Chapter 11
Forbes had undersold his culinary skills.
Or oversold his disasters. One of the two.
“You said you might burn things,” Gwen said, accepting a glass of wine as she surveyed the Herrick House kitchen. Something fragrant was simmering on the stove, and the small table in the corner had been set with obvious care—candles, cloth napkins, even a small vase of autumn flowers.
“I said my skills were theoretical.” Forbes stirred whatever was in the pot with the focused attention he brought to everything. “I didnae say I wouldnae try.”
“Where are the MacBeans?”
“Lilith took the children tae visit her grandmother for the evening.” Forbes’s mouth quirked. “She was very insistent about it. Said something about how the house needed ‘quiet for proper cooking’ and then winked at me in a way that was frankly alarming.”
“That sounds like Lilith.”
“I suspect I’ve been managed.”
“You’ve definitely been managed.” Gwen grinned. “She’s been married to a Highlander for seven years. She’s picked up some skills.”
The kitchen was warm and welcoming, filled with the comfortable clutter of a family home—children’s drawings on the fridge, herbs drying in the window, a wooden sword propped in the corner that someone had forgotten to put away. It felt lived-in. Real.
“What are we having?”
“Cullen skink. It’s a Scottish soup. Smoked haddock, potatoes, cream.
” He glanced at her, a hint of uncertainty in his expression.
“My grandmother’s recipe. I’ve made it exactly twice before, both times for myself, so ye’re the first person tae test whether I can actually cook or whether I’ve just been fooling myself. ”
“I’m honored to be your guinea pig.”
“Ye should be. I considered ordering takeout and pretending.”
Gwen laughed and settled onto a stool at the kitchen island, content to watch him work. He moved through the MacBeans’ kitchen with surprising ease—like he’d been here long enough to know where things were kept, which drawers stuck, which burner ran hot.
He fit here. The thought caught her off guard.
“Can I help with anything?”
“Ye can sit there and look decorative.” He shot her a smile over his shoulder. “I’ve got a system. It involves not letting anyone else near the stove while I’m panicking internally.”
“You don’t look like you’re panicking.”
“I’m Scottish. We panic stoically.” He glanced at her. “How was your tour tonight?”
“Cancelled it.” Gwen sipped her wine. “Told Sydney I had a prior commitment.”
“Ye cancelled work for my theoretical cooking?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
The soup, when it finally made it to the table, was actually delicious. Rich and smoky and exactly right for an October evening. Gwen said so, and watched Forbes try not to look too pleased with himself.
“It’s my grandmother’s recipe,” he said again, like that explained everything. “She’d box my ears if I ruined it.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Aye. Ninety-three and still terrifying.” Forbes’s expression softened.
“She’s the one who taught me tae love stories.
Used tae tell me tales about the old days—clan feuds and fairy hills and warriors who died for honor.
I thought she was making it all up until I got older and realized most of it was true. ”
“That’s where your books come from.”
“Partly. The rest comes from spite.” At her raised eyebrow, he elaborated: “My father thought fiction was a waste of time. ‘Entertainment masquerading as scholarship,’ he called it. So naturally, I made a career of it.”
“Naturally.”
“I’m very mature.”
Gwen grinned. “Clearly.”
They talked through dinner and into second glasses of wine—about his grandmother’s stories, about her tour research, about the specific pleasure of finding a historical detail that brought the past to life.
Forbes asked intelligent questions about Salem’s actual history versus its tourist mythology, and Gwen explained the difference between the trials people thought they knew and the messier, sadder, more human reality.
“The accusations weren’t random,” she said, warming to the topic.
“There were property disputes, old grudges, social hierarchies. The girls who started the accusations were genuinely suffering from something—conversion disorder, maybe, or ergot poisoning, or just the pressure of living in a repressive society with no acceptable outlet for fear or anger.”
“Ye don’t think they were lying?”
“I think they believed what they were experiencing. That’s different from lying.” Gwen traced the rim of her wine glass. “The tragedy wasn’t that people believed in witches. It was that they believed fear justified cruelty. That being afraid gave them permission to destroy their neighbors.”
Forbes was quiet for a moment, watching her with that focused attention that made her feel seen in ways she wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
“Ye care about them,” he said. “The people who died. They’re not just historical figures to ye.”
“They were real. They had families, friends, lives they were trying to live. And they died because other people’s fear was more powerful than their humanity.” Gwen shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “Sorry. I get intense about this stuff.”
“Don’t apologize.” Forbes leaned forward, his eyes bright. “I could listen tae ye talk about history all night.”
“You said that yesterday. About trial documents.”
“I meant it then too.” He smiled. “Ye make the past feel alive. That’s a gift, Gwen. Most people treat history like a museum—something dead and dusty behind glass. Ye treat it like a conversation.”
The compliment landed somewhere deep in her chest.
“That’s what I love about your books,” she admitted. “The way you write battles, I can hear the swords. How you write the Highlands, I can smell the heather. It’s not just information—it’s experience.”
“Careful. Ye’ll give me an ego.”
“I suspect you already have one.”
“Aye, but it’s a fragile thing. Needs regular feeding.”
They moved to the small sitting room off the kitchen after dinner, settling onto the worn sofa by the window. Close enough that their knees touched. The wine had softened everything—the edges of the room, the boundaries between them, the careful distance Gwen had been trying to maintain.
She didn’t want careful distance anymore.
“Can I ask ye something?” Forbes said.
“That depends on what it is.”
“Yesterday. When I said I walked twenty minutes out of my way just tae see ye.” He turned to face her more fully, lamplight catching the angles of his face. “I meant it. I’ve been meaning everything I say tae ye, Gwen. In case that wasnae clear.”
“It’s becoming clear.”
“Good.” He reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. The touch was gentle, deliberate. “Because I’m about tae say something else I mean, and I doonae want ye tae think it’s the wine talking.”
Gwen’s heart kicked. “What’s that?”
“I’ve been thinking about kissing ye since the coffee shop.” His voice had dropped lower, rougher. “Possibly since the tour. Definitely since ye kissed my cheek.”
Her pulse stuttered.
His thumb traced her jaw, feather-light. “I’ve been thinking about ye constantly. About yer laugh and yer passion for dead people and the way ye look when ye’re explaining something ye care about. I’ve been thinking about what it would be like tae kiss ye properly. Tae take my time with it.”
Gwen’s breath caught. “Forbes.”
“Aye?”
“Stop talking.”
She closed the distance between them.
The kiss started soft—a question, a hello, a tentative exploration. Forbes’s hand curved around the back of her neck, anchoring her gently. He tasted like wine and something that felt like coming home.
Then he made a low sound in the back of his throat, and soft became something else entirely.
He kissed her like he’d been waiting for it.
Like she was something precious he’d finally been given permission to touch.
His other hand found her waist, pulling her closer, and Gwen stopped thinking about anything except the heat of his mouth and the strength of his hands and how her whole body seemed to light up from the inside.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Forbes rested his forehead against hers.
“That,” he said roughly, “was worth waiting for.”
“You waited two days. That’s not exactly patience.”
“Felt like longer.” He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, his expression open and wondering. “Ye’re extraordinary, Gwen Bishop. I keep saying that, but it keeps being true.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.” She was smiling, couldn’t seem to stop. “For a Scottish novelist with theoretical cooking skills.”
“I’ll take it.”
They sat like that for a long moment, foreheads close, breathing the same air. The house was quiet around them—no children’s laughter, no footsteps overhead, just the two of them in this borrowed space.
“I should probably go,” Gwen said eventually, without moving.
“Ye probably should.” Forbes didn’t move either. “It’s getting late.”
“Very late.”
“Nearly nine-thirty.”
“Practically midnight.”
He laughed, low and easy, and kissed her again—briefer this time, but no less sweet.
“Come to the festival tomorrow,” he said. “The MacBeans invited me, but I’d rather go with ye.”
“Is that a date?”
“If ye’ll have me.”
Gwen pretended to consider. “I suppose I could fit you into my schedule.”
“Very generous.”
“I’m a generous person.”
He walked her to the front door, their hands tangled together like neither wanted to let go. On the threshold, Gwen turned back.
“Forbes?”
“Aye?”
“The soup was really good.”
His smile was slow and devastating. “So was everything else.”
She walked home through Salem’s October streets, past jack-o’-lanterns and fake cobwebs and tourists taking photos of everything, and she couldn’t stop smiling.
Her magic hummed quietly beneath her skin, content and curious.
Three weeks until Samhain. Two more dates with Forbes MacLeod. And one very promising start to something that might actually be real.
Not bad, she thought. Not bad at all.