The Unknown Beloved(29)

It was her turn to gape. His response surprised her. “It’s honest w-work,” she stammered. “And I am a seamstress. Clothes are my business. Even the dead need clothes.”

“Yes . . . but . . .” He seemed dumbfounded. “Is that where the stack of battered clothing comes from? The endless piles that poor Margaret is constantly laundering?”

Dani blinked at him. “Poor Margaret is grateful to have the work too. If it weren’t for that stipend, we wouldn’t be able to keep her on.”

“Well. That’s . . . good . . . then, I suppose.” He seemed at a loss for words, and Dani reached for her button box, wishing she’d had the sense to just stay quiet. Every time they had the opportunity to visit, she stepped on a land mine and blew herself up.

Malone stoked the fire one last time and hung the poker from its hook. He seemed eager to go now.

“Good night, Dani,” Malone said, taking the lantern she’d set aside for him.

“Good night . . . Michael,” she responded, forcing herself to say his name, though it felt ridiculous on her tongue. She desperately wanted for them to be friends, and friends called each other by their names. But for all her bravery, she couldn’t look at him as he left.





7


The storm howled and hovered all night, making the panes in Malone’s room shake like someone stood outside with his hands pressed to the glass, trying to get in.

The house was so cold when he arose he could see his breath in the air. He pulled on two pairs of socks and as many layers as he could manage and shoved his feet into boots, his hands into gloves, and made a fire in his room before he lost his will to live. He then hurried up the stairs and stoked a new blaze in the fireplace they’d sat around the night before.

Dani hurried out of her room, her curls tousled, wearing as many layers as he, and thanked him effusively.

“There’s more wood in the stable. I lock it in the back room, partly to keep it dry, partly to prevent it being stolen. Goodness, what a storm! Still no power. The pipes haven’t frozen, but there’s not a drop of hot water in the boiler.”

He found two snow shovels along with the wood: driftwood and an assortment of sticks and logs and shipping crates that someone—Dani most likely—had carefully hoarded. It was a good thing. He wondered if her aunts knew how fortunate they were to have her.

He brought in an armful and then began clearing the drive, section by section, piling the snow along the edges.

Dani called him in for lunch, but he didn’t want to have to come back to it. It was hard work, but the movement kept him from getting too cold.

When Dani joined him twenty minutes later, dragging another shovel behind her, he told her to go right back where she’d come from.

“I can do this,” he said.

“And I can help,” she said, cheerful. She began, moving in the opposite direction so they were clearing from the center to the sides. She knew what she was doing.

“Do you usually clear the snow by yourself?” he asked.

“No. I usually pay Harry Raus to do it for me. But he’s off to college now. I haven’t found a replacement shoveler.”

Malone extended his hand like they were just meeting for the first time, but she was too far away to take it. “Michael Malone, replacement shoveler, at your service.”

“You’re never going to get warm at this rate,” she said apologetically after several minutes. Her breath puffed out around her head, underscoring just how cold it was.

“No. I’m not. But the faster I shovel, the warmer I stay.”

“It must be hard to adjust to Cleveland. Are the Bahamas beautiful? I’ve only seen pictures, and not many of those. I can’t imagine. I’ve never seen the ocean. Or palm trees. Or pink sand. Do the Bahamas have pink sand?” She sounded wistful, but he’d ceased shoveling.

“How did you know I was in the Bahamas?” Nobody knew that. His boss, Elmer Irey, knew. Molly, probably, though they’d never discussed it. But nobody else.

“You must have mentioned it,” Dani said, her eyes on her shoveling.

He hadn’t. There was no way he’d said anything of the sort.

“My coat told you that too?” he asked, flabbergasted.

She wiped at her nose, still avoiding his gaze. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” he whispered. He resumed shoveling, suddenly too stunned to be cold.

“What does a Treasury agent do in the Bahamas?” she asked after they’d cleared another few feet. “That’s a long way from Washington.”

“Vacation,” he grunted.

“Oh.”

He wondered if she knew he was lying. She didn’t say anything more, and the camaraderie between them was gone. A few moments later, she stopped, her cheeks flushed with exertion, and asked him if he could finish up on his own.

“I did not ask for your assistance, Miss Flanagan,” he said, sounding like a schoolteacher. What an ass. But she had discombobulated him. Again.

“No. That’s true. But thank you.” She went inside the house but came back moments later shouldering an enormous canvas laundry bag. She walked past him without pausing and turned west when she reached the street.

“Where are you going?” he called after her.

“It is not your concern, Mr. Malone.” Her voice was as frosty as his had been.