Page 66 of Some Like It Scot
However, when I brought out the Irn-Bru and baps, along with some cookies, his admiration for me resurfaced.
“I was told a proper fishing excursion required a snack of baps.” I raised the bread roll for his view. “I think there’s bacon and eggs in these.”
“Aye.” He laid his fishing pole down and moved to my side, his grin crinkling up his freckled nose. “And some biscuits too.”
“Right.” I placed the bap and “biscuits” on a napkin in front of him and handed him one of the Irn-Brus.
“But they dinnae call them biscuits where you’re from, do they?”
I shook my head. “We call them cookies, but they taste great all the same.”
He nodded and took a bite of the bap. “And do you have Irn-Bru where you live?”
I looked down at the orange drink, a little skeptical. It came with its own online reputation. “Some stores probably sell it, but I’ve never had any before. It’s not a common drink for Americans.”
So he waited, brows raised in anticipation. Whew, the pressure mounted as he watched me taste the liquid.
And whatever expression I made as the bubblegum-flavored soda washed over my tongue brought the most surprised look to Lachlan’s face.
“You dinnae like it?”
Nope. “I think it might take some getting used to.”
His brows pinched and he took a large drink of his Irn-Bru, then sent me a look, saying,That’s how it’s done. I covered my laugh with a bite of my bap. If life involved friendships with witty and sweet eight-year-olds, then maybe I wouldn’t be so... afeart.
Suddenly Lachlan’s fishing pole started to jerk on the nearby rock where he’d placed it.
“I got one,” he called, cramming the rest of the bap into his mouth and rushing to the pole. Wedge joined in on the abrupt excitement as Lachlan mounted the rock, but Lachlan must have jumped in a different direction than Wedge planned. The boy and the dog got tangled.
Lachlan fell hard on the other side of the rock, and Wedge yelped before dashing back a few steps. I set my drink down and rushed to the other side of the rock where the little boy was slowly sitting up, grabbing at his leg.
A whimper sounded from both the dog and the boy. Wedge drew close, sniffing at Lachlan’s hair, his ears low. Poor fella. But Lachlan? A deep cut, already pooling with blood, marked from his knee down toward his ankle. At least four inches long. And deep.
“Hold on. I have some bandages.”
I ran to my bag and brought it back along with me, the little boy’s lips pressed tight as he tried to hold in his tears.
Oh! I wanted to hug him.
“Does anything else hurt besides your knee?”
He shook his head and tried to move his leg, then stopped with a wince. “My ankle.”
I drew in a breath and stared up at the sky just as the first drops of rain fell on my face. We had—at least—a half hour walk back to Glenkirk, and that was without a little limping boy.
“I’m going to bandage up your leg, Lachlan.” I started pulling supplies out of my bag. With my track record of clumsiness, I always came prepared. I opened my water bottle. “I’m going to pour some water over the wound. Okay?” He nodded and I took out my water bottle and cleaned off the blood as best I could. Ooh! That was a doozy of a fall. “We should have you cleaned up in no time.”
And then he sniffled.
My hands paused as I started to wipe the wound with a cloth. “I’m sorry it hurts.”
He shook his head and looked away.
“I’ll try to be as gentle as I can, Lachlan, but I know you’re a strong boy, and it’s okay if you need to cry.”
He looked up at me then, those large blue eyes of his glossy from a sheen of tears, and my heart squeezed at the sight. “My mummy used to say that.”
Used to? I clenched my teeth to steady my emotions. “Well, she was right. Must be where you got your smarts from.”
