Sara's Surprise (9 page)

"What's up, Doc?"

Kyle's voice and footsteps startled her. She jumped and tried not to slap the lid down too loudly. Her nerves on fire, Sara frowned at him. "You the rabbit it you could have made it jump out!"

He pointed to the alert dog near her feet. "Your crack security canine would have hunted it down." Daisy, who had fallen asleep during the two minutes it had taken them to unlock the door and lower the bridge, lay on her back, legs splayed.

Sara nudged her with the toe of a sneaker. "Wake up."

Daisy made a grunting sound and opened bleary eyes.

"Sounds like a security pig to me," Kyle noted cheerfully.

"Daisy!"

The dog got up, yawning, and trotted outside. Sara gazed at Kyle, feeling troubled. "You think that I and my useless guard dog are pretty ridiculous."

He shook his head, and the teasing glint faded from his eyes. "I think you're a gentle, loving person at heart, and you'd rather trust Daisy than bring any dragons into your home."

She nodded, a little shaken by his insight. He stepped aside and swept a hand toward the bridge. "After you, m'lady."

Sara had already brought the truck around from the back, where she kept it in a small shed. It waited on the cobblestone apron beyond the bridge. The tallgate and camper hatch were open. Noelle's car seat was hidden in the front corner of the truck bed, under a pile of blankets.

"Go ahead and get into the cab," she told Kyle. "I've got to tie this basket shut."

"Sure. We wouldn't want the killer bunny to get out."

The geese waddled around a corner of the castle. Sara stared at them in dismay. "Worry about the geese instead. Kyle, get in the truck!" As soon as they saw him, a stranger, they went into battle mode. They trotted forward, their wings spread, their heads thrust forward, their beady eyes never leaving their target.

He said a couple of words that were probably offensive to everything with wings, including airplanes. Then he snatched the picnic basket from Sara's hands and shoved it into the back of the truck. "I'll save you," he called, sounding a great deal more amused than she was at the moment. She expected to hear Noelle's wail of distress immediately.

He lifted Sara into the truck bed. Daisy leapt clumsily and landed in her lap. Kyle slammed the tailgate and ran to the driver's side of the cab. It was locked. He ran to the other side and tried the passenger door. It was locked.

He began to laugh. "I'm goose meat! I'm a goner!"

Sara scrambled out and unlocked the driver's door. She dove across the seat, reaching for the lock on the passenger door. Kyle slung it open and threw himself into her lap just as a big gander reached him, hissing and striking.

"He got me!" Kyle's head was pillowed on her thighs; he was laughing so hard that he couldn't sit up. His long legs dangled from the truck. In its beak the gander had trapped the laces on one of Kyle's running shoes. Sara grabbed a package of crackers from the glove compartment, ripped it open, and flung the contents out the passenger side. The gander let go of Kyle's laces and went after the treat.

Kyle swung the door shut and pushed himself upright, then glanced down at her thighs as if he were remembering how they had felt under his head and deciding how they would feel under his hands. "Thank you, m'lady, thank you. You saved me from the dragons." He looked startled when she climbed out and headed toward the back.

"I'm just going to check on my rabbit." Her heart racing, Sara crawled into the truck bed and opened the picnic basket. Noelle chortled and smiled around her pacifier as Sara lifted her out and fastened her into the car seat. "Ride in here with Daisy for just a few minutes, sweetheart," Sara whispered. "Then I'll come get you." She patted Daisy and wearily returned to the cab. "The rabbit is fine."

Kyle freed an object that had been wedged in the seat near his hip. "What's this?" he asked, holding it up. "A life preserver for a fairy?"

Sara stared at the pink teething ring in horror. The ring had disappeared last month, after their last shopping trip. Now she knew where Noelle had dropped it.

"It's a dog toy," she said weakly. She tossed the teething ring out the window.

Kyle chuckled dryly. "I didn't think that Daisy was smart enough to play with toys. She's a low form of plant life with fur. That's why you call her 'Daisy.' "

"She's just mellow. Very mellow." Sara cranked the truck hurriedly and drove down the cobblestone lane to the gate. She stopped, pulled a radio-control unit from her purse, and signaled a mechanism to roll the wide steel gate aside. Then she handed the unit to Kyle. "I have two. You keep this one as long as you're my guest."

"I feel like Walt Disney just gave me the key to the Magic Kingdom. Thanks, Tinker Bell."

After Sara drove through the gate he signaled it to close. As she put the truck in gear and started down the half-mile driveway to the road, she felt his gaze on her. "This remote control has your mother's initials written on it."

Sara nodded and said softly, "I'm sure she'd be proud to have you use it."

"Jep knew her a lot better than I did, since he was working on this end of the case. He was impressed with her."

"You mean he was impressed with her after he was certain that she wasn't working for that she wasn't voluntarily involved in my herbicide research, that she was complying only for my sake."

"You really don't want to say his name. Are the memories so bad, Sara?"

"Yes." A very faint scratching noise made her glance toward the back. The window of the truck's cab looked directly into the front window of the camper. Only a few inches of space separated the two.

Daisy was clawing at the taped-down curtains on the camper window. When she parted the curtains and peered out happily, Sara stiffened with shock. She'd forgotten how much Daisy loved to watch the scenery. "Dai" She caught herself. What if Kyle turned around to look? From his side he could see directly into the corner where she'd placed Noelle.

I know it's an odd-looking rabbit, Kyle. She has my nose and mouth, don't you think? And I really think she has my eyes, though they're dark brown, not green. They don't have any of her father's cruelty in them.

Sara could barely keep the truck centered in the driveway. She adjusted the rearview mirror so that she could stare into the camper window. Her mouth desert-dry, she watched Daisy disappear in Noelle's direction. Sara chewed her lip until it throbbed. Oh, no, not now , she begged. Daisy wasn't going to hurt Noelle, no. Daisy had an abiding love for Noelle's toys. She'd stolen more than a dozen of them already.

Daisy came back to the window. Clenched in her front teeth was Noelle's big yellow pacifier.

Kyle was saying, "So Brig McKay was put in the jail where Millie was working as a deputy. Here's this famous Australian country-western singer, used to having women fall at his feet, and my sister treats him like some kind of Saturday-night redneck. Brig told People magazine that he had to marry herit was the only way he could get her to take his handcuffs off."

He told her about Millie and Brig's baby boy, and Sara nodded as if all her attention weren't riveted to the drama that was courting disaster for her baby girl. Daisy dropped the pacifier, picked it up again, and sat contentedly with it stuck in the front of her mouth.

She looked like somebody had put a stopper in her to keep stupidity from gushing out.

Sara gripped the steering wheel so hard that her hands hurt. Kyle hadn't paid much attention to the teething ring; he probably didn't even know what a teething ring was. But even a longtime bachelor could recognize a baby pacifier.

"Sara!" He grabbed the steering wheel. She realized that she'd narrowly missed hanging a front tire in the drainage ditch beside the driveway. A hundred yards ahead she could see the paved public road and the thick stone columns of the second gate.

"Sorry. I don't drive much anymore. I'm a little rusty."

Kyle held the wheel firmly, keeping the truck centered in the narrow drive. "Stop, Tinker Bell. Okay? Stop for a second. You're shaking all over."

She halted the truck. Bluff , she thought desperately, glancing in the back mirror. Daisy was now rolling the pacifier around in her mouth as if it were a big mint.

Kyle took her hand and caressed the back of it with his thumb. "It's not easy for you to leave the estate," he said gruffly. "I understand. Why don't you let me go with you today?"

Sara shut her eyes. Oh, God, he was so kind and caring, and she was leading him on with such lies! "No. It's really better that I go on alone. I have to prove that I can make it without help. Would you mind walking to your car from here?"

"No, if that would make you feel better." He sounded reluctant to let her go, but he was trying not to push her too hard, too fast. Sara tried to smile at him. His dark blue eyes were so sympathetic that it was all she could do to keep from tumbling heart first into the affection they offered.

"I'll be back in two or three hours," she promised.

"I'll be waiting. You've got my grocery list?"

She nodded, fighting an urge to look toward the camper window. Kyle gripped her hand tightly, his fingers slow and warm and just as nimble as she'd imagined, stroking the cup of her palm.

"See you later," Sara said desperately. "Come on. I'll walk a few yards with you."

Her knees were weak as she got out of the truck and shut the door. Kyle came around to her side. The scars accented his strong, expressive features in ways that made him look terribly forbidding when he frowned, as he was doing now.

"I don't think you can make this trip alone," he said, standing defiantly in front of her. He massaged the tops of her shoulders. "My God, you're tense. Sara, I'm sorry if I've sounded flippant about your problem before. I didn't realize how alone and how afraid you are. I'll help you get over it. I swear I'll help."

She grabbed his hand, led him a dozen steps beyond the front of the truck, put her arms around his neck and her head on his shoulder, then hugged him hard, standing on tiptoe as she forced every muscle to release its fear and absorb his comfort. He couldn't help her because he didn't know the truth. She'd never let him know, because she never wanted to look into those warm, sexy eyes and see contempt. But she wanted him to know how much his offerno, how much he meant to her.

"You're the sweetest man I've ever known," she whispered. "And if I need help, I'll ask right away."

"So, uh, need a little help?" he murmured against her hair. He hugged her back, his arms taut bands of muscle around her, making her feel both safe and afraid.

"No, Sir Knight, not today." Sara patted his chest, and he understood the warning. Slowly he let her go. She stepped away, smiled at him, and exhaled wearily. "Watch out for the dragons."

"You too," he called as she staggered back to the truck. "You too."

Her shopping was blissfully uneventful. When she returned she found Kyle's sleek black sports car parked in front of the castle. Sara locked the back of the truck and left it filled with baby food and disposable diapers, all hidden inside plastic garbage bags. She'd unload them during the middle of the night.

The disposable diapers and plastic bags grated on her environmentalist's conscience, but she had to have them, just this once. With Kyle on hand she couldn't tote baby products around in open paper sacks. Nor could she wash loads of cloth diapers in the laundry room right off the kitchen.

Sara made certain that Noelle was fast asleep inside the wicker basket before she entered the castle. Daisy ambling along beside her. She strained her ears but heard no indication that Kyle was moving about. Maybe he was taking a nap. After all, he'd spent all night on the roof planning his invasion and chipping away at the mortar that held her chimney cap in place. Sighing with relief, Sara hurried to the nursery and settled Noelle in her crib. Then she went back to the truck, got two small sacks filled with Kyle's grocery requests, and took them to the kitchen.

Afterward she cruised back toward the bedrooms. Outside his door she called, "Kyle?" in a polite tone, and knocked. When there was no answer she tested the doorknob. Unlocked. Sara glanced into the room. The end of his tote bag could be seen peeking from behind the heavy damask draperies on the sides of a kingly bedstead. His dirty clothes were draped over the shell of a knight who stood guard in one corner.

Sara's mouth twitched with amusement. The suit of armor was wearing Kyle's Hawaiian shirt.

But where was Kyle? As if in answer, Daisy woofed and trotted toward a tall, narrow window across the room. She put her front paws on its stone sill and reared up so that she could peer out the beveled glass. She woofed again.

Sara frowned and went to the window. And then she began to laugh. Earlier he had thought her geese so funny.

Across the garden Kyle sat astride the limb of a giant oak tree. He was looking down. Her attack geese were looking up.