11

Keyanna

I don’t go back to my grandparents’ house after the encounter with Lachlan. A part of me wanted to chase after him, but realistically, I can’t even be sure that he went back himself. Not to mention the fact that I’m not quite ready to face Rhona again after hearing her blatantly say that she didn’t want me there. Which leaves me sitting on one of the barstools at Blair and Rory’s pub, sipping at a glass of water despite their assurances that eleven in the morning is a perfectly suitable time for a beer and waiting on food that Blair insisted on making for me.

“Here we go,” Blair says as she sets a basket in front of me. “That’s my grandpa’s recipe there. Best fish and chips you’ll have in all of Scotland.”

“Or at least this side of Inverness,” Rory adds.

Blair frowns at him, clucking her tongue. “Never mind him.” She nods toward the basket. “Eat up, and tell us what’s got you looking all peely-wally.”

I glance down at my wrinkled clothes, which have gone stiff with the loch water, and I can’t even imagine how bad my hair looks after sleeping on the shore all night. I don’t know what peely-wally means, but if I had to guess, I’d imagine it’s got to be pretty close to “like shit.”

“It was…” I reach for a fry, nibbling on the end. “It was a rough night.”

“Aye, if we weren’t the only pub in town, I’d think you got good and steamin’ last night,” Rory notes.

I shove the rest of the fry—chip, whatever it’s called—in my mouth. It really is good, or maybe I’m just starving. “Definitely not that,” I tell them.

“Well, come on,” Blair prods. “Tell us your woes. It’s what a bartender is good for, yeah?”

I narrow my eyes. “The last time I opened up to a bartender, they sent me to a bogus kids’ attraction.”

“Och,” Blair tuts. “That was just a bit of harmless fun. You learned something, didn’t you?”

“I learned not to trust the bartenders,” I grumble.

Rory shoves Blair’s shoulder. “It was your idea.”

“You went right along with it,” Blair argues.

“It’s because you’re aulder,” he says matter-of-factly. “Just respecting my elders.”

“I’ll show you ‘elder,’ you damned—”

“Stop fighting,” I huff. “I’m not mad at you anymore.”

“We’re real sorry,” they both say in unison, which is downright creepy, truth be told.

“Make it up to me by getting me that beer.”

Rory’s face lights up. “That’s the spirit!”

“You really must have had quite the night,” Blair says, leaning on her elbows over the top of the bar. “You’ve got a bit of…” She reaches to pluck something from my hair, pulling away what looks to be dried bits of some leafy vine that I’m sure made a home there while I was swimming for my life last night. “Is this crowfoot?” She cocks her head at me. “Did you go swimming in the loch last night?”

I feel my cheeks heat, turning my face down to my basket of food as I stab a plastic fork into my fish. I try to shrug one shoulder in what I hope is a casual gesture, but I can feel Blair’s eyes on me.

“Who went swimming?” Rory sidles up with my tankard, sliding it across the bar toward me. “You didn’t go back to the cove, did you?”

“It really isn’t safe,” Blair grouses, twirling the weed between her fingers. “Especially at night.”

Without thinking, I mutter, “You can say that again.” I pause with a fry halfway to my mouth, my eyes widening a bit as I try to backpedal. “I mean—I just meant—”

“She knows,” Rory says, looking at me as if seeing me properly for the first time. “Do you know?”

I try to keep my tone casual. “Do I know…what?”

“Rory,” Blair says evenly. “Shut your hole, would you?”

The three of us stare at one another for a long moment, one where the only sound that can be heard is the occasional scraping of Fergus’s chair at what seems to be his staple booth behind us. Blair glances at the plant—she called it crowfoot—in her hands, then back to my rumpled outfit and even up to my disheveled hair.

“Did you go swimming last night, Key?”

My brow wrinkles, and it occurs to me that I might not be the only one who knows that there is some truth to the legend of Loch Ness. Lachlan said he’d been friends with the twins since childhood, didn’t he?

“I…might have,” I try cautiously. “Why?”

Rory’s eyes go wide, his hands slapping to the counter as he practically leans all the way over it. “Did you see anything?”

“What exactly would there be to see?”

I’m trying to be stoic, trying not to show all my cards in case I might be somehow betraying Lachlan, which is a strange thought, given that I still sort of hate him. But I meant it when I said my dad would have wanted me to help him, and if for no other reason than that, I won’t hand out his secrets so quickly.

“Skallangal Cove,” Blair says pointedly, “is not safe. You ought not be going there. Not again. Especially not alone.”

I keep my expression as flat as I can manage, deciding to test the waters. “I wasn’t alone,” I answer. “Lachlan was there.”

Now it’s Blair who looks rattled, her eyes rounding slightly as her lips part in surprise. Her gaze moves over my face for a second or two, then a wave of understanding seems to pass over her expression.

“You do know. Don’t you.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” I tell her.

She nods slowly. “That’s a good answer. There are…things about that cove we have to protect, see?”

“I would never hurt anyone intentionally,” I promise without explaining myself. I have a feeling we’re on the same page here. “But something did try to hurt me.”

Rory sucks in a breath. “You saw him? Not Lachlan, but—”

“Rory,” Blair warns, still eyeing me. “S’not your place.” She assesses me for another moment, and then, “Lachlan is a good man, Key. I know he might seem like an arsehole upon first meeting, but he’s seen a lot in his life. Too much for someone as young as he is. He doesn’t deserve the lot he’s been cast, and it’s made him harder than he should be. Harder than he wants to be, I imagine. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” I answer honestly. “He wouldn’t exactly talk to me…after.”

I’m staring at my hands as the memory of last night resurfaces—the details a little hazy but prominent nonetheless. I remember the desperation I felt when I saw that the creature—Lachlan—was bleeding, how hopeless I’d felt wanting to save him somehow. In the fog of my memory, I can almost recall a warm glow, a heat in my palms; I’d been so focused on staunching the blood flow, on slowing the bleeding, but have I actually stopped to ponder what happened? Everything went so dark, and his wound had been mostly healed the next morning…Was it he who made that happen? What could possibly be the alternative? Surely there’s no way that I could have—

“Aye, I reckon he wouldn’t,” Blair sighs, jolting me out of my memories. “He’s not an easy man to know. He thinks he has to carry everything on those stupidly big shoulders alone.”

That makes my mouth twitch in a smile. “Now, I can totally believe that about him.”

“Just…give him the benefit of the doubt, aye? He has his reasons to be so skittish. Especially with you.”

“What does that mean?”

She shakes her head. “That’s not my story to tell. You’d have to ask him yourself.”

“How can I do that?” I snort. “The stubborn ass won’t even—”

“Keyanna!”

I turn on my stool, taking sight of my grandpa standing in the open door of the bar, his chest heaving as if he ran here. His eyes are watery with old or maybe even fresh tears, and his thin frame seems to shake as he crosses the space toward me.

“There you are,” he cries. “I thought you’d up and left! When you weren’t there this morning, I…”

He trails off, looking so forlorn it forces me off my stool, and the minute my feet touch the floor, he’s rushing to embrace me. I can rest my temple on top of his thinning hair at my height, inhaling the scent of tobacco and peppermint, which is strangely comforting.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I didn’t mean to worry you, but I…”

“I know you heard what your granny said,” he sniffles. “She didn’t mean it, hen.”

“I kind of think she did,” I counter.

My grandpa pulls back, frowning up at me. “I know what my Rhonnie said was hurtful, and I know it doesn’t make it right, but she’s hurting too. She has been since our Duncan left, but Rhonnie…” He shakes his head. “She’s stubborn. Thinks she has to bear everyone’s problems, but not let anyone bear hers. Seeing you…I imagine it is terribly hard, knowing that it was her fight with our boy that drove him away.”

“It was?”

“Aye. It was a terrible fight. One I think she regrets now, but it’s too late, isn’t it? But you’re here, and you look so much like our boy…Aye. I imagine seeing you makes my Rhonnie feel all that pain and regret all over again.”

I consider that, trying to see it from her point of view. Something that proves to be difficult, given that I don’t know a damned thing about what my dad and my grandmother fought over that was so terrible it had him leaving his country behind.

“I don’t understand,” I say honestly. “My dad never talked about it. He never told me why he left, so I don’t…I don’t know how to help.”

“Just come home with me,” he urges. “Talk to your granny. She’ll never admit it, but she regrets what you heard. I know she does.”

“I don’t know, Finlay—”

“Grandpa,” he corrects, standing straighter to his full height. He clasps me by the shoulders. “No matter what, I am your grandpa, understand?”

Fucking hell. Now my eyes feel watery. I nod thickly, trying not to break down as the gravity of last night’s events—my grandmother, the cove, the fucking Loch Ness Monster—comes crashing down on me. I take a deep breath just to expel it shakily, nodding again, but surer this time.

“All right,” I tell my grandpa. “I’ll come back. If you’re sure.”

“Never been more sure,” he says with a blinding smile. It reminds me of Dad’s smile at that moment, which makes my chest constrict. “You hop in your car, and we’ll sort all of this out back on the farm, aye?”

“Okay.” I glance back at the twins, who have been watching this exchange, both of them looking curious but solemn. “I just need to pay for my—”

Blair waves me off. “We’re square. I reckon I owe you for Loch Land.”

“Deal,” I chuckle.

Finlay says something about warming up the truck, and I notice Rory looks sheepish as I gather my stiff jacket from the stool, rolling it up tight to hide the dark blood staining it. “You do forgive us, right?”

“Yeah. I do.”

He blows out a breath. “And about…the other thing.”

I hover for a moment with my jacket in hand, looking between the twins and taking in their serious and slightly worried expressions.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I answer with a shrug. “I didn’t see a thing.”

They smile in unison, twin versions of the same grin, and I have to suppress a shudder.

That really is so creepy.

---

I’m admittedly grateful not to need to share a ride back to the farm with my grandpa; not that he isn’t wonderful—because I’m beginning to realize that he is—but I need the time to sort my head out. With everything that happened at the cove last night, I almost forgot the reasons that had driven me there in the first place. At least until Finlay came bursting into the pub.

Now my grandmother’s words play on a loop in my head with stunning clarity, and despite agreeing to come back, I don’t share my grandpa’s confidence that Rhona regrets any of it. Not when I saw her expression as she said it. Like my very presence in her home was an offense.

When I see the sprawling farmhouse come into view, there’s a wriggling sensation of nerves in my belly that is quickly followed by that same clenching sensation in my chest. I stall in my car for a few extra seconds while Finlay teeters out of his beat-up old truck, watching as he gives me an encouraging wave from the front of it while waiting for me to join him. I blow out a steadying breath to calm my nerves, telling myself that it will be fine. That no matter what, at least I will get closure.

“You all right?” Finlay asks when I join him.

I nod. “I’m fine.” I nibble at the corner of my lip as I glance at the front door. “Are you sure she wants to talk to me?”

“Aye, I’m sure,” he urges. “You go on in. I’m going to go help Lachlan with the cows. Give you two some privacy.”

I have to shove the reminder of last night down at the mention of Lachlan’s name, having—oddly enough—bigger problems at the moment than the existence of a shape-changing water dragon. Hell, Rhona is a dragon all on her own.

Fuck, don’t leave me alone with her, I want to say, but I can sense that my grandpa is a lot more optimistic about this than I am, and I can’t find it in me to squash his optimism. So I just nod again when he says he’ll see me at dinner, entirely unsure if that’s true. For all I know, I’ll be looking for a new place to stay by then.

Because apparently, even if your family doesn’t want you, you’re still set on sticking around.

I mentally scoff at the chiding tone of my own brain. As if someone wouldn’t stick around if they found the actual Loch Ness Monster.

But that’s a problem for future me.

I don’t knock when I enter the front door, figuring that it would be even more awkward for the pair of us to dance around each other in the entryway. Instead, I quietly shut the door behind me as I step inside, lingering on the mat as I listen for signs of my grandmother. I can hear a clinking coming from the kitchen, the telltale sound of her spoon scraping against her teacup, which I’ve learned is a bit of a ritual for her. Rhona loves her afternoon tea.

“You might as well come in,” she calls, her voice sounding weary. “Stop lurking out there.”

I frown as I trudge forward, entering the kitchen and finding Rhona sitting at the head of the table, blowing gently on her steaming cup of tea. She doesn’t look at me when I enter the room, doesn’t even glance my way as I slowly walk around the table and take a seat near her. She just takes a slow sip, exhaling noisily through her nostrils after she swallows.

“This was Finlay’s great-great-granny’s china,” she tells me absently, her finger tracing the delicate pink filigree painted on the side. “Been in the family for over a century.”

“It’s pretty,” I comment.

She still doesn’t look at me. “It’s been passed down to the women in this family with every generation. It’s a tradition of sorts. Every MacKay matriarch passes along the set when they reach a certain age.”

“I…see.”

“I thought I would have to leave it to your cousin if he ever wrassled up a woman to wed him,” she mutters. She eyes me from the side, her expression cautious. “But I suppose I won’t now, will I.”

Anger and hurt bubble up inside me. “According to you,” I remind her, “I’m not really a MacKay. So I don’t see why the plan would change now.”

“Aye,” she answers quietly after a beat, her shoulders slumping and her eyes taking on a haggard look, one that almost seems like regret, but I might be imagining it. “I did say that.”

She stares into her cup for several long moments, the silence stretching between us as I wait for her to say more. I’m not going to spoon-feed her an apology, and I’m not going to sit here where I’m not wanted. So she’s on her own as far as I’m concerned.

“You have to understand. Dunc—” She swallows thickly. “Your father was my world. My pride and joy, you see? He was…He was so smart. Such a kind, sweet boy. From the day he was born, he brought me…such joy.”

She doesn’t seem to be looking for any sort of input from me, so I say nothing, just leaning a little closer to the table as she continues.

“Your mother was here on holiday when they first met,” Rhona tells me. “From the first time he brought her around, I was scared. Scared that she would take him away from me. I could see in his eyes that he was over the moon for her, and I knew she had the power to whisk him away, to take him from my life and leave me with nothing but the odd holiday. I couldn’t bear the thought of it.”

It feels…strange. Hearing her talk about my mother this way. The stories my dad told me painted my mother as a kind, thoughtful woman who loved everyone she met—so I can’t reconcile the woman Rhona speaks of with the mother I was told about.

“I don’t think she would—”

“Aye, aye,” Rhona sighs. “It was the error of an auld fool. I made a right arse of myself when the inevitable happened. When he told me he was marrying her…I said many things I wish I could take back.”

“And that’s why you had a falling-out?”

She shakes her head slowly, the action filled with sorrow. “No. Things were strained between us, but we still spoke. We wrote letters, talked on the phone…They even came to visit when they could. It wasn’t until he told me they were going to have you that I went and ruined it all.”

“I—” I rear back, confused. “Me?”

“Aye. Did you know the MacKay clan haven’t had a girl born in this family in centuries? You’re the very first.”

“I didn’t know that,” I answer, not sure what to do with that information.

“I thought maybe you might bring us back together. I thought that your birth would mean our family would find a reason to reconcile. That maybe, just maybe, we could finally make things right.”

My fingers grip the edge of the table, my knuckles turning white with the force of it as answers I’ve been denied for years finally seem within reach. “What happened?”

“It was the last time he ever visited,” Rhona says slowly, like each word is difficult. “He called me down to this very table. He seemed…frantic, somehow. Not quite himself. He told me that your mother was pregnant, and that they had found out it was to be a little girl. I remember how shocked I was to hear the news, but Duncan…Duncan almost seemed upset by it.”

This throws me for a loop. My dad never gave me any indication that he was unhappy with me. Not once. “Why would he be upset?”

“I don’t know. I never got the chance to find out. He started rambling about taking your mother back to America. About raising you there. He started talking about never bringing you back here. He said—” Rhona looks to the ceiling, and I notice her eyes are shining. “He said that he knew I had never approved of his marriage, and he didn’t want his bairns growing up around that kind of animosity. I…didn’t take it well.” She flashes me a thin, watery smile. “You might have noticed I have a bit of a temper.”

At any other time, I might laugh at that, but even though I’ve only known Rhona for a short while, seeing her look so fragile is…jarring. She’s been nothing but the picture of strength since the first day she opened her door to me.

“What happened?”

“I said things…He said things…” She shakes her head. “I can hardly remember exactly what now. Not but a bunch of bitter, angry words that I suspect neither of us really meant. But that doesn’t matter, does it? Once the words are out there…the damage is done. Your father packed up his things and your mother, and I—I told him—” Her lip quivers, her wrinkled hands trembling against her cup. “I told him if he walked out that door, he wouldn’t be welcome back.”

Her eyes close, and I have the strangest urge to reach out and grab her hand. I don’t know if she would welcome it, though, so I resist the urge.

“And you just…never spoke to each other again?”

She nods, her eyes still closed. “He wrote letters. For a short while. I was not smart enough to swallow my pride and answer them. For your entire life, I clung to that pride. A useless, ugly thing. I lost my boy, the light of my life, and I never told him ever again how much I loved him. I didn’t even know he was sick. He didn’t tell us. Why would he? It wasn’t until he passed that we—”

Her voice cracks, and one solitary tear leaks from the corner of her eye.

“I didn’t know,” I offer. “I didn’t know that he didn’t tell you.”

“S’not your fault.” She chuckles under her breath, a bitter sound. “S’not your fault I’ve been so cold to you either, I reckon.” Her eyes are glassy and wet when she opens them to look at me, a bright, vivid green as she studies my face. “Seeing you…it was such a shock. You look so much like your father. When I saw you on that doorstep, looking almost like you’d brought a piece of my boy back with you, I felt…angry. So bloody angry.”

“I know that I should have—”

“I wasn’t angry at you, lass,” she cuts in, shaking her head. “Not really. I know that’s what I’ve made you believe, but it’s not true.” She takes a deep breath, blowing it out through her nostrils. “I was angry at myself. Still am, truth be told. I saw you, and it was suddenly so clear how much time I’d wasted, the life that I’d thrown away, the family I’d cut from my life because of my stubborn pride. And for what? Absolutely nothing.” Her brow furrows, and her eyes gain a faraway look. “That’s what I feel every time I look at you, Keyanna, and I don’t yet know how not to feel it.”

Her confession leaves me stunned. This entire week I have wondered how I might bridge the gap between my grandmother and myself. I’ve wondered what might have come between her and my father to tear them apart. Finding out that in a roundabout way it was me was not on my bingo card.

“I don’t know what to say,” I tell her honestly. “I’m sorry.”

She waves me off. “You’ve naught to be sorry for. Truly. I just needed you to know what I’m dealing with, and I wanted you to know that I’m going to try harder to do just that. I…” She swallows, her eyes flicking to my hand, which rests on the table, as her fingers inch toward it tentatively. She gives me a quick glance as if seeking approval, and with my barely there nod, she brushes her fingers over mine. “I do want to know you, Keyanna. I do. Trust me when I say that. If you can forgive your stubborn arse of a grandmother, I’d like a second chance to prove it to you.”

I watch as her eyes, so like mine, begin to swim with emotion, feeling almost like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Sure, I’ve still got the whole “there’s an actual monster living on the property” thing going on, but to know that my presence might not be actively hated by the last remnants of my family definitely makes it a little easier to breathe.

“I can,” I say, offering her a small smile. “I can forgive you.”

She nods, on a deep inhale, reaching to wipe her eye with her free hand. “Probably more than I deserve, but that can be said about most things in my life.” She pats my hand as she returns my smile, the first one she’s sent in my direction since I arrived, and with it, I feel something like hope pouring into my chest. “Now, how’s about a cup of tea?”

I can’t help the bubble of laughter that spills out of me; the last twenty-four hours might have been the longest of my life, and I have a feeling this is only the beginning.

“Got anything stronger?”

Rhona’s eyes crinkle at the corners, and she gives me a wink. “Aye, hen. That I do.”