Read Beyond the Waves (Pacific Shores Book 1) for Free Online Page B

distaste.
    Kylen ejected his mag and the remaining round. Weariness hit him in a wave, and he pressed his lips together grimly. He needed a moment to clear his head, and besides, the bottoms of his feet felt like they were on fire. He hobbled toward the dining room and a chair.

    Taysia pressed one palm to her forehead, unable to believe what had just transpired. “Daddy! Please, just listen for a minute.” She tried to calm her father. “Kylen lives next door . I heard you in the living room and thought you were a robber or…something. I called 9-1-1, and they sent Officer Sumner over right away. He wasn’t sleeping here!” She shook her head. “Heavens, no!”
    Kylen grunted from out in the dining room.
    Taysia ignored him. She had probably hurt his feelings with her vehement denial. Good, maybe he’ll get the picture! “What in the world are you doing here anyway, Daddy?”
    Daddy had the sense to at least look sheepish but didn’t answer the question.
    Frustrated, Taysia glanced down. Bloody footprints marred the length of her hallway! She gasped. “What on earth?” She flipped on her bedroom light. They were in her bedroom too! Her heart lurched and she rushed down the hall. “Kylen?”
    “I’m in here. Careful when you come in here. There’s glass everywhere. Get the light, would you?”
    Taysia rushed toward the dining room and paused on the threshold as she flipped on the light. Her heart began a tympanic rhythm. She stared at the ground in horror. Shards of her new crystal vase winked and glistened like diamonds sprinkled across the floor. But it was the bloody footprints that set her heart to racing. Kylen’s bloody footprints.
    Kylen sat at the dining room table with one foot on a pile of paper napkins he’d spread on the floor while the other, resting on his knee, turned up at an odd angle as he blotted it. The napkin holder sat empty in the middle of the table next to his gun. He bent his head closer to his foot. “I think I’m going to need tweezers.”
    Taysia swallowed. Splinters of glass in his foot could not be good. “Daddy, could you please sweep this mess up while I help Ky get the glass out of his feet?”
    She turned without waiting for an answer. In her bedroom she slipped on some flip-flops and then headed to the bathroom, where she gathered tweezers, hydrogen peroxide, Neosporin, and Band-Aids. Quickly, she headed back to the dining room, grabbing a roll of paper towels from the kitchen on the way.
    “Here, let me,” she said, taking the wad of napkins from Kylen and trying to ignore the long stretch of muscled leg attached to his foot. She couldn’t let his good looks lure her into the trap of falling for him again.
    She pulled out a chair and sat down, looking at her father, who was quietly sweeping. What in the world was Daddy doing in her house in the middle of the night? Was his mind that far gone? She pressed her lips together, fearing the answer.
    She would have to talk to him about it later. Right now she needed to help Kylen.
    “Why don’t you just put your foot up on the table. I think I will be able to see better that way.” She unscrewed the cap from the bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
    “Whatever you say, Doc.” Kylen rested one leg on the table’s edge and clasped his hands behind his head.
    Her attention snared on the well-defined bulge of his biceps. The muscular shoulders. The rigid six-pack of his abdomen. Her father cleared his throat, and heat infused her face. She met Kylen’s quizzically amused glance for only a split second before she ducked her head to examine his injury.
    There were several small cuts across the middle of his foot and one larger slice near his toes. She probed the cuts gently and heard his sharp intake of breath just as she felt a prick to her finger. A small piece of glass protruded from the end of one cut.
    She met Kylen’s gaze. “This might hurt.”
    “Remember, ‘Vengeance is mine’ is God’s line not yours. So be