Sunny Says Read Free Page B

house.
    By the time she’d dressed, Sunny’s
temper had cooled, but her embarrassment lingered. Her steps didn’t have their
usual spring as she went downstairs to fix breakfast. How did she always seem
to land in such messes? Not only had she already had two humiliating
experiences with Kale, but now that he was here, she and Estella would have no
option but to vacate the lovely old estate they’d called home for the past
several months. With Estella’s advanced pregnancy, finding a new place and
moving would present a problem.
    Too bad they would have to
leave, she thought, staring out the kitchen window across Ocean Drive .
She loved the view overlooking the water. Only the palm-lined boulevard and a
curving grassy bluff beyond it separated the stone mansion from the panorama of
the Gulf inlet. If Corpus Christi , which hugged the bay with cupped hands, was often
called “The Sparkling City by the Sea,” surely this spot was one of the
diamonds on its finger.
    And she and Estella certainly
wouldn’t be able to afford the housekeeper who came three times a week. But
then, she and Estella didn’t have truck-loads of priceless furniture and
doodads that needed polishing either.
    She started the coffee and
downed a glass of orange juice as though it were a shot of red-eye. Maybe when
the vitamin C kicked in, she’d be able to think more clearly about options.
Something would turn up. It always did. No need to sweat the small stuff.
    As for the encounter in the
shower with her new boss, it was no big deal, she convinced herself. She’d
grown up with three brothers and two sisters who shared one bathroom, and modesty
had been a lost cause. Too, thinking back on it, the situation had been sort of
funny.
    Soon she was whistling as she
bustled about the huge old kitchen, and her whole body bounced to the tune as
she rhythmically plopped spoonfuls of pancake batter on the griddle.
    “Could I have a cup of that
coffee?” asked a deep voice from behind her.
    Startled, Sunny jerked, and a
big dollop of batter flew over her shoulder. She whirled around to find Kale
standing there, a glob of goo sliding slowly down his cheek.
    He stood still as a statue, his
face expressionless except for a tiny twitch in his jaw. “A simple no would
have sufficed.”
    She tried to keep a straight
face, to act contrite, but a bubble of laughter exploded in her throat. He
glared. Another bubble escaped, then another. She gritted her teeth to hold
back the gales threatening to erupt and grabbed a paper towel.
    “Sorry about that.” She quickly
wiped the batter away.
    “Why do I get the feeling that
you’re not at all sorry?”
    She wet another towel and scrubbed
the vestiges from his cheek, noticing that it was clean shaven now. Smiling,
she cocked her head and looked up at him, about to say something glib. Their
eyes locked like dueling sabers. Her thoughts fled. Her smile faded. Her
strokes lapsed into slow motion, then stopped. The intensity of his gaze was so
potent that she could have sworn he had X-ray vision and was scrutinizing the
synapses in her brain.
    A shiver akin to what she felt
with an approaching thunderstorm slithered up her spine. She blinked, breaking
the disquieting contact between them, and hurriedly returned to the pancakes.
    He poured a mug of coffee and,
while he sipped it, lifted the ruffled curtain over the sink and peered out. “I
could have sworn that I heard it raining a few minutes ago.”
    “Nope. The weather cleared about
five this morning. It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
    “Must have been the shower I
heard.”
    Her hand stilled as she scooped
pancakes onto a platter. “Probably.” She kept her eyes averted while she
finished her task. “Would you like some of these?” She waved her hand over the
heaped dish.
    “They look better than anything
I’ve seen in weeks. Do you have enough for me?”
    “Oh, sure. I can’t possibly eat
all these, and Estella’s are already in the warming drawer.