“’S that so?” The way her front teeth indent her full bottom lip when she speaks causes heat to rise inside me. I blink away the vision of her; even wet and cold, she’s breathtaking. Can she tell the effect she has on me? Or does she think I’m just her creepy neighbor down the shore who was in the right place at the right time to save her?
More like she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again.
“It’s been raining for days, and the shore is always slick this time of year. What brought you down t’tha loch this time of the day?”
“I didn’t sleep well last night. And I thought I saw something.”
“’S that so?”
She keeps pace with me as I stalk back down the shore path. “Fear and adrenaline can do crazy things to your body and mind,” I say, wanting to steer us back to solid ground.
We pass a stray sheep, and it doesn’t even raise its head to look as we go by. “My family is from Kylemore. That’s why I’m staying at Leith Hall for the summer.”
“Bearin’ any relation ta the folks up at Leith Hall isn’t somethin’ that’s widely esteemed ’round here. Best keep those details to yourself.” I pause where the path turns rocky and forked. “An’ haven’t ya heard ’bout the woods of Kylemore? Dangers lurk in the dark all ’round this loch. All of Skye, actually.”
“Dangers like what?”
I cast a glance over my shoulder to catch her eye. “Dangers of the usual sort.”
She cuts her gaze away from mine. “Oh, is that all?”
“No, it’s not. But it’s a start. Wouldn’t want ta scare ye off Skye so soon. No buses up ta Kylemore on weekends anyway.”
“No buses?”
“Not a one.”
The chalk-white stones of my cottage come into view then. Moss climbs along every available space on the black thatched roof. My little corner of the loch rarely sees sunlight and everything is in need of a new coat of paint, but I like it here as much as anywhere else I’ve lived.
“Everything looks so much…brighterfrom up at Leith.”
“Usually does.” I think of Keats rambling around with those two old dogs and wonder if his surly presence put her off when she arrived. He puts me off constantly. I can hardly spend time with him, so much empty space that needs filling between us. His words have been sparse for as long as I’ve known him, and that invariably leaves me filling in all the dead silence left in the conversation.
“What’s that way?”
I stop at the threshold of my cottage and turn to look at her. She points past the stand of junipers to a path in the grass that meanders away from the loch and along the tree line.
“Fairies, pixies, fae, kelpie, forest children. Pick your legend.”
She rolls her eyes, folding her arms and then walking the final few steps to me. “Very funny. Everyone fancies themselves a Rabbie Burns around here, aye?”
A crooked grin that I can’t control splits my lips. “Aye,lass. Now you’re learnin’ somethin’.”
Her eyes narrow, but the twitch of a grin yanks at the corner of her lips.
“Are ya one of those Americans who spits out Scottish tea—” my grin deepens “—or do ye swallow?”
She tips her chin in the air, the double meaning in my words not lost on her. My grin finally cracks wide when she purses her lips once and flutters her pinkie finger in the air like she’s well acquainted with drinking tea with the Queen of England herself. “Bottoms up, darling.”
“Well then, hardly fit for the Duchess of Cambridge, but it’s good to see Keats hasn’t rubbed off on you yet. A Scot who doesn’t drink tea is nary a Scot.” I wave her into my cottage, and she follows.
I duck under the low doorway and beeline for the old cooktop, gesturing for her to have a seat at the tiny two-top table with mismatched wooden chairs. My place is small by my standards, but even she looks out of place with her knees pressed up under the seam of the old dining table.
“Lived here long?” she asks.
“Too long,” I reply, catching the teapot right before it whistles and pouring two teacups full. “But not as long as Keats. He’s been up at Leith for as far back as I can remember. Old before his time, that one. He’s the younger of the two of us, but you wouldn’t know it by the sight of him.”
“So, you’re from Kylemore, then? Both of you were raised on Skye?”
