Sara's Surprise (12 page)

"You just saw me," she said lightly. "We just ate dinner together. Vegetable soup and corn bread, remember? And we talked about music. You refused to believe that plants love Barry Manilow."

"I want to talk about you. That's what I came to Kentucky to do."

"Me? All right. I like Barry Manilow, but if I want my branches to grow faster, I listen to Bon Jovi."

Sara tugged at the neck of her pink sweater. Inside it her skin felt too warm, as it often did when she was with Kyle. She tried to look calm.

"Have a seat," he ordered, nodding toward the couch.

"And if I don't want to?"

"Then you can stand up while we talk." He pointed to the thick wooden beams overhead. "You can hang from the celling. Or crawl under a chair. Whatever. But you will talk to me."

Sara sank into one corner of the couch. He sat down on the big hearth rug, between her and the fire. Her eyes filled with tears of admiration at the way firelight shot gold and copper streaks through his hair. The shadows obscured his scars; she suspected that he had chosen that spot because of the shadows.

"I warned you that I wouldn't have much time to visit," Sara reminded him. "You knew that from the first."

"You're deliberately avoiding me, just like you've avoided the rest of the world for the past nineteen months."

"No. I"

"Tell me something. Did you go to your mother's funeral?"

Sara flinched. "No, I didn't."

"My God." He was silent, frowning as he studied her. "Don't you see how much you need help? You let strangers bury her because you were afraid to leave this place."

Old misery welled up, fresh and painful inside her chest. He'd never know the agonies she had gone through while her mother's body lay in a New York morgue. Her only consolation had been the secure belief that her mother understood, that her mother knew that Sara had no one with whom to leave Noelle and no way to hide her from the curious attendees at a funeral.

"Mother didn't attach much importance to ceremonies," Sara said dully. Kyle must think she was heartless, she realized. "When my father and brother were killed in the Arctic storm, she and I went into the garden here and planted two oak trees. Among the roots of one my mother put my father's favorite pipe; under the second tree she put my brother's high school baseball cap. That was our memorial service, and it was perfect."

"You were too afraid of the outside world to go to your mother's funeral," Kyle insisted, emphasizing each word between clenched teeth.

"There was no need for me to go. Her body was cremated. That's how she wanted it. One of her dearest friendsan old colleague from her university daystook the ashes to a park and spread them among the flowers."

"That should have been your duty, don't you think?"

Yes
. Sara screamed silently. But keeping Anna's granddaughter a secret from government investigators was my duty too .

"I simply had no need to express my grief in a morbid ceremony. Sometimes I think you don't understand me very well, Kyle. Maybe you ought to realize that I'm happy being alone. And that I'm not a very sentimental person."

He described that claim with one blunt word. Sara gazed at him unhappily. Was there any way to bridge the gap between her desperate need for his affection and her equally desperate need to keep him from knowing about Noelle?

She jumped as the transmitter in her left ear produced an ominous succession of sounds from the nurseryDaisy barking, Noelle making gleeful noises, a loud crack as something hit the floor, and then static as the transmitter went dead.

Sara stood up. Act calm. Be nonchalant . "Good night."

"What the hell?" He vaulted to his feet. His long, easy strides beat her to the hallway door. He flung an arm across the opening so quickly that she ran into it.

Sara gazed up at him worriedly. "I have to go. Thanks for dinner. It was great."

"You're not going anywhere, Tinker Bell. Tonight you're sitting and talking. No argument."

"Kyle, I can't! I have an experiment"

"Forget it. I don't believe you. You probably go back there and sit in front of your damned television sets and spy on me with cameras you've got hidden in the house."

"I'm not that eccentric ! And if there were cameras inside the house, I'm sure you would have found them by now. You'd have done another striptease and then cut the cables!"

He thrust his jaw forward belligerently. His mouth thinned with impatience. "Just what have you got in your lab? Hmmm? Go ahead and check on it. I'll go with you."

"Please, please." She sank her hands into the front of his shirt. "You promised that you wouldn't intrude on that part of my life. You swore that you wouldn't." She touched a finger to a scar on his cheek. "You swore on these, remember?"

He twisted his face away from her touch, but looked at her with grim acknowledgment. "All right," he said wearily. Then his fingers snaked forward and plucked the tiny transmitter from her ear.

"No! Give that back!"

"I noticed this a day or two ago, but I tried not to indulge my curiosity. What are the plants saying tonight, Sara?"

She tried to grab the device. He held it beyond her reach and braced a restraining hand against her shoulder. Frustration and concern for Noelle's predicament brought a string of harsh words from Sara's mouth.

"Very creative, Doctor," Kyle said pleasantly. "I've never been called names by a genius before. I'm honored." He put the transmitter into his ear and listened for a second. "The begonias are tampering with the radio again. It's not tuned to a station."

"Please let me go," she begged, bowing her head to his shoulder, all dignity lost. "I'll do anything you want, later. Right now just please give me that transmitter and let me go to the to my lab."

Sara stared up into his face and knew that Jeopard wasn't the only one in the Surprise family who could look as inscrutable as a sphinx. Then a flicker of victory shown in Kyle's eyes, and he smiled thinly. "You'll eat every one of your meals with me from now on," he told her.

"All right."

"You'll give me at least two hours after dinner every night, just so that we can sit and talk."

"Fine."

"And tomorrow we'll drive over to Lexington and spend the whole afternoon. I bet you haven't been to a decent-size city in months."

That trip would be impossible. But Sara nodded numbly because all she cared about at the moment was getting to the nursery. "It's a deal."

He placed the transmitter in her hand. His fingers closed snugly around hers. "Scout's honor?"

"Yes."

He grunted. "You were never a scout. There aren't any troops for ten-year-olds who work calculus problems for fun. And no merit badges in advanced botany."

"You have my word," she said, wincing because she knew she would have to break it.

"Good enough." He let go of her hand and stepped back. "Go to the lab. I'll see you at seven for breakfast."

When she reached the nursery she sagged with relief. Noelle was standing up in her crib, holding the bars and bobbing in place merrily. Her yellow sleepsuit made her look like an excited Easter chick.

Daisy sat on the floor beside the fallen monitoring unit, a small device that resembled a walkie-talkie. Daisy's ears drooped, as if she feared that Sara might accuse her of knocking it off the wall.

Sara picked up a brightly colored rubber frog that lay suspiciously near the monitor. It was one of Noelle's crib toys. "I think that this frog has learned how to fly," Sara said dryly. Noelle squealed and gave her a dimpled smile. "I think that this frog flew over and kissed the baby monitor."

She put the toy aside to be washed. The monitor was unharmed; the nursery's thick white carpet had cushioned its fall. She hung it back on the wall and made a mental note to fasten it tighter.

Now that the crisis was over she felt drained of energy, and a different kind of anxiety grew in her chest. "Let's watch the moon," Sara said wearily. She turned the nursery lights off and carried Noelle to the window.

A huge white moon cast its magical light on the shrubs and trees around the keep; it carved weird, sharp shadows on the wall beyond. The ethereal white guardian, riding high above the mountains, had inspired her grandfather Scarborough to name the place Moonspell Keep.

The moon and the setting had enchanted him, he said. Enchantment wasn't a bad thing, he thought. A world surrounded by magic was bound to a safe place. Gazing up into the eerie silver glow, Sara could easily believe that. Perhaps the moon would enchant Kyle and soften his misguided determination to help her.

Kyle waited for her patiently the next morning, sitting in the kitchen with a pot of coffee and a bowl of pancake batter ready. Seven o'clock came and went. At ten after Kyle strode to her bedroom door and knocked. There was no answer and no sound of movement behind the door. He went back to the kitchen and put the pancake batter in the refrigerator.

At twenty after he unplugged the coffeepot. Smiling thinly, so disgusted that he didn't care about the consequences of his actions, he went to her bedroom door and picked the lock, using a highly sophisticated tool he'd mastered over the yearsa fingernail file.

The room was empty, though the unmade bed showed that she had at least spent the night there. The mysterious door to her secret part of the castle was shut and locked, just as he'd assumed it would be. Kyle inspected the electronic lock with its panel of numbered buttons. Hmmm. Since he didn't have the code, he'd need something a little more sophisticated than a fingernail file.

He froze at the sound of footsteps in the hallway behind the door and decided to give her one more chance. He trotted from the bedroom, locked the outer door again, and returned to the kitchen.

Five minutes later she hurried in, greeting him with a big smile as she tucked a blue cotton shirt into snug jeans. "I'm sorry!" She fluffed her short red hair as if she hadn't had time to comb it. "I overslept!"

"No, you didn't," he said cheerfully, going to plug the coffeepot in again. "You were in the back taking care of whatever it is you take care of so secretively."

Her hands froze around her face. "How what makes you say that?"

"Intuition." He got out the bowl of pancake batter and put a griddle on the stove top. "Don't be late again."

"Don't get carried away with this takeover of yours! Are you going to time me?"

Smiling, he turned around and waved a spatula at her. "If you're more than five minutes late. I'll do my best to break into your lab and see what's keeping you."

He was immediately sorry that he'd made that threat. Her green eyes filled with anger, but also with fear. She looked horrified and worried. Kyle felt sorry for her.

She muffled a cry of distress behind one hand and went to the window seat, where she curled her legs under her and hugged both arms around her midsec-tion. She seemed very lost and alone as she stared out at a bleak, overcast day.

"Sara," Kyle said in a soothing tone. He went over and sat down beside her, then stroked her shoulders with one hand. "I'm not an enemy. I'll keep your secretswhatever they are. What are you so afraid of?"

"So many people have suffered because of me," she whispered brokenly, her throat flexing. She continued to stare rigidly out the window, but tears slid down her cheeks. "Dinah was kidnapped because she happened to be my friend; my mother's health was ruined because she spent a year worrying about my safety; and you"she struggled for control"you were hurt badly because of me." She shook her head fiercely. "I don't want anyone else to suffer because of what I did."

"You were innocent."

"No. I was foolish. I took too many risks. Now I'm afraid that if anything ever happens againto me that more people will get hurt. I can't bear that idea."

"What people?"

"Anyone who's close to me."

Kyle slowly placed his hand on the back of her neck. He caressed with small circular motions and hoped that she wouldn't worry that the gesture was offering something besides comfort. "You can't go through the rest of your life alone. Tinker Bell."

"Maybe not. But I can try."

"Don't you ever want a.family? A husband, kids?"

"Children?" She avoided the husband issue but looked at Kyle with an intensity he hadn't expected. "For years I didn't know if I wanted to be a mother. I couldn't decide if I'd be any good at it." She hesitated, seeming reluctant to say more. "What do you think about having kids?"

"I think I've missed my chance."

"You're a young man!"

Kyle had never considered himself much of a family type. Maybe the fierce longing that grew inside his chest now was provoked by Jeopard's upcoming marriage. Maybe it was provoked by wanting Sara more than he'd ever wanted anyone in his life. He thought of the terrified little boy in the country store. Maybe he should go take a look in the mirror and jerk himself back to reality.

"I don't do very well with kids," he muttered.

She gasped softly, and when he studied her eyes he saw that she understood his meaning. Kyle managed to shrug as if it were something he could easily accept. "I've gotten used to it. My sister's little boy cries every time he sees me. It's uncomfortable for him, and me too."