“You said that word before.” Jordan hunted for the memory. “When we first went to Selkie Lake.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Anneliese’s tone was lighter now. “A selkie comes from a lake too, but she’s the Scottish version, not quite so malevolent. In Germany they have stories of a lorelei, who sits on a rock above the water, combing her hair. Go farther east, though, and she becomes much much more dangerous—a rusalka.” Anneliese’s blue eyes dropped to the table. “A rusalka only comes out in the night, dressed in the lake. And if you cross her, she will kill you.”
A little silence fell. “Well,” Jordan offered at last. “I feel lucky I only ever had bad dreams about bats. And about walking down the school hall in nothing but my brassiere, like a Maidenform ad.”
“And now I’ve given you ideas about night witches! I’m sorry, Jordan. I should never have told you something so gruesome. At the witching hour too.” Anneliese glanced at the clock, rueful. “I’m not myself after these dreams; they make me very fearful, and I babble. Very unlike me.”
“Did it help?”
“I think it did.” Anneliese drank off the rest of her cocoa. “I might be able to sleep now.”
“Then I’m glad you told me.” Jordan rose, collecting both mugs to put in the sink. “Can I just say . . .”
Her stepmother paused halfway to the kitchen door, Taro padding behind her. “Yes?”
“I’m so glad I have you.” Jordan met those blue eyes square. “We didn’t exactly get off on the right foot, thanks to my wild imagination. But I don’t know what I’d do without you, now.”
“You’d be just fine without me, Jordan.” Anneliese reached out and touched her hair. “You’re a tower of strength, just like your father.”
They hugged fiercely. Just us now, Jordan thought. Us two holding everything together for the sake of Ruth and a dog and a business. The notion was perhaps not as frightening as it had been.
“Maybe you could walk me down the aisle next spring,” Jordan said as they broke the hug. “What do you think, should we shatter tradition?”
“Of course, if you like.” Anneliese’s lips quirked. “There’s only one small problem.”
“What?”
“You have no desire at all to marry Garrett Byrne.” Anneliese kissed Jordan’s cheek good night. “There. I’ve given you something to dream about rather than night witches crawling out of lakes.”
Chapter 29
Ian
June 1950
Boston
Bad news, boss.” Tony’s voice reverberated at the other end of the phone like he was on the bottom of Nina’s Siberian lake rather than a short distance away on Clarendon and Newbury.
Ian shifted the receiver from his bad ear to the good, still doing up the buttons of his shirt and wincing at the scratches Nina had left down his back. “Let’s have it.”
“Befriending Kolb has been a dead end. He won’t get drawn in to talk. Just a grunt, and then some excuse to skitter away.”
Disappointing, Ian thought, but not surprising. Tony’s efforts to charm their suspect had been met by a stone wall for weeks now. Nina wandered in from the bedroom, wearing one of Ian’s shirts and nothing else, and looked inquiring.
“I hate to admit failure,” Tony concluded, “but the carrot approach has officially failed.”
Nina stood on tiptoe so she could cock her own ear to the receiver. “Is our turn?”
“Have at it,” Tony answered. “Right now Kolb thinks I’m just a dumb Yank too thick to notice I’m getting the cold shoulder, but if I keep on, he’ll get suspicious. I’m down on strikes; you’re up to bat.”
Ian fumbled for a pencil stub. “Is that a baseball metaphor?”
“You’re in the land of the brave and the home of the free now, boss, it’s time to abandon cricket. I’ll be here until closing; the pretty Miss McBride is bringing her stepmother to give me the nod of approval, but Kolb is off work this afternoon. Two more hours, if you want to take a run at him.”
“Why not?” Ian looked down at Nina. “We don’t have tickets for the symphony this evening, do we, darling?”
“Am not your darling, you capitalist mudak.”
Ian grinned. “Give me Kolb’s address.” By the time he rang off, Nina had located her trousers in the trail of clothing that led toward the bedroom. Ian scrutinized them, patches and all. “Do you own anything that would make you look like a pinch-mouthed secretary?” She stared as though he were speaking Chinese. He sighed. “I suppose as a married man, this moment was inevitable.”