Quilliam studied me for a long moment, his opal eyes unreadable.“If it makes you feel better, just go check on him. In person.”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
I locked up the shop, leaving Quilliam to research more, and crossed the street to The Tipsy Thistle. The lunch crowd was starting to trickle in, locals grabbing sandwiches and soup before heading back to work. I spotted Ramsay at the end of the bar, nursing a coffee and pretending to read a newspaper. His eyes tracked me as I entered.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Fine. Just checking in. Where’s Graham?”
“Kitchen. Dealing with some supplier issue.”
I found Graham in the back, phone pressed to his ear, his free hand gesturing in frustration at a clipboard full of invoices.
“No, I ordered twelve cases of the IPA, not six. I’m looking at the order form right now. It clearly says”—he broke off, listening, his jaw tightening—“fine. Tomorrow. But if it happens again, I’m finding a new supplier.”
He hung up and tossed the phone onto the counter with a clatter.
“Problems?” I asked.
“Just the usual incompetence.” He turned and his expression softened when he saw me. “Hey. What are you doing here? Is everything all right?”
“I had a feeling.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“The bad kind.”
Graham’s smile faded. He crossed the kitchen and took my hands in his, his thumbs rubbing circles on my palms.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve been in the pub all morning. Haven’t gone anywhere near anything wetter than a beer tap. Ramsay’s here and already annoyed with the amount of people who have tried to have a conversation with him.”
“I know. I just needed to see for myself.”
“And now that you’ve seen?”
I sucked in a breath and let it out in one long whoosh. “Now I feel slightly less like I’m going to have a heart attack.”
“Only slightly?”
“Baby steps.”
He laughed and pulled me into a hug. I pressed my face against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart, and tried to convince myself that everything was okay and the curse wasn’t coiling somewhere in the shadows, waiting for its moment to strike.
A knock at the back door made us both jump.
“Delivery!” a voice called from outside. “Got your kegs!”
Graham pulled back with a rueful smile. “That’s my kegs in, lass. Give me five minutes to help unload and I’m all yours.”
“Okay, I’ll just be at the bar.”
I stood there for a moment, staring at the closed door, the foreboding feeling coiling tighter in my gut. But he was right. It was just kegs. The delivery driver was there. It would take two minutes.
I walked back out to the bar.
Ramsay was still perched on his stool, newspaper open, coffee cold beside him. He looked up when I appeared.
“Everything all right?”
