Grave Phantoms (Roaring Twenties #3)(23)

“Twice a day?” he asked in a low voice—his first words to her since the club.

She glanced down at the brown paper bag that Velma had given her. So that’s what he wanted to talk about? All right.

“Twice a day,” she repeated.

He began shrugging out of his coat. She didn’t wait for him, just went straight to the kitchen and flipped on two pendant lights, which hung over a long butcher-block prep table sitting in the middle of the room. She set down Velma’s bag of herbs.

“Need help?” his low voice said over her shoulder. She hadn’t even heard him following.

“Think I can manage to boil water on my own.”

She strode across the black-and-white checkered floor and looked at the pale green enameled oven. Where was the kettle? Didn’t people normally leave those out? She heard a shifting noise and saw it sliding in her direction across a small counter, prodded by Bo’s hand.

“Thank you,” she said, not looking at his face, and added water to the kettle. Now. The stove. She’d seen this done a hundred times. How hard could it be? The matches were in a ceramic box on the counter. She lit one and stared at the range’s cast-iron coiled burner. Right. This didn’t look like the stove Lena had taught her to how to light. The pilot light should be . . .

Bo leaned near and blew out the match. “Move.”

“I can—”

He turned the handle and a coil magically glowed orange. “The old range needed to be replaced, and Winter insisted the new one be electric,” he said, putting the kettle atop a burner. “Lena hates it, for the record. The teacups are in the butler’s pantry with the rest of the china.”

“I know that,” she said, trying to sound insulted and not embarrassed. But when she stood in the wide hallway between the kitchen and dining room, staring too long at the drawers and cabinets that lined the walls, Bo’s silhouette blocked the light from the kitchen.

“Middle cabinet.”

Right. She turned around and opened it. Bowls. Gravy boat . . .

Warmth covered her back. Bo reached over her shoulder to a higher shelf. “Here,” he said. One word, spoken low and deep, just above her ear, and for a moment she forgot all about being angry with him.

His bright scent surrounded her. His suit jacket brushed the back of her gown, and beneath it a thousand chills rippled over her skin. She was taken aback by the force of it and nearly leaned . . .

If she would just—

If he would only—

The sound of china clinking against the marble counter pulled her back from the deep. He’d set the cup down and was now reaching for a saucer. She spun in place to face him.

He flinched and pulled back an inch or two. Far enough to put some space between them. His arm hovered in the air and then fell by his side as he stared down at her.

“Why were you at Gris-Gris tonight?” she asked in a low voice.

“I was having a drink with a friend.”

“Sylvia Fong is too beautiful to be a friend.”

“And Leroy Garvey is too debonair to be a dance partner. Where were all these chums of yours that you were supposed to be meeting?”

“Were you spying on me? You were! This is Luke all over again—”

“Luke,” he said, spitting it out like it was rotten meat. “Tell me the truth, Astrid. What happened in that hotel? Did he touch you?”

Her mouth fell open. A trembling rage ran up her arms, and before she could stop herself, she swung her hand and slapped him, straight across the cheek.

He reeled backward. The dramatic planes of his handsome face made severe angles. Oh, he was shocked.

So was she. Her hand stung. She regretted it immediately and felt like crying. God! Not now. You will not cry, Astrid Cristiana Magnusson. You will. Not. Cry.

“I am not your little sister,” she said through gritted teeth. “Not your mui-mui. And if you’d realized that a few months ago—”

She stopped, unsure of what she’d been ready to say. That what? It could have been Bo instead of Luke in that hotel room?

“A few months ago?” Bo said, his words heated with rising anger. “Astrid, I realized that years ago. I realized it before you did. And don’t tell me I couldn’t possibly know your mind, because I remember the exact day and time and place. I remember how the redwoods smelled, and how the setting sun turned your hair to platinum, and how you looked at me.”

He bent his head low, leaning until the tip of his nose was a hairsbreadth from hers, and said quietly, “I remember all of it.”

They’d never spoken of it, but she knew the day he meant. Unshed tears prickled the backs of her eyelids. But she did not cry. Did not move. She just dove into the dark pools of his intense eyes and remembered along with him.

She’d been sixteen, he eighteen. She’d harbored something like a crush on Bo long before that afternoon—something that made her giddy at times, but it was sweeter and lighter, tempered with innocence and bound up loosely with the ties of their enduring friendship. But after that day, no longer.

It was the one-year anniversary of her parents’ deaths. She went to visit their graves and hadn’t expected it to affect her quite as much as it did. Bo had patiently talked her through tears, and to cheer her up, he offered to take her out with him on one of the rumrunners late that afternoon. He was doing some spying on a man who operated a large whiskey still near the Magnussons’ Marin County docks, across the Bay from the city. A stretch of coastal redwood forests sat between their property and the still, and Winter had been worried one of his truck drivers was sharing client lists with the still owner.