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He peeks at me from over his shoulder. “You sure?”

“Positive.” I gesture to the chair opposite me. “Come sit before yours gets cold.”

Brodie sinks down into the chair with a sigh, stretching out his legs and reaching for his cup before blowing on the steaming liquid. I notice that he looks pretty weary himself, and I lean to prop my chin against my fist.

“Seems like I’m not the only one who had a long day.”

“Hm?” He meets my gaze, blinks, then waves me off. “Och. Nothing too bad. Got caught in the rain out on the property. Had to huddle in one of the auld outbuildings until it passed. Not exactly a comfortable stay.”

My mind wanders to sitting on a patch of hay with a particularly infuriating but handsome Scotsman, and I have to shake away the thought, determined not to go there.

“Were you working with the animals?”

He takes a slow sip from his cup, making a satisfied sound afterward. “Not today. I’ve been indulging in a wee side project of sorts lately.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

He eyes me with a somewhat sheepish expression, almost as if he’s embarrassed to say. “Something like a genealogical report. Been visiting the family cemetery. Tracing back our family tree.”

“Isn’t that kind of what you do for a living?”

He glances away, the tips of his ears heating to a shade not totally unlike his hair. “I know it’s silly,” he says. “Given that I’m supposed to be on sabbatical.”

“I don’t think it’s silly,” I chuckle, testing my own tea and taking a slow taste when I find it no longer scalding. “I mean, you obviously enjoy it.”

“I do,” he says with a small smile. “Even if my da doesn’t approve.”

I frown. “I still think keeping track of all that history is a hell of a lot more interesting than fishing. No offense.”

“None taken,” he laughs. “Obviously, I agree. It’s just…I’m the youngest, aye? I never stood a chance of taking over his business. That was always going to be my eldest brother. The most I could hope for is a life of being pushed around by him as an adult as much as I was as a lad. To be fair, he wasn’t the only one.”

“Your brothers picked on you?”

“Ah, well, I was a wee thing. Didn’t quite grow into my limbs until high school. Easy target and all that.”

“They sound like jerks,” I scoff.

He laughs harder, his eyes crinkling. “They definitely can be.”

“Do you like it better here? With Rhona?”

He shrugs. “Rhona has always been good to me. Honestly, I think she liked having me around because it reminded her of—”

His mouth snaps shut, his eyes rounding as he realizes what he’s almost just said, and I feel a clenching in my chest.

“My dad,” I finish for him. “Right?”

He nods slowly. “It’s not something she ever said. Just a suspicion of mine.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I could see that.”

He regards me thoughtfully for a moment, turning his cup this way and that. “It must be difficult,” he muses. “Being here.”

“It was,” I tell him honestly. “At first. Lately…it’s been a little better.”

Because I’ve been too distracted by loch monsters and hot farmhands to have time to be sad, I don’t say.

“I noticed you went off with Lachlan today,” he offers, not sounding judgmental, merely curious. “Sort of thought you two didn’t get on.”