After reluctantly tucking the phone back in a drawer, I went to the window. As I pushed the curtain aside to stare into the darkness, I caught a glimpse of the silvery orb far above. It was half-obscured by clouds and the mass of shrubbery on the other side of the glass, but even so, a shaft of white light crept into my room.
The moon would be full in a week or so. Maybe I would plan a midnight walk over the hillsides. I found myself reluctant to be indoors. It was as if the entire world outside called to me.
My agitation was increased by my eagerness to see Angus again. With none of the modern digital conveniences at my fingertips, I would have to get to know him the old-fashioned way. Face to face. Conversation. Time spent together.
At last, I yawned. The hour was late. Tomorrow, my adventure continued. I could hardly wait.
The following morning greeted me with pure blue skies and abundant sunshine. I took it as a good sign that Mother Nature intended for my outing with Angus to be couched in such wonderful weather.
After a light breakfast of toast and tea, I hurried to my room to brush my teeth and slather sunscreen over my fair skin. I had planned my clothing as Angus suggested. My favorite long sleeve T, moss-green with the words Teachers Do It Over and Over Until You Get It Right. Jeans and boots and socks. And to top it all off, a Braves baseball cap with my ponytail flipped out the back. Sunglasses, billfold, a windbreaker, and I was ready. Angus had promised to bring lunch, so I didn’t even worry about snacks this time.
I was pleased when he knocked on the front door at exactly 8:59. I was punctual myself, and often wondered how people got anything done at all when they were always late. My first glimpse of him left me breathless. Angus Munro looked good enough to scoop up with a spoon.
His hair was still damp from a recent shower. He smelled of fresh air and evergreens and masculinity. His eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, the brown irises flecked with tiny sparks of amber and green in the morning light.
We were dressed similarly, only Angus’s jeans looked as if they had been tailor-made for him. They were soft and molded to his long legs perfectly. His brown shirt was made of a thin, wooly fabric that was probably cashmere. It was open at the neck, revealing a slice of tanned throat and chest. His leather bomber jacket looked like the real deal.
In his hand he held a pair of black aviator sunglasses and a ball cap like mine, but his was from Disneyland. Mickey Mouse struck me as incongruous for some reason, but I knew Angus had traveled widely, so I didn’t think too much about his choice of headgear.
Behind him, a sleek European roadster convertible sat waiting for us. Its red paint sparkled in the sun. I knew even less about cars than I did about sports, but the vehicle was clearly a well-loved antique.
“Good morning,” I said, closing the door behind me.
Angus looked me up and down. “Good morning, Hayley.”
He held my elbow as we walked the few steps to the car. “You look beautiful today.”
As I fastened my seatbelt, I grimaced. “It’s amazing what being dry does for a woman.”
“No ill effects from yesterday?”
He started the engine. The low rumbling vibrated through me with a pleasant thrill. I was glad I had put my hair up so I could enjoy the ride without worrying about getting windblown.
“None at all,” I said calmly, unwilling to let him see that I was all aflutter in his presence.
Our destination was only two miles away, maybe three, up the highway toward Inverness. The Loch Ness Clansman Hotel was tucked into the side of a hill, separated from the loch by the narrow two-lane road. The A82 was well traveled, and traffic moved swiftly. The hotel had constructed a small tunnel that led from their parking lot down a few steps and underneath the highway to the other side.
Angus handed me a couple of twenty pound notes. “I know the owner here,” he said. “He lets me park up behind the hotel. Why don’t you go across and buy our tickets? I’ll join you in a minute.”
I nodded. “Sure thing.” I suspected Angus didn’t want any dings in his classic car. It made sense to me. I planned to buy my own ticket, though.
Near the tunnel, some enterprising soul had erected a large fiberglass replica of what a mysterious creature from the deep might look like. Since I was on my own for the moment, I quickly snapped a selfie with the sea monster, Nessie. She was green and had a long curving neck and an even longer tail.
When Angus appeared fifteen minutes later, I had completed my assigned task and was standing on the dock, looking out across the loch. “How deep is it?” I asked.
“It averages six hundred feet. But we’ll be near the deepest point today—754 feet—as we circle the castle.”
“Wow.” The loch was twenty-three miles long and a mile wide. It was easy to understand how the Nessie myth continued even to this day.
Angus shot me a wry glance as if reading my mind. “I grew up here,” he said. “I know all the stories, all the theories. There’s not a monster in the water, I promise you.”
I was a trained academic, a professional educator not easily swayed by fantastical tales splashed across the covers of tabloids in the supermarket checkout aisle. But there was a part of me that wanted to be convinced. I liked the idea that a mysterious, bashful sea creature lurked in the depths of this serene body of water.
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, “but you have to admit, the elusive sea monster put Loch Ness on the map. Everyone knows the legend.”
“Aye.” He stared out across the water, his expression pensive. “Once upon a time though, Drumnadrochit was famous for another reason, though sadly, a tragic one. For a brief moment in September of 1952, our little village loomed large on the world stage.”
I couldn’t imagine how. “Tell me,” I said.
“Shortly after World War II a very famous English racecar driver named John Cobb had set a land speed record of almost 400 miles an hour. In a bit of hubris, I suppose, he decided to try for the water speed record as well. Loch Ness was chosen as the perfect venue, because it’s long and straight.”
“I’m guessing this story didn’t have a happy ending?”
Instead of answering directly, Angus continued spinning his tale in the deep, melodious syllables that mesmerized me. “It was a perfect autumn day. Everyone in Drumnadrochit, it seemed, was standing on the shore. Outsiders poured into the area. Reporters. Sports enthusiasts. Casual gawkers. The rules stated that for Cobb to set a record he had to make a successful one-mile run twice, in opposite directions. The average of the two would be the official time.”
The Scots are natural storytellers. Obviously, it would be many years after 1952 before Angus was born, but he spoke as if he had personally witnessed what happened. “Go on,” I said.
“The man was wealthy and no doubt had sponsors as well. He’d brought a wicked fast boat called the Crusader and docked it at the pier in the village. After weeks of practice, it was time for the big event. On the first run, spectators were awestruck. It seemed as if the boat barely touched the surface of the water. Timekeepers recorded the top speed at two hundred and six miles an hour.”
“So he did it, right?”
“The first run was successful, aye. But as Cobb began to decelerate and turn for the second required attempt, the boat hit the wake wrong and literally disintegrated. He died instantly with his wife and hundreds of others watching.”
I sucked in a breath, horrified and fascinated at the same time. A shiver snaked through me as I tried to imagine what it must have been like to witness the events of that day. At every turn, it seemed, Scotland’s history was larger than life.
I wanted to ask more questions, but I was interrupted by teenage employees in official vests, who began boarding the small group gathered on the wooden pier. Earlier in the summer the crowds might have been larger, but today there were no excursion buses offloading excited tourists.
Angus and I waited our turn. The medium-size boat
was a double decker. Though an enclosed cabin provided shelter from bad weather or perhaps a sense of safety for timid passengers, I opted to climb the stairs to the top. Two rows of aluminum benches offered unparalleled views for the trip ahead.
At my side, my companion pulled his cap lower over his eyes, adjusted his opaque aviator sunglasses, and turned up the collar of his jacket. Gradually, I began adding up all the things I had missed.
“Angus,” I whispered. “Are you in disguise?”
Chapter 11
Angus grimaced, hunching his shoulders as if trying to become invisible. “I’m not full of myself,” he whispered, “I swear. But some of the rabid football fans know I live around here. I want to spend the day with you, not chatting up strangers and signing autographs.”
No wonder he had suggested walking to the castle. I was suddenly ashamed for not taking his fame seriously. It never occurred to me that using a public conveyance might be a problem for him. Clearly, he’d had experience with the masses, and just as clearly, he was not interested in tooting his own horn or being treated as a celebrity.
Now the Mickey Mouse cap made sense. “You’re pretending to be my American husband, aren’t you?” I said, half amused, half disconcerted.
Red crept up his neck. “We’re here because you wanted pictures, woman. Get your camera ready.” His gruff embarrassment endeared him to me and at the same time made me realize there were many more layers to this man than I had imagined.
Leaving him to sit by himself, I stood at the rail as the boat pulled out into the center of the lake. We were moving at an impressive clip. I was glad Angus had warned me about the temperature. I pulled the hood of my jacket up around my face. Covering my ears helped, but my nose was still cold.
On earlier vacations over the years, I had lugged my 35mm camera along at every single stop. But my new iPhone took amazing photographs, as good or better than the ones I shot with the fancy equipment. Today, I chose to leave the big camera behind.
The only downside to that decision was the very real possibility that I might drop the phone into the lake if I weren’t careful. In order to avoid the temptation of other functions, my phone was set to airplane mode. I didn’t want to accidentally break my pact with Willow and McKenzie.
I shot recklessly, imagining all the weeks and months back home when I would want to recreate this day in my memory. I saw ospreys diving for fish, an eagle gliding on wind currents, and what I’m pretty sure was a peregrine falcon. With the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, I felt stingingly alive.
If I half-closed my eyes and cast my gaze in certain directions, I could almost imagine how life here must have looked during the seventeen hundreds. Like my favorite heroine in the Outlander stories, I could very well be traveling back in time.
My flight of fancy was no more true at any moment that when we came in sight of Urquhart Castle. Though the stone edifice was in ruins, one large section known as the Grant Tower remained mostly intact. From the vantage point of the loch, it was not difficult to mentally add in the missing pieces. A stalwart fortress against intruders, Urquhart Castle stood as if had for centuries on a rocky promontory.
With the blue of the sky and the lake and the green of the trees surrounding our destination, every photo I took resembled a postcard.
I was startled when a stooped gentleman tapped me on the shoulder. “Would you like me to get a shot of you and your young man with the castle in the background?”
“Ah…well…”
Angus overheard the question and jumped up. “Thank you, sir,” he said quietly. Taking my arm, he arranged the two of us to best advantage. The old man, who was surprisingly adept, documented the moment and then returned my phone.
I clicked through the photos quickly and smiled. “These are perfect. Thank you so much.”
Angus remained at my side as we drew closer and closer to the point. “The castle was a formidable stronghold in medieval times,” he said, “but its history spans a thousand years or more. In the last years of the seventeenth century when government troops abandoned Urquhart, they blew up the gatehouse to keep Jacobite forces from accessing the castle and using it to regroup.”
My skin tingled. Here was a modern Scotsman casually discussing a part of history that fascinated me. My preoccupation with the character Jamie Fraser seemed far less theoretical now that I was on Scottish soil. No matter how talented an author or how creative a television crew, nothing could substitute for the experience of actually being here.
As the captain’s assistant tied up our boat at the dock, I saw that some of our fellow passengers were not disembarking. The ticket prices were set up for boat trip only or boat trip and castle admission. Angus and I would be able to grab any of several later return trips.
“There’s a visitor’s center,” he said, as we made our way down the steps and onto the dock.
I noted that his disguise was carefully in place. Shaking my head, I squeezed his hand. “I’d rather find a quiet corner and have our picnic. I can get my history lesson in full later. The sun is shining. It’s a beautiful day. We’ll keep to ourselves.”
He pulled me aside and gazed down at me. “Are you sure? It’s your vacation. I don’t want you to feel cheated.”
“I’m sure.” His grateful smile made my knees wobbly.
Once on land again, it became clear that the castle grounds and buildings had actually occupied a much larger area than I realized. Angus steered us toward a grassy spot where the low remnants of a rock wall gave us some shelter from the wind. Now that we were off the water, the warm sunshine began to thaw my chilled fingers.
We had nothing to sit on, but the ground was dry. Angus reached in his backpack and extracted a wheel of expensive aged cheese, two large bread rolls, and a container of water. Again, I was struck by the simplicity and authenticity of our experience. I ate a little bit of the food, but I was too excited to be very hungry.
With my eyes closed, I leaned my head against the wall and let my mind wander. I had depleted my savings to make this trip, but I couldn’t regret the extravagance. Scotland was everything that I had imagined and more.
In truth, I would have loved to explore the visitor’s center. I was the kind of tourist who read every placard and studied every exhibit. But there would be plenty of time for that in the days ahead.
I had planned to make day trips by bus to various locations in reasonable distance of Drumnadrochit. Now that I had been in residence for a short while, I was beginning to realize there was far more to occupy my time right here in the area than I had ever dreamed.
When Angus finished his lunch, he stretched out on the ground, reclining on his elbows, his long legs crossed at the ankles.
“Why did you decide to retire?” I asked abruptly.
His gaze was trained in the distance, perhaps scanning the groups of people exploring the ruins to see if any of them might be football fans. At first he didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “It’s none of my business. I hardly know you.”
He shrugged. “It’s no’ a big secret. I wanted to go out on top. Physiologists tell us that the physical peak for a player like me is 28 to 29. I was pushing it to go to thirty-three.”
“Do you regret your decision?”
His smile was enigmatic. “We’ll save that discussion for another day. And what about you, Hayley Smith from Georgia? What is a woman like you doing rattling around the Highlands on her own?”
“Well, I told you about my two friends. We wanted to have a grand adventure and to push ourselves…to grow and learn things and experience excitement and challenges. All of that seemed more likely to happen if we could resist the urge to cling to each other.”
“A month is a long time.”
“Yes. McKenzie bought the plane and train tickets with a bequest from her grandmother. I have savings, but I knew things would be expensive. That’s why I’m staying with Mrs. Pottinger.”<
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“And your other friend?”
“Willow?” I laughed. “You would like Willow. She’s sarcastic and funny and the hardest-working woman I’ve ever met. She wasn’t at all sure about making this trip.”
“Why not?”
“Willow owns a hair salon. She’s built up her business by the sweat of her brow. It’s hard for someone like that to get away for a month.”
“But she didn’t want to be left out.”
“True.”
“Why Scotland? Why not England or Ireland or Spain?”
“Good question.” I paused, scrambling to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make me sound foolish. Men had very different ideas about romance…In fact, I doubted most men cared about romance at all.
“Hayley?” He waited patiently.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to give him the answer. Not the truth anyway. I took my mission very seriously, and it would hurt me if he laughed.
“There’s a television show,” I said. “On a U.S. cable station. It’s based on a series of books about a woman who visits Scotland and ends up traveling back in time.”
The look on his face was dubious. “Time travel?”
I plowed on with my explanation, eager to convince him. “Yes. And she meets a clansman named Jamie who helps her navigate the wilds of eighteenth-century Scotland.”
His face cleared. “So they’re romance novels.”
I listened carefully for the sneering inflection that sometimes accompanied that designation. As far as I could tell, though, Angus was merely stating a fact. His lack of snide judgment cheered me.
“Not actually,” I said. “The author certainly never set out to write romance novels. The books are adventure and time travel and historical fiction and so much more. She had trouble selling her novels in the beginning because the stories didn’t fit neatly into any one genre.”
“You’re passionate about this.”
His gentle teasing was only slightly embarrassing.
“My friends and I fell in love with the idea of Scotland. When McKenzie proposed paying for the tickets, we couldn’t say no.”
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