Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(14)

“You’re looking . . .” Enormous. Handsome. Intimidating. “Recovered,” she said.

“I’m feeling a hell of a lot better. Are you planning on dashing right back out? Or did you not trust Greta with your coat?”

“She didn’t offer to take it.”

“Since she’s failed at her duties, allow me.” He said this as if it were some great chore and made an impatient gesture for her to comply, but she caught a curious gaze flicking toward her under the false front of seemingly bored, hooded eyes.

She set down her handbag on a small table by the door and unbuttoned her coat. As she was shrugging it off her shoulders, Mr. Magnusson stepped closer. Several things cluttered her mind at once: That he smelled of laundry starch. That the gold bar connecting his collar points beneath the striped knot of his necktie was engraved with tiny nautical compasses. And that she was almost positive he was looking down her dress.

That realization did something strange to her stomach. She knew she wasn’t unattractive—at least, she didn’t think so. Not anymore. When she was a child, she was teased about her heavily freckled skin. Even now, most men only looked at her with mild interest before setting their sights on other women with flawless complexions. But every once in a while she ran across a man who actually liked freckles.

Maybe Winter was one of them.

Did he see her as a sideshow curiosity, or something more? Perhaps he was merely a man, and breasts were breasts were breasts. She held up her coat between them. “How’s the view from up there?”

“Not as clear as your view of me the other night.”

“To be fair, I don’t believe that could’ve been any clearer.”

He plucked the coat from her fingers. “You sure didn’t act like you minded.”

“I didn’t.” She meant that to be a question, but it came out wrong. Winter seemed as surprised by it as she was, but he didn’t comment. Surely he was aware how nicely his body was put together; he probably heard it all the time. He hung up her coat, then, without touching, extended his hand behind her back, urging her to accompany him farther into the study.

They skirted around a bank of standing bookshelves in the middle of the room and came face-to-face with the head of a dragon—or the neck and head of one, to be exact. Openmouthed and baring sharp teeth, the wooden carving was about her height, on display in a glass case.

“That’s Drake,” Winter said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “The bow off a Viking longship from the twelfth century.”

“You are Scandinavian, then?”

“Swedish. My parents immigrated here when my mother was pregnant with me.”

“An arduous journey for a pregnant woman.”

Something in his brow shifted. A wistfulness. Or guilt, perhaps. “She insisted on coming to give me a better life. My siblings were born here.”

She walked around the dragon, peering through the glass. The carving was crude, the wood cracked and splintered. “Shouldn’t this be in a museum?”

“Probably. If we ever need money, we can sell him. He’s worth more than the whole damn house. It was one of the first things my father had imported after the bootlegging money started flowing. I’ve got an uncle who’s an archaeologist. My younger brother is on a dig with him out in Cairo right now.”

“Really? How exciting. Hope he’s not opening up any cursed tombs.”

“My brother could fall into shit and come out smelling of roses.”

Aida laughed.

In a fluid pair of movements, Winter curved his body closer to hers while settling his forearm above his head on the top of the glass case. His fingers tapped on the glass. A big body like his possessed an unspoken dominance if the personality commanding it understood its power, and Winter did. He towered over her at an angle that forced her to tilt her face up and back to meet his gaze, and spoke in a lower, more relaxed tone, as if he were sharing a choice bit of gossip, luring her into his web. “Uncle Jakob found the dragon bow a few years ago. Found three, actually—reported one, kept one for himself, and gave my father Drake, here.”

“Lawbreaking runs in the family.”

He made a grunting noise. “My uncle is fond of shipping black market goods, and my father always had boats. That’s why he got into bootlegging in the first place.”

“Bo mentioned that your father was a fisherman.”

“Crab and salmon, mainly. I’ve traded most of the fishing fleet for rumrunners and a couple of big, new powerboats that go to Canada. But I haven’t gotten rid of the crabbers.”

“You still crab?”

“It’s good money and a legitimate cover for the booze.”

She glanced at a long bay of windows lining the outer wall of the study and left Winter to survey the view. “Oh, look at that. Bet you can see the entire city when it’s clear.”

Winter’s low voice was closer than she expected. He pointed over her shoulder. “You can see Fisherman’s Wharf and Alcatraz Island from here. If the bay wasn’t foggy, we could also see the northern point of the Presidio where they’re going to build a suspension bridge across the Golden Gate strait to Marin County. Have you heard about it?”

“No.”

“Will be the longest in the world, if they ever raise the funds to build the damn thing.”