17. Makenna
Makenna
“Do you own a kilt?”
“I do. Do you?”
I smile across the table at Malcolm. We’re sitting in a café near his house, waiting for our food. Right as we’d ended the call with my mom, my stomach decided to embarrass me again, rumbling so loudly that Malcolm immediately stood, offered me his hand, and said we were walking to lunch.
I very much enjoy being able to walk places. I don’t love driving. I mean, it’s fine if you’ve got the right music going, but in general, walking is much more pleasant, for short distances, anyway. I don’t want to have to walk a 5k to eat.
Also, the weather is perfect, so this is all easy for me to say. I might be living for the car if this were winter.
“I had a plaid skirt in middle school, but that’s the closest I’ve gotten to owning a kilt.”
Malcolm grinned. “I’m sure you looked incredibly Scottish when you wore it.”
“I do have some Scottish heritage, so maybe I did.” I shrug and smile. “Do you ever wear your kilt?”
“Not often, but aye, I do. I wear it to weddings. Any formal event really. I’ll wear it to the fundraising gala the hospital is having next weekend.”
“Oh? When is it? Maybe I’ll get to see you wear it before I leave.”
“Is a man in a kilt some kind of fantasy for you?” Malcolm almost looks like he regrets saying it.
“Well, it’s not something I’m against.” I smile and nod my thanks to the server who sets our food in front of us.
“The gala isn’t this Saturday, but the next.”
“I’ll leave to go home the next day. So I can see you, if you’re really okay with me staying.”
“I am. We’ll have fun. I’ll have to work some of course, but you were planning to solo adventure anyway, so maybe it will be the best of both worlds?”
“I think so. Thank you.”
“Aye, you’re welcome.” Malcolm takes a bite of his food—something called a pizza crunch which unfortunately has gluten. “So, you’ve got Scottish heritage? How far back?”
I look up from where I’d been studying my bean and cheese baked tattie.“I don’t know, actually. I took one of those DNA tests. I’m mostly from Western Europe, and a large portion of that was Scotland. I think the results definitely bolstered my slight obsession with this place.”
“That’s interesting. I don’t know if I know anyone who has done one of those. It would be braw to find something surprising, don’t you think? Like with your results showing Western Europe, what if there was some rogue two percent that came from somewhere unexpected.”
“Yeah. Like if I were two percent Argentinian. How would that have happened?” I take a bite of my potato. Very good. I can eat this. And I know it’s safe. Malcolm talked to the cook.
I wish he were always with me to do that. I hate always having to make a fuss when I go eat. Most people are very understanding, but there are some who are obviously put out. It’s not like I can help it. I certainly wouldn’t choose it. So Malcolm taking that off of me was so very nice.
“It would certainly be a mystery. Unfortunately, one you likely couldn’t figure out,” he says.
“I think that would drive me a little nuts. I would want to know the story. I’d probably make one up in my mind.”
“Imagine your fifteen-times-great-grandmother is on a ship from England to Spain, but the ship gets blown off course and ends up in Argentina.”
“That’s quite off course. Likely months. They would have probably starved or died of dehydration. And isn’t it dangerous to go around the tip of South America?”
“This is fiction, Makenna. We can do what we want.” Malcolm sips his water, and I patiently wait to hear about my family’s epic history. “So anyway, her ship finally arrives and she’s met by some sort of bandits. Argentina has bandits, don’t you think?”
I swallow a bite of potato. I’ll have to try to make this at home. “I would say every country has bandits. Although I’m not sure what a bandit technically is.”
He grins. “A bad guy. Probably wearing a mask and carrying a sword.”
“Do you think they wear black hats?”
“Oh, aye. For sure they do.”
“What about capes?”
“Seems like they would get in the way of all the fighting and bad guy activities.”
I burst out laughing. “Please tell me more about these bad guy activities.”
Malcolm looks at me seriously. “Back to the story, Makenna. You’ve taken us seriously off course.”
“Much like my many times great-grandmother’s ship.”
He suppresses a smile. “Indeed. So the bandits say, ‘Give us all your gold and chocolate!’ and she says, ‘We had to throw the gold overboard in a storm, and I don’t know what chocolate is.’”
I set my fork down, food completely forgotten. I’m enraptured by his storytelling. “When was chocolate invented?”
“I have nae clue. When would your fifteen-times-great-grandmother have been a young woman?”
“Umm … The 1600s? 1700s?”
“Hmm. I think she would have known what chocolate was. Okay … the bandits say, ‘Give us all your gold and chocolate!’ and she says, ‘We had to throw the gold overboard in a storm, and you’ll have to fight me for the chocolate!’”
“She does sound like someone I’d be related to.” My heart shoots out arrows toward Malcolm. He is everything I would look for in a man. I sure wish he didn’t live here.
“I knew I had made the right call getting those chocolate biscuits for you.”
“You really did.” I sip my water. “Speaking of biscuits, have you ever had chocolate gravy?”
He looks absolutely scandalized. “What in the world? No.”
“I’ll make you some. What if I make dinner?”
“Chocolate gravy is a dinner food?”
“I mean, not usually. But this is fiction, and we can do what we want.” I repeat his words to him even though they make no sense.
“We’ve taken the ship way off course again. But I’d be delighted to try your gravy, if you’re up for cooking.”
“I am! So … they are going to fight her for her chocolate.”
Malcolm takes the last bite of his sandwich, and I have no idea how he’s had time to eat it. “She charges valiantly with her sword drawn, only for it to be knocked from her hand by a man who was ten feet tall.”
“Scary. Was there no one on the ship who could help her?”
“No. She was the captain and lost her crew along the way. But here’s the thing … that man is your fifteen-times-great-grandfather.”
“The ten-foot-tall bad man? Surely not.”
“That very man.” He’s being so dramatic. Acting like this is a one-man show, and, honestly, I’d go see it every night it was offered. “He looked down at the captain and said, ‘You are a brave one, but I will fight this battle for you.’”
“How romantic. Did he murder them all?”
“I’m concerned you think murder is romantic.” He leans across the table, studying my eyes with concern. His are the loveliest shade of bright blue; they’d remind me of cotton candy, if cotton candy were a little darker.
I take my eyes from his intense gaze and look once again at my potato. “Those were two different sentiments. I’m actually quite concerned about having a murderer for an ancestor.”
“No need to worry, at least on this occasion. He stepped between her and the bandits and half of them peed themselves and ran off, while the other half passed out on the spot.”
“Wow. That must be why I’m so tall and intimidating.” I’m definitely tall, but I’m not sure anyone would call me intimidating.
Malcolm chokes on a laugh. “That definitely explains it.”
“So what happened next?”
“She shared her chocolate with him, and the rest is history.”