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Dinner had nearly wrapped up by the time I joined the others, and I noticed Carlos wasn’t with them. Could he have felt so guilty that he wouldn’t even come to dinner? He didn’t seem like the type to let guilt eat at him for long.
I hooked Duncan’s jacket on the back of his chair. “Thank you.”
“Better?” He looked up at me as though examining his patient for any lasting injury. His attention warmed me up almost as well as the hot bath.
“Better,” I confirmed.
Lewis had less subtlety, and questioned me the whole time I ate, tallying my responses against a checklist to see how near death I was. He seemed satisfied with the results, but tossed worried looks my way the rest of the evening.
After I ate a greedy dinner, Jack and Kenneth made me comfortable by the fire in the sitting room with a thick blanket thrown over my lap, fussing over me in showy displays of concern.
“We sometimes get the odd loch swimmer, but none have ever taken a dip by accident,” Jack said.
“Can I bring you anything else?” Kenneth’s look of apprehension matched Lewis’s, as though I might die of hypothermia in his armchair.
“I could use a drink.”
“Now that, we can do. What’ll it be?”
Wasn’t brandy the traditional remedy for cold? I couldn’t remember ever trying it, but it didn’t sound nearly as good as what I wanted. “Can you do a hot chocolate?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Duncan and Harlow joined me in the sitting room, flanking where I sat in my cozy armchair.
“How are you feeling?” Duncan asked.
“I’m feeling less like a popsicle now.”
His eyes narrowed, and I suspected he wasn’t just asking about my chill in the lake. Was I really so attached to my camera as all that?
Yes, and he knew it. I wanted those pictures, and the undeniable proof I’d really come all the way out here. I’d planned all sorts of ways I could turn those photos into mementos, tangible reminders of my journey to last long after the trip ended. I neededsomethingto carry this with me long after I’d gone home.
Snuggled up under layers of quilt next to a roaring fire in the Highlands, it hit me—the Scottish Zen Master was right. Chronicling the trip wasn’t the same as experiencing it. Did I need a photograph of every minute to know I wouldn’t forget it? Planning all the ways to memorialize the trip, I lived it in the past tense. Mentally, I was already home, putting pictures on my wall.
I needed torelishthis trip.
“Someone once said something about the importance of remembering one’s experiences rather than simply one’s photos,” I said.
“Sounds like a wise man. Although not a terribly articulate one.”
Behind my hand, I whispered, “Scottish.”
His answering grin had my chest fluttering wildly.
Kenneth returned with a big mug of hot chocolate, and I burrowed deeper into my covers, savoring the heat from the mug in my hands.
Duncan nodded at my drink. “Keeping with the theme, are you?”
I hugged it closer to me. “It’s helping me warm up.”
He twisted his mouth. “That’s one way to do it.”
Nowthatcurled warmth through me better than the bath or the chocolate. Yeah…I could think of other ways to warm up, too.
“I’m curious,” Harlow said. “Did you have to pay extra for the Nessie encounter?”
“For all we know, my camera is taking pictures of Nessie right now.”
