“Bad,” she said, bracing herself. She wanted to rip it off like a Band-Aid.
“Okay. Bad news is the storm isn’t over.”
Nora looked out the windows toward the loch and saw that it was still heavily snowing outside.
“Because of this freak storm, there are no outbound buses until tomorrow,” he said, flipping the eggs and then attending to the lightly burnt toast.
“I see. And the good news?” she said in a slightly snarky tone.
“I am making you breakfast.”
“Oh, I get it. You are buttering me up because you have no place to go, and you want me to let you stay here another night,” Nora said, taking a long drawn-out sip of her coffee.
An awkward silence fell over the room as he buttered the toast. Piling a plate with eggs, he placed the toast to the side and handed it to her.
“That obvious?” he asked, turning around and pouring himself a cup of tea.
“Just a bit,” she said with a smirk. “But it might be working,” she added after taking a bite of food. He turned around and gave her a slight smile.
“Listen, I know we got off on the wrong foot, and I acknowledge I’ve been an arse.”
“Maybe just a little. Remember not all of usOutlanderfans are annoying.”
“Oh, I know. It’s mostly just the American ones,” he joked, but there was something in his tone that didn’t convince her he was kidding.
She rolled her eyes as he walked around the island. He pulled out a barstool and sat next to her.
“Does that mean you aren’t going to be able to get your story to the magazine in time?” Nora asked, chewing through a bite of egg.
“To be honest, I really don’t give a shit. I wasn’t even supposed to be on this article anyway. I had been assigned a story about Sir Robert Brigton, a politician who had been tied to a human trafficking ring. I was about to be sent over to Myanmar to investigate but I was taken off the story last minute.”
“What did you do?” Nora interrupted, wishing immediately that she hadn’t asked the question from the look that washed across his face.
“Nothing. The magazine owner’s niece from California decided she wanted to play investigative journalist and asked him to send her undercover with a couple of bodyguards instead. He took me off the story and replaced me with her, a twenty-something Valley girl,” he said in a bitter tone as he chewed his toast a little harder than he needed to. “I had been working on this story for months, but he just hands her all my notes, and off she goes.”
It was then that Nora understood the resentment he had against American women. Looking at him, she sensed hurt and disappointment just below the surface, and she couldn’t blame him for feeling that way.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could come up with to say. It didn’t feel like enough, but then again, they didn’t know each other that well. Plus, she didn’t want to overstep her bounds by asking him anything else about the situation now that they were starting to get along.
“Thanks, it is what it is. So, what do you do when you’re not traveling to the Highlands?” he asked, quickly changing the subject.
“I work at my family’s bakery. My parents are retiring and handing me the reins this spring,” she told him.
“Must be nice. Get handed a business and not have to work your way up the corporate ladder,” he said in that same bitter tone.
“Well, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, especially if you have no interest in running it,” she snapped back.
“You have no idea how lucky you are. Try coming from a home with a single mum who didn’t have a pot to piss in after my dad abandoned her. I never got a thing handed to me. I had to work hard for all of it. And anyway, if you don’t wanna take it over, why are you doing it?” he asked. His words stung as she realized that her story seemed insignificant compared to his.
“Because it’s been in my family for generations, and if I don’t take it over, their legacy dies. It’s a lot of pressure,” she retorted, even though she had felt like he had already won this argument. The uneasy ache of guilt and fear over the situation began to work its way to the surface. She did not want to talk about this anymore, especially with him. Nora set down her fork, unable to finish her breakfast now that her stomach had turned with the unpleasant conversation about the bakery.
“Spoiled Americans,” she heard him say under his breath as he walked over to the window and looked out toward the loch. She swallowed hard, then bit her tongue. She wanted to give it right back to him, but she chose instead to end the irritating banter and change the subject.
“I saw something in the loch yesterday just before you arrived,” Nora said, looking toward the center of the watery expanse and remembering the dream that had put her in a cold sweat this morning.
“Really. What?” he asked condescendingly.
Nora froze. She had wanted to change the subject, but why had she changed it to this? His tone made her regret her choice almost immediately.
