Chapter 13 #2
“God, it really does look good out here.” I marveled at the change in the living area as I walked back out. Luch had cracked the windows to air the paint, and a cool breeze wafted through the room. “I’m really chuffed with this.”
“You’ll be making a home here soon enough. Add a few more cozy elements and you’ll be happy to coorie in over the long winter.”
“I wonder if I could get one of those fake fireplaces? The one that kicks out heat? It might add a cozy bit for the winter.”
“Or you could get a gas one installed. Might not be too much trouble.” Luch nudged me with his elbow. “See? Look at you thinking like a homeowner already.”
“I truly can’t believe that it hadn’t occurred to me to start decorating in there.
Granted, I’ve been busy with managing the practice, and I’m used to existing with just the basics, so it wasn’t really at the top of my mind.
But you know what? Decorating is fun. I had fun today.
Thanks again, Luch,” I gushed as we walked down my stairs and around the corner onto Main Street.
“Was that the only thing you had fun with today?” Luch stopped before we turned the corner, and I drew up short as I looked up at him.
The loch, silvery with soft evening light spread behind him, and a few pink traces of the setting sun slashed across the sky.
His face was shadowed, but those eyes, that unique greenish gold color, reflected the streetlamps that had popped on overhead.
It was as though they glowed, all-seeing, and the intensity in his look sent a shiver across my body.
“I think you know the answer to that.” Heat flushed my face as I looked up at him.
“Bloody hell, Faelan, but you’re gorgeous.” He brushed his thumb across my lip, before cupping my chin and giving me a bruising kiss. I felt it all the way down to my toes, like he’d staked his claim, and I surprisingly did not seem to mind.
Perhaps it was the lingering effects of the pleasure he’d already given me today.
Or was it just that I was genuinely enjoying his company?
Either way, I was more than happy to ignore that initial instinct I’d had to turn tail and run when I’d first met him.
Perhaps it had been my anxiety about him discovering my magick, or maybe it had just been simply being in the presence of such an overly charismatic male.
But now, his edges seemed to have softened around me, and something had shifted quickly with us.
I’d gone from avoiding him to craving his mouth on mine.
A remarkably quick turnaround for someone like me. Marveling over it, I pulled back and shook my head, a smile on my face.
“What’s that look for?” Luch asked, taking my hand and tugging me down the street. I almost pulled back, not ready to be seen like that in public with him. Small towns, and all that.
“I don’t know. I’m not really sure what to think of you, Dr. Carmichael.”
“You think that I’m strong. That I’m sexy. That I’m wickedly funny.”
“And full of yourself?” I suggested, laughing as he stopped in front of The Tipsy Thistle, the main pub in town.
“Confidence and ego are often mistaken for each other.”
“Fair enough.” I laughed as he held the door open for me and pub sounds spilled out.
The Tipsy Thistle was a pub housed in an old gray stone building with a narrow entrance and doorways low enough to duck through, worn wood floors polished to a sheen, and a circular bar on one side of the room.
Tables of varying sizes were clustered around the room, most notably full, and a man stood by the fireplace with a microphone in hand.
He wore overalls, had a shaggy beard and ruddy skin, and a younger man—clearly related—stood next to him dressed similarly.
“Och, hold on.” The man at the fireplace looked to us. “Are you two joining in then?”
“Um?” I looked around and a woman sitting at the bar with a short crop of swingy curls waved to me.
“They can be on our team, Fergus. We were short anyway.”
“Oh sure, steal the two doctors for your team, Agnes,” a woman grumbled from across the pub.
“I’m simply being welcoming, aren’t I? How was I to know they were doctors?” Agnes fluffed her hair and smiled like she’d already won.
“Do we back out quietly? Pretend we didn’t hear them?” Luch hissed at my ear and I glanced up at him over my shoulder, surprised to find a hint of panic in his eyes.
“Why, Dr. Carmichael, don’t you like games?”
“Games are fine. It’s more the people factor.”
“You work with people all day.”
“Aye, but that’s work. I know what I’m talking about there. Social niceties? I fall apart.”
“Come on then, Doc. I’ve got your back. Plus, I’m starving.” Hooking his arm, I dragged him across the room to two open stools next to Agnes. “Hi, Agnes. I’m Faelan, the new vet in town. I think our paths crossed briefly at the hedgehog baby shower.”
Luch slanted me a surprised glance.
“Och, that was a belter, wasn’t it then? Welcome, welcome. We’re just about to start trivia night. It’s an off night for us, but Fergus is about to go on a month-long holiday—his first ever!—and he’s training his son to make sure he can handle the game while he’s gone.”
“It’s that serious?” Luch asked, nodding to a man who came out of the kitchen carrying a bowl of soup and a basket of bread.
“Deadly,” Agnes said, her voice hushed. “I wish I was kidding, but you screw up trivia night and these villagers will cut you.”
“You’d be at the head of the line wouldn’t you, darling?
” The bartender leaned over the bar, tapping a finger to Agnes’s nose, and my curiosity piqued.
The man was easily one of the most handsome men I’d seen in real life, excluding Luch, of course, and I blinked at him as he turned the full wattage of his smile on me.
“Careful of this one. She’s adorable, but her claws are sharp. ”
“Noted.” I laughed as Agnes pretended to hiss at the man.
“I’m Graham, welcome to my pub.” Graham shot a guilty look to where Fergus cleared his throat into the microphone. “And I’ll just very quietly give you a menu to look over if you’re in the mood for a wee bite. And I’ll get a bowl of water out for your wee pup as well.”
“Thanks,” I mouthed, and took the menu from him. Luch leaned close, resting his chin on my shoulder as he read the menu with me, and my heart did a funny little flutter in my chest at the intimacy of this moment.
I mean, we’d been wildly intimate an hour ago, but this was different.
I couldn’t explain it, but that small gesture from him made me both excited and a touch panicky.
Suddenly, this felt real. All of this. My new job, my new town, a potential new boyfriend.
And with all that came very real responsibilities to these people—including telling some of them my truth. Namely, Luch.
Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.
We could keep things fun. Light. No labels. We were both busy individuals, hardly room for real relationships in our lives.
“See anything you like?” Luch said at my ear, and I turned, his lips centimeters from mine. His eyes caught me again, that beautiful golden greenish, like sunlight hitting a mossy rock garden.
Yes, yes I do.
“Um, vegetable soup and a cheese toastie is fine for me.”
“Great.” Luch turned and ordered with Graham, glancing back at me. “Red wine, okay?”
“Yup, that’ll suit me.” I turned back to where Fergus was instructing his son on how to call the questions.
“This first round, we’ll all write the answers down. No phones allowed,” Agnes whispered to me, “then we’ll discuss. Someone will get mad. There will be arguments. Fergus will put people in line. And then we’ll move on to the next round.”
“What are the topics?”
“This round is popular media and Scotland, so likely a bunch of questions about crime dramas.” Agnes sniffed, crossing her arms over her chest and fiddling with a book charm on her necklace.
“Not a fan?”
“Nothing wrong with a good thriller, I just think Scotland has more to offer when it comes to shows and films. I mean, come on. We live in a land rich with myths and history. Magick. Romance. We can’t just keep producing the same television over and over. Surely there’s more to cover.”
“Agnes. Wheesht,” Fergus’s command was sharp and Agnes winced.
“Sorry, Fergus.”
“Round One begins now. On you go, lad.” Fergus nudged his son.
The round went quick, and the pub was dead silent as people whispered answers in each other’s ears.
By the time my soup and sandwich had arrived, Agnes was on her feet, going head to head with Archie, who I hadn’t seen when we’d first come in.
He and Hilda had been tucked away in a corner table, but they’d waved when I’d spotted them halfway through the round.
“Twilight is not the basis for werewolf stories in Scotland.” Hands on her hips, hair flying around her head, Agnes leaned into the argument. “Haven’t you heard of the Wulver?”
“Now, lass. He’s talking about modern media. You can’t say the Wulver comes from modern day media.” Archie’s bushy brows drew low over his forehead as he thundered.
“The question was … what story informed Scotland’s modern-day retellings of werewolves,” Agnes shot back.
“I love when she gets worked up.” Graham pitched his voice low behind me, and I turned to grin at him. Clearly the handsome bartender had a thing for pretty Agnes.
Luch looked ashen.
Surprised, I tilted my head at him, as he pressed his lips together, his eyes tightening at the sides.
“The Wulver is Scotland’s most famous werewolf,” Agnes continued.
“Granted, they aren’t entirely werewolves in the traditional sense, but they were Scotland’s werewolves, weren’t they now?
Truly misunderstood, too. Kindred protectors they were.
None of that rip-your-throat-out-at-the-full-moon nonsense.
They looked after people. Left them gifts at their door.
Fish and other presents. Had a responsibility to protect others. That kind of thing.”
“Scotland has other werewolf myths,” Fergus said.
“Twilight is not one of them. It’s not even in Scotland. How is this even relevant?” Agnes argued.
“Because people may have watched Twilight and then written modern-day werewolf stories,” Archie said, hands on his hips.
“What people? Name ’em,” Agnes demanded.
“Well, lad, how are you going to handle this?” Fergus asked his son, who cleared his throat before raising the microphone to his lips.
“Though Agnes raises a good point, the answer I have is, indeed, Twilight, so I’ll have to adhere to the card.”
“Rubbish!” Agnes threw up her hands, turning to glower at Graham when he laughed.
“Och, darling, you’ve always been a sore loser. Come on now, a wee kiss will sort you out.” Graham leaned over the bar but his face met Agnes’s hand.
She pushed him back and then squealed when he licked her palm.
“Gross, Graham.”
“Think these two have a thing?” Luch said at my ear, and this time when I looked at him, his face looked relaxed again.
“We do not have a thing.” Agnes whirled on Luch and he winced, raising his hands in the air.
“Och, now, come on, love. You have agreed to marry me, if you’ll recall?”
“That’s ages from now and basically if not a single other man in Scotland would have me!” Agnes fumed.
“Och, is it just Scotland, now, hen? That’s fine then. I’ll just be putting the word out to all me mates about staying away from you, and I’ll be biding my time.” Graham’s grin widened when Agnes pushed her lower lip out in a sulk.
“It doesn’t have to be just Scotland you know. Maybe I’ll take a holiday to Greece like Fergus and Meredith are and meet the man of my dreams.”
“Why travel all that way to find him when he’s standing right in front of you?” Graham’s expression was teasing, but something flashed behind his eyes, and I felt a tug on my heart as I watched them.
“Round Two starts now. The category is Great Sports Moments in History,” Fergus announced.
“Och, come on.” Agnes whirled, hands on hips. “You had three sports categories last week.”
“The heart wants what the heart wants, Agnes,” Fergus intoned, ignoring her complaint. “Go on, lad, ignore the riff-raff. You’re doing just fine.”
We lost by two points, but I considered it a win in my book.
Not only had I met new friends, but I’d participated in a pub challenge, navigated a date with Luch without too many awkward moments, and I’d enjoyed a delicious meal.
All things considered, the day was turning out to be one of the best I’d had in a long time.
Yawning, on the walk home, I hooked my arm through Luch’s and pointed to the almost full moon.
“Did you ever wish on the moon as a child?” I asked, admiring how the soft light filtered through the moody clouds.
“The moon? Not the stars for you, lass?”
“No,” I said, wistful as I thought about my mum and me making wishes under the full moon. “It was always the moon. Mother Moon, how beautiful thou be, we have but a gentle request of ye.”
“And what would you ask for?” Luch’s voice rumbled in his chest against my arm.
“To stay.” My heart twisted as I realized I might finally have what I wished for all those years ago. “For a home.”
“Looks like your wish might be coming true.”
“I think so.” I squeezed his arm and looked up at him. “And you? If you could make a wish, what would it be?”
“The moon doesn’t grant wishes to the likes of me, lass.”