Read Online Sara's Surprise by Deborah Smith - Free Book Online Page A

into a tough, brooding enigma, frighteningly so. During the rescue attempt, before she'd realized that he was on her side, she'd lashed a well-aimed foot into his groin. He hadn't made a sound. He hadn't even looked upset. He had simply pushed her into the grip of a giant named Drake Lancaster, then leaned against a wall for a few seconds, his eyes nearly shut. The Iceman, she had heard Drake and Rucker call him.
    "You love your brother very much, and you admire him," she said to Kyle. "I can hear that in your voice."
    He nodded. "And I'm just as close to my sister Millie. The three of us pretty much raised each other. Our mother died when we were kids, and our old man put the navy first, the family second. But he was a hell of a guy." Kyle shrugged, any regrets resolved long ago.
    "I think that you're the most interesting of the men in your family," Sara told him. "Probably the most creative too. So Jeopard used his perfect smile and expensive champagne to lure beach bunnies? What was your modus operandi?"
    "I offered them milk," he assured her solemnly. "I went for the wholesome girls."
    "Or maybe the girls with good teeth and big, uhmmm, bones."
    He laughed richly. "Those too."
    The beautiful masculine tones of his laughter made her giddy; they were like fine wine hitting her bloodstream. When he suddenly stepped into the hall, Sara moved quickly away from him, almost stumbling.
    "I just want to look at your cottontail," he protested.
    Sara put a hand over the spot where the picnic basket's lid had once, years before, had a clasp. "It's it's wild. I can't open the basket."
    "You keep a wild rabbit for a pet? Let me guessIt's a guard rabbit for the lab. All right, youse dirty thief"he turned his voice into what could only, to Sara's rattled mind, be described as James Cagney doing Thumper "drop the microscope or I'll mate with your wife's fuzzy bedroom slippers."
    Sara covered her mouth to keep from either laughing or crying, she wasn't sure which. The strain of having Kyle so close to Noelle was beginning to tell.
    "Your rabbit smells like you sprayed perfume on it," he commented, sniffing.
    Baby powder . Sara winced inwardly. Damn this situation! Everything in her scientist's nature was devoted to finding and recognizing the truth. Weaving this ludicrous lie went against the principles of her orderly universe. And she was just plain lousy at it. She walked toward the great room, holding her picnic basket in front of her as if she could block the fragrance of scented talc.
    "You smell Eau de Carrot," she said over her shoulder in a tone that meant drop the subject. "Hurry up. I'm leaving."
    "Sara." He caught up with her, slipping into his dirty jacket as she entered a big foyer where the cold gray stone walls suited her mood. "Let me carry your killer bunny," he teased gently. "I didn't mean to upset you."
    She shook her head but gave him a reassuring smile. "Just open the door and let the bridge down. The key's hanging on the horn over there."
    From a short white horn mounted on a wall plaque he took a key ring so large that Sara could have put it over her head like a heavy necklace. It was made of wrought iron, with moons and stars worked into one quadrant of the circle. The ornate key contained the same design. The head of it filled the palm of Kyle's hand.
    "When did you buy the place from the giant?" he asked dryly. Then he glanced at the horn. "Nice trophy. Caught a unicorn in the backyard, hmmm?"
    "It came from an antelope." Sara felt Noelle shift inside the basket. "My brother and I found it on a family safari to Africa. I must have been about ten years old. The antelope had died from natural causes. But I do love unicorns. When I was very little my grandfather had me believing that they hid behind the trees in the garden. I knew that if I looked hard enough, I'd see them. I don't think I've ever given up hope. Open the door. This rabbit might get impatient."
    The door's original bolt slid back with a ponderous