“He did,” Sam said. “He learned a very important lesson about cooperation, the value of teamwork, and the importance of determination in achieving your dreams. After that, they used Scrooge’s fortune to found Scrooge & Cratchit Ghost Hunters Ltd—” He pronounced the individual letters LTD, on purpose, making Charlie groan. “—which is now international, with branch offices in twenty-nine countries. Motto:Hasta la vista and God bless us every one.”
“Well, you’re absolutely right,” Maggie said. “I have never heard the story told exactly like that before.”
“Do you want to tell a story, Cara?” Charlie asked. “It couldn’t possibly be any worse than that one.”
Cara didn’t reply, and Maggie sat up to look over at her. “I think she fell asleep.”
Sam laughed softly. “Let her sleep. We’ll just keep our voices down.”
It was pleasant with just the three of them. The fire was warm, casting its flickering light through the room. As strange and improvised a Christmas Eve as this had been, Sam found himself content. He had his daughter on one side of him, and the woman he was pretty sure he was falling in love with nestled up soft and snug against his other side. Both of them, all three of them, were safe and warm.
Whatever awaited them in the morning, he couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than to relax in this moment and simply exist.
MAGGIE
Christmas morning dawnedwhite and brilliant. The storm had blown itself out in the night, leaving the world sleeping beneath a heavy, thick blanket of snow.
Maggie stood looking out of one of the uncovered windows across the wintry vista under a newly risen sun. She was starting to feel the lack of a toothbrush and hairbrush, and definitely suffering the aftereffects of a night spent on a hard wooden floor. The power was back on, but that didn’t help when there was nothing to cook. They had each saved back a packaged snack for breakfast; hers was a granola bar, which she chewed on slowly to make it last.
It seemed likely that Maggie would be the one to fly back to bring help, but as it turned out, there was no need. The first sign Maggie had was a brief flash of a very large shadow on the snow, followed by the thump on the roof.
Charlie appeared out of the kitchen, where she and Sam were melting snow in a small tin camp pot Cara had produced. “What the heck was that?”
“I don’t know.” Maggie looked up nervously, only to flinch back as something very fast-moving and very large went down the side of the house in a scrabble of claws.
A moment later, the door opened and closed, and a man’s voice called, “Anyone home?”
“Barnaby!” Sam went to greet him. “I figured you’d come looking. You’re the biggest flying shifter any of us know.”
Barnaby was tall, dark-haired, and handsome in a nondescript way, wearing a charcoal topcoat over a gray sweater and dark slacks. If Maggie had seen him on some typical city sidewalk, she wouldn’t have looked twice at him. He must have shifted, she thought, and he was still wearing his clothes; ergo, he was a dragon, or something like it. Having met Cara, she wondered how many different kinds of shifters there were in the world that she had never heard of.
“There are a couple of shifter search teams out looking for you, but I figured I’d check this place first. Joy and Leah tell me you’ve got your head screwed on straight—well, that was Leah, as you could probably guess—and I figured if you were in trouble, you’d know to head for the nearest source of shelter.”
“You might think that, but you’d be wrong. Maggie was the one who found it. Maggie, come here and meet Barnaby Grey.”
“Bar to my friends.” He graciously shook her hand, then Sam introduced him to Charlie, and Cara poked her head in as well. Bar was exactly as well-mannered as if every day he found a party of squatters in his newly constructed mansion.
“If you’d be okay sitting tight for an hour or so, I’ll fly out and contact the search teams, and we should have you back to the lodge before lunchtime.”
“Lunch, my favorite word,” Sam said, and Bar laughed.
As he turned away, he tossed over his shoulder, “Merry Christmas!”
The door let in a rush of cold air, but Maggie stepped forward to see if she could get a look at what he turned into. She wasn’t disappointed. Bar stepped off the porch, shimmered, and sprawled forward as the shining, scaly coils of a golden dragon,gleaming like hammered brass in the morning sun. He took off in a backwash of snow.
“Holy cow,” Charlie said behind her.
“Leah says he breathes fire, but I’m not sure if that’s just Leah being Leah.” Sam glanced toward Cara, as if abruptly remembering there was someone outside the family present. “Do you want to collect your things? The offer to come with us is still open.”
“Thank you,” Cara whispered, and she hurried off. There were sounds of rustling as she gathered up her scant belongings.
Maggie moved close to Sam, and he slid an arm around her waist. “What do you think?” Sam asked her quietly. “Think we can trust her?”
“Why are you asking me? You have a lot more experience at this kind of thing than I do.”
“Yeah, but your instincts are good,” Sam said. “I tend to go off facts and logic. But there’s a time for simply making leaps of intuition. What are your instincts telling you about Cara?”
“That she’s sincere,” Maggie said slowly. “And she’s wounded and alone. I don’t think she’s trying to deceive us or has any harmful intent.”
