Her Spy to Have (Spy Games Book 1) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Paula Altenburg
trust, and hopefully track down her missing father.
He closed the door to her suite behind him and opened his, heading straight to the bedroom. From its wide, double-hung windows, he had a view of the entire backyard. He dropped his suitcase on the king-sized bed and peered through the lace curtains.
It didn’t take great observational powers to see that Isabelle was, indeed, good with the children. She stood on the side of the pool, her head tipped to one side, nodding occasionally, her dark ponytail sweeping one bare shoulder while she absorbed whatever Beth was explaining to her. He couldn’t help but grin. It took a special kind of patience to listen to the bossy seven-year-old’s long-winded and often roundabout stories.
She started to laugh at whatever Beth was saying to her. A wide, genuine smile transformed her face from average to something astonishing, revealing yet another one of her startling layers.
He let the curtain drop back into place.
No matter which way he tried to wrap his head around it, he couldn’t figure out what her ultimate game was. Either she was innocent of any wrongdoing and her life totally sucked, or she was as deep in the cesspool as her father. He wished he believed it was the former, but he couldn’t get past her attempt to sell that passport. She’d known what she was doing. If he hadn’t caught on to what she was up to that night, she’d have succeeded. A part of him regretted not getting a chance to witness the performance she’d planned to put on at the Embassy.
He changed into his swim trunks and grabbed a pool towel from the linen closet in his bathroom, then headed downstairs and into the family room. He could hear Peter in his den at the front of the house, talking on the phone. He eased open the screen on the sliding patio door and walked to the edge of the pool.
Within seconds, he had what seemed like a horde of screaming children hanging off his arms and legs, clinging like burrs.
“Did you guys multiply or something while I was inside?” he asked, grabbing Kiefer around the waist with one arm and flipping him upside down so that his chubby legs flailed in the air. “Because when I left, there were only three of you. Now there’s got to be at least fifty.”
“There’s still only three of us,” Chelsea assured him, her green eyes wide and serious. “Four, if we count Izzy.”
He set Kiefer on his feet and glanced Isabelle’s way. She was treading water in the deep end, sunlight glinting off her wet hair. He raised his eyebrows. “Izzy, huh?”
“Isabelle is a bit of a mouthful for young children. Peter and Cheryl have no problem pronouncing the unabridged version. You haven’t had any trouble so far, either.”
In other words, Don’t call me Izzy .
He wasn’t normally a difficult person. He got most of his informants to open up to him by being the “good” cop, not the bad one. Women usually liked him. He liked them, too. But there was something about Isabelle and her quiet, unflappable nature that made him want to shake all that calm. The last time he’d had the urge to be a jerk with a girl had been in the second grade. He’d had a huge crush on a cute blonde in the third row who didn’t know he existed.
Since he wasn’t eight years old anymore, and he couldn’t put gum in her hair, that left calling her Izzy—but when the timing was right.
Right now was about having fun.
* * *
“Last one in the pool is a floater,” Garrett said.
Isabelle watched him make a show of running for the diving board, giving the kids plenty of time to beat him into the water, then cannonball off the end. She scrambled for refuge in the shallow end, beating the peak of the tsunami he created by a matter of seconds. The girls clung to the sides of the pool, spluttering in the aftermath, having been buried in the crest.
Kiefer bobbed nearby, his chin bouncing in and out of the water. “ You the floater, Uncle Garrett,” he shouted.
“This explains so
He closed the door to her suite behind him and opened his, heading straight to the bedroom. From its wide, double-hung windows, he had a view of the entire backyard. He dropped his suitcase on the king-sized bed and peered through the lace curtains.
It didn’t take great observational powers to see that Isabelle was, indeed, good with the children. She stood on the side of the pool, her head tipped to one side, nodding occasionally, her dark ponytail sweeping one bare shoulder while she absorbed whatever Beth was explaining to her. He couldn’t help but grin. It took a special kind of patience to listen to the bossy seven-year-old’s long-winded and often roundabout stories.
She started to laugh at whatever Beth was saying to her. A wide, genuine smile transformed her face from average to something astonishing, revealing yet another one of her startling layers.
He let the curtain drop back into place.
No matter which way he tried to wrap his head around it, he couldn’t figure out what her ultimate game was. Either she was innocent of any wrongdoing and her life totally sucked, or she was as deep in the cesspool as her father. He wished he believed it was the former, but he couldn’t get past her attempt to sell that passport. She’d known what she was doing. If he hadn’t caught on to what she was up to that night, she’d have succeeded. A part of him regretted not getting a chance to witness the performance she’d planned to put on at the Embassy.
He changed into his swim trunks and grabbed a pool towel from the linen closet in his bathroom, then headed downstairs and into the family room. He could hear Peter in his den at the front of the house, talking on the phone. He eased open the screen on the sliding patio door and walked to the edge of the pool.
Within seconds, he had what seemed like a horde of screaming children hanging off his arms and legs, clinging like burrs.
“Did you guys multiply or something while I was inside?” he asked, grabbing Kiefer around the waist with one arm and flipping him upside down so that his chubby legs flailed in the air. “Because when I left, there were only three of you. Now there’s got to be at least fifty.”
“There’s still only three of us,” Chelsea assured him, her green eyes wide and serious. “Four, if we count Izzy.”
He set Kiefer on his feet and glanced Isabelle’s way. She was treading water in the deep end, sunlight glinting off her wet hair. He raised his eyebrows. “Izzy, huh?”
“Isabelle is a bit of a mouthful for young children. Peter and Cheryl have no problem pronouncing the unabridged version. You haven’t had any trouble so far, either.”
In other words, Don’t call me Izzy .
He wasn’t normally a difficult person. He got most of his informants to open up to him by being the “good” cop, not the bad one. Women usually liked him. He liked them, too. But there was something about Isabelle and her quiet, unflappable nature that made him want to shake all that calm. The last time he’d had the urge to be a jerk with a girl had been in the second grade. He’d had a huge crush on a cute blonde in the third row who didn’t know he existed.
Since he wasn’t eight years old anymore, and he couldn’t put gum in her hair, that left calling her Izzy—but when the timing was right.
Right now was about having fun.
* * *
“Last one in the pool is a floater,” Garrett said.
Isabelle watched him make a show of running for the diving board, giving the kids plenty of time to beat him into the water, then cannonball off the end. She scrambled for refuge in the shallow end, beating the peak of the tsunami he created by a matter of seconds. The girls clung to the sides of the pool, spluttering in the aftermath, having been buried in the crest.
Kiefer bobbed nearby, his chin bouncing in and out of the water. “ You the floater, Uncle Garrett,” he shouted.
“This explains so