Grave Phantoms (12 page)

Bo chuckled. “Your reliable source seems to have strong opinions about history.”

“He's smarter than every single one of my professors.” She tucked a lock of misbehaving blond hair behind one ear at the same moment her knee moved and touched his. “He knows a hundred Chinese fables. Do you know any, perhaps?”

“I know a few.”

“Tell me one about a cunning fox spirit. Those are my favorite. I like that all the female fox spirits are beautiful seductresses and make men do stupid things.”

“You just described my life.”

She laughed.

“Let me think of one I haven't told you.” He paused to think and said, “I know one that doesn't have a fox spirit outsmarting anyone to make them do stupid things, but she's still quite extraordinary,” he assured her. “So extraordinary, that it's believed she must be descended from the old foxes.”

“Tell me about her.”

With his knee touching hers, he leaned closer and told the story.

“A young scholar in a small village pined away for his
childhood sweetheart for many years, but he didn't dare touch her because her family was wealthy and respected, and his family was poor. When she was finally old enough for them to be together, he spent his savings to buy fine clothes and a horse and went to her family home to ask for her hand in marriage. But when her father answered the door, a loud celebration was going on behind him. The scholar asked what they were celebrating, and the father told him that another man from a respected family had proposed to his daughter and they were to be married.”

“That's awful,” Astrid murmured. Her hand dropped between them and settled on the stone wall.

His hand followed hers. He continued.

“Heartbroken and sick with grief, the young scholar left his village and went to the capital to find work. On the hilly road there, he heard the sound of someone running behind him and found his childhood sweetheart had raced two miles up the hill to catch up with him. She loved him, not the other man, and was willing to run away from home to be with him.”

“I like her already,” Astrid said. Slender fingers slid over his. Her thumb rubbed circles into the heel of his palm. “Was he happy?”

“He was happy beyond belief,” Bo told her. “They went to the capital together, where they were married. He found work in the emperor's library. It didn't pay much, but he still had all his savings, so he was able to buy them a meager home—”

“I thought he spent all his money on fancy clothes and a horse.”

“He sold those to some dupe in the village for twice what he paid.”

“Very savvy. I like this scholar. What happened next?”

“He and his new wife were living out their dreams. Good work, a roof over their heads, and a nice big bed where they spent all their free time—”

“Oh my.” Her circling thumb moved a little faster.

“—and they had five children.”

“Five? That must have been one very big bed.”

“The biggest.”

“Stars.” Pink dots swelled on the apples of her cheeks. “How did they have any free time with all those children running around? One or two sounds nicer to me. And I'd think that maybe the wife was a famous dancer in the emperor's court, because she isn't going to sit around the house all day. So they should probably have a nanny, too.”

“All right, maybe they only had two children. A boy and a girl. And the wife dances, and they have a nanny. And even though the scholar worries how they can afford all this, they somehow make it work, and for five wonderful years they live a joyful, humble life together.”

He slipped his fingers around her wrist and stroked the tender skin there. All this closeness and touching and talking of big beds was funneling all of his blood down between his legs. He vaguely thought he should be careful before he embarrassed himself, but another part of him didn't care.

“One day, the happy couple decided to return to their village to introduce their families to the children, so they gathered up their kids and traveled the long road back home. On the last stretch of road, the scholar set out ahead to meet her father, because he was afraid the man would be upset and wanted to prepare him. But when he got to their home, her father was not only surprised to see him, he called the scholar a liar.”

“Why?” Astrid's cheeks were very pink now.

This gave Bo a little thrill.

“Well, you see,” he told her in a low voice, “the father took the scholar back to his childhood sweetheart's old bedroom. And there, the scholar sees what the old man was talking about. His childhood sweetheart had been sick for the last five years, lying in bed, nearly dead. At this moment, his wife walked into the house with their children, and saw her sick body lying in bed, and they merged together.”

“I don't understand,” Astrid whispered.

“His childhood sweetheart had loved him so much that five years before, her spirit left her body to meet the scholar on the road to run away with him.”

Astrid's mouth curved into a little O shape.

He rested his forehead against hers. “Sometimes, while you were in Los Angeles, I'd lay awake at night and imagine my soul breaking away from my body and flying across the state to be with you.”

She made a small noise and squeezed her eyes closed.

At some point, all the gentle stroking they'd been doing had stopped. They were now gripping each other's hands so tightly, he worried he was crushing her fingers. But she wouldn't let go. And he
couldn't
let go. Because if did, some part of him worried that he wouldn't be as lucky as the scholar, and that she would float away like a lost balloon, never to be seen again.

Beyond the gallery door, he heard the muffled sound of the yapping dog. Astrid heard it, too. And they both knew what it meant. Their private jungle was being invaded. How long before the door swung open and broke the bewitchment that had Astrid clasping his hand like he was the most important thing in the world?

“Bo,” she whispered. Damp eyelashes fluttered and left small streaks of mascara on the skin beneath her eyes. And those eyes were now fixed on his mouth.

He heard the yapping dog.

He felt his heart hammering wildly.

He saw Astrid looking at his mouth.

And then he saw nothing.

One hand instinctively lifted to cup the back of her neck as he pressed his mouth to hers. It wasn't a sensual kiss. Not skilled or erotic or knee-weakening. He kissed her like he was the heartbroken scholar in the fable and she'd just appeared on the road to run away with him. He kissed her like it was all he'd been dreaming about doing for the past few years.

He kissed her like the man that Pretend Astrid wanted him to be—like a man who could move mountains.

And the way she kissed him back (warm mouth, fingers digging into his arms, desperate moan, scent of roses) . . . it made the Real Bo believe he actually could.

Hours after the kiss, Astrid continued to walk around in a daze. She could still feel the thrill of it cascading over her, and was halfway afraid Bo had rewired her nervous system, because everything she touched—her coat, the car door, the silverware at the dining table—set off small fireworks beneath her skin.

Bo had kissed her.

She'd kissed Bo.

This repeated inside her head, over and over, as though her brain was afraid she might forget. Impossible. She'd never forget. It was a desperate and crazy kiss, and when his lips touched hers—lemon bright and frighteningly sultry, all at once—she struggled with the shock of it. He was so sure of himself and she was not. She worried she felt awkward and inexperienced to him. Worried they'd waited too long or built up too many expectations.

But her body had known better than her brain in that moment, and when she'd let it take over, it had roared up like a beast and devoured Bo. Maybe there was some truth to his fable about souls separating from bodies, because
she wouldn't be surprised if her beast of a soul had taken a big bite out of his.

She saw him differently now. There was the Bo who drove her to the conservatory, and there was the Bo who drove her back home and dropped her off while he went to work. The new Bo was far more dangerous to her erratic feelings, because now that she'd had a taste, she wasn't sure she could go back.

Stars. One kiss and she was free-falling off a cliff and floating over the clouds. He'd barely touched her. She'd done more petting years ago with the boys in her high school. Done a lot more than petting with Luke.

How could a simple kiss make her feel a thousand times more than any of that? She knew the answer, of course, and she was asking the wrong question. The right one was: what could Bo make her feel if it were more than a simple kiss?

“What is wrong?” Greta had asked her at dinner, when it was just Astrid and Aida dining alone with the baby.

“Nothing at all,” she'd said dreamily. “Nothing at all.”

—

Astrid wasn't awake when Bo got home that night, and it wasn't until lunch the next day when she finally saw him again. Everyone was home—Aida, Winter, Greta, baby Karin, and the baby's new part-time nanny. So when Astrid heard Bo's voice in the foyer, she couldn't race to him and jump into his arms. She couldn't do anything at all but try to look as if her heart wasn't bouncing around inside her rib cage like a rubber ball.

When he finally strolled into the dining room and walked by her, the entire length of his arm brushed against hers as he passed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, as if it had been an accident. The apology fluttered wisps of hair near her ear. He put his hand on her arm, and pretended to steady her, lingering a second too long.

It was a wonder she didn't liquefy and drop into a puddle at his feet.

And after that, lunch was torture. She ate but did not taste. Bo's gaze was daring and evasive, just out of reach. She felt it searing her, but when she tried to catch it, he was always looking somewhere else. He talked openly to everyone around the table, but not directly to her. It wasn't until lunch was finished and he was about to leave with Winter to return to work that he caught her in the foyer alone.

“Hadley telephoned,” he said in a guarded voice. “We've got an appointment with the Aztec experts at four this afternoon. I should be finished with work by then. No runs tonight. I could go alone—”

“Absolutely not.”

“It's just that I won't have time to come get you.”

“Jonte can drive me.”

“The last time he drove you, Max followed.”

“Magnussons don't cower.”

“
Aiya
,” he murmured, passing her a torn piece of paper with a Nob Hill address scrawled across it. “Just be vigilant and do me the favor of waiting in the car until you see me drive up, all right? I'll be there as close to four as I can.”

“Count on it, Captain Yeung,” she said with a little salute.

Satisfied with her answer, he started to turn away but changed his mind at the last second. And after glancing around the foyer to ensure they were alone, he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. A flurry of chills raced up her arm.

“I can't stop thinking about you,” she whispered desperately.

“Then don't,” he whispered back with a glint in his eye. “See you at four.”

Later that afternoon, Astrid waited in the car with Jonte until she spotted Bo's Buick, and then Bo himself, his navy suit dotted with raindrops. She hopped out to meet him in
the cool, gray drizzle. And while traffic rushed by, they dashed toward their destination—a grand French-style Beaux Arts building on California Avenue—and took shelter beneath the entrance's awning.

Bo's dark eyes sparkled as he squinted down at her beneath the brim of his newsboy cap. “Hello again, Miss Magnusson,” he said seductively, drawing her closer with a gentle hand on her back.

Her heart leapt. Her nerves jangled as if they were old keys.

She didn't know how to do this. How to go from friends to . . . whatever they were doing. She'd wanted him for years. Wanting Bo was as familiar to her as breathing. Nothing had changed. And yet,
everything
had changed.

She'd had a taste.

She'd bitten off a piece of his soul.

And now she didn't know how to act. Every move she made felt magnified. Her clothes fit differently. What was she supposed to do with her hands? Could she touch him now? He was touching her. It seemed easy and natural to him, while she was frazzled and awkward. But also happier than she could ever remember being.

She was a damned mess.

“Did you miss me?” she asked.

Before he could answer, the front door swung open. A well-heeled middle-aged couple breezed out and huddled beneath the awning, crowding the small space as they waited for their driver to pull up to the curb. When the woman noticed Astrid and Bo, she gaped at the two of them together and gave Bo a nasty look. Then she pulled her fur coat closed and moved away from him to stand on the other side of her companion.

Over the years, Astrid had witnessed plenty of small indignities. People poking fun at her parents' accents. Greta being ignored at the market while someone less foreign was served ahead of her. But none of that came close to what Bo had to suffer.

In the past, when Bo used to take her shopping or
accompanied her on errands, he often avoided confrontation by either sliding into the background or using charm as a distraction. She became accustomed to aiding him, cheerfully reassuring department store clerks that he was there to carry her bags, or whatever lie they wanted to hear to make them look the other way.

Astrid now stared back at the wealthy woman beneath the awning. It would be easy to pretend it didn't happen. To look away. Maybe it was Astrid's already taut nerves, but she wasn't in the mood to let the affront slide. They'd been standing there first. They weren't doing anything wrong. And really, how dare this woman look at them that way?

Astrid was suddenly
livid.

“What's the matter?” she said to the woman in challenge.

“Pardon?”

“You have a problem?”

The woman's head jerked back in surprise, but she recovered quickly. “If you want to make a scene, I suggest you cross Stockton,” she said, waving a hand toward Chinatown.

“You want a scene? Oh, I'll make a scene, all right. Right here, right now.”

“Winston,” she snapped at her companion. “Are you just going to stand there and let her talk to me that way? Go get the building manager.”

Winston hesitated.

The woman muttered something about “trash” and “immigrants” overtaking their apartment building.

Astrid had the violent urge to rip the woman's hair out by the roots. But before she could say or do anything more, Bo herded her inside the building. “Come on,” he told her in calm voice. “We're already late.”

Astrid didn't take her eyes off the woman until Bo pulled the door shut behind her.

“What have you told me before?” Bo murmured. “It's not worth it.”

“I was wrong,” she said, only half aware that her voice
was echoing off the walls. “It's not fair. Why should a stuck-up bitch like that get away with that kind of rude behavior? If people are going to act like goddamn jackasses, they ought to have the decency to do so in private.”

Bo cleared his throat. Astrid spun around to find herself standing in the middle of a marble-floored, chandelier-lit lobby, facing an amused attendant behind a raised desk.

Astrid's cheeks warmed. Her anger deflated.

“Mr. Yeung and Miss Magnusson here to visit Dr. Maria Navarro,” Bo said.

The attendant consulted a large book with handwritten notes and winked at Astrid as he confirmed their appointment. Dr. Navarro's apartment was on the top floor.

They were pointed to an elevator behind them, where a handsome elevator operator in a burgundy uniform greeted them. He was almost as big as Winter and looked a little like the famous boxer Jack Johnson. Astrid suspected he'd also heard her profanity-laden outburst, but he was too polite to comment. He just closed the scissor doors and pulled the lever to take them up to the top floor.

She blew out a long breath and summoned her dignity. Though her embarrassment was abating, she was still trying to tamp down the irritation caused by the woman outside. On top of that, she was more than a little frustrated that she didn't get any time alone with Bo.

“The answer is yes,” Bo said over the clack of the rising elevator, surprising her.

She raised her head. “What's that?”

“You asked me earlier if I missed you. And I did. Terribly.”

Oh.
Well, then. Astrid flicked a glance to the elevator operator. He looked straight ahead.

Bo wasn't finished. “I thought about you the entire time I was at work last night. I went to sleep thinking of you. I even dreamed about you. About us. Together.”

“Stars,” Astrid murmured breathlessly.

The elevator operator slid her a sideways glance of approval. He was impressed with Bo's daring, too. It was
thrilling to hear Bo say any of this at all—and in public? Well. That knocked her for a loop.

How did Bo do this? And so effortlessly? In a matter of seconds, he'd erased all her negativity. Anxiety, anger, frustration . . . it all just faded away. And, for once in her life, words failed her.

The elevator operator pulled the lever and slowed their ascent.

“Also, you look stunning today,” Bo added as the elevator came to a stop. His gaze fell down her legs and leisurely rose back up again. “Whatever fashion genius decided to raise the hemline even higher this year has my full appreciation.”

As the operator opened the scissor gates, Astrid recovered her wits. “A girl pays five bucks for imported silk stockings, you can't blame her for wanting to show four dollars and fifty cents of them.”

Bo laughed and tipped the grinning operator while she exited, chin high.

—

Dr. Navarro's penthouse apartment was luxurious and jammed full of expensive art. The grimacing statues, stonework disks, and ancient woven cloth decorating the cream walls of her high-ceilinged rooms made it look as if she'd raided a Mexican temple. Astrid couldn't stop gawking. Plush rugs cushioned their feet as they followed a stiff butler to a receiving room with a stunning view of Huntington Park. And it was here, in front of a fireplace, that two women lounged.

The Wicked Wenches, as Lowe had put it.

Both appeared to be in their fifties. One looked like a pale English rose, as though she'd be comfortable hobnobbing with Queen Mary, and the other, wearing a floral-embroidered shawl draped over her shoulders, looked like a blazing goddess sprung to life from one of the paintings that crammed the walls.

Dr. Maria Navarro.

She was an attractive woman, with long bones and a good figure. Her dark hair was shot through with white and pulled back into a neat pile of braids at the back of her neck, and when she stood to greet them, she seemed to take up all the space in the room, which impressed Astrid quite a lot.

“Dr. Navarro,” Bo said, removing his cap and inclining his head politely. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with us.”

“You are Hadley's new family—of course we will meet with you, my darlings,” she answered with a grand smile and a grander accent that rolled along her deep, rich voice. “This is my friend and colleague, Miss King.”

“Please call me Mathilda,” the second woman said.

“Delighted,” Astrid said, shaking both their hands.

After exchanging further pleasantries, Dr. Navarro led them all to the fireplace, saying, “Please, sit with us.” She dismissed the butler in Spanish while Bo and Astrid relaxed together on a long leather sofa facing the two ladies.

“I have known Hadley's father for many, many years,” Dr. Navarro said. “A great man, very intelligent. But not as intelligent as his daughter. That brother of yours is a lucky man.”