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“It’s all in good fun,” he said, uninjured by the daggers I stared into him.
Facing forward, I got back into the groove of paddling. Gliding behind Duncan’s boat, I watched his shoulder muscles move beneath his shirt, his deltoids flexing with every smooth, powerful stroke. The other muscles in his back and arms must have had names, too, but I was too transfixed to remember specifics.
I’d never been particularly drawn to muscular, direct men before. My type tended more toward slender desk jockeys, ormassive geeks, as Jill described them. Tech guys who talked code and had inside information on Apple’s latest rollout and took an age just to ask me to get coffee. Men who led with their brains. Predictable men. Safe men.
In a lineup of my exes, Duncan would have stood out on all counts.
But oh, it couldn’t hurt to look.
In front of him, Bea shifted from side to side, lightly dipping her oar into the water but adding little forward momentum to the effort. She was in high spirits on the lake, chattering away about the Loch Ness cruises she and Rupert had taken, which had provided excellent views of Urquhart castle and zero Nessie sightings, to Rupert’s utter dismay.
“We met a couple on their honeymoon, do you remember, Rupert?” Bea paused for his requisite, “Quite right, quite right,” before continuing. “Honeymooning on Loch Ness, can you imagine? It’s not what I would have chosen, I can tell you. We spent our honeymoon in the Lake District. It’s where all the poets used to go, you know.”
I really didn’t need to think about Bea and Rupert on their honeymoon right now.
“Is this a Scottish tradition, Duncan?” she asked. “You wouldn’t choose Loch Ness, would you?”
“Choose Loch Ness for what?”
“For your honeymoon.”
He made a sound that might have been a snort. “No.”
“Lifelong bachelor?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Divorced.”
This silenced Bea, who seemed to fault him for the confession she had forced. The lake stayed quiet for a while except for the slap of the oars cutting into the water.
I wasn’t surprised to hear Duncan was divorced—given his admitted lack of anyone waiting for him at home, there weren’t many options. Single. Divorced. Liar. Widowed was an option, too, but I’d run into more liars than widowers.
Canoeing would have been a lot more enjoyable if my hands hadn’t been so scraped up after my fall on Ben Macdui. I’d replaced the bandages this morning, and although it hadn’t hurt then, it sure did now. Gripping the oars sent sparks of fire through the torn flesh on my palms, the dull ache creeping deeper into my hands. Maybe I should take a page out of Bea’s book and just phone in the paddling.
The winds over the lake picked up, bringing a gentle tailwind to aid our progress. Now and then, I paused my paddling to slip my camera from the small dry bag I’d tucked into my fleece so I could take a few photos of the lake, the surrounding hills that loped down to the water’s edge, and our little group of canoes.
Finally, we came in sight of another set of docks where Lewis waited for us. Rowing closer to the end of the trip, Rupert lamented we hadn’t spotted a single sea monster.
“If there were dangerous creatures down there, you’d think boats would be their first targets.” Spencer seemed to have nothing but cheerful commentary at the ready.
“You never know,” Rupert said, ignoring Spencer’s doubts. “There are many more mysterious things in this world than we could ever guess.”
Actually—I couldn’t fault that logic. Maybe something did lurk in the deep. And I couldn’t deny it added an air of mystery to the loch. How many tourism dollars had been added to the area over the last several decades by people hoping to find the definitive answer to the question of Nessie?
Really, it was great PR.
Two cormorants flew low over the lake as though in slow motion. In an instant, I had my camera out of the dry bag, ready to take a few parting photos of wildlife. Rupert and Spencer’s canoe blocked my view, so I crouched low to give myself just enough height to capture the shot.
Carlos shouted, “What was that?”
I turned to look, and before I knew what was happening, the canoe pitched and I fell into the lake.
thirteen
My lungsinstantly froze as tiny needles pricked all over my skin. My life jacket bobbed me to the surface, and I gasped for air.
Everyone shouted at once, but I couldn’t understand them over the deafening sound of my own wheezing. I kept gulping in air, but my lungs couldn’t seem to exhale in release. I was dimly aware I should swim or tread water or move my body in some way, but my whole focus had stuck on trying to breathe.
The moment of panic might have only lasted a few seconds before my lungs remembered how to function. Warm breaths seared through my chest, shuddering in and out. My body ached in the frigid water, my limbs flailing uselessly.
