Oh. He was good. She should have remembered the quick impression she'd gotten in the kitchen of intelligent, watchful eyes, but his polite, soothing manners and low-key interest had suckered her completely.
"Well," she continued smoothly, flapping a dismissive hand. "You don't care about that."
"Of course I do. I'd love to hear everything about you."
"You're awfully kind. It's just so nice to talk to a gentleman after dealing with that horrid—" She grimaced. "I'm sorry. I forgot for a moment he's your friend."
"Don't worry about it." He dug a shoulder into the doorjamb and smiled that monk's smile at her. "You were going to tell me about all those places you've been and how the last seven years you've lived in… ?"
"Oh, let's not talk about me." She gave him an aren't-you-just-the-sweetest-thing look. "Where are you from?"
"I've been all over, too." He leaned a little closer. "Maybe we've been to some of the same places."
"Gee, do you think? That would be something, wouldn't it?" With a glance up from under her lashes, she murmured, "John is such a nice, strong name. What's your sign?"
"Aries. How about you?"
"Oh, dear, not one that's compatible with yours. And you seemed so perfect, too." With a regretful sigh, she started to close the door.
"Wait!" Straightening, he gave her a self-deprecating smile. "You can't hold that against me. Heck, you don't even know what house my moon is in, or anything. It could make all the difference."
"Why, that's true. What time were you born?"
He told her and she gave a thoughtful, "Hmm," then reached out to touch his wrist. "What do you do for a living, John?"
"I'm an accountant."
Her brow furrowed. "Oh."
"And a financial planner."
" Really . Oooh, I just love money." Leaning against the edge of the open door, she slid her hand up the smooth wood until her arm curved overhead, her palm flat against its interior panel. "So tell me," she said, watching him eye the outside curve of her breast that the pose exposed. "When it comes to long-term investment, what mix of high, medium, and low caps do you recommend for a stock portfolio? And what's your take on index mutual funds?"
His gaze snapped up to meet hers. "Uh…"
"Don't," she admonished gently, "confuse blond hair and breasts with stupidity."
He gave her a perplexed look. "Ma'am?"
"At least Zach's up front in his enmity. The next time you try out your aw-shucks-golly routine, I suggest you cover up that." She nodded at the mostly red tattoo on his arm, which his change in position had made clearly visible. Outlined in black, it contained the words Swift, Silent , and Deadly on three sides of a white skull with black and yellow markings, and 2d Recon Bn inscribed across the bottom. Looking up into eyes gone abruptly hard, she assured him crisply, "It truly does detract from the image." Then, giving the panel beneath her hand a push, she closed the door in his face.
She had a feeling her blood pressure was in the red zone. As if things weren't bad enough already, the lousy ratfinks were double-teaming her! Too restless to go back to her packing, she paced her room for several tense moments.
Then she abruptly stopped in the middle of the room. She had to get out of here before she did something stupid like scream her head off. A walk on the beach would cool her down, but if she wanted to kill two birds with one stone she should probably grab a newspaper and head up the coast highway to the Koffee Klatch, where she could read the apartment listings in peace. A nice, nonhostile environment sounded like just the ticket. She grabbed her purse from the dresser top where she'd tossed it a short while ago and let herself out of the room.
When she let herself back in several hours later, the sun had disappeared over the horizon in a blazing ball of orange and red, and she was calmer—if no closer to having another place to stay than when she'd left. There had only been one apartment in the ads worth pursuing, and by the time she'd gotten over to check it out someone else had already snatched it up.
Well, there was always the internet, but she'd get to that later. The walls of her room were already closing in, and unwilling to act as if she had anything to hide, she marched down the hall, braced to brave the duel condemnation of Zach and his underhanded friend. But the kitchen was empty and the entire house had a deserted feel. She dished up a bowl of ice cream and took it into the den, where she settled into a chair and turned on the news. A short while later, she turned it off again. Beyond a fleeting impression of an impending air-traffic controllers' strike and a murder-suicide inNewport Beach, she had no idea what she'd just viewed. She cleaned her dish in the kitchen, then went out on the terrace to listen to the surf.
Usually she found the susurrus of waves against sand a hypnotic lullaby, but tonight it failed to soothe her, and she decided to call it a day. Tomorrow would be soon enough to log on to the internet to see what it offered in the way of rentals. At the moment she desperately needed the oblivion of sleep.
It wasn't until late the following morning, as she was transferring most of the items she'd packed the day before into some boxes she'd found in the garage, that she remembered the envelope in the suitcase. She dug it out and extracted a single sheet of stationary. Unfolding it, she began to read.
Nooo! She abruptly sat down on the edge of the bed, and for one of the few times in her life, she wished she were a swearing woman. Her few, pitiful expletives simply didn't cover the depth of her feelings. But, poop!
The note was from Glynnis. Lily didn't know how she'd missed it but that wasn't the issue. What mattered was Glynnis's specific request that Lily tell Zach where she had gone, with whom, and why.
Poop, poop, poop, poop, poopl Why was that her job?
But there was simply no help for it; she had to honor Glynnis's wishes. Hating not only that necessity, but the knowledge that Zach was going to blow it all out of proportion, she girded her loins and went looking for him.
She didn't quite do the cha-cha upon discovering he wasn't home, but it was a near thing. Well, that's a crying shame , she thought insincerely, and dug a package of phyllo dough out of the fridge to make herself a nice veggie turnover to go with that apple chutney she'd made the other day. And after lunch , she decided, I really should hit the real estate agents .
When the back door rattled open a short while later as she was still eating, however, she sighed in defeat, knowing she could kiss a clean getaway good-bye. Rats.
Zach closed the door behind him and looked at Lily, who gazed back at him calmly for a moment before returning to her lunch. Like yesterday, she was dolled up right down to the spike-heeled shoes on her feet—this pair open-toed and blue to match her top, which she had no doubt chosen to match her eyes. He watched her rosy lips close around a bite of something with a wonderful fragrance, and jerking his gaze away, he looked at the steam rising off a flaky pastry-looking thing full of wild rice, vegetables, and what looked to be cranberries. His stomach immediately protested that a single piece of peanut-butter toast was no kind of breakfast for a grown man. "I'll say this for you, lollipop. You sure can cook."
"Yes, I can." She hesitated, then jutted her chin toward the stove. "There's another one in the oven, if you'd like it."
She didn't have to ask him twice. He grabbed a plate, singed his fingers grabbing the goodie out of the oven, then got a fork from the drawer and poured himself a glass of milk. Carrying everything to the table, he pulled out a chair and sat down across from her. She passed him a little bowl of some spicy-smelling sauce with chopped apples in it, and he dumped a spoonful on top of his turnover. Before he dug in, though, he shot her a suspicious glance. "Why are you being so accommodating all of a sudden?"