Page 12 of Loched in Love

“Watch your step. Some of the path is still slick, aye?” Lachlan says once we reach a set of double doors that I assume leads outside.

“I’ll be careful,” I reply, enjoying the way the sunshine warms my face as he leads us out of doors. The sky is deep blue with puffy clouds, and the view is breathtaking.

Whatever exit we’ve taken leads to a large stone path that seems to wrap around the castle, and I can just make out the lazy moat that surrounds it in the distance.

“Wow, I didn’t know this was back here,” I say.

I spent several hours before getting on the plane researching the castle. But none of this was in any of the photos, or any of the guest ones I managed to find on the internet. “It’s beautiful.”

“Aye, it is. It’s a lot prettier when the rains haven’t flattened everything,” he replies.

The closer we get to the water, I see what he means. The grass and flowers dotting the small patches of ground look like they’ve been battered by the downpour. I’ve read about the torrential rains that come across Romania in the spring, but wasn’t expecting this kind of weather so close to summer.

I’ll be lucky if any of my samples made it through the night. “I hope my backpack is okay,” I mutter, hoping some of my more important supplies aren’t floating somewhere, along with my passport.

If I don’t have that, how will I get home?

“It’s safe. Connor brought it inside last night,” Lachlan says, making me feel a bit better.

I study his broad back in a glance, how he almost prowls as he walks, as if he’s in no hurry.

I smile to myself, remembering how Dad used to make choo choo noises as I’d run through the house as a kid, unable to ever walk sedately anywhere.

“So, what were you doing swimming in the moat anyway?” I ask.

He quirks one red brow at me from over his shoulder and smiles, causing my stomach to do that funny flip flop again.

“You tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine. What is this?” he asks, easily bending by the bank to pick up one of the sample kits I left last night.

I blush at the insinuation I’ve secrets to tell, and quickly try to align my thoughts to leave out. “I was trying to take a sample around the moat to see what properties are found in the soil. The data will tell me how well the population of beetles are thriving in it,” I try to explain.

“Is that why you’ve the net just there?”

Lachlan points to the farther bank where my D net lays half in the water, obviously pushed there by the swell of the rain last night.

“You’ve the least polluted natural waterway of any other in the world here, at least I think you do, and I just wanted to sample and see if I’m right. No toxins and pollutants like what impact other natural estuaries around the world have occurred here. With the castle sitting at such a high elevation, it could be the freshest source of untouched water, which is why I tried to get here before the owners decided to drain it and put in a pool,” I say, attempting to keep my expression neutral.

Anyone who’d do something so wasteful as turn this beautiful place into a chlorine-filled splash pad is a complete dipshit. Although I’d never call Aubrey or Vlad that to their faces. They truly seem nice enough.

“Ah I see, and have you always been this interested in wee beasties this way? Traveling around the world to take a sample of some mud water, all for a beetle?”

It’s the genuine interest in his tone that has me wanting to explain for once instead of becoming offended by the question.

I’ve been trying to push the subject of sampling a fresher water system to compare it to the watersheds back home for years, but like in most jobs, men, especially men who’re supposed to be my superiors, don’t like to admit when women are right. “Natural swamps and wetlands are nature’s Brita filter. If I can show data on a thriving ecosystem, I can prove what we need to create healthier riverbeds and estuaries where factories have polluted in the past. I think something is potentially missing that could help reverse the effects faster, and I think it could make a difference.”

“Where do they make women like you?” he asks.

The question lands like a compliment and I’m suddenly bashful. “Massachusetts,” I reply, starting to wish I didn’t turn a tomatoey red every time this man speaks, but he looks at me like I’m something he’s never seen before, and oddly, I don’t dislike the attention.

A huge smile spreads across his face and a resulting bubbly sensation fills my heart.

“Ah, America. Well then, by all means let’s get the lady her phone back,” he says.

Before I can ask how he means to find it, my jaw drops the same time his pants do.

“What are you doing?” I stammer out.

He grins in response and his left brow arches, making him look rakishly handsome just as he whisks his gray shirt over his head.