Grim Shadows

TWENTY-FOUR

HADLEY DOUBLE-CHECKED HER BEDSIDE alarm clock. Three. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but must have. The bed was achingly empty. But the panic she’d felt when she first realized this a few moments ago was fading, now that she knew for certain he was still here. She’d never been so happy to hear noise in her apartment. Clinks and bumps, water running in the pipes, cheerful whistling. The pleasant sounds of someone else in her home. And not a maid that would abandon her tomorrow, but Lowe.

Lowe.

She grinned at the ceiling, squeezing her eyes shut as a silent joy washed over her, and pushed out of bed.

After a hurried trip to the bathroom, she slipped into a plover gray Habutai silk peignoir dotted with bright begonias, quickly tying the sash as she hunted the location of the noise. Kitchen. She rounded the doorway, wincing at the harsh pendant lighting reflecting off white subway tile. When her eyes adjusted, she found herself staring at a very interesting view of Lowe’s thoroughly naked backside.

Arm draped over her icebox door, he was bent over, peering inside. Long legs dusted with blond hair supported well-shaped buttocks with muscled hollows. But it was the shadowed glimpse of what hung between those legs that made her chest warm.

My God, the things he’d done to her over the last few hours . . . the things she’d done to him. She could scarcely believe any of it had happened. And now, here he still was. No dream—solid flesh. Very solid flesh. She liked the way his back rippled as he poked through jars and containers. Not much to see. Butter. Fig preserves. Blood oranges. Some cooked chicken for Number Four, who was spooling around Lowe’s feet like they were best of friends.

“What is this, do you think?” he asked the cat. “The green fuzz isn’t giving me hope. Looks vaguely meat-based.”

“Week-old deviled ham,” she warned, voice cracking with sleep. “What are you doing?”

He glanced over his shoulder and stood. A shame. She’d been enjoying that. But the slow grin he gave her made up for the loss. The long top of his sandy hair was a messy mop of loose curls limned in pale light. He pushed away a thick lock that hung over one eye and shut the icebox door.

“I’m making breakfast,” he answered, corded arms crossing his broad chest as he leaned a shoulder against the icebox.

“Naked?”

One shoulder lazily lifted and fell. “Why not?”

Indeed. Walking pornography, right in her kitchen. She drifted closer, feeling a bit like a wealthy tourist on a safari trying to get a better view of a grazing gazelle. “At three in the morning?”

“I’m famished.”

“Me, too,” she admitted.

His eyes sparkled with good humor. “All that touching and moaning exhausts a body’s resources.”

“You aren’t kidding,” she murmured, all too aware of the dull soreness between her thighs.

He swayed closer and dropped a peck on her forehead. So casual and affectionate, as if they’d been doing this for years. She caught the unique scent of his skin and breathed in deeply. Better than the lilies by her bed. Better than anything she could think of at the moment.

His appreciative gaze roamed over her dressing gown. He made a satisfied noise before scratching the back of his neck. “I washed up the dishes in your sink, by the way.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, feeling mildly embarrassed.

“Someone did. Why do I get the distinct feeling that you’re unfamiliar with manual labor?”

“Because I am,” she said, prodding his toes with hers. He had the loveliest arch to his feet. “I’m not going to apologize for my family’s money. It’s not as if I sit around doing nothing. I work, after all. And I’ll have you know that I dirtied those dishes, so I’m not completely useless around the kitchen. I can make toast. And tea.”

His big toe wiggled in answer as it drifted over her foot. “And peel oranges.”

“And peel oranges,” she agreed with a smile.

“Well, together we might get somewhere, because if you can brew us up some tea and make toast, I’ll fry us up some eggs.” He glanced down at the purring ball of fur nosing his way into their toe conversation. “Eggs for three, I suppose. Or maybe we should feed him the deviled ham and see if it’ll turn him into Number Five.”

“Big talk. At the rate you two are going, you’ll be kicking me out of the covers and cuddling up with him instead.”

“Not on your life.” He grazed a barely-there finger down her hip as she passed, sending a tiny shiver racing below the silk of her robe. “I like your claws better.”

While she set a kettle on to boil and pulled down the smallest metal canister from a set of FLOUR-SUGAR-COFFEE-TEA—the one marked “coffee” was only filled with loose coins and nails—Lowe found a cast-iron skillet and struck a match to light the stove.

“I meant to say this earlier, but your burn looks much better,” she said, nodding toward his arm.

“Lucky for me, I had a skilled nurse to bandage it up properly.”

She chuckled and set two empty teacups on saucers. “It’s rather strange to spend my Friday night making breakfast with a naked man in my kitchen,” she said, spooning tea leaves into two cups as she stole a glance at his body. “Strange, but good.”

“If I wasn’t here, what would you be doing?”

“Sleeping. Or, if you take into account the events of the last week, I’d be trying to sleep at my father’s house and failing. If I had to spend one more night in that depressing old place, I might’ve gone crazy.”

“He probably doesn’t want you doting over him anyway.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” She set the tea canister back in its place on the shelf and fitted bread into both sides of an electric toaster. Then she bent to pick up Number Four, who lazily draped his front legs over her shoulder. “Have you had a chance to look at the pictograms?”

“I think I’ve narrowed the third canopic jar down to a handful of names.” He cut off a nub of butter into the pan. “You ready to get back to our task?”

“We can start tomorrow, if you’d like. My weekend is free.” What she really meant to say was that she wanted him to stay here with her. That all of this was so wonderfully new, and now that she’d broken her touching phobia, she felt like a child who’d tasted sugar for the first time—buzzing with joy and delight and a glorious sort of satiated warmth.

And it wasn’t enough.

She wanted more. Both more of what she’d already had and the promise of new experiences. She wanted to know what it felt like to wake up in his arms. To bathe with him. To walk to the market and buy bags of food to fill up her empty icebox and cupboards.

Silly things.

Lowe cracked eggs into the hot butter and rattled off the names he’d matched to the pictograms. They debated the meanings behind one of the symbols. And when their humble late-night dinner came together, she pried Number Four from her shoulder, happy to have a plan for tomorrow.

They set steaming cups and plates down on a small round table sitting beneath a window that framed a view of the sleeping city. Lowe glanced at the pair of polished café chairs sitting beneath the table and tested their mobility, shifting one chair closer to the other. “Well, what do you know. Looks like you’ve got a few things around here that aren’t nailed down.”

“Don’t laugh,” she said. “You’d be surprised what the Mori can do with two chairs and a glass window.”

“I’m more concerned about the frying pan and the knives in the drawer.”

“You’d be wise to confine any arguments with me to the bedroom.”

“More than happy to test that later,” he teased, directing her into a chair.

As they dined on their impromptu meal, she fed scraps to Number Four under the table while asking Lowe about his family. He told her how his parents emigrated from Sweden and founded a small fishing company that grew into something successful. How his father decided to risk everything when he traded half his fishing fleet for rumrunners after Volstead. But when she asked him about his childhood, and then about Adam Goldberg and his daughter, something in his posture changed.

“I don’t mean to pry,” she said, sopping up orange egg yolk with a corner of toast.

He didn’t reply for several seconds. “I think I need to tell you something. Well, I don’t need to, but I want to.”

When he didn’t continue, she prompted, “Something about Adam?”

“More about Stella, actually.” He tapped the tines of his fork against the plate. “There’s a small chance she might be mine.”

Shock halted her next breath as his words sunk in. “Your . . . child?”

He sighed heavily. “Adam and I were in the same class in elementary school. Miriam was a grade younger. We were all friends, but as we hit our teens, things changed. My father was making more money, so we moved into a nicer house, different neighborhood. I made new friends. And Miriam and Adam began dating. After graduation, I went to college. They stayed and got married.”

He pushed his plate away. “Within a year or so, everything was different. Bootlegging made my family wealthy almost overnight. Adam resented that, I think. He threw himself into his work and he and Miriam went through a bad patch. The two of us exchanged letters while I was studying at Berkeley, and during a holiday weekend at home . . .”

Hadley blinked at her plate, unable to look at him.

“It was only the one time—never happened again,” he said. “But it was absolutely the stupidest thing I’d ever done.”

“Did you love her?”

“Not in a romantic way. I don’t know if I was trying to hold on to a life I didn’t have anymore, or if I was jealous of them. They were adults. Working, married. Paying rent. I was still a boy, getting drunk at college and playing stupid pranks, not knowing who I was or what I wanted to do with my life. And then Miriam began reaching out to me.”

“And you didn’t push her away.”

“Adam was my best friend, and I . . .” He shook his head. “The guilt ate me up. I nearly quit school. And then Miriam announced she was pregnant. And, well, give or take a couple of weeks, either one of us could’ve been the father. She begged me not to say anything, and I tried to keep my mouth shut. Usually I’m pretty good at lying.” He forced a stilted laugh.

“But you told him.”

“I’d want to know if it were me. And he wasn’t happy, of course. Half my size, but the man’s got a wicked hook,” he said, pointing to his nose. “He told me plainly that no matter if the child was blue-eyed and blond, it was his, not mine. They worked out their problems, and eventually he forgave me, too. I didn’t deserve it, but there you go.”

“And Stella . . .”

“Looks like Miriam, through and through. Even the curls could be Miriam’s.” He gave her a brief, tight smile. “And Stella’s only four. They say you can better see resemblances when they’re a little older.”

“There’s the new test—it matches blood types.”

“And that test is what? Not even fifty percent accurate?” He shrugged. “Adam wouldn’t want to know, so I have to respect that. And I’m not sure knowing would change anything. I’ve tried to offer financial help over the years—for doctors and special schools, you know? But he won’t take handouts.”

She lifted her head to study his face. “That’s why he looks after things for you, isn’t it?”

“It’s the only way I can get him to accept any money. He’s stubborn. And that’s his prerogative.” He gave her a sad smile. “In the end, it doesn’t matter. They are still my family, whether she’s got my blood or Adam’s. I feel lucky to be in both their lives, and that’s enough.”

Hadley didn’t know what to say. Her feelings ran the gamut from jealousy and distress to pity and respect. And something more, she realized. Not only had he torn down the barrier she’d constructed around herself, he was dismantling bricks from his own wall—an invisible bulwark she hadn’t even known existed. He was right when he said he didn’t need to tell her any of this. If he hadn’t, she may never have been the wiser.

But now she did know. And what he’d revealed didn’t matter. She only cared that he’d wanted to share it with her. And her heart swelled with this new awareness.

“Do you think less of me now?” he asked softly. “Do you want me to go?”

She swirled tea leaves in the last bit of golden liquid at the bottom of her cup. “Awfully inconsiderate for you to leave now. Who would wash the dishes?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his shoulders relax as he blew out a long breath. A few moments later, his hand slid across the table to coax her fingers into his. “What would you say to a nice hot bath?” he asked in a hopeful voice. “I saw your tub earlier. Looks big enough for both of us.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“But it will be fun to try, ja?”

“Ja,” she repeated as a quiet joy warmed her chest. “I think it really might.”