dull shoes. The two girls had tied off their long braids with string, and the little boy covered his shaggy head with a patched cap.
“Oh, look. They’re selling flowers.” Ellie hurried over to them. She squatted down and combed through their offerings with the same enthusiasm she showed at Marks & Spencer.
Kat bit her lip. Here was the Ellie she knew. The compassionate heart hidden beneath complicated layers of indulgence, spoiling, and lipstick. She couldn’t pass by a child without stopping to coo and cuddle.
“I don’t understand why she wants those ratty things when she has vases of roses filling her flat,” Eric sniffed.
Smug satisfaction crept over Kat. “Perhaps she’s tired of roses.”
“What woman tires of roses?” Crossing his arms, he shifted like a sullen child. “If she wanted something different, she should have told me. I would have brought her anything she wanted.”
The pointed lines of his face softened as he watched Ellie. The coldness melted from his eyes, transforming him into a man ten years younger. Affection had chipped its way into that frigid, manipulating, and haughty cavern of his chest where a heart should pump. Love? Surely not.
A half smile curved his lips as Ellie held a purple iris up to her nose. Unease wriggled in the back of Kat’s mind. He couldn’t understand love, but possession was even more dangerous.
“Look how beautifully it goes with your hair. Brings out the lovely golden tones.” Ellie lifted a yellow chamomile to the older girl’s hair and tucked it behind her ear. Pink bloomed across the girl’s cheeks. “My goodness, I can’t decide which one I like best. I suppose I should take the whole basket.”
Dumping her coin purse’s entire contents in the remaining basket, Ellie skipped back with her bouquet treasure tucked under her arm. “Look how beautiful. Perfect for the bedside table.”
Eric picked a tiny purple aster from the basket as if it were a snake. “Did you have to purchase the entire basket? It encourages the other urchins to fill the streets, and our resources are needed cleaning out the ghettos and searching for those underground movements.”
Barrett shifted next to Kat. Tilting her hat brim, she refused to look at him. He’d hidden his secret far below the German bustle on the streets, but how long before they dug him out? Those people who trusted him with their training and lives would be cornered like rats. And, like rats, they’d be taken out for extermination.
Blood swooshed in her head, spinning dots before her eyes. Plucking off her gloves, she turned her wrists to the fresh air. Her pulse relaxed with excruciating slowness. “It’s about time someone took to hand the sewer-rat problem. I hate the thought of them scurrying beneath our feet.”
Eric’s brow rumpled. “Not the rodent problem. Vigilantes who dare to take matters into their own pathetic hands, as if they could outmatch the strength of the German army.”
“Vigilantes.” Like a madman refusing to accept the insanity around him, Barrett laughed. “Straight out of a comic book.”
“Hardly.” Eric straightened, pinning his hands behind his back. The tunic stretched across his flat chest and pulled the softened lines from his face, aging him anew. “These Resistance fighters have much in common with rats, and the only way to deal with such vermin is go after them in their holes and burn them out.”
“Stop. You know I hate it when you talk that way.” Ellie shuddered and raised her hand for one of the passing taxis. Three zipped by without making eye contact. “It only sours the mood, and I want us to continue this lovely afternoon into a splendid evening.”
Kat dared a peek at Barrett, who looked completely unconcerned with the conversation. With the hunt for fighters escalating, he needed to keep himself far from the spotlight. If that was even possible. The man had a knack for stepping outside the lines to announce his presence.
A black-and-red taxi with rolled-up windows took pity on Ellie’s frantic waving and swerved over to the curb. “Climb in the front, Eric, dear, so Barrett can sit in the back with us. I have a few requests for the band tonight I need to discuss with him.”
“We can’t go tonight, schatz.”
Ellie’s pheasant feather knocked his hat sideways as she swiveled to Eric. “What do you mean we can’t go?”
“It’s Tuesday.”
His pointed look deflated Ellie. “Oh.”
Despite her sister’s disappointment, elation filled Kat’s chest like thousands of champagne bubbles. A night away from the dreadful boor. “I’m sure we’ll be quite safe