My Own True Love Read Online Free PDF

to start by kissing him again. He certainly didn't look as if he'd mind. He stepped away from her, and she put her hands firmly behind her back as he went over to the water barrel. She knew what she should do. Was going to do. She was going to make the ring take her home.
    It was best to leave it at just one memorable kiss.
    She couldn't take her eyes off him, even as she sternly reminded herself she didn't really know this man. He thought she was someone else. He picked up the cup and doused his chest and head a few times.
    "I smell like a pig," he said as he grabbed a dry cloth and began scrubbing his chest and hair. "I'd like a bath, but I'd better hurry up and change. Beng's bound to show up. No use making more trouble by having him find me half-naked with his daughter," he added. He gave her another warm look. "Or completely naked." He took a step toward her. "It's very tempting. 1 didn't realize you knew how to kiss.
    Here I was trying to take you by surprise and—"
    "You've never kissed her before?" The words escaped before Sara could stop them. She hadn't liked the thought of Toma and the other Sara being lovers. It wasn't jealousy, she told herself. It would just be more weirdness than she could handle, that was all.
    Puzzlement crossed his sharp-featured face. "Kissed who?"
    "Her. I mean me. You've never kissed me before?"
    Toma smirked. "If I had you'd remember. And don't worry about getting your words mixed up," he added kindly. "I did too when I was the gypsy half-breed at the charity school. You speak the gajos'
    language better all the time. I'm a better teacher than Beth," he added in Romany. "Better at lots of things."
    "I bet," she mumbled in reply, her hand covering her mouth to keep the words from reaching him.
    He went to the chest and took out a white shirt. He pulled it on, belted it, and added a dark blue vest.
    His hair was drying quickly in the hot sunlight. He shook out the dark, silky locks and tied a blue headband around his forehead. Sara found the effect piratical, and perfect for him. She hadn't failed to notice the bone-handled knife sheathed on his belt, either. The weapon helped remind her that she really wasn't in the twentieth century. Toma, she told herself, was probably a dangerous young man. She wished she didn't find the idea intriguing; it spoiled her own civilized image of herself.
    "Have you talked to Beng yet?" he asked as he finished dressing.
    She'd gotten the idea Beng was the other Sara's father. She wondered what she was supposed to talk to him about.
    "No," she answered truthfully. "What should I say?"
    She hoped the leading question would give her some clue to what was going on. She could ask the ring, but it had been quiet since Beth had led her to Toma. She rather liked it that way. She couldn't spend too much more time with Toma. Better to give him her full attention than to be distracted by the ring's asinine comments.
    Beth came racing in before Toma could answer. "Sandor brought ‘im!" she exclaimed. She grabbed Sara's hand and pulled. "Sara, 'ide! "E'll beat you for sure this time. 'E said 'e would!"
    The little girl looked panic-stricken. So Sara did the first thing that came to mind: she hugged her.
    "It's okay," she soothed the girl. "No one's going to hurt anybody. Calm down, sweetheart."
    Beth struggled in her embrace. Sara and Toma's glances met over the little girl's dirty head. A gleam of warm affection showed briefly in Toma's eyes before he turned swiftly at the sound of a roar.
    "Sara!" a deep masculine voice shouted from the entrance.
    Sara pushed Beth behind her and turned to confront whoever it was.
    "Dad?" she questioned in confusion when she saw the angry figure framed in the gap in the flimsy wooden wall. The man was a bit shorter than the twentieth-century version of her father, the shoulders were wider, the eyes were brown instead of blue. But the face was the same. The stance was the same.
    The paternal outrage was similar to that time after the