Caught by Surprise Read Online Free PDF Page B

hill formed the fourth side. Up to his waist in dark green water, the teenager lumbered toward the pond’s edge.
    Millie knew that this was the advantage she needed. She holstered her gun, took a deep breath, and jumped in after him.
    “Don’t you ever give up?” he growled as she landed with a splash and started toward him. His voice shook and he looked at her as if she were an alien creature in the form of a little woman.
    “No,” she answered flatly, and dove for his waist.
    Millie felt a stinging blow as he caught the side of her head with the flat of his hand. She clawed for something to hurt, and luckily found that something in his most tender spot.
    He howled with surprise and pain, then shoved her head under water. Millie punched at his legs fiercely, but he had the strength of a bull, and he held her under easily. For one second, she allowed herself to wonder if he intended to drown her.
    Then his hands left her suddenly and he fell backward with a violent motion. Sputtering, Millie flung herself upright and gasped for air. Then she gasped again. Brig was standing a few feet away from her, soaking wet, his hands on his hips. The teenager was gone.
    “Where is he?” she demanded breathlessly.
    Brig shifted as if he had trouble keeping his balance. “He’s eatin’ mud.”
    “What?”
    “It’s an old aborigine trick. I’m standin’ on his head. Takes just the right technique, you see, otherwise he can get up.”
    She realized abruptly that the water was churning around Brig. “Don’t drown him!”
    “Aw, I’m just havin’ a bit of fun with him.”
    He stepped back and the teenager rose slowly to the surface. The parts of his face that weren’t covered in sticky pond mud were a robin’s egg shade of blue. He slumped over and braced his hands on his knees, heaving as he caught his breath. Millie saw the look change in Brig’s gaze. He eyed the huge teenager with quiet, icy fierceness. The jovial, carefree McKay had another side—a deadly one.
    “Make a move, you mangy baby, and I’ll rearrange your face,” he said in a soft tone. “If you’ve got a notion to hold somebody else under water, give it a go with me instead of the lady.”
    “No, no.” The teenager could barely stand up. “Forget it.”
    Millie wasn’t accustomed to being defended, and she should have bristled at Brig McKay’s insinuation that she needed protection. Instead, she smiled at him until her lips hurt. He was wonderful.
    “I knew you didn’t need much help,” Brig told hergallantly. “But I figured you’d be out of breath by the time you finished chewing his legs off under water.”
    Millie pulled the teenager’s hands behind his back and cuffed them. Her eyes hardly left Brig’s. “You hellion,” she said without much malice. “You were supposed to stay in the car.”
    The gaze he gave her was so possessive that she lost what little remained of her train of thought. She read a proud message in his blue eyes: He’d never intended to let her chase a car thief alone.
    “You look real good, even wet and dirty,” he told her.
    “Oh, God, I don’t believe this,” the teenager muttered. She guided him to the bank and he sat down limply. “Is this a bad episode of
Charlie’s Angels
? A little chick tries to tear my family jewels off, her English friend nearly drowns me, and now the two of them are tryin’ to start a romance.”
    “Shut up, yahoo,” Brig told him grimly. “I’m not English, I’m Australian, and don’t forget it. Watch your trap or I’ll sic the lady on you again.”
    The teenager groaned. “Anything but that, man.”
    “Make one wrong move,” Millie added, “and the
Englishman
will use another aborigine trick on you.”
    She looked at Brig while her chest swelled with affection and respect and something much more intense that, were she not a serious, practical, rough-and-tough deputy sheriff type, she would have called love.

Three
    The car thief was wanted by the police in the