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“Why?”

“Because I’ve been here one day, and I refuse to be responsible for teaching you the full Grandma Bennett repertoire.”

Jamie considered that while dividing the eggs between two wooden plates. “It sounds worth the risk.”

“It isn’t.”

“A pity.”

He carried the food to the table as she sat across from him. Jamie watched as she took the first bite and dipped her bread into the yolk. He waited, but there wasn’t any lecture about laws or duty to the Crown. She’d heard the tax, sworn at the government, and moved directly to the midday meal. That wasn’t at all the reaction he’d expected.

“You said ye grew up in a pub.”

“Above one.”

“Your father kept it?”

“My grandmother.”

“Your grandmother Bennett?”

“Yes?” Then she blinked as he arched a brow. “I went back to my maiden name after my husband died.”

But she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Maybe she’d run from a cruel man, it wouldna be the first time.

Jamie had seen homesickness before. Men carried it differently, especially sailors and soldiers who had gone too far from their own glens, but the look itself was much the same, a brief distance entering the eyes even while the body remained exactly where it was. He could have asked, pressed her about her story, but instead he ate his eggs.

“What did ye do in this pub besides learn about whisky and invent insults?”

Olivia relaxed enough to smile. “Stayed out of trouble.”

Jamie waited.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Mostly out of trouble.”

“Did ye like it?”

The question seemed to surprise her. She looked down at the bread in her hand before answering. “Growing up there?”

“Aye.”

“I loved it.” Her smile changed, losing some of its sharpness.

“It was noisy and crowded, and somebody was always yelling up the stairs because they needed Grandma. I knew which regular would sneak me cherries from the bar and which one cheated at cards, and everybody thought they were helping raise me.”

Jamie could picture it too easily, a small dark-haired Olivia planted in the middle of a room full of men, listening to everything and missing very little. “Sounds a bit like a glen.”

She shifted on the bench. “There was one incident.”

Jamie settled back. “Aye?”

“I was nine.”

“That sounds promising.”

“A man owed my grandmother money.”

The man in question had apparently refused to pay what he owed while continuing to drink in the pub as though nothing had happened, and some weeks later he’d made the mistake of boasting about an expensive bottle of wine he’d purchased at auction.