“Aye. Sometimes.” He gave a small, breathless laugh and let go of me. A thunder of small feet came down the hallway, and I hastily flung myself back into his arms as the door burst open and Jem rushed in, Fanny right behind him.

“Grandda! There’s a wolf outside! It’ll eat the piggies!”

Fanny gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth, eyes round with horror. Not at thought of the piglets’ imminent demise, but at the realization that Jamie was naked. I was shielding as much of him from view as I could with my nightgown, but there wasn’t a great deal of nightgown and there was a great deal of Jamie.

“Go back to bed, sweetheart,” I said, as calmly as possible. “If it’s a wolf, Mr. Fraser will deal with it.”

“Moran taing, Sassenach,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. Thanks a lot. “Jem, throw me my plaid, aye?”

Jem, to whom a naked grandfather was a routine sight, fetched the plaid from its hook by the door.

“Can I come and help kill the wolf?” he asked hopefully. “I could shoot it. I’m better than Da, he says so!”

“It’s no a wolf,” Jamie said briefly, swathing his loins in faded tartan. “The two of ye go and tell Mandy it’s all right, before she brings the roof down about our ears.” The howling had grown louder, and so had Mandy’s, in hysterical response. From the look on her face, Fanny was all set to join them.

Bree appeared in the door, looking like the Archangel Michael, all flowing white robe and ferocious hair, with Roger’s sword in her hand. Fanny let out a small whimper at the sight.

“What were ye planning to do wi’ that, a nighean?” Jamie inquired, nodding at the sword as he prepared to pull his shirt over his head. “I dinna think ye can run a ghost through.”

Fanny looked goggle-eyed from Bree to Jamie, then sat down on the floor with a thump and buried her head in her knees.

Jem was goggle-eyed, too. “A ghost,” he said blankly. “A ghost wolf?”

I glanced uneasily at the window. Jemmy was old enough to have heard of werewolves … and the word conjured up an unpleasantly vivid picture in my own mind, as a particularly desolate and penetrating moan pierced the momentary silence.

“I told ye, it’s no a wolf,” Jamie said, sounding both cross and resigned. “It’s a dog.”

“Rollo?” Jemmy exclaimed, in tones of horror. “He’s come back?”

Fanny jerked her head up, wide-eyed, Bree made an involuntary noise, and just as involuntarily I grabbed Jamie’s arm again.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, rather mildly under the circumstances, and detached my grip. “I doubt it.” But I’d felt the wiry hairs on his arm bristling at the thought, and my own skin rippled into gooseflesh.