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“I’m sure.” Quickly she described her mystery man, ending with, “His hair was wet. Anyone like to swim in the loch?”
Jamaica snorted. “De experts say de loch too cold to support a monster. Which makes it too damn cold for swimming.”
“Monster, by definition, means something beyond anything we know. So how can the experts say the water’s too cold for a monster?”
“Experts say a lot of t’ings,” Jamaica observed. “Most of it’s crap.”
Kris laughed. She liked Jamaica more with each passing minute.
“I t’ink in dis case dey talkin’ ’bout de plesiosaur principle. You know it?”
“Sir Somebody theorized that the Loch Ness Monster was a plesiosaur, a long-necked reptile that swam through warm inland seas in the days of the dinosaurs.”
“But Nessie would have to be a herd of plesiosaurs. Just because dey might not be extinct don’t mean dey be immortal.”
“Right,” Kris agreed. “The shape and size of what people have seen is about right for a plesiosaur, or so this guy said.”
“Sir Peter Scott,” Jamaica said. “British naturalist. Plenty famous. But a plesiosaur was a reptile and so cold-blooded. Which means it wouldn’t survive in de freezing cold of de loch.”
“There goes that theory,” Kris muttered. “So how cold is the water?”
“Average temperature around six degrees Celsius.”
“English, please.”
“Dat is English.” Jamaica shook her head. “Six Celsius is … oh,” she pursed her lips, “about forty-two degrees American. You know, besides de cold, you can only see five feet down, which means you’re swimming above a great black maw of nothing.”
“Not only cold then, but creepy.”
Jamaica lifted her nearly empty water bottle in a toast. “No one swims in de loch unless dey had ten too many local lagers. Maybe dat was de case with your mystery friend?”
Kris shook her head. “He didn’t taste like Guinness.”
The sudden silence made Kris glance up, then curse. She’d actually said that out loud.
“You kissed him?” Jamaica asked.
“He kissed me. It was—”
Fabulous, she thought.
“Weird,” she said.
Jamaica remained silent, in her eyes an expression Kris couldn’t read. She seemed both concerned and annoyed, with a bit of afraid thrown in. But none of that made any sense. Unless—
“You know who he is now?” Kris asked.
“Why would now be any different dan before?” Jamaica returned.
Two customers burst in the door, and Jamaica hurried off with a “Nice talking to you” that held the distinct undertone of Get lost.
Since Kris had just met the woman, she couldn’t say for sure what she’d seen in Jamaica’s eyes or heard in her voice. But Kris had done enough interviews to realize that answering a question with a question was almost always an attempt to hide a lie. Although why Jamaica would lie about somethi
ng so minor as knowing the identity of the man who’d kissed Kris in Urquhart Castle was anyone’s guess.
Sufficiently caffeinated, Kris went in search of lunch. Along the way, she became enchanted by the wonder of Drumnadrochit.
Lola owned a large collection of old Hollywood musicals, and Brigadoon was one of her favorites. Kris had probably watched the movie a dozen times, and parts of Drumnadrochit had her humming “Almost like Being in Love.” She half-expected to turn a corner and find Cyd Charisse twirling and jumping along the sidewalk.
