“Insufferably prepared,” he retorted, eyes back on the road.
The banter ebbed as the road narrowed, trees crowding close. Heather rested her forehead against the window, watching pine and rock blur by. Without thinking, she began to hum—low andaimless, the tune from the night before slipping out under her breath.
Flynn glanced over, jaw softening, but said nothing.
Heather caught herself and clamped her mouth shut. “Sorry. Habit.”
“Dinnae apologize,” he said quietly. “Suits ye.”
She twisted her fingers together in her lap. “It’s just… the closer we get, the less it feels like a fun legend. Kelpies, cursed gold, Eleanor’s ‘secrets with teeth’.” She let out a brittle laugh. “And all I’ve got are a lullaby and half a warning. Nothing from my mom herself.”
Flynn slid his hand over hers, eyes still on the slick curve of the road. “We’ve more than most. Proof the gold existed. Proof your blood was trusted with it. That’s not nothin’, mo chridhe.”
“But it’s not a map,” she pointed out with a sigh. “It’s not enough.”
“You’ll make it enough,” he said simply. “You’ve got this.”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t agree. But she didn’t pull her hand away, either.
The forest thinned, and then the first glimmer of water appeared through the mist—broad, dark, still.
Flynn tipped his chin. “Loch Arkaig.”
Heather’s pulse picked up. “Yeah,” she said. “Guess so.”
He eased the truck into a gravel pull-off where a few cars and caravans were scattered along the shore. A pair of tourists in bright jackets were already picking their way toward the water, their voices thin in the damp air.
Heather climbed out, breath catching. The loch stretched wide and black under a flat gray sky, mountains crouched close around it. It was beautiful in a stark way, but the stillness prickled against her skin.
Flynn slung the satchel over his shoulder. “We’ll start easy. Walk the shore, get the lay of the land,” he proclaimed.
Heather nodded, but her gaze dragged back to the water’s surface. Flat. Quiet.
Too quiet.
Just nerves, she told herself.
They followed the gravel path, the fog thinning enough to reveal clusters of people along the bank. At first, Heather thought they were just more hikers.
Then she saw the gear.
Half a dozen men worked near the shoreline, rucksacks at their feet. A generator hummed beside stacked metal cases. One crouched over a sluice box in the shallows, adjusting it with practiced hands. Another had a map spread over a rock, jabbing at it while the others leaned close. Their voices were low and clipped, not tourist chatter.
Heather slowed.
One of the men straightened, broad-shouldered, weathered, eyes sharp as flint. He looked angry, and judging by the sheepish look on the workmen’s faces, he had just finished tearing someone a new asshole.
His gaze skimmed past Flynn—then caught on Heather and stayed there.
A jolt of recognition snapped through her. Dark coat, collar turned up. That same assessing stare cutting across a square in Inverness as people flowed around him.
The man from the bookshop. The one who’d turned away when she’d noticed him.
Her steps faltered.
Flynn’s arm brushed her back, steadying her. “Y’alright, pal?” he called out to the stranger.
The man kept looking. He pushed his hood back, studying her like she was a puzzle he almost had.
