Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Yes, but I’m more curious howyou’veheard about gold diggers.”
“I’m serious! There was this guy, I saw a video about it, this lady convinced him to date her by pretending to be his dead wife’s best friend, but actually it was because she wanted his money, and she got all his passwords and?—”
“I’m starting to be concerned about the videos you’re watching. Anyway, we’re not rich, and Maggie isn’t pretending anything like that.”
“Isn’t she?” Charlie asked, scowling. “She knows getting in good with you is the way to get her name cleared. If more stuff is getting stolen, and she’s doing it?—”
“Charlie. Honey.” He stopped and put his hands on her shoulders. “Knock it off. I’m serious. I understand that you’re concerned about me, and whatever happens with me and Maggie, I’ll keep communications open with you, but?—”
“What’shappening with you and Maggie?” Charlie’s face changed to a slowly dawning look of horror.
“Nothing!” Sam said hastily. “Absolutely nothing. Yet. And I will tell you if anything does.”
“Ugh, Dad. Ugh.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t tell meanything.”
Sam laughed and gave her a brief hug. “I’ve already had breakfast, but you still need to eat. You want to go out there on the lawn first? Shift and run around a bit?”
“Later, maybe.” She shook off his arm, but in a more cheerful way. “Actually, I got invited out skiing. It’s a group of cousins, about my age, who are here with their parents, all the way from Sweden. Can I go?”
“Let me meet them first.”
He was soon introduced to a family of tall, cheerful Swedish moose shifters—apparently called elk there, which created a bit of confusion. Once the laughing explanations were out of the way, Sam felt safe enough handing his daughter off into their keeping for the day. They took her off to breakfast, and Sam surreptitiously looked around for Maggie, but there was no sign of her. She must be busy in the kitchen.
Charlie’s suspicions about Maggie wanting to scam him were logical enough with what she knew, but also completely unfounded. Con artistry had never been Maggie’s type of crime. Sam had plenty of opportunity in his line of work to talk to liars, and there was a sincerity to Maggie that he didn’t think could be faked. But talking to Charlie about it reminded him that he was not the only person whose happiness was on the line.
He had been very careful about dating, especially when Charlie was younger. It had taken them a long time to get over losing her mother, to the extent that anyone ever did get over that, and he was acutely conscious that he couldn’t allow his daughter to get attached to another mom-figure who was going to walk out of her life. Unfortunately this meant, for a long time,never really getting attached to anyone at all. He didn’t dare date casually, and that meant, in general, not dating at all.
Charlie was older now, and more capable of understanding that her dad needed adult companionship as well as hers. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was get involved with someone who was going to hurt her. Hurt both of them.
Even if his stallion remained absolutely convinced that Maggie was the one for them, he couldn’t let his heart go easily. Not with his daughter’s heart at stake, as well.
MAGGIE
After she had helped cleanup from the breakfast rush and set out the grab-and-go buffet that the lodge offered for lunch, Maggie was free until evening. She hadn’t seen Hester in hours; presumably the lodge’s always-on-the-go owner was hard at work elsewhere, or taking the opportunity for a well earned nap. Maggie cleaned up, fluffed her hair a little from its hairnetted flatness, and went to see if Sam was around.
Running into Sam by chance in a place the size of the lodge and its grounds ought to have been difficult. But Maggie had an sense that she could find him working on the case somewhere. She investigated the auction tables, noting that there was now a sign reading, THIS LOCATION MONITORED BY CCTV, and two discreet cameras had been set up. Better late than never, she supposed, and firmly squashed her magpie’s attempt to provide input on circumventing the camera angles.
She wandered down the hall to the exit door, where she found that her instincts were exactly correct. There was a horse on the snow-covered back lawn.
In a hotel full of shifters, there was no way she could be entirely sure this was Sam. But Maggie knew anyway. She hadnever been that much of a horse girl, but Sam just might turn her into one.
He was a huge, beautiful, red-brown stallion. Maggie didn’t know the proper names of horse colors, but maybe this was what they called chestnut. Muscles rippled beneath his smooth, gleaming coat in gorgeous contrast to the pristine snow, bringing out the richness of his colors and the creamy splash of a broad white stripe on his nose.
He took a careful step in the snow, lifting his foot carefully like a show horse, and lowered his head with a graceful arch of the beautiful neck. Maggie couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing. Nibbling the snow? The grass under it? Whatever it was, he was perfectly focused on it.
After a couple more graceful steps, he raised his head and looked in her direction, ears twitching forward. She had done nothing that she was aware of to make him notice her, but maybe he had scented her. Or perhaps it was something more primal, the same urge that had broughtherhere, right to where he was.
High-stepping through the snow, he trotted back to the overhang and shifted. Maggie was suddenly treated to a searing eyeful of a naked Sam. He was just as muscular as the horse, with a light dusting of salt in the otherwise pepper chest hair, and that was all she saw before she turned her back, face flaming.
“Sorry,” Sam said, not really sounding sorry.
“It’s only fair.” Maggie hoped her flaming blush was hidden by her hair. “You’ve seen me, after all.”
“Yeah.” Sam’s voice was low and husky. “I did.”
When she looked around, he was safely back in his jeans and boots, buttoning up his shirt. She told herself she wasn’t at all disappointed by that.
“Were you grazing?” she asked, lips twitching.
