A Date You Can't Refuse by Harley Jane Kozak Read Free Book Online Page B

more conversions.”
    “You miss the point,” Donatella said. “It is hypocritical to teach trainees that each action is scrutinized by the media while Alik drives his gas-guzzler. There is a photo of him in the Porsche in the current issue of
Statement
. If you have no restraint, Alik, at least cultivate discretion. Think how that plays in Budo-Koshelyovo district.”
    “Do you really think
Statement's
circulation extends to Belarus?” Alik asked.
    The blare of an alarm, loud and insistent, assaulted our ears. From inside the house.
    Everyone stood. Uncertain, I stood too. Yuri took a gadget from his pocket and pressed buttons. Alik moved to the wall and picked up a phone, covering his other ear to talk.
    “What is it?” Kimberly asked Yuri. Grusha entered from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, asking the same thing.
    Yuri shook his head, still on his keypad. “Deer. Coyote. Or system malfunction.”
    Donatella went out onto the deck and looked through the telescope.
    “Donatella!” Yuri said in a voice so sharp that I jumped. “In here. Now.”
    Donatella turned and frowned, but she came inside, sliding the glass door behind her.
    As she did so there was a sharp crack.
    I flinched.
    Grusha cried out in Russian and pulled Parashie away from the table as if she were a rag doll. Nell, my mouselike dining companion, looked at me with wide eyes.
    There was a second of silence and then Kimberly left the room. I stared at the sliding doors, looking for the mark of the impact, but there was nothing obvious. Alik, still on the phone, took my arm and pulled me back from the table to where Grusha stood with Parashie.
    Everyone stared out at the mountains.
    Alik handed his phone to his father. Yuri listened, then said, “What's the range it can pick up? … Yes, southwest of the main house … Allright. Let me know.” He hung up and addressed Donatella. “What were you thinking, going out there like that?”
    “You said it was a coyote,” she replied.
    “I was wrong.”
    The blaring ended as abruptly as it had begun.
    Yuri returned to the table and sat. We all followed. Kimberly came in, accompanied by a dog of uncertain breed, big, yellow, and overweight. “Olive Oyl, down,” she said and took her seat. Olive Oyl put one paw on Kimberly's shoe, collapsed, and prepared to nap.
    “At least the system is fixed,” Parashie said. “The last time someone shot at—”
    “Parashie.”
    The single word from Yuri stopped her. She dropped her eyes to her soup.
    I watched Yuri. He stared at his daughter, then turned to me and smiled.
    “Now, then,” he said. “Where were we?”

SEVEN
    O nce lunch was over, people took off in all directions, Yuri to catch a plane, Donatella and Kimberly to shop, Grusha to cook, and Parashie to study. “Nell tutors me,” she explained, walking me to the foyer. “Yuri wants me to catch up to American kids and go next year to school, to tenth grade. But I like it at home.”
    “Wollie,” Alik said, phone in hand. “I have an errand to run, but I still need an hour with you. Can you meet me at five in the Valley? We'll have drinks.”
    “Alik you are just meeting Wollie and already you date her?” Parashie said.
    “Shut up, brat,” he said, and put her in a choke hold, a staple of big brothers everywhere, that made her scream with laughter and engage in a counterattack.
    The minute I was in my car, I tried to call my Uncle Theo, who was waiting to hear about my new job, but there was no cell signal. How inconvenient. Hadn't anyone in the Milos family used cell phones that day? No; they'd all been landlines.
    I felt a chill of isolation that dissipated only when I was outside the gates of Palomino Hills. This was a problem. For as long as I was at the compound, I'd be cut off. I could make calls from the Milos phones, butthose could conceivably be overheard by anyone in the household. And, of course, by the FBI, if they were indeed wiretapping them.
    I told myself that