Sara's Surprise (13 page)

"How old is he?"

"He just had his first birthday."

"Oh, Kyle, at that age children are likely to be shy with strangers. They're starting to form distinct likes and dislikes, and sometimes they're so erratic that you can't ever figure them out. Don't let your nephew's reaction worry you."

Suddenly she took his face between her hands. Kyle stiffened with self-defense. He wouldn't let himself feel anything, even though she was gazing at him so tenderly that he wanted to kiss her.

"You'll many some very lucky woman someday, and you'll have children," she assured him. "And they'll adore you."

He pulled her hands down. "I won't invade your lab if you won't touch my face."

"Kyle, you don't think that your scars have anything to do with my reasons"

"I don't want to talk about it." He forced a smile and squeezed out of her hands. "So, Doc. You seem know a lot about babies. Let me guessyou're bottle-feeding a litter of geraniums in the lab. Tell me where you learned so much about motherhood."

Her skin was fair; it revealed changes in her mood with a speed that amazed him. Right now it was like watching color radar on a weather map. A cold front had just arrived.

"What's for breakfast?" she asked sharply. "Pancakes and interrogation? Is it going to be like this at every meal?"

"Not if you come to the table on time." Puzzled by her sharp reaction to an innocent question, he got up and went to the stove. "Lunch is at twelve. We'll drive over to Lexington after that. I'm tired of having dishpan hands, so I'll take you out to dinner."

"There's something I forgot to tell you last night. My groceries are being delivered this afternoon. Remember Tom and Lucy Wayne, the couple I've mentioned? They'll bring the supplies. Then Lucy will do some housework, and Tom's going to rake leaves." 

"So you're saying that you want to postpone the trip?"

Kyle eyed her warily when she came over to him and leaned against the counter, smiling sweetly. "Could we go to Lexington tomorrow?" she asked, her elfs face looking too sincere. "Just think. I won't be in the lab this afternoon. I'll be right here, with you and Tom and Lucy. When they're not looking, you can twist my arm and try to make me answer more questions. You'll get to pester me all afternoon."

He pursed his lips. "Okay. That sounds like fun."

"I thought you'd like the idea."

She poured a cup of coffee and walked to the table. Her jeans contained an unmistakable and very sassy sway of victory. He decided to let her enjoy it while she could.

Tom and Lucy Wayne were simple, gentle people who worked hard and asked few questions. Their presence at the keep provided a welcome emotional buffer. Kyle, silent and brooding, went outside and helped Tom rake leaves. Sara dusted windows but found herself peering out distractedly, watching Kyle work.

"I'm r-ready for th-the wax, S-Sara."

Lucy Wayne's timid voice startled her. Sara smiled at her reassuringly. "Sorry. I forgot. It's right there." Sara pointed to a plastic bottle on the dining room table.

Lucy bobbed a head on which was wound a scraggly, white-blond braid. She grabbed the wax, darted a look at Sara from behind thick glasses, and hurried away, her skinny legs flapping inside ancient bell-bottom jeans.

Kyle came to get a drink of water, and to watch Sara polish colorful panes of glass set in a star pattern in the dining room windows. She glanced at him and was caught in the mesmerizing closeness of his solemn blue eyes. "Yes?"

"You won't let anyone else onto the grounds," he said, frowning, "but you trust Tom and Lucy, and they're two of the strangest characters I've ever seen."

"My mother hired them while I was you know."

"In Surador?" His stern expression gentled at her continuing discomfort over mentioning that part of her life.

"Yes. When I came home she told me she'd been giving Tom and Lucy odd jobs to do and that they'd never caused her a minute's worry. Mother was a great Judge of people, and she'd decided that they were exactly what they appeared to bepoor, simple, and straight out of a little coal-mining town somewhere way back in the hills." Sara shrugged lightly. "They've never done anything to make me think otherwise."

At that moment Tom broke into a shuffling sort of clog, dancing in the leaves like a carefree scarecrow. Clothed in patched overalls and a military fatigue shirt, lanky black hair flopping along his shoulders, he pumped his arms up and down merrily. Inside the boundaries of an angular face his mouth opened in a wide smile. He had a bad overblte accented by three gold-capped teeth. After a minute he quit dancing and went back to raking.

"I've conducted business in backwoods places where there were some pretty odd people," Kyle commented dryly. "But this guy would draw crowds in a zoo."

"You're awfully judgmental."

"I'm trying to understand what you see in Tom and Lucy that you didn't see in me. Why you don't bat an eyelash at letting two flaky locals inside the grounds once a week but you made me fight for entrance every inch of the way."

"They don't ask questions. They don't make demands."

"When you look at them you don't see an ugly past and an even uglier future," he retorted.

Reckless anger flared inside her. "Ugly, ugly, ugly," she chanted. "Is that what you are?"

He looked stunned. Then he said, "Hell, yes. At least I'm honest about it."

Without another word he walked out. Sara rested her forehead on a cool blue pane of glass and wished she hadn't been so quick to fight with him. Ever since his arrival at the keep she'd felt restlessshe could describe it only as a sense of knowing how incomplete she'd been before she saw him again. In her whole life she'd never had to fight such a dangerous combination of devotion and desire.

The poignancy of it was frightening. In research terms, she'd finally found the known unknown, the piece missing from an equation. Now that he was part of her life, the equation was solved; she knew what she'd been looking for all along.

After Tom and Lucy collected their pay and drove off in a rattling, rusty old van, Sara offered to cook supper. She'd never had much success with cookingshe couldn't resist experimenting, which was a great attitude for the lab but a disastrous one for the kitchen. But this evening she wanted to do something to shock and please Kyle.

He, however, was not in the mood to appreciate her offer. Without being bad-tempered about it, he claimed houseworkis bummed-outis , which was, he assured her, a temporary form of exhaustion suffered by macho men. Then he filled a tray with pineapple and cheese sandwiches, potato chips, and two of his beloved Coco-Moos.

He carried it to his room, along with a stack of old Zane Grey westerns he'd gotten from one of the castle's many bookcases. Sara felt like crying as he disappeared into his bedroom and shut the door. He was hurt, though he'd probably never admit it.

She didn't know what to call her feelings for him. The word love kept surfacing, but it was always accompanied by a sense of despair, so she tried not to think about it. She and Kyle were still strangers in so many ways. But everything, everything about him fascinated her.

At times he was as wholesome as a box of corn flakes, but there was always the underlying glint in his eye, the worldly look that fit the things he'd told her about himself during their shared meals.

She would never forget the day she had talked to him in Valdivla's courtyard. He had told her and Dinah, in a businesslike tone, that he would kill Valdlvia if he had to. Since he was chained helplessly to a large stone mountain, he'd made that threat with a smile, poking fun at the irony of his own bravado. But Sara had not doubted that he meant every word, that he had the training and the inclination to kill Valdlvia, and, from the look in his eyes, that he wouldn't lose any sleep over it if he did.

That was the kind of hatred he still felt for Valdlvia. For Noelle's father.

Sara had no appetite. She went to the nursery, fed Noelle, and read to her from a science journal. Noelle squealed and gurgled her appreciation for her mother's voice, even if the subject was ectotrophic and endo-trophic types of mycorrhizal associations. Daisy fell asleep on the floor by Sara's rocking chair, snoring softly, paws to the ceiling.

Noelle refused to yawn, blink slowly, or give any other sign that she was getting sleepy. "I have work to do, petunia," Sara said mildly. Finally Sara carried her downstairs to the greenhouse and put her in an extra playpen she kept there.

"Snoot," Noelle said happily, welcoming the big toy elephant that lived in the playpen. She stood up and put her arms around his head, then began to talk in her mysterious baby language of noises and half words. Daisy flopped down in the sawdust beside the playpen.

Sara watched the cheerful scene for a second, then turned blindly and grabbed the dirt-stained apron she wore when she worked in the greenhouse. Her fingers shook as she slipped the yoke of it over her head. She feared the worst about tomorrow. Kyle was on the verge of forcing her to spend time outside the keep. She had to think of new excuses.

Sara went down the long rows of tables, making notes on the charts that hung from the table edges at regular intervals, checking moisture levels, studying leaf development, and weeding out weak and dying plants. At heart she was simply a gardener. She loved to work with the plants in the greenhouse, getting her hands covered in the damp, fertile soil, smelling the rich scents of the flowers, and watching the endless variations grow into fascinating forms. Even without the added pleasure of sunshine and fresh air, gardening brought her into sync with a peaceful world.

Tonight, with the Lexington trip looming over her, she didn't know if she'd ever feel peaceful again.

Even while lost in thought about tomorrow, she automatically glanced up to check on Noelle occasionally. The baby sat with a collection of stacking rings between her feet. She kept trying to fit them over the end of Snoot's trunk.

Sara lost track of time, and when she finally glanced at her watch, ten minutes had passed. Smiling giddily, she lifted her head to check on Noelle. At the other end of the cavern, near the end of the long tables, the playpen sat empty.

"Noelle!"

Dark terror swept through Sara as she ran through the big greenhouse. Daisy was gone too. It didn't make sense. Noelle was as active as a small monkey these days, but she couldn't have gotten out of the playpen without help. Sara groaned out loud when she realized that Snoot now lay facedown, his big gray body mashed against the playpen's webbed side. He was just the right size to make a very effective ladder to the top.