But from the way his smile fell away into silent brooding afterward, Nina still felt a pang of disquiet.

FORAGING THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, along the edge of the artificial lake. A long narrow body of water, edible reeds to be pulled, places to be marked for fishing if she could fashion hooks and lines . . . “What’s that?” Seb pointed at an inlet a good distance down the shore. They’d never foraged this far before. “Something yellow.”

Nina squinted, making out a peaked roof, glass windows. A house, and not a farmer’s cottage either. “Some Fritz’s lakeside retreat.” Anything gracious or expansive in Poznań these days was owned by a German. At least for now; there were more and more rumors (whenever Nina and Seb found refugees with whom they dared trade news) about the possibility of a German retreat toward Berlin.

“A big house like that, they’ll have a larder or cellar to raid.”

“Too risky,” Nina began.

“If there are too many people, we’ll retreat,” Seb cajoled. “Word of honor.”

Nina fingered the razor in her overall pocket, the revolver at her waist. No more ammunition; that had long run out. But Seb was right; they didn’t have to try. Only look.

Her stomach was growling as they set off along the lake’s shore. Beaches scattered along the far shore; perhaps swimmers came here in the summer, but now all was quiet, nothing but the chatter of birds overhead. Seb knew them all and imitated their calls, color flushing his cheeks. Nina was glad to see it. By the time they reached the ocher-walled house, it was late afternoon. Long, low, mellow in the sunshine, the residence overlooked a sweeping view of water and trees, a dock stretching out before it into the blue expanse of lake. Nina looked away. Even a lake so blue and placid—as unlike the wind-whipped, ice-lashed Old Man as possible—gave her the shivers.

No one seemed to be moving around the house; the shutters were drawn, but smoke drifted from a tall chimney. Seb and Nina crept toward the rear, where the trees had been cleared and landscaped to frame the house like dark encircling arms. No livestock or chicken pens, no laundry lines, nothing easily foraged. They exchanged wordless glances; Nina shook her head. Seb rose from his squat to follow her back into the trees, and then a woman cleared her throat behind them.

How did she get so close without me hearing? The thought went through Nina like a bullet, even as she whirled around. There had been no sound on the leaf-strewn ground, yet there the woman stood: slim, dark haired, blue eyed, about Nina’s age, warmly wrapped in a blue coat and checked scarf, placating hands held out. She smiled, but Nina’s fingers stretched for her razor. How did you get so close?

She was speaking Polish in a low pleasant voice. Seb replied warily, his own Polish stumbling. The woman frowned, switched languages. English? Nina could cobble simple broken phrases together by now, but she was far from fluent. Seb started in surprise, switched languages too, talking too fast for Nina to follow. She kept her eyes fixed on the woman in blue, her quiet feet in their fine leather shoes, her calm eyes.

“She says this is Lake Rusalka,” Seb broke off at last, switching back into Russian.

Rusalka. The word ran over Nina’s skin like a rat. She took a step back. The woman smiled, took a step back too, empty hands raised. She said something else. Seb translated, face showing a cautious hope.

“She asks if we’re hungry.”

“Why?” Nina’s every hackle was up.

“She wants to help.” Seb’s expression fought with itself, caution against hope, and hope was winning. “She says we have nothing to fear.”

Chapter 45

Jordan

August 1950

Boston

Anna!” Jordan exclaimed, opening the door of the darkroom. “I thought you were going to be away another week.”

“I missed my girls.” Anneliese gave her a hug, all neat dark perfection in her chip hat and half veil, her black full-skirted coat. “Is Ruth playing over at the Dunnes’?”

“Yes.” Jordan kept her eyes fixed scrupulously on her stepmother, letting out a quick cough to hide the sound of rustling from the darkroom below. “How was your buying trip?”

“Come upstairs; I’ll fix some iced tea and tell you.” Anneliese’s brows lifted. “Unless I’m interrupting your work?”

“Not at all,” Jordan said, very aware of Tony out of sight under the staircase below, buttoning up his shirt. “Give me ten minutes.”

Anneliese’s heels clicked off as Jordan shut and bolted the door. “Close call,” she said with a laugh. “Are you decent?”

“Never.” Tony came out shrugging into his suspenders, grinning. “You’re going up for iced tea?”

“Yes, I should go be a good daughter.” Tony caught Jordan around the waist as she came down the steps, and she wound her arms around his neck. “I’ve had weeks by myself to play, after all.”

“I’ll come over and play anytime.” He kissed the side of her throat, then began looking for his shoes. “Want me to come up, be respectable with my hat in my hand?”

“No.” Jordan found one of his shoes under the darkroom table—they’d been in a bit of a hurry this afternoon to get to the cot she’d prudently set up with spare blankets. “Absolutely not.”

“Mothers like me, I promise. I know how to look like a nice clean-cut boy from Queens, not a shameless seducer lurking under darkroom stairs.” He spoke with his usual teasing tone, but Jordan saw the wariness that sometimes came over him in a reflex. The wariness of his voice the first night here, when he’d told her about the girl who stopped returning his calls once she learned he was Jewish.

Jordan came closer, sliding her fingers through his. “You know why I don’t want to introduce you upstairs?” she asked. “Not because Anna wouldn’t like you. Not because you aren’t the most charming, presentable gentleman I could hope to have on my arm anywhere. Because of Ruth.”

“Princess Ruth loves me.”

“Exactly. You call her Princess Ruth and applaud wildly every time she masters a new scale, and if you come up and start being charming over iced tea to her mother, she will be thrilled by the idea that you are my young man. And I’m not doing that to Ruth again, because she also adored Garrett and it broke her heart when I had to tell her he wasn’t going to be her big brother, after all. I’m not letting her think anyone else is family unless I’m sure he’s sticking around a long, long time.” Jordan squeezed his fingers. “That is why I’m not taking you upstairs for iced tea.”

That faint wariness disappeared. “I love iced tea,” Tony said. “It might be worth sticking around a long, long time, if it’s sufficiently good iced tea.”

“I thought we were just having a mad summer fling.”

“Modifications could be made to the original contract. A potential extension into a mad autumn fling, as per agreement by both parties.”

“Maybe you’ll be bored with me by autumn,” Jordan parried.

“Not a chance, J. Bryde.”

“Or maybe I’ll be bored with you,” she suggested. “I’ll be in New York, meeting all kinds of fascinating men.”

“It so happens I have family in New York. Lots of reasons to come visit . . . and no one ever gets bored with me.”

“I don’t know about sleeping with a Yankee fan past September. What happens when the Red Sox beat them in October and you’re refusing to speak to me?”

“I’m a very gracious winner. I’ll dry your tears, and you’ll have the off-season to learn the error of your ways.”

“Not a chance, Rodomovsky.” She gave him a hard, swift kiss good-bye, let him extend one kiss into three, four, hard up against the nearest wall with her hands buried in his hair and his fingers slipping open the buttons she’d done up so hastily to answer Anneliese’s knock. “No time,” she murmured, but it still ended up being more like twenty minutes before she was upstairs in the kitchen with hastily combed hair, peeking out the front window to see Tony duck out of the darkroom.

I wouldn’t mind having you for an autumn lover as well as a summer lover, Jordan thought, watching that lean form jog up the street as behind her Anneliese poured out iced tea. This wasn’t like her times with Garrett, when it had been a little awkward if enjoyable, and there had been the feeling of being funneled inexorably toward the altar with every kiss. This was something looser and better fitting. They weren’t going steady, they weren’t pinned, they weren’t making it official—they were just lovers, work and play and passion and friendship blending together into something so very easy.