Page 24 of Hiding Nessie
Cam inclined his head. ‘He wants to find a way to beat the Scorch,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s what this is for.’
Meredith gazed at him sombrely for a second, then reached out and grasped his hand. ‘Just let me know what you need, hon.’
‘Thanks.’ Cam blew out a breath, some invisible weight lifting from his shoulders. He’d half-expected Meredith to tell him it was hopeless. That if his parents hadn’t survived, then how could he hope to find what they hadn’t?
But he could see by the set of her jaw that she was all in. She might not be a witch herself, but she certainly had the tenacity of one. With both Meredith and Lachlan fighting in his corner, Cam suddenly felt more hopeful than ever.
Chapter Six
They all moved quickly from that point, grabbing jumpers and coats and locking up the café before marching down the hill as a group. It was a short walk through trees to the nearest car park—more a muddy layby, obscured by the snowy slush from the road. Cam sensed Lachlan tensing as they neared it, and when Meredith’s ancient little Vauxhall Corsa came into view, he was stiff as a board.
He grabbed Cam’s arm and whispered in his ear. ‘Would you sit next to me?’
Cam struggled to decipher the anxiety in Lachlan’s eyes. Maybe he was a little scared of going so far from the loch for the first time. ‘Of course.’
Meredith rolled her eyes, slipping into the driver’s seat and jerking down the passenger one for them both to scramble in behind it. ‘No canoodling in the back, you hear?’
Lachlan fumbled with his seatbelt and sat rigidly as the engine croaked to life. By the time the car began picking up speed around the bendy roads, he was gripping the belt across his chest tightly with both hands. His knuckles went bone-white.
Cam leaned across, and Lachlan visibly jumped when he touched his elbow. ‘Are you all right?’
Lachlan’s lips pressed tightly together. ‘It’s very fast.’
The snowy trees weren’tquitea blur outside the window, but Meredith did have a habit of taking her corners a bit sharply, and certainly put her foot down on the rare straights.
‘She’s not a bad driver, I promise,’ Cam whispered back, before a realisation hit him. He leaned as close as the seatbelt would allow across the middle. ‘You’ve been in a car before, right?’
Lachlan’s grimace told him just how wild that presumption was. ‘I rode in a Model T Ford once.’
Cam was stunned. ‘That’s it?’
Lachlan’s eyes creased with embarrassment, then squeezed shut entirely as Meredith swung round another sharp bend. ‘I’ve tried a modern bus in Inverness,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I say modern. Nearly fifty years ago. Rickety thing. Felt like my bones were going to fall out.’
He took a breath, and then began stringing words together fast like he was weaving a lifeline for himself. ‘I go by boat if I need to go anywhere far. Inverness a handful of times a decade. Most things I can get from Fort Augustus, and that’s just at the south end of the loch so I prefer to swim it. Got clothes stashed in an old shed by the water. Or there’s Drumnadrochit, just as easy to reach. That’s how I stock the café beyond deliveries. Watertight bags. Easy to carry in my mouth.’
Cam caught Meredith’s eye in the rear-view mirror.Don’t you dare ask,he endeavoured to convey with a glare. Wisely, she kept quiet.
Cam unclipped his seatbelt and shuffled onto the middle seat. Lachlan’s eyes snapped wide open as Cam pulled the buckle across his lap and extended an arm around Lachlan’s shoulders in a firm hug. Lachlan moved a shaky hand to Cam’s knee and gave him a weak smile of gratitude.
They stayed like that for the two-hour journey to Glencoe. Lachlan almost began to relax around halfway, until a pothole jolted the car and he sprang back into panicked stiffness.
Cam rubbed soothing circles into his neck, clasping Lachlan’s palm with his other hand. He thought back to all the times he’d pleaded with Lachlan to go somewhere with him on the back of his motorbike, and cringed now at how terrifying the prospect must have seemed. He’d grown up at a time when a galloping horse was the fastest you could go on land, and by Lachlan’s account his village by Loch Ness had only one donkey and a handful of oxen between them.
It made it all the more astonishing that he’d insisted they travel to Glencoe without a second thought. Cam’s heart swelled with appreciation for how much he must mean to Lachlan, for him to go this far.
Soon they were crossing the Ballachulish Bridge across Loch Leven and the road sank deep towards the mouth of the Glen Coe valley. Great walls of rock towered on one side, with the frozen loch passing serenely through trees on their left. The village of Glencoe was set a little way back from Loch Leven, sitting in a basin surrounded by soaring peaks. The houses with their white-cream frontages and grey roofs were generously spread out, with large gardens and allotments between them.
They passed the tiny police station and single garage, and kept on going to the outskirts of the village where the Walker cottage sat on its own scruffy plot of land.
Lachlan visibly slumped with relief when the engine fell silent outside the front gate. He couldn’t escape the car’s confines fast enough. Cam rubbed his thigh where Lachlan had been gripping it, sure he’d find a bruised pattern of fingertips there later.
‘I’m not a bad driver,’ Meredith hissed defensively to Cam while Lachlan heaved deep breaths on the path.
‘He’s just not used to cars. Don’t you dare tease him about it.’
‘Honey, I wouldn’t! I want to wrap him up in a big fluffy blanket and keep the poor soul safe. I mean, just look at him!’
Lachlan was very pale, leaning heavily on a fence post by the cottage. He managed a weak smile at Meredith as she locked the car. ‘Thank you for the ride, Meredith. Is this your home, Cam?’
