The Wellspring (Kaitlyn and the Highlander #12) - Diana Knightley Page 0,12
his head in answer to my wordless ‘what is going on?’ look. I couldn’t tell if it meant: no, nothing, or no, can’t tell you, or no, can’t deal with it… we seriously needed code words for this exact situation or we were never going to set me at ease.
We decided to say grace, though most of us were halfway through eating. As Magnus put it, “Tis never too late tae thank God and the chef.” We stood and held hands and Emma led us in a prayer. Then we sat down and Magnus emptied his plate in a minute flat.
Fraoch chuckled, shoveling in a slab of turkey stabbed on the end of his fork. “I am out of practice of bein’ ravenously hungry, ye hae out eaten me.”
Magnus grinned and patted his stomach. “Dost ye like it, yer first American feast?”
“Aye,” he raised his glass. “I canna eat any more, m’compliments to the chef.”
We all raised our glasses to Chef Zach who stood and bowed magnificently.
It was a moment of good spirits, but there were plenty of drawn brows. There were looks across the table between Magnus and Quentin, and then Fraoch and Magnus, and then right after dinner, another big ass storm. The sky darkened and everyone put down their utensils.
Quentin stood. “Sorry I can’t stay to help, dinner was delicious but… I need to go check something. I’ll be back by dessert.”
Magnus stood, his chair scraping across the floor, and kissed me on the temple, Fraoch kissed Hayley goodbye and they left with James following them. The rest of us began to clean up after dinner and to get the kitchen ready for the next course, so many pies. We were all watching the monitor and whispering to each other. “What do you think is going on?”
Zach said, “I don’t know, nothing, everything — shit, I do not want another one of those flee in the night things, that sucked.”
Hayley said, “It’s been a year, we’ve got security, our security works.”
I said, “I don’t see that vessel on the monitor anymore.”
Hayley said, “Was somebody leaving? Did they come and then go? That could have been leaving.”
Zach spun the laptop toward himself, checking for local weather satellite images. I said, “We had two storms in an hour. It happened quick, like there wasn’t a point of it, it was a beautiful day a few minutes ago. You’re right Hayley it was someone coming and going. Were they just checking us out? Ugh, I don’t even want—”
Michael entered, went straight for the refrigerator, and looked inside. “Whatcha talking about, the weather? It’s Florida, weather always does crazy shit. All these Scottish dudes freaking out, it’s like, what’s your problem, it’s just Florida.” He pulled out a beer, unscrewed the top, and took a swig. “Where’d everyone go?”
“Just to check around the house, make sure the storm didn’t, um, damage anything.”
When Magnus returned I pulled him into the hallway to whisper, “Who was it?”
“We daena ken,”
“That sucks really badly.”
“Aye, we’ll talk about it taenight after our guests have gone.” He went into the living room to gather with our company, indoors, where we were safe.
Seven - Kaitlyn
Day Two
The kids fell asleep and everyone who didn’t live with us went home. We collectively exhaled, and dropped into seats around the living room.
Zach said, “As you can see, my family is exhausting, thanks everyone for the help.”
Magnus said, “First, Chef Zach, I want tae thank ye for the feast, twas excellent, I enjoyed it verra much. Thank ye Emma for managin’ the guests, and settin’ a braw table. I am sorry we were nae able tae relax.”
Quentin shook his head. “What did we get, literally one day of safety since you returned?”
Magnus joked, “Ah, but what a peaceful day twas!”
I said, “So someone came and left, who was it?”
“I daena ken, they dinna want us tae discover them.”
Quentin said, “I feel like we’re in the same situation as Lady Mairead, things are happening around us, but we don’t know what they are.”
Fraoch said, “We need tae talk tae Lady Mairead on it.”
Hayley said, “I want to remind everyone in the room that talking to Lady Mairead is never the answer.”
I said, “But she might know who it was, or have an idea and then we can adjust our security, we don’t have any idea—”
Hayley said, “Fine, I get it, we need her. I just want to be on the record as saying I argued against it.”