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My grandpa pulls back, frowning up at me. “I know what my Rhonnie said was hurtful, and I know it doesn’t make it right, but she’s hurting too. She has been since our Duncan left, but Rhonnie…” He shakes his head. “She’s stubborn. Thinks she has to bear everyone’s problems, but not let anyone bear hers. Seeing you…I imagine it is terribly hard, knowing that it washerfight with our boy that drove him away.”

“It was?”

“Aye. It was a terrible fight. One I think she regrets now, but it’s too late, isn’t it? But you’re here, and you look so much like our boy…Aye. I imagine seeing you makes my Rhonnie feel all that pain and regret all over again.”

I consider that, trying to see it from her point of view. Something that proves to be difficult, given that I don’t know a damned thing about what my dad and my grandmother fought over that was so terrible it had him leaving his country behind.

“I don’t understand,” I say honestly. “My dad never talked about it. He never told me why he left, so I don’t…I don’t know how to help.”

“Just come home with me,” he urges. “Talk to your granny. She’ll never admit it, but she regrets what you heard. I know she does.”

“I don’t know, Finlay—”

“Grandpa,” he corrects, standing straighter to his full height. Heclasps me by the shoulders. “No matter what, I am yourgrandpa, understand?”

Fucking hell. Nowmyeyes feel watery. I nod thickly, trying not to break down as the gravity of last night’s events—my grandmother, the cove, the fucking Loch Ness Monster—comes crashing down on me. I take a deep breath just to expel it shakily, nodding again, but surer this time.

“All right,” I tell my grandpa. “I’ll come back. If you’re sure.”

“Never been more sure,” he says with a blinding smile. It reminds me of Dad’s smile at that moment, which makes my chest constrict. “You hop in your car, and we’ll sort all of this out back on the farm, aye?”

“Okay.” I glance back at the twins, who have been watching this exchange, both of them looking curious but solemn. “I just need to pay for my—”

Blair waves me off. “We’re square. I reckon I owe you for Loch Land.”

“Deal,” I chuckle.

Finlay says something about warming up the truck, and I notice Rory looks sheepish as I gather my stiff jacket from the stool, rolling it up tight to hide the dark blood staining it. “You do forgive us, right?”

“Yeah. I do.”

He blows out a breath. “And about…the other thing.”

I hover for a moment with my jacket in hand, looking between the twins and taking in their serious and slightly worried expressions.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I answer with a shrug. “I didn’t see a thing.”

They smile in unison, twin versions of the same grin, and I have to suppress a shudder.

That really is so creepy.

I’m admittedly grateful not to need to share a ride back to the farm with my grandpa; not that he isn’t wonderful—because I’m beginning to realize that he is—but I need the time to sort my head out. With everything that happened at the cove last night, I almost forgot the reasons that had driven me there in the first place. At least until Finlay came bursting into the pub.

Now my grandmother’s words play on a loop in my head with stunning clarity, and despite agreeing to come back, I don’t share my grandpa’s confidence that Rhona regrets any of it. Not when I saw her expression as she said it. Like my very presence in her home was an offense.

When I see the sprawling farmhouse come into view, there’s a wriggling sensation of nerves in my belly that is quickly followed by that same clenching sensation in my chest. I stall in my car for a few extra seconds while Finlay teeters out of his beat-up old truck, watching as he gives me an encouraging wave from the front of it while waiting for me to join him. I blow out a steadying breath to calm my nerves, telling myself that it will be fine. That no matter what, at least I will get closure.

“You all right?” Finlay asks when I join him.

I nod. “I’m fine.” I nibble at the corner of my lip as I glance at the front door. “Are you sure she wants to talk to me?”

“Aye, I’m sure,” he urges. “You go on in. I’m going to go help Lachlan with the cows. Give you two some privacy.”

I have to shove the reminder of last night down at the mention of Lachlan’s name, having—oddly enough—bigger problems at the moment than the existence of a shape-changing water dragon. Hell, Rhona is a dragon all on her own.

Fuck, don’t leave me alone with her, I want to say, but I can sense that my grandpa is a lot more optimistic about this than I am, and I can’t find it in me to squash his optimism. So I just nod again when he says he’ll see me at dinner, entirely unsure if that’s true. For all I know, I’ll be looking for a new place to stay by then.

Because apparently, even if your family doesn’t want you, you’re still set on sticking around.