LIGHT OF DAY Page 4

  Instantly he lowered the gun with a curse. "Don't ever try something like that again."

  Lila let go of her breath. "No problem." She touched her chest and looked back to the gun. "What are you doing with that thing?"

  "I always have it."

  She started to ask him why, then thought better of it. "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies—am I in the ball park?"

  He smiled grimly, lifting his eyebrows provocatively.

  Lila followed him into the kitchen, where he put the gun down on the stainless-steel counter, which was covered with spilled flour and oil, bits of vegetables and fish. "What happened here?"

  Samuel spread his hands. "Me." Looking around him with an air of puzzlement, he added, "I can never seem to cook without creating complete destruction."

  "And I thought you scientist types were spit-and-polish clean."

  "I told you my talents lie in other directions." He pulled a ceramic bowl closer and dipped a cracker in the mixture it held. "Here, try this."

  Lila complied and widened her eyes in approval. "Good."

  "See? It's worth it."

  "I wouldn't go that far. I'll bet other cooks hate to work with you."

  "That's why I am here alone tonight." Nibbling the pâté himself, he asked, "What brings you here?"

  Lila shrugged. "I saw your car and stopped. Thought I'd see how you were doing with the preparations." She leaned over to dip another cracker. "This really is wonderful. Will you give me the recipe?"

  "Of course."

  "I also thought of something else to add to the buffet. What about marzipan? I love making it, and while it will add a small amount to the bill I present, I think it would be a nice touch."

  He smiled, easing the long lines around his mouth. "All right. I've always liked marzipan."

  "When I was a kid," she said, "I thought it was magic, that if you ate it, you would have special powers."

  Her pale eyes shone mischievously, the sprinkling of freckles over her nose quite visible in the harsh fluorescent light. Against her hair, a spray of beaded earrings glittered like reddish dewdrops caught in the curls. And Samuel thought she must have eaten a great deal of marzipan, for she was undoubtedly casting a spell over him. "And is it?" he asked.

  "Leprechauns are much more reliable." She said it in such a matter-of-fact tone that he couldn't tell if she was teasing. And then her succulent lips curled into their irresistible smile.

  "No doubt there are more than a few among your illustrious ancestors." He found himself relaxing.

  "No doubt." She waved a hand around to the various concoctions littering the counter. "Are you finished?"

  "Mainly."

  "I'll help you clean up, then."

  "That isn't necessary, Lila."

  "I know. But I don't mind." She shot him a glance. "Come on, admit it—you were putting off the cleanup because it's so enormous."

  Again that Gallic shrug. "Perhaps."

  She gathered several bowls and carried them over to the huge dishwashing area. "I used to have to do dishes for ten people every night—with no dishwasher. I'm always amazed when people complain about washing dishes in a machine."

  "Ten people?" Samuel carried a tray of cutlery and soiled pans over. "Were they all your family?"

  "Yep. Seven brothers, me and my parents. I personally would have been thrilled to feed the stock instead of wash dishes, but my mother never pretended to be liberated. Boys took out the trash and fed stock, girls cooked and washed dishes."

  "Poor Lila," he said mockingly.

  "I lived, obviously."

  His only answer was a smile. Lila loaded the hard plastic trays with the dirty dishes and slid the first into the dishwasher, then flipped a button to start the noisy process. Samuel cleaned the cooking area, his hair falling over his forehead, and she watched him for a moment. Tonight he was as disheveled as he was ordinarily neat, and she found she liked the fact that he could be a slob. He paused a moment to take a sip from a glass of wine, and his eyes met hers over the polished white tiles and sheen of chrome appointments. Unlike the cold steel, his black eyes were warm. She felt her heart catch a little—perhaps she wasn't alone in her attraction. Perhaps the mysterious Samuel found Lila a bit intriguing, as well.

  Then he returned to his task, moving the gun to the other side of the counter as he wiped underneath. It was a casual movement, and she noticed that it was still within ready reach.

  It bothered her. Bothered her that he was so calm and elegant—and obviously deadly. It seemed her first impression of danger had not been terribly off the mark, after all.

  Trouble was, she didn't think it made any difference to her.

  By late afternoon on Saturday, Samuel was as tense as he ever became. The food had been prepared, tables and linens and silver delivered to the site of the reception—a professor's house in the hills above the Sound—and sufficient help had been hired to serve both the dinner crowd at the restaurant and the reception.

  He knew he could leave the reception to Lila at this point. She had, after all, managed them nicely before he had come to Seattle, and he had no doubt she could see this one run smoothly, as well. But he went home to shower and change, anyway.

  It was more than wishing to see her, particularly in the finery he knew she would don for the occasion. He also had an ugly feeling about the "visiting professor" from the Middle East, had a hunch that it was no accident a restaurant recently acquired by The Organization had been chosen to cater this affair.

  That his own growing paranoia might be the source of his worries had also occurred to him, thus forcing him to go through with the affair as planned. But a man didn't come as far as Samuel had by reason alone—and tonight, all of his instincts quivered.

  In the beginning he had believed in the alignment of minds that comprised The Organization, had believed in their judgment and experience. For five years he had carried out their mission—to achieve world peace—but he could no longer bear to live the life his activities required of him.

  If only, he thought, straightening his tie in the barren bedroom of his faceless apartment, he did not have to worry about his brother now. At this late date, it was an aggravation.

  When he arrived at the professor's house more than an hour before the reception was to begin, he checked again the wines he'd ordered and the fine array of food he and Gerald had prepared.

  Tables had been arranged in a great room on the second floor of the house. A glass-fronted wall opened onto a broad wooden balcony, and a breeze carried in the flavor of fallen leaves without even a hint of rain. The late-autumn evening was cool but not unbearably so. For once, he thought with a grimace, this blasted weather would cooperate.

  Two waitresses hurried in with a bartender, and Samuel put them to work arranging food and drink. They seemed a little nervous with him. To give them peace, Samuel wandered out to the wooden deck off the room to watch the driveway.

  The first two cars carried professors and their husbands and wives, all dressed formally. He shook his head and leaned with a grin on the railing. Teachers, he thought. He could pick them out in any crowd.

  A third car crawled into the circular, graveled driveway and parked. Lila climbed out of it. A wind caught her curls and tossed them over her face as she turned to close the car door. With a flip of her head she flung them away, exposing a long column of throat and shoulder, then walked over the gravel in high-heeled sandals. Samuel straightened.

  Her dress, though still carefully loose around her body, could hardly be called modest. Black, with glittering red threads laced through the edges, it showed a sweeping view of her shoulders. Only shoulders, he noted with a smile. It stopped well short of exposing even a hint of breasts, and the sleeves were long, the hem to the middle of her knee.

  Lila caught sight of Samuel just as she flipped her hair away from her face. Standing on the wooden balcony, far above the earth, he looked as arrogant and unapproachable as a monarch surveying his kingdom. It
wasn't a quality she ordinarily admired in men. Why, she thought, was it so appealing in Samuel?

  Well, Waters, she said grimly, what have you found about him that wasn't appealing?

  As she climbed the entry stairs, Lila whistled softly to herself. No one had purchased this house on a professor's salary—that much was certain. A cat would be lost in the lush carpet, and the walls were hung with priceless treasures.

  But when Samuel met her at the head of the stairs, everything in the room faded to insignificance. His hair was carefully brushed back from the broad forehead, and his eyes glowed with appreciation. Every detail of his black suit was utterly exquisite. He looked so magnificent that she found she couldn't think of a single word to greet him with as he took her hand.

  "Your dress is lovely," he said with a quirk of his lips.

  "Thank you," she said quietly, lowering her eyes, aware of a strange shyness that had never infected her in her life. She shifted the large box in her hands. "Why don't you show me what's been set up and let me arrange the marzipan."

  His answer was a slight tilt of his head. "This way."

  Once in her element Lila took over, rearranging the edges of the buffet so they might be more accessible, giving direction to the waitresses. She piled her plump, carefully painted marzipans into a basket, grinning to herself. She'd spend the night before rolling the tiny fruits in sugar, taking care to add the clever details she had always admired—dark ends on the bananas, dimpling on the oranges, a rosy blush on the pears. Samuel, who had been talking with the host of the reception, appeared at her side. "Beautiful," he commented. "Which one is the most magical?"

  She placed a miniscule cluster of ruby-colored grapes in his hand. "Guaranteed to protect you from all ills."

  He smiled, then drifted away again.

  As the large room began to fill with guests and music began to play, Lila circled and mingled, seeing to it that everyone had plenty of wine, that no plates were messily left on the exquisite tables in the room. Occasionally she caught sight of Samuel doing essentially the same job, although there was a subtle difference. The men and women in the room seemed to recognize Samuel as an equal. She saw people stop him several times. Women left their hands a long time on his black sleeve, and men shook his hand with nods of respect.

  Lila knew a handful of the professors in the room, either from her seven-year tour of duty at the restaurant, where many of them were regular customers, or from her own college days. They greeted her warmly, spoke a moment. Never did anyone linger with her or bend their heads together to discuss her as she left them, which happened with the enigmatic Samuel. Once, she overheard him speaking a language she'd never heard with a small, dapper man.

  The visiting professor was a big man in his late thirties. He introduced himself as Jamal Hassid to Lila early in the evening. Thinking he had mistaken her for a teacher, she quickly made clear her position as a caterer. He had nodded, his dark eyes oddly intense, then wandered away.

  Now he stopped her again, with one broad hand on her bare shoulder. She thought suddenly that she didn't much like him. Frowning, she moved to dislodge the overly familiar hand. "Can I help you?"

  "Only to tell me your name." He smiled, and Lila was reminded of an alligator.

  "Lila Waters," she said cautiously, stepping back with one foot.

  "You are the most beautiful woman in the room, you know." His heavy-lidded eyes swept over her figure boldly, as if he had every right.

  "How kind of you to say so," she returned, but her voice said exactly the opposite. Men like this one were the sort that made her thankful for the restrictions her brothers had placed on her clothes. "I'm very busy. You'll have to excuse me."

  The man reached out a hand to circle her elbow. "Surely no one will object if you stand a moment with the guest of honor?"

  "I mind," she said frankly. "Please let go of me." The bland words were steely, and she met his too-familiar gaze with her most chilly one.

  He released her, undaunted, and gave her his empty glass. "Perhaps you would be so kind as to fetch me another."

  Before she could move, Samuel inserted himself smoothly between Lila and the professor, somehow edging his body between them without pushing. With a deadly smile he spoke in Arabic to the man, who responded in a derisive tone in the same language.

  As Lila watched the exchange, she couldn't decide whether to be grateful or irritated. On the one hand, she'd been extracting herself very nicely from situations that required both graciousness and grit for a long time. On the other, she'd definitely been offended by this man.

  The conversation between the two men ended with the professor gliding away. "He's not to be trusted," Samuel said, turning to her.

  "I was hardly giving any thought to including him on my entertainment list."

  "Ah," he returned with an amused quirk of his mouth, "you wanted to handle him yourself. I apologize."

  She lifted one shoulder in dismissal. "He was a little difficult," she conceded. With her heels she stood almost eye to eye with him, making it a simple thing to imagine leaning over to press a kiss to that generous mouth. In other circumstances, with another man, she might have done just that. Not with Samuel.

  Somehow he seemed to sense her thoughts. His smile faded, and she saw his thumb restlessly tip the filtered end of his cigarette. As he had several times before, he seemed about to say something as he looked at her so intently, then the moment passed. He shifted.

  "It's going well," he said.

  "Yes, it is." She scanned the room. "In no small measure, it's your doing. They all seem very impressed with you." Lila lifted an eyebrow. "And you speak at least three languages that I've counted—Arabic, English and something I've never heard before."

  "Four," he said. He leaned closer. "In your ear, the words should be French, I think."

  His fingers caressed her elbow with no greater weight than an ounce of sunshine, yet Lila felt them. She felt, too, his breath over the edges of her collarbone. His voice, not deep or rumbling or gravelly like the voices of men she'd admired hitherto, held the pure tenor quality of a cello. Breathlessly she said, "Why French?"

  "I leave that speculation to you," he answered, pulling back to give her his off-center smile. "What's the other one?"

  "Other one?"

  "Language."

  "Hebrew," he said, and dropped his hand. "I see that I'm needed."

  She watched him glide through the crowd to a little knot of older men by the stone fireplace, ever more perplexed—and attracted—than before. Why would a man with high degrees in physics, an obviously Continental background and fluency in four languages fall into the line of work he was now doing?

  Absently collecting several empty wineglasses, she headed back to the bar. While it was true that she was involved in an unusual occupation herself, there was a big difference. Lila had been raised on an Oklahoma ranch, surrounded by people who admired higher education in the way they might admire a Faberge egg—very fine and well for people in a certain class, wonderful if you could get your hands on one, but all in all, not terribly necessary.

  In contrast, Samuel had obviously been raised to take some position in society. She couldn't imagine how he'd find managing restaurants satisfying enough.

  She put the glasses on the bar and checked the buffet, straightening a stack of napkins that had fallen sideways, then glanced back toward Samuel. He stood utterly at ease, listening intently to an older man, nodding in encouragement. As he began to offer his reply, he gestured with two fingers circling the air, his other hand stuck in his pocket. Lila sighed.

  "That sounds a little frustrated," a voice said to her left.

  Lila jerked her head around, startled, to find an old professor friend standing next to her. "John," she said in real pleasure. "How are you?"

  "Well enough. I'm thirteen years past retirement age, and they haven't kicked me out yet." He grinned at his old joke. "And you?"

  "Okay."

  He lifted a t
umbler of whiskey to his lips, let several drops fall to his tongue, narrowed his eyes. "Is he someone you know well, girl?"

  "Samuel? No, not really. Why?"

  "Trouble there."

  "What makes you say that?"

  John lifted hooded eyes to Lila. "I spent four years in Europe in the war. There were a lot of men like him around then. They have a scent about them." He lifted the tumbler, tasted again. "Mark my words, girl, he's got a cause."

  At that moment Samuel shook the old man's hand warmly and he walked away. As if he'd been waiting, the visiting Middle Eastern professor slid next to Samuel. She watched the two men curiously as they exchanged a noncommittal series of words, both keeping their faces bland. No love lost there, Lila thought, for Samuel barely looked at the other man while delivering his words in an offhand manner that seemed to irk the professor. He leaned forward in a confidential manner, said something and smiled as Samuel went rigid.

  Lila absorbed the drama carefully. Now Samuel turned, his posture straight and arrogant. Though his face remained as bland as before, she saw that he spoke through stiff lips. Whatever he said inflamed the professor, who raised his voice just enough that Lila, across the room, could hear that he'd spoken.

  "Arabic," the old professor next to Lila said confidently. "I doubt anyone here could tell us what they were arguing about. Mark my words," he repeated in satisfaction.

  With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Lila turned away. Who was he? Nothing seemed to fit.

  She shook her head in dismissal and touched her old teacher's arm. "I'm going to step outside a moment. Would you like to join me?"

  "No, girl. Cold night air's hard on my arthritis. Good to see you."

  She smiled. "You, too."

  Samuel could barely see for his fury. Bad enough to find an enemy in the city he was forced to occupy for the next two or three months. Worse to remember what a base, mongrel lech he was. It offended Samuel's dignity to know the man had actually wormed his way into the role of a visiting professor.