wood.
The woman didn’t blink. “No one of consequence. But you, on the other hand, are something else entirely.”
He struggled to sit up, but she shook her head. “Don’t move or you’ll tear my handiwork. That poor girl’s been through enough. She don’t need to come in here and find you bleeding out again.”
A cracked vase filled with lilacs sat on the bedside table filling the air with sweetness and the lingering presence of Kat. “Where is she?”
“Resting. Finally.” She fluffed the lace barely covering her ample décolletage. “As you should be doing, Monsieur Anderson.”
The headache hammered behind his eyes as the darkness unfurled once more along the edges of his mind. “Did she tell you who we are?”
The orange-and-red feather sticking out of the woman’s hair wobbled back and forth as she shook her head. “Non, but she didn’t have to.”
He blinked rapidly to stop the encroaching darkness. “But you know me.”
A slow smile curved her garish red lips. “Oui, and you know me, mon coco. But you don’t remember.”
The words drowned in his throat as the darkness swarmed over his head, pulling him down to the depths once more.
* * *
“Where are you?” Barrett staggered against the handrail, peering down to the parlor below. Strangely quiet. Wasn’t a brothel supposed to ring with laughter and bedsprings? His stomach growled, urging him on.
His head spun by the time he made it down the creaking stairs. “Poppy!”
Opening the door on the left, he stepped into a gaming room filled with tables, chairs covered in faded green velvet, plush curtains, and crude paintings of women dancing together. Voices drifted under the crack of a door to the far right of the corner. Sweat trickled down his brow. What if the Nazis had found them?
Kat! Sliding between the tables, he wrenched open the door and hurtled into the room. Ten pairs of painted eyes fluttered up to him, spoons dripping with colorless porridge hung in midair to their painted mouths.
Kat shot up from her seat at the far end of the kitchen table. “What on earth are you doing out of bed? Upstairs, immediately.”
“I . . . em . . .” His gesturing hand fell flat. “Didn’t realize we had company.”
“We don’t, as we are their guests.” She hurried around to him. A thin cotton dress that was at least two sizes too small clung to her figure, and her hair had been recently washed as damp strands swung over her shoulders. “Madam has graciously allowed us to stay for a night or two until you’re well enough to travel once more.”
His gaze shifted to the thick woman presiding at the head of the table. She met his stare without blinking her dark-rimmed eyes, just as she had last night. Was that only a few hours ago?
Her bold eyes inspected the white linens wrapping around his naked torso. “Bonjour, monsieur. You’re looking better than when they dragged you in here.”
Why hadn’t he thought to grab a shirt or blanket to wrap up in before charging down here? “Aye, feeling better for sure. Thank you for letting us stay here.”
“Any enemy of the Germans is a friend of mine. No questions asked.”
Good. Kat hadn’t told her anything, and the woman hadn’t asked. Yet she still knew his name. Uneasiness wriggled in his mind. He squinted at her in a feeble attempt to recall her face, her voice, her unnerving presence. Nothing.
“Wish you’d woke me up to help tend those wounds.” A skinny girl from the corner seat giggled. “I’m good with my hands.”
The girl next to her tittered as the strap of her slip fell off her shoulder. “And I’m good with everything else.”
Madam’s palm smacked the table. “Silencieux! There are ladies here, and I won’t have your rough talk in front of them.”
Kat touched his elbow. “Back upstairs with you. I’ll bring you a bowl of porridge.”
“No, I can’t be in that room a minute longer. I need air.”
“There’s a bench out back. Wait out there, and I’ll join you in a minute.” Stretching up, she pressed a kiss to his cheek, to the howling delight of the room.
He had no mind to sit outside eating, not when that madam followed his every move as if she knew the secrets he carried. But he wasn’t getting any answers with ten pairs of roving eyes fixed to his naked chest.
Outside, weak sunlight filtered through hazy clouds. Crispness stippled the air as the long, hot days of summer sloped into the cooling of autumn. He