Summer Smile

Chapter One: The young woman in the photograph was smiling. It was a summer smile, warm and wise yet brimming with the promise of richness and beauty still to come. She was dressed in jeans and a plaid cotton western shirt and was sitting on the back of a beautiful palomino horse. Her green eyes held the serenity and gravity of a much older woman, but her lips were slightly parted and her face lit with such warmth and eagerness that it caused Daniel's hand to tighten involuntarily on the snapshot. "Very pretty." He forced his voice to sound casual. "What did you say her name was?" "Zilah Dabala." Clancy Donahue leaned back, his ice blue eyes narrowed on the man in the executive chair behind the desk. "You met her mother two years ago when I took you to that party at Karim's. She's in charge of the housekeeping for all of his houses." "Yes, I remember her," Daniel murmured, still gazing absently at the photograph. Clancy had known he would. He would wager Daniel Seifert could recall every person and incident that had crossed his path in the last ten years. It was one of the abilities that had made him invaluable as Clancy's first lieutenant in Sedikhan's security service for over two years. That, along with a lethal deadliness that was honed to razor sharpness, had made him a weapon more potent than any in Clancy's extensive arsenal. "Yasmin is a very fine woman and terribly worried about Zilah." "She doesn't look like her mother." As Daniel recalled, Yasmin was an attractive woman in her late forties with an olive complexion and dark hair and eyes. The woman in the picture had a skin tone that appeared to be pale gold rather than olive. Her wideset eyes were slightly uptilted at the corners and were a beautiful shade of clear, pale green. Her hair wasn't dark but a light tan, sunstreaked with gold, and tumbled down her back in a straight shining curtain. "Her mother is a native of Sedikhan," Clancy said. "Zilah's only half Sedikhanese. But she's intimately linked to those in power through her association with David Bradford." "Bradford?" Daniel tore his gaze from the photograph to glance up swiftly. "What the devil does Bradford have to do with this?" "Zilah and he go back a long way." Clancy paused. "You might say she's something of a protegee of David's." "Really?" Daniel's lips twisted in a cynical smile. "And I heard he was so much in love with that copper-haired wife of his." He studied the photograph appraisingly. "However, Zilah is certainly lovely enough to be any man's prize 'protege.' A little young for Bradford though, isn't she?" "She's twenty-one and she's not..." Clancy broke off. "I'm not at liberty to discuss Zilah's relationship with David." Daniel shrugged. "I wouldn't think of prying into the man's personal life. It's nothing to me if he keeps a hundred women on the side." He tossed the photograph onto the desk in front of him and resolutely kept his eyes away from it. Why the hell was he feeling this helpless fascination with the girl in the photograph? It didn't make any sense at all. She was lovely, but the Khadim who had occupied his bed the night before was far more beautiful. Lord, he had even felt a surge of sheer possessive rage when Clancy had identified her as Bradford's mistress. He leaned back in his chair and drew up one knee to rest against the desk. "I can see how her closeness to Bradford might be a weapon in the terrorists' hands." He had never met David Bradford, but Daniel was well aware that the man was regarded with deep affection by both Sheikh Alex Ben Raschid, who was the reigning monarch of Sedikhan, and his wife Sabrina. Even old Karim Ben Raschid, the formeJohansen, Iris is the author of 'Summer Smile ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780553590937 and ISBN 0553590936.