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

surface beyond the odd-looking door.
    "Daisy, what is your problem?" Sara pushed the door open and peered around it. She gasped audibly when she saw Kyle, and both hands went to her throat in a protective gesture. "Oh, no, no!"
    "Call 'Daisy,' " he said as calmly as he could, considering that "Daisy" looked as if she were ready to do a pit-bull impression.
    "Don't shoot her!" Sara bolted into the room, hurriedly locked the strange door by entering a code into a small box beneath the doorknob, then ran to Daisy and knelt beside her. She wrapped both arms around Daisy's neck and gazed up at Kyle in speechless dismay.
    He gazed back with an equal amount of discomfort. The short, sheer robe she wore was a shade of green that intensified the green of her eyes. It was tightly belted around her waist, which made the top gape. revealing an expanse of fair skin and the inner curves of small, perfectly formed breasts.
    She'd somehow managed to splash water all over the front of the robe, and it clung to her breasts and belly in breathtaking detail. Her face was flushed from the heat of the bathroom, and her damp hair lay in pretty wisps along the edges of her face. An incredibly provocative elf glared up at him.
    "Get out! Damn you! You lied to me! Get out!"
    "I'll be waiting," Kyle informed her. He let his eyes roam over her in a nonchalant way as he backed out the door. "In the great room."
    "Get out!"
    He bowed like an old-world gallant, then stepped into the hall and swung the bedroom door shut.
* * *
    Distracted and afraid, Sara checked and double-checked the lock on Noelle's nursery door. The nursery, her laboratory, and the security room were all on the back side of the keep's main level, with the bedrooms, great room, kitchen, and dining room on the front, though a secret hallway connected Sara's bedroom to the nursery. She had come down that hallway when she heard Daisy bark.
    Sara hurriedly dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, then headed for the great room. Kyle had deceived her; worse than that, he now threatened the sanctuary that she'd spent the past nineteen months building to protect the secret she intended to keep at all costs. What kind of man would continue harassing her with such single-minded devotion?
    One who thinks he's doing it for your own good , she admitted silently.
    He stood in the great room, rubbing a wet kitchen towel over his sooty face. The gold and copper tapestry of his hair was a grimy mess; his shoes, jeans, flannel shirt, and jacket looked as if they'd never be the same. "I came down the chimney," he explained. "Merry Christmas."
    "My unwanted chimney sweep," she said grimly, clenching her fists. "Why? Give me a reasonable excuse."
    "None available, except that I'm a mean bastard at heart. I want to make you miserableso miserable that you'll run like hell right back to the real world."
    "I'm definitely miserable. But I'm not leaving this place. And you're not staying."
    "I can't go back the way I came. A dragon spooked my reindeer. I'll have to catch the next sleigh, and I don't have a sleigh schedule."
    She groaned with frustration. "Stop trying to make a joke out of this!"
    "I won't be a problem guest. Tell me what's off limits and I'll stay out of it. I swear."
    "I don't trust you. I tried to already. In return you broke into my home, sneaked into my bedroom, and threatened my dog."
    "I wouldn't have shot that genetic reject. I mean it. I can't make any promises about defending myself from the vicious rottweilers, though." He glanced around coyly. "Where are they?"
    Sara sank into a chair and put her head in her hands. "There aren't any attack dogs."
    "That was a pretty nasty deception you used on me, Sara."
    "I know. I suppose we're even, then."
    "All right. Even." He came to her and squatted beside her knees.
    "This is an impossible situation," she muttered.
    "Have a little faith. I'm not going to hurt you or anything you care about." His tone filled with disgust. "We beat Valdivia, you know.