Page 6 of Arctic Panda's Secret Mate
It looked like they’d brought a pair of dogs with them, but they were furthest away and Haisley couldn’t quite make them out. Probably, they were the reason that she’d been laid off for the rental, if they thought that pets would be unwelcome. Hopefully, they wouldn’t do much damage!
A brief snowball skirmish ended when the smallest figure got mistakenly hit in the face and fell over.
Everyone else froze as one of the larger men went to scoop her up out of the snowbank, but she was laughing, and her hat fell off her head to reveal long, pure white hair.
An old lady? That might explain why everyone seemed so protective of her.
They explored the property after that, and some of them found shovels and cleared the path to the garage and around to the back door. Haisley kept her room light off, because it was starting to get dark, and she didn’t want them to be able to see in through the blinds. It was so awkward to be hiding in her own home.
But of course, it wasn’t her home.
She washired help, and she could beunhiredjust as easily.
They found the skis and sleds, and quickly figured out that the new snow was too fluffy for good sledding. One athletic couple strapped on skis and set out on the shortest trail. (Had they read about the trails in Haisley’s welcome book? She hoped so. She’d tried to make the descriptions funny as well as useful.)
It continued to snow, and the old lady made a show of trying unsuccessfully to catch the flakes on her tongue. She was very spry for her age.
The clouds on the horizon thinned just enough for sunset to cast a few rays of light across the piled snow, and limn everything in rose gold.
Everyone stopped to watch it, clustering into pairs,except for one lone figure who wrapped arms around himself.
Haisley wished she could be at the door to greet them with warm towels and hot cider. She truly loved making people welcome in the chalet and finding out where they were from and hearing all the details of their lives. Was the white-haired woman a matriarch of their clan? Was this a family reunion? There was an ease between them all that suggested a strong relationship… except for the one figure by himself, and Haisley wanted his story most of all.
As the sunset faded, everyone moved out of her sight, around the other side of the building. Haisley nearly turned from the window to find something she could occupy herself with without making too much noise or light when what she had assumed were dogs streaked by.
And they werenotdogs.
It was a pair of leopards, one of them gold and black, the other a fluffy, long-tailed snow leopard, and they cavorted past Haisley’s window so fast that Haisley blinked and they were gone.
She rubbed her eyes, trying to convince herself that it was just the failing light that made her see them as anything other than dogs.
But she’d seen them soclearly.
Pet leopards?
Thatcertainly explained her dismissal. Leopards were not legal pets here, even if they were so well-trained that they were allowed to run free without a collar to leash to.
Haisley chuckled. Every time that she thought she’d seen everything that wealthy people could do, they managed to surprise her.
Leopards!
What was next? Trained bears?
7
TRISTAN
Tristan’s glasses frosted up the moment he stepped outside, turning the world into a blurry fog. He took the glasses off and rubbed off the ice with his fingertip, only to have them ice immediately up again when he put them back on.
Tristan wished he’d been bold enough to come out as a bear when he saw how much fun Darla and Breck were having in the snow. His overall snow pants pinched at the shoulders, and he hadn’t fully tucked them into his boots, so snow immediately fell in and melted down to make his socks damp and his feet uncomfortable.
He tried to enjoy the experience anyway, and he eventually figured out how to keep his glasses from frosting with each breath. Snow really was as wonderful as he’d hoped. It was gorgeous and it didn’t feel anything like rain when it fell on him, so light and fluffy and silent that everything seemed a little unreal.
The experience soured slightly when his snowball hit Gizelle in the face because she darted in front of his realtarget, and for one godawful moment, he was sure that Conall was actually going to kill him.
It would be easy enough to bury his body in snow, and they wouldn’t find him until spring, probably. But Gizelle popped happily back up to her feet with Conall’s help, and her laughter was Tristan’s death row pardon.
Saina and Bastian put on skis, but Tristan didn’t want to be a third wheel with them, so he just watched the slow, subtle sunset and drank in the beauty of the view before turning to look at the chalet behind them. It was a gorgeous building, all wood and windows and private porches, with deep roof overhangs that made a great deal of sense given the quantity of snow. It pleased his sense of beauty as well as practical appreciation for its sturdiness and attention to detail.
