I pulled the car into the garage right beside the newly contrived pen with a horse standing in it.

Magnus said, “Pray, come inside, Mistress Kaitlyn, I am still uncertain tis safe and I would like tae consult my men.”

“I don't know, I haven't had a full day of feeling sorry for myself yet.”

“I owe ye a dinner.”

“True.”

As I climbed the steps to his front door, Magnus was just behind, hand on the smaller knife at his waist, turning to look down the steps, watching that we weren't followed.

When Magnus crossed the threshold to the house, he announced, “Lights out.” Behind me he locked the door. Zach had been bent over a baking sheet, but stopped, mid-movement, wiped his hands on his apron, reached over and turned off the music. Then the kitchen lights. The house was full of the rich smells of steamed tomatoes and what was that, capers? Anchovies? I inhaled. It smelled of puttanesca, my favorite. Zach and Emma both dropped down between the counter and the island in the shadow of the afternoon.

Lady Mairead had been sitting on the couch. She asked, “Twas a storm, like ours?”

Magnus said, “Aye, much like it. From nocht, accompanied with lightning and great gusts of wind.”

“This means he has found it — in time he will decipher how tae use it.” Lady Mairead swept up the stairs to the upper floors with her nurse following her.

Magnus turned off all the light switches, easily I might add. “Mistress Kaitlyn, pray join Chef Zach in the larder.” At the wall controls he activated the window screens, then stepped out to the back deck. The last thing I saw before I settled below the counter was Magnus, his kilt flapping in the breeze of a coming storm, speaking with his security team on the back porch. They were checking the sky.

The house wasn't dark, because it was afternoon, but I marveled how the house and so many people had gone completely still and hidden.

Zach reached up and carefully, quietly, clicked off his sauce simmering on the stovetop.

All told, we stayed hidden for about five minutes. Then Magnus quietly opened the sliding door. He appeared in the kitchen a moment later, and offered his hand to help me stand. “Many apologies, Mistress Kaitlyn, for causing ye worry. Tis all clear. I must ascend tae Lady Mairead's rooms for a moment. Pray Chef Zach, continue cooking, just nae music for a time.”

Zach chuckled. “Yes sir, I'll keep it down.” He stood and helped Emma up and they both turned on lights and the oven. Zach wiped his hands again, set the stove temperature back to simmering, and returned to his baking as Magnus climbed the stairs.

I took a seat on the barstool at the kitchen island and watched Zach and Emma resume their baking, nonchalant, and seemingly unworried.

“What was that about?” I whispered.

Zach said, “We're not sure. The man that Lady Mairead was married to is looking for her. That's all we know. Magnus ran us through some drills the first day and,” he grinned at Emma. “I think we were fuckin' perfect. Like these pastry puffs.”

Emma stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Chef Zach was tall and wiry, about six foot six and a hundred and sixty pounds wet.

I asked, “Her husband is coming by storm?”

Zack shrugged. “I think it's more like an omen, but hey, believe what you want.”

“I'm sorry about this. If I had known about the danger I wouldn't have put your name forward for the job.”

Zach said, “Are you kidding me? This is the best fuckin' job I've ever had. I cook literally anything I want all day long, and Magnus acts like it's the best thing he's ever tasted. Emma and I go shopping and buy whatever looks good, cook enough for eight people, and basically hang out all day with each other, listening to music and watching tv. The occasional lights-out-drill isn't going to send me packing.”

Emma said, “Lady Mairead is quiet, doesn't talk much, but seems to like our food and doesn't care either way what we do, but Magnus is so nice. Just like the nicest guy. Do you like him Katie?”

I looked up the stairs where he had gone. “We're just friends.”

Zach asked, “Will you be staying to dinner? I'm making pasta. Get this, Magnus said he isn't familiar with Italian food, isn't that crazy?”

Suddenly our attention was drawn to the top of the stairs and hushed, arguing voices. Magnus and Lady Mairead were discussing something, heatedly.

“Nae, you canna return Magnus, I winna allow for it.”

Magnus said, “I must, I need tae fight this battle there, rather than here. What would you hae me do, nest as a field mouse in a log while he is a hawk, circling, about tae dive down—”

“Twas dangerous traveling here, but we find ourselves in this place. We must make do. When the time comes we will take it, but now is nae the time.”

“I can kill him. Let me return. I beg of you, Mairead. I should hae done with this, allow me.”

“Nae, tis my answer. You hae sworn tae uphold my word, and I say, nae. Tis a command, ye understand?”

“Aye.”

A few minutes later Magnus entered the kitchen, shaking his head and muttering. Distracted, he asked, “Pray, what meal hae ye prepared tonight, Chef Zach?”

“Italian food.”

“Och aye, tis what ye explained this morn.” He perched on a barstool beside me. “Mistress Kaitlyn, have ye eaten the cuisine of Italy? Chef Zach has assur'd me tis delicious.”

Zach stifled a laugh.

“I have had Italian, it's one of my favorites. But Magnus, I know I keep asking this, is it safe? This is all really scary. You're talking about bad omens and we're all hiding in the kitchen…”

“Nocht will happen. We were nae followed, and my guard is on the walls. I promise tis safe.” He glanced back up the stairs.

We went out on the deck to wait for dinner. Magnus assured me that the boardwalk would be safe, and when I looked back at the house a security guard was standing on an upper deck. We walked out halfway to the sand dunes.

“It's such a beautiful stretch of dunes here, Do you come here often?” I asked.

“I ride here every day, but I daena walk much.”

“If I lived here, I would sit on these dunes for hours every day. And then I'd hunt shark teeth for a couple hours — I guess what I'm saying is I would pretty much live out here.” I grinned at him. “How did you get the horse by the way?”

He sighed. “Tis nae really mine. Madame Debbie is loaning him tae me. She explains that I daena hae permission tae keep it, so tis a matter of time afore the officials will require I relinquish him. There are a great many inscrutable rules.”

“Yes, there are. Not a lot of horses.”

“I am of a mind tae ignore them.” He smiled. “And tis a braw horse by the name of Sunny. A name which fits his disposition, so I daena walk verra often.”

I leaned my forearms on the railing and spotted a small turtle very near the neighbor's walkway about thirty feet away. It was traveling toward the beach. I pointed it out to Magnus. “It's one of the reasons we built these boardwalks to protect the dunes for the animals.”

“For the turtles — you hae gone tae all this effort?”

“Well, not me, specifically, but yes. All along here — this is sea grass. It's so pretty, isn't it, blowing and bending in the breeze? It looks light and airy and only decorative, but the truth is it has roots that grow down into the dunes. The grasses hold the dunes in place, protecting them from the wind and water, and if the dunes are in place then the whole island stays in place. So we protect the sea grass.”

Magnus nodded slowly. “You know much of this land.”

“I grew up here. I moved away, but I came back.” I pushed my shoes off, kicked them to the side, and wiggled my toes happy to have them off. “I came back to get some solid ground under my feet, but there's not a lot about Amelia Island that's solid ground. It's all sand shifting, marsh ebbing and flowing, ocean rising and falling, and wind blowing.”

“There is also a great deal of torrential rain.”

“Well, you, sir, are visiting during one of our wettest months. It seems like a storm every other day.”

“When the storm clouds part though, tis beautiful. In Scotland we hae a word, turadh, a break in the clouds.”

I tried to say it. “Turad?”

He smiled and said it again. “Turadh. Exactly. In Scotland though, we hae far fewer breaks in our clouds.”

“So it's gray there?” I turned to lean my back against the rail. From the corner of my eye his shirt was pulled tight across his shoulders, a curl of his hair fluttering a bit on his cheek in the wind. Our shoulders had been almost touching, and now I regretted turning and making the gap between our arms wider. “That would be hard on me, I grew up in sunny Florida and lived for a while in sunnier California. I like a bright blue sky overhead.”

“You would nae like it much then, tis verra dreich weather.”

“What does dreek mean?”

“Tis Gaelic for miserable weather. In Scotland tis dreich and terrible because ye must wander about in it anyway.”

The light was changing. The sunset dropping behind the house, a luminous pink, a bright blue overhead, meeting deep black from the edge of the ocean. Black pushing against blue pushing against pink. Sea grass bowed toward the sunsetting sky. Security stood watch at the end of the deck, and Magnus, big, still, secure, and warm as the breeze, leaning on the railing, a smile at the edge of his mouth, his jawline within kissing distance. “Do ye see this sky Mistress Kaitlyn? Tis as if the sun is pulling a blanket of stars over your land.”

“Over your land and your house.”

He chuckled, but seemed as if there was a hint of sadness to it. “I hae only borrowed the land, the house, the time, tis nae truly mine.”

“It hasn't been mine for a long while either, I was living in Los Angles, until just a couple of weeks ago.”

“And where is this Los Angeles?”

I searched his expression for a sign that he was joking, but his eyes were serious. “It's in California. The west coast. One of the biggest cities in the world. Where movies are made?”

Magnus nodded. “Och aye, of course, Los Angeles.”

We were quiet for a moment, watching the sky as the light met dark and battled for supremacy in the middle.

Magnus asked, “What happened tae ye, Mistress Kaitlyn?”

I laughed a bit. “You saw the video, right? Quentin and James showed you?”

“Aye, they hae shewed me, but they shewed me much that needed further explanations. I hae grown used to your teachings, and would consider it a great favor for ye tae give me the history of it.”

“You know... I don't really want to talk about it?”

“Tis your prerogative, I winna do ye a disservice and press further on the subject.”

“Good.”

But he had already seen it. He was forming opinions on it with or without my explanations. I sighed. “Are we friends?”

“Aye, we hae shared a beer and a laugh.”

“If I show you the video, you might…” Tears welled up a bit. I was able to blink them back, but couldn't trust myself to keep talking. I took a couple of deep breaths.

“Might what?”

“Think I'm awful. Terrible. An old vengeful hag or something.”

“How auld do ye take me for, Mistress Kaitlyn?”

“I don't know, same as me, twenty-three or so?”

“Twenty-one. I suppose a grown man of twenty-one might yet know how tae wipe his ass and where tae relieve himself in a civilized manner, yet I found myself in a cruel predicament just a few days back. Twas a woman, much like ye'self, that shewed me how tae perform those duties, and she did it with much good humor and grace, without any malice. I would wish tae repay her with the same good faith and humor if she found herself in need of my opinion.”

I screwed my face up considering. “You promise? You won't think I'm terrible?”

“Nae, and I hae already seen the story.”

“Okay, fine, but after dinner.”