“Dinner?” She tilted her head. “That’s a pretty big commitment for someone you just met.”
He shrugged. A gesture that was as unfamiliar to him as inviting a stranger to join him for a meal. “I’ve got a good feeling about you.”
Her gaze softened. “You do?”
“Is that a yes?”
She was so pretty, especially when she smiled.
“Yes.”
They got a table, and a server brought them menus. Clark pointed out a few of the dishes he liked best, since he’d come here pretty often over the last month. Whenever he didn’t feel like cooking in his cramped camper kitchen.
“So,” he said, once they’d placed their orders and gotten their drinks. “You’re obviously not from around here. What brings you to Torridon?”
Riley bit her lip, studying him. “I’m a little nervous to tell you.”
“How come?”
“People tend to look at me a little differently when they find out.”
Clark tried to rack his brain for something that would make him not like her. “Are you in fracking?”
She shook her head. “You’ve heard of the curse on Arden Castle, right?”
Ah, so she was a tourist. It made sense. Clark had encountered a few people visiting Torridon because of the local lore. He didn’t blame her for being embarrassed about putting any stock in the silly fairy tale; the idea of a curse on the castle was as outrageous as any of the local legends about mythical monsters.
“I have, yes.”
He certainly wasn’t going to tell her that the curse was just one of many things making his path to professional redemption harder.
“I looked into the history of Arden Castle quite a bit before coming to Torridon.” Reaching into his briefcase, Clark pulled out one of the books he’d gotten on special order from a local university press and extended it to her. “You might find this interesting.”
Riley took the book eagerly, studying both the cover and back copy with care before leafing through the pages.
“This is fantastic.” After a few more moments of careful inspection, she handed the book back with obvious reluctance. “Thank you for showing me. It’s harder than you think to find research on Arden.”
“Keep it,” he said impulsively, handing it back. He wouldn’t dampen her sightseeing vacation by sharing that even Historic Environment Scotland, the preservation group tasked with protecting heritage sites, didn’t think Arden Castle was worthy of proper excavation efforts.
He guessed they were a poorly funded, resource-strapped government body. But still, they’d been more than happy to let upstart land developers purchase the historic property with the meager stipulation that they bring in a contract archaeologist to check for any “salient” artifacts remaining in the crumbling castle before they turned it into a tourist destination to rival Nessieland.
After everyone suitable had turned them down, the HES didn’t even care that Clark specialized in a totally different time period and region. As long as they could say they’d sent someone with the bare minimum of qualifications, they could wipe their hands of the entire matter.
Clark tried to do a good job anyway, to bring whatever semblance of process and procedure he could to the assignment. He hoped, however fruitlessly, to find something worth studying. Something he could publish, really, so that the only journal articles with his name on them weren’t the—now retracted—ones on Cádiz.
“Are you sure?” Riley looked down at the book again, flipping it open to run her fingers reverently across the pages.
“Absolutely.” Clark had finished it, and besides, he had plenty of others.
“Thank you.” She placed the book carefully in her lap, spreading out her napkin to protect it. “Curses are always hard to pin down in documentation. They’re difficult to visualize, and half the time, people who have experienced a curse are too afraid or ashamed to write anything down.”
Wow. She seemed to have spent a lot of time thinking about curses.
“You genuinely believe in this stuff, then? You’re not having me on?” Clark supposed it wasn’t that different from his mom getting into astrology a few years ago. Apparently, he was a textbook Capricorn. Whatever that meant. He certainly didn’t put any stock in pseudoscience, and Riley’s interest in the occult seemed to him a similarly harmless misconception.
“Oh, no, I’m a firm believer.” Riley carefully moved her water, making room as the waiter delivered their food—a pair of burgers and fries. “I guess you could say it’s sort of an obsession for my family. My grandmother wrote a whole book about it.”
“Really?” Despite himself, Clark was fascinated.
Though he didn’t ideologically align with the subject matter, he knew from colleagues how difficult it was to both write and publish a novel. And on such a polarizing topic. She must have been a very gifted storyteller indeed.
“That’s certainly impressive.”
“Gran was one of a kind.” Riley popped a fry in her mouth, then licked a trace of salt off her thumb.
Clark momentarily forgot how to chew.
“I spent every summer with her in the mountains—and she tried to teach me as much as she could about curses—but she passed when I was nine.” Her voice held traces of a sadness still raw after all these years, but her eyes remained clear. “I still wish almost every day that I could ask her a question, get her advice.”
“She sounds very special.” Clark certainly couldn’t begrudge Riley for holding on to stories shared by a beloved grandmother.
While they worked to clear their plates, the woman across from him continued to surprise him, to make him laugh. When he asked about her hometown, she described the place simply by enumerating its local culinary delicacies—soft pretzels, roast pork sandwiches with broccoli rabe, water ice （pronounced wooder ice, and which was neither water nor ice but instead some kind of in-between slush）， and something called Tastykakes, which sounded truly appalling—and proudly talking about how her city’s sports fans were some of the most hated nationwide. To his surprise, she didn’t think much of cheesesteaks, though she insisted that if he did have one, he should go to Woodrow’s.
She asked him about himself too—about growing up in Manchester and how he’d chosen his specialization in archaeology and whether people had made a lot of Superman jokes when he was growing up, dark haired and square jawed （yes）。
The night passed like a dream, everything but Riley blurred into soft focus, the pub emptying around them as visitors went home to prepare for the week ahead.
He paid, though she sincerely tried to get him to split it, suggesting they settle the matter in a thumb war, an offer he indulged purely for the chance to hold her hand. His life could do with an influx of whimsy.
By the time they stepped outside, the sky above was dark as pitch.
“Whoa,” Riley said, tipping her head back. “Get a load of those stars.”
Clark stopped and looked up too, at a scattering of constellations winking down at them. He alternated his gaze between Riley’s rapt face and the wonders above, his belly pleasantly full, crisp air against his hot cheeks.