mostly I seem to get in the way.’
When he looked at Meredith again, he was taken aback to see her fuming.
‘Lachlan Keir,’ she announced sternly, enunciating each syllable in a way that implied she wished he also had a middle name so she could make the most of the schoolmarm effect. ‘Don’t youdareput all of this on your own head. Bryce is an evil maniac, and if it hadn’t been you, he would have tricked someone else. Cam is a witch and a good person. He would have gotten himself into dangeranyway, with or without you around, in both circumstances.’
She softened slightly, her wrist bangles jangling as she folded her arms. ‘You’ll have to get used to that. Cam makes his own choices. More often than not, they’ll probably lead him into trouble.’ She flashed a wry smile. ‘What was it you said… like tar to a feather? He’d be pissed if he knew you were trying to take credit for his own bad decisions.’
Lachlan fiddled with the hem of his apron, staring out of the window. The light was fading. ‘Am I one of those bad decisions, do you think?’
‘Oh, honey. You’re the best thing to ever happen to that boy.’ Meredith clearly couldn’t help herself any longer and threw both arms around him in a hug. She muttered in his ear, ‘And if you ever say such a stupid thing again, I’ll smack you upside the head.’
Lachlan laughed, a little release of the tension he’d been holding onto. He patted Meredith’s back. ‘Thank you.’
His gaze dragged to the window again. Loch Ness was a dark blot between the hills, appearing to suck the light into it. He hoped to make it down to the water tonight. It was a few days since the shore had last been quiet enough for a rendezvous. If Cam couldn’t come out of the water this time, Lachlan had half a mind to dive in himself.
Chapter Seven
After two weeks of being trapped in his Nessie form, Cam was feeling thoroughly homesick. Not for the cottage in Glencoe, or even The Lucky Teapot, exactly. He was homesick for the people and the atmosphere; the friendly chit-chat about nothing in particular and the comfort of being surrounded by familiar faces.
It was Lachlan’s company he missed most of all. If a particular person’s smile was all you needed to feel at home, then Cam was achingly homesick from the lack of it.
The long days underwater were beginning to blend together, punctuated only by Lachlan’s night-time visits. But the Nessie hunters prowling the shore meant even those were becoming hard to look forward to. Too many times, Lachlan had waved Cam away before he could approach the jetty.
Cam nearly—nearly—had a mind to reveal himself. To scare the ever-loving shite out of some aspiring cryptozoologists just so they might leave him alone and regret having come to Loch Ness in the first place.
But he didn’t. He stuck to the darkest depths, hugging the loch bed during daylight and hunting trout for dinner at night. By the tenth night he was starting to feel a little bit… wild. Animal. Like his entire world was shaped by the movement of water and the scent of fish. Time measured only by the changing light that filtered down from the surface.
