“You …” She blinked. “You have a private jet?”

“No. But my employer does. No’ that I canna afford my own, but why waste money on two?”

“Y-you can afford your own plane?”

“Aye. One or two.”

“One or …” She closed her eyes and swallowed. Focus. Stay focused. “Again, that doesn’t change the fact that you have no clothes now.”

“I have a shirt. I found this big T-shirt in your things.” He indicated a shirt he’d been holding in his hand. He put it on to demonstrate, shrugging into it and pulling it down.

“That’s a nightshirt. And what were you doing in my things?” she demanded.

“Looking for a shirt,” he said with a grin. “Doona worry, I only touched your underwear a li’le.”

“You—” She was gearing up to yell at him, but then realized he was teasing her. Despite herself, she found herself fighting back a smile. “You have nothing to wear on the bottom.”

“This’ll do for now.” He indicated the towel and the way the shirt came down low on his body.

She eyed him dubiously. “Maybe I have some sweatpants …” She trailed off … because they both knew that even her baggiest sweatpants wouldn’t come close to fitting him. She was too small and he was too big. As it was her nightshirt was busting at the seams.

“Doona worry. I’m no’ human, Kat. I willna feel the cold like a regular man would. And if it gets tae be too much I’ll change into my stone skin.”

The truth was he could be just as sensitive to the cold as any other man might be after a certain level of exposure. And changing into his stone skin was out of the question. He wouldn’t risk not being able to change back.

“I gather there’s one or two houses between here and there,” he went on. “Is there no one you know close to my build?”

“No.” No one. Everyone she knew was six feet tops. And she didn’t know that many men to begin with. She didn’t socialize all that much with the townsfolk. She did her shopping forty miles away in the twenty-four-hour Walmart that didn’t care about the fact that she could only shop in the dark.

“Then it is what it is. The sooner we start the better off we’ll be. So let’s go.”

“I don’t want to go,” she whined as he took her hand and tugged her along in his wake. “It’s so cold out there and so warm in here. I tell you what, I’ll snuggle with you if we stay by the fire.”

That brought him up short, causing her to slam into his broad back. That was how she came to realize just how good he smelled. He seemed to think about her proposal very seriously, but with a sigh he went on into the bedroom.

“I’ll take a rain check,” he promised her.

And if she hadn’t thought she was in hot water before, she now had no doubts about it.

“Snowshoes,” she grumbled, stepping wide with every step. Karma was of course loving every minute of the trek, bounding with endless energy ahead of them, her tongue lolling happily. She would tire out eventually, her big body weighing her down, but for now she was happy. They were just passing Huntsmen’s Lodge, a very small ski resort farther down the mountain from her. The runs were dark, night skiing out of the question when there were no lights to be had. She could imagine any visitors would be chomping at the bit for daybreak.

It was right about then that she ran full force into something. The impact knocked her over and she went down in the snow, her head spinning. Ahnvil was by her side in a second, helping her out of the snow.

Bella ran full force into something, going down on her ass in the snow. She went so deep that she was covered like a sugar cookie from tip to toe. She spit snow out as Jacob helped her back up to her feet.

“What was that?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Damned if I know,” she said. “I ran into something.”

Jacob was looking around and seeing absolutely nothing around her save unblemished snow. He grinned and readied to tease her.

“I did not trip!” Kat said indignantly. “I ran into something.” She looked around after Ahnvil had helped her to her feet. The snow was swished all around from her flailing, but as she looked she realized there was a set of footprints leading right up to where she was and then as much disturbed snow as there was on her side.

“That’s … strange …?” she said questioningly, as if looking for verification. “It looks like I ran into someone, but there’s no one there.”

“Kat lass, there’s nothing but unblemished snow all around us. No one has been through here but us.”

“No! Look! See the footprints?”

“I doona see any footprints,” he argued with her.

“They’re right there!” She pointed at them.

“Kat …”

“Wait.” She cooled her temper and tried to think. For some reason, a reason she would never know, she took off her glove, leaned forward and slowly pressed her hand into a spot of new snow. It left behind a perfect handprint.

To her shock after a moment a second handprint appeared right next to it, pressed there by a seemingly invisible hand.

“Holy shit! Tell me you don’t see that!” She pointed. “That handprint.”

“Of course, I do. You just made it.”

“No, I mean the one right next to it!”

“Kat, there’s only one—” He cut himself off, looking at her like she’d lost her mind as she ignored him and slowly drew a heart in the snow. A second heart appeared right next to it and then a name.

Bella.

“Whoa. It’s a ghost,” she breathed. Any other day, any day before having met a Gargoyle, she would never have believed any such thing. But this wasn’t any other day.

“I still doona see anything.”

“Well, I can!” Bella said belligerently to her husband. Then she gasped as a name began to appear in the snow.

Kat.

“Look, her name is Kat!”

“Bella—”

“Oh, hush up!” she said irritably. “Let me think! This means something. It has to mean something. It means something, too, that I can see it but you can’t! Okay, so her name, and I’m assuming it’s a her, is Kat.” She then proceeded to have what looked like, from his perspective, a completely one-sided conversation with herself in the snow. She asked questions like Who are you? Are you dead? Why can’t I see you?