Sara's Surprise by Deborah Smith Page A

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!"