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I didn’t have the heart to say the words. I just looked at him and focused on not crumbling. My lower lip wobbled, but I held it together.
Understanding my unspoken thoughts, his expression softened. “Your camera.”
My sigh hit just this side of a sob. It’d been the day for crying, apparently. I stomped up the dock, tossed my wet things in the back of the mini-bus, and climbed on board. Bundled in my jacket and the emergency blanket, I stared out the window, feeling every bit as miserable as my faint reflection looked.
Outside, Lewis lectured Carlos while Duncan silently glowered like a bouncer ready to throw out the riff-raff. I wished they would just let it go. Carlos was a charming, self-centered idiot, but the whole disaster had been an accident. He hadn’t meant to dump me into the lake, or for me to lose my camera.
Oh, but my camera. Four days of chronicling my visit to Scotland, lost at the bottom of Loch Ness. Loch an Eilein, Meall a’ Bhuachaille, Ben Macdui—the baby highland cows. All those captured memories, gone.
The chill in my skin sank right into my heart, but I absolutely would not cry. First, tears would probably freeze on my face if I did. And second, they were just photos. I had a few pictures on my phone. I’d still done those amazing things, even if I didn’t have all the pictures to prove it.
Still. I really wanted those pictures.
Eventually, Duncan sat down beside me as we prepared to leave the lake. He watched me in silence, his quiet scrutiny worse than fawning pity would have been. Measured breathing and pretended stoicism kept my tears at bay, but I couldn’t do anything about the shivering or my clacking teeth.
“Here.” He pulled his jacket out of his backpack and offered it to me.
I slipped it on over my own without a second thought. Zipped up all the way, I nuzzled my chin down into the soft fleece. “Thanks.”
I soaked up that delicious smell—SilverFoxalicious. Like wood with a tinge of something brighter. Whatever it was, I wanted to swim in the scent.
Must not make it obvious I’m smelling his coat.
I rubbed my face against the fleece, trying to bring some feeling back into my icy cheeks, and only ducked my nose into the collar every other minute.
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and ran his hands over my arms, probably trying to draw a little warmth into them. Keeping me alive with his body heat, and all that.
Must not make it obvious I’m thinking about his body heat.
“Okay?”
I nodded, my answer the same whether he were asking about my spirits or his touch. I leaned against him, telling myself it was all in the name of first aid. Not cuddling the sweetheart silver fox.
But the cuddling was pretty dang good.
Carlos sat as far away from me as he could—either out of guilt for his stupidity or fear of my threatening bodyguard. Whichever it was, I didn’t really care.
My teeth chattered the whole way back to the lodge, broken up occasionally by whole-body shudders. I just wanted to sleep and leave all this behind, but as soon as I closed my eyes and let my head drop against Duncan’s shoulder, Lewis called back to say I shouldn’t rest until after I warmed up.
Wasn’t that what they always said about hypothermia? People went to sleep and never woke up again. I couldn’t possibly have hypothermia. I’d just taken a bad chill. Nice of Lewis, though, to want to stop me from drifting into death by catnap.
Rude, too, to take away my excuse for even more Duncan-snuggling.
As soon as we got back to the lodge, I ran myself a hot bath. Lewis told me to use lukewarm water so I wouldn’t shock my system, but I ignored that—I cranked the water up as hot as I could tolerate. It hurt a little getting in and my skin turned bright red, but it did the trick.
I scrunched down in the tub to defrost, contemplating how else I could mortify myself on this trip. Seemed like I was running out of options, but we had plenty of days left for me to find new and unusual forms of embarrassment.
Weirdly though, I didn’t regret the trip, despite all my stumbles. I held close every memory, and I couldn’t wait to make the next one. Even if it meant falling into a dozen more lakes, I wouldn’t turn back now.
Once I was reasonably thawed, I returned to my room. My phone sat in the clear dry bag on my bed—that bag was supposed to have been a genius move for canoeing. If only I’d actually left my camera in it.
I stared at the phone, a little coil of dread slithering in my stomach. Was it ESP, or an old habit I’d long grown used to?
Sure enough, I pulled it out and thumbed it awake to find an email from Lincoln.
He’d sent a flurry of questions about a site’s revamp. I didn’t even read through them before I turned it back off and tossed it on the bed. So far, I’d spent every night in Scotland sifting through website skeletons, answering his questions, and managing the design team from afar. I could handle this later. Right now, I needed to eat.
I pulled on a long-sleeve shirt, my fleece jacket, and flannel pajama pants, and went down to dinner. More informal than I’d normally choose for a communal dinner with strangers, but hey, I’d swum in Loch Ness. I was all about informal now.
