Kentucky Confidential. Пола Грейвс
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far more stable position than most of the people in the community, including all of his employees. Most were here on temporary visas or provisional refugee status, and he made sure they understood just how perilous their lives in the States really were.
“There are a couple of special guests coming tonight. They want the prettiest of the serving girls to wait on them exclusively.” He flashed her a bright smile before adding, “So Darya will be serving them. You’ll have to pick up her tables.”
“Yes, sir,” she answered in Kaziri, trying to ignore the flash of cruelty in his smile. One of the hardest things about pretending to be a Kaziri refugee was behaving as if she was resigned to being at the mercy of others.
In another life, she would have cut him in half with her words. And he’d be lucky if she’d stopped there.
“Speak English,” Farid added in a harsh tone. He waved one sinewy hand at her head. “And cover yourself.”
She reached up and straightened her roosari, tugging it up to cover her hair. It’s all part of the assignment, she reminded herself as she picked up her order pad and went to work, her teeth grinding with frustration.
The conversations she overheard as she worked were unremarkable. Despite its location in the heart of the Kaziri refugee community, The Jewel of Tablis was beginning to draw patrons from all over Cincinnati. In fact, most of the refugees Yasmin knew were too impoverished to eat out, though most of them shopped in the small halal food market attached to the restaurant. So far tonight, all of her diners were English-speaking Americans. Not one of them said anything that might have piqued Dalrymple’s interest.
She was beginning to wonder why he’d wanted her to move here to Cincinnati rather than simply relocating her somewhere out West, where she could live in solitude and see trouble coming for miles before it arrived.
“Darya!” Farid’s voice rose over the ambient noise of conversing diners, drawing Yasmin’s gaze toward the door where he stood. There were two dark-featured men, each wearing an expensive payraan tumbaan, the traditional long shirt and pants typical in Afghanistan, Pakistan and, these days, the Kaziri moneyed class. The intricately embroidered silk vests the two men wore over their shirts were definitely products of Kaziristan, adorned as they were with the brilliant-hued fire hawk of Kaziri folklore.
She didn’t recognize either man, though the taller man on the right looked oddly familiar, even though she was certain they’d never met. Maybe she’d run across one of his relatives during her time on assignment in Tablis, the Kaziri capital city.
She’d kept a low profile while she was there, playing a similar role blending in with the native Kaziris in order to keep an ear close to the ground during a volatile time in the country’s downward spiral toward another civil war. Strange—and alarming—that she’d been afforded more autonomy and respect as a woman in Kaziristan than she was as a woman in the insular Kaziri community in Cincinnati.
On the upside, being pregnant and makeup-free was working in her favor here. People saw the round belly first and never bothered letting their gazes rise to her face, especially with more nubile, exotic-looking beauties like Darya and her bevy of young, unmarried friends to draw the attention of Kaziri men. And the Americans as well, she noted with secret amusement, as the middle-aged male patrons she was currently serving kept slanting intrigued glances at Darya as she walked with sinuous femininity to the VIP table to take their orders.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed another customer enter the restaurant and take a seat at a table near the window. She delivered her most recent order to the kitchen and returned to the dining hall, grabbing a menu and pouring a glass of water before heading to the newcomer’s table.
A burst of laughter from the VIP table drew her attention in that direction. One of the men was flirting outrageously with Darya, who was eating up the attention with the confidence of a woman who knew her appeal.
Swallowing a sigh, Yasmin turned her attention back to her new customer. He lifted his head, pinning her with his blue-eyed gaze.
Her stomach gave a lurch.
The glass slipped from her hand, but the man whipped his hand out and caught it on the way down. Only a few drops of water splashed across the dark hair on the back of his hand.
He set the glass on the table, still looking at her.
“Hello, Risa,” Connor McGinnis said.
Connor focused his gaze on Risa’s pale face, trying to read the snippets of emotion that flashed like lightning across her expression. Within a couple of seconds, her pretty features became a mask that hid everything from him.
“Yasmin,” she said quietly as she mopped up the spilled drops of water from the table using a rag she pulled from her apron pocket. Her voice, almost as familiar as his own, came out in a heavy, convincing Kaziri accent. “My name is Yasmin and I will be your server tonight. Would you like to try the mint tea?”
So it wasn’t amnesia. There had been a part of him that almost prayed it had been memory loss from the plane crash that had kept her away for so long, but those hopes had been dashed the second her eyes met his. They’d widened, the pupils dilating with shock, before she’d lowered her gaze and set about hiding everything she’d briefly revealed.
He knew what that Kaziri accent hid—a South Georgia drawl as warm and slow as a night in Savannah, where Risa had been born and her parents still lived.
They’d mourned her, too, he thought.
How could she have chosen to disappear the way she had, letting everyone who knew and loved her think she was dead?
He struggled to keep the anger burning in his gut in check, careful not to let it show in his expression. He, too, was good at wearing masks.
“When does your shift end?” he asked quietly.
She pretended not to hear the question. “The special tonight is lamb kebabs with rice.”
“We have to talk, Yasmin.” He put extra emphasis on her alias.
“No.” Her hazel eyes lifted to meet his gaze before she added, “Sir.”
“You don’t think I have a right to ask a few questions?”
For a second, her mask faltered, fierce emotion burning in her eyes. But she looked away quickly. “Take your time to study the menu. I will return in a few minutes. Would you like something to drink while you are waiting?”
“Mint tea,” he said finally.
She gave a nod and walked away. Her gait was subtly different, her back arched from the weight of her pregnant belly. He realized with some surprise that he’d never before imagined what she’d look like pregnant.
How could that be? Why had they never thought about children, about a family?
A few tables away, a slender young woman in a simple, shape-hugging dress and a matching peacock-blue roosari was taking orders from two middle-aged men. The one nearest was dressed in an elaborately embroidered payraan tumbaan. Connor couldn’t get a good look at his face. His companion, however, sat facing Connor, though his gaze was lifted upward to smile at the pretty server. Connor didn’t recognize him.
But there was something about the shape of the other man’s head, the slight wave of his silver-flecked black hair, that tugged at Connor’s memory.
How did he know the man? Was it from those years he’d spent in Kaziristan? Or was the acquaintance more recent?
He sensed more than saw Risa’s approach and turned his gaze toward her, watching her walk to his table. She carried a small tray with a glass of iced mint tea, even though he hadn’t indicated whether he wanted it hot or cold. She placed the glass of tea on the table in front of him and started to turn away.
“I