Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(62)

He rolled onto his left hip to face her. “Stick with me and you’ll eat breakfast every day.”

She gave him a slow smile and closed her eyes, the picture of satisfaction. This is how he wanted to see her, stretching like a cat, cheeks flushed, eyes lazy. Unable to do anything more than lift a spoon. “Are they your customers?” she asked.

“Who?”

“This hotel.”

“No,” he said, eyeing the open condom tin on the bedside table. Only one of three left, dammit. He should’ve bought another tin. He’d never gone through an entire one in an afternoon; then again, he’d never bedded a woman who was so eager to help him empty it. “They aren’t one of my customers. They just lost their supplier.”

She cracked open one eye. “Does this have to do with the raid last night?”

“Raids, and yes.”

“Tell me everything. Where did you go after you left?”

Winter heard his father’s voice somewhere in the back of his mind, reciting a list of rules for bootlegging. Never tell a woman details was one of them. He’d warned him that pillow talk was the downfall of many a great man, and forbid him to tell even Paulina where their warehouses were, who their customers were, when the mother ships from Canada came into port. And he never did, mainly because Paulina never wanted to know.

While he was trying to decide how much to tell her, his eyes fell on the golden locket around her neck. “What’s inside?” he asked, fingering the engraved floral pattern on the front.

“Just a photograph.” She sounded defensive, which set off warning bells inside his head. He clicked the small mechanism on the side before she could stop him. A tiny oval photograph was set inside. A young man.

“Who is this?”

“No one.” She tried to shut it, but he wouldn’t let her. “Stop. It’s just Sam.”

“One of your lovers?”

“No,” she said. “Sam Palmer. My brother.”

Winter was confused. “You told me you lived with a foster family.”

“I did. The Lanes. Sam and I were rescued from the earthquake together. He was a year older than me.”

He studied the photograph with greater interest. Perhaps there was some resemblance, hard to tell. Then he remembered what she told him when they were walking in Chinatown. Everyone I’ve loved is dead. “You said Sam was a year older than you. Is he . . .”

“Sam and I lived with the Lanes together in Baltimore until he turned eighteen. He joined the army in 1916 after President Wilson called for volunteers.”

“Did he end up in the war?”

“He got assigned to a cantonment in Virginia. He was there for six months, and was due to be deployed overseas when America entered the war. He was shot during a training exercise. Just a fluke accident.” In a blink, her eyes became bleary. “I didn’t take it well. We were inseparable. He was my only real family—you know, flesh and blood.”

“I’m sorry.”

She gave him a tight smile. “The Lanes were killed in a train derailment a month later. I was seventeen. They had some money—not a lot, but they weren’t poor. Only, they never officially adopted us. They thought they had, but Sam and I kept our surname. We called them Aunt and Uncle since we were little. And I think the surname confusion was mishandled in the paperwork. I don’t think they ever knew. Mr. Lane’s brother showed up for the funeral, and within two weeks, he’d fired the staff, sold the house, and dumped me off at an orphanage. This photograph is the only thing I was allowed to take with me. That and the clothes on my back.”

“Christ alive, Aida.”

“Good old Emmett Lane. Lovely man,” she said sourly. “I’d only met him once before. He never gave a damn about his own family, much less Sam and me, so it wasn’t a big surprise in hindsight.” She snapped the locket shut. “Anyway, I lived in the orphanage until I finished school. It wasn’t pleasant. When I turned eighteen, I got out of there as fast as I could and struck out on my own. Sam always told me to be independent, count on myself, no one else. And he never was afraid of my talents—he encouraged them.”

“Could he . . . do what you can do?”

She shook her head. “I started seeing ghosts when we moved to Baltimore. The Lanes just thought I was having nightmares about the earthquake, but Sam believed me. I didn’t know I had channeling skills until he introduced me to another medium before he joined the army. Mrs. Stone. She took me under her wing after I left the orphanage. Gave me a room for a few months, showed me how to make money with my talents. Got me on my feet.”

“And you’ve been on your own for ten years?”

“Never look back, always move forward—that’s what Sam always said. He wouldn’t want me feeling sorry for myself, so I don’t. I just keep getting up every day and moving along.” She smiled again, this time more genuinely.

“Live in the moment,” he said, repeating her sentiment from the night before.

“Exactly. Sam believed in the value of independence, and I honor his memory by appreciating today.”

So confident. But anyone could see the sadness beneath her bravado.

They were alike in a way. Both had lost their parents, and though he’d lost Paulina, Aida had not only lost a second set of parents, but her brother.