Read Online The Seductive Impostor by Janet Chapman - Free Book Online Page B

enough to pass out, but her eyes were still snapping at him. He couldn’t suppress a smile. The lady had grit.
    He let go of her face and gently scooped her up in his arms and stood. She gasped again, hard enough to move his hair.
    â€œPut me down!” she snapped, her eyes level with his. “I’m too heavy. You’re going to drop me.”
    It was Duncan who laughed at that ridiculous statement. “Kee won’t drop ya, Miss Foster. Ya’re a puny thing,” the man thought to assure her.
    She turned her glare on him.
    Kee didn’t wait for her to protest any further. Undecided about whether he did want to drop her pretty little lying butt on the floor—or kiss her pretty little lying lips—he silently carried her around the kitchen island and into her living room.
    â€œI want you out of my house!” she said again, the color returning to her face.
    He stopped in front of her couch. “You do seem a bit heavy,” he lied. He hefted her in his arms. “You’re not by any chance weighted down with booty you stole from my house, are you?”
    That accusation changed her expression. “I was not in your house tonight. I hate it. I hope it falls into the sea.”
    Kee shook his head, smiling at her mutinous glare, which he could see quite clearly now that Duncan had found the living room lights. “Ah, Rachel, is that any attitude for an architect to have?” he asked, laughing out loud when she gasped again.
    â€œYou know I’m an architect?”
    â€œYou’re Frank Foster’s daughter. I was told to look you up if I had any questions about Sub Rosa. That there isn’t a nook or cranny you don’t know about. If I have any problems with the place, I should check with you.”
    She closed her eyes. “Then I suggest you burn it down to its foundation,” she whispered.
    Kee sobered as he bent over and gently set her down. He braced one hand against the back of the sofa and stared directly into her defiant eyes. “I understand why you’d like to see my home in ruins, Rachel. I know the story of your father and mother and my great-uncle Thaddeus. But that doesn’t explain what you were doing there tonight.”
    She stared back at him, unblinking.
    â€œHow about if I’m just being curious and promise not to press charges? Will you tell me why you were in the library?”
    She dropped her gaze to her lap.
    Kee straightened and headed back into the kitchen.
    â€œAre ya sure it’s her?” Duncan asked, looking over his shoulder at Rachel as he followed Kee.
    â€œIt’s her. I’m not likely to forget the woman,” he confirmed.
    â€œBut how did she get out of the mansion so quickly then?” Duncan asked as he walked to the door and looked toward the cliff path they had used.
    Kee also looked toward Sub Rosa. He could barely make out the dark silhouette of the soaring roofline of the mansion. “There must be a tunnel that leads directly out to the cliffs. She’d know about it if there was.”
    â€œWhat are ya going to do with her?”
    Kee looked over at Duncan and grinned. “Since it might be Mickey’s fault she hurt her knee again, I thought we might start acting like neighbors. We should probably bring her back to Sub Rosa once those pills take effect, don’t you think?”
    Duncan shot Kee a grin in answer, then sobered. “She’d been sitting on the floor for almost an hour, in a lot of pain. Why didn’t she call for an ambulance?” he asked.
    Kee waved his hand at the mud on the kitchen floor. “My guess is she didn’t want to explain the condition she was in, especially if she thought I had called the police. Being dressed like a burglar at two in the morning and being covered with mud and torn up by rose thorns would be a little hard to explain.”
    Duncan nodded as he opened the freezer and began rummaging around for some ice. Kee