by Jenn Bennett
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.”
“We spend summers at a small villa in Spain, so we missed the wedding, unfortunately,” Mathilda added.
“Spain,” Astrid said. It sounded warm and exotic. Probably wasn’t gray and dreary and flooding there.
“Maria’s first husband was filthy rich,” Mathilda remarked casually. “Ricardo Navarro was a bastard of the highest rank, but I thank him daily for having the decency to die quickly—and with his enormous will intact—before I was tempted to do the deed myself.”
For the first time, it struck Astrid that the two women were lovers, and her face heated. She wondered if Bo had caught on. Probably long before now. He always had better instincts about people. It also struck Astrid that the two women weren’t unlike her and Bo: two cultures, two classes . . . a union unsanctioned by society. And yet, they were living together in a posh apartment building in Nob Hill. Lecturing in Mexico. Vacationing in Europe.
Pretending they were other people.
If they could do it, could she and Bo?
A dangerous thought, and one that struck a match inside Astrid’s mind.
“Anyway,” Mathilda continued, pushing a lock of delicately waving white hair away from her face. “We finally met your brother a few months back—during a dinner at Hadley’s family home in Russian Hill. Lowe was most entertaining.”
“And he gave us a wonderfully potent bottle of akvavit,” Dr. Navarro said. “But I suppose we have you to thank for that, don’t we, Mr. Yeung? You work with the older brother, Winter, yes? Bootlegging must be fascinating work.”
Bo scratched the back of his neck as he struggled with a smile. “That wouldn’t be the word I’d use to describe it, but I’m not complaining.”
“Indeed.” Mathilda gave him an appreciative once-over. “They say noble work should stimulate the mind, but whose mind is never specified. I would imagine you’ve stimulated thousands of minds all over the city.”
The corners of Bo’s mouth curled. “I’ll remind Winter of that when I’m asking for a pay increase.”
The women laughed and raised invisible glasses while Mathilda toasted, “Here’s to noble work.”
Astrid found herself pulled down meandering conversational paths as the two ladies spoke about their career, and how they had lived and worked together in both Mexico City and San Francisco for thirty-odd years, and had finally decided to retire and share this penthouse. “To the eternal disappointment of a few tenants in the building,” Mathilda said with a wink.
“Yes, I believe we met one downstairs,” Bo said. “She had strong opinions about immigrants.”
“Mrs. Humphreys,” the two women intoned together.
“Her husband’s a state senator,” Dr. Navarro said.
“He receives calls from ladies of the evening when his wife is away at their ranch,” Mathilda added. “Why he married that cow in the first place is beyond me.”
Bo and Astrid glanced at each other with twin expressions of delight.
Mathilda shrugged. “Maria owns the building”—The entire building? Good God!—“so they pay us rent, and being able to raise it whenever we damn well please is no small satisfaction, let me tell you.”
“I can only imagine,” Astrid said with a smile.
“Enough about us. I know you didn’t come here to listen to two old ladies gossip,” Dr. Navarro said. “Hadley told me you had something interesting to show us.”
Bo unwrapped the idol. Dr. Navarro slipped on a pair of glasses that hung from a chain around her neck amongst long strings of beads. A small folding table was set up between her and Mathilda, and it was upon this that she inspected the turquoise figure. While she did, Bo gave them a very condensed explanation of how the idol came into their possession, smoothly leaving out all the details about Astrid’s visions. In Bo’s story, in fact, the idol mysteriously turned up on the pier when the yacht crashed into it.
Upon doling out this lie, he gave Astrid a look that said: I know, I know. But how am I to account for why we haven’t returned a priceless artifact to
the yacht’s owner?
And she gave him a look in return that said: I am absolutely, positively crazy about you and don’t give two hoots about what you tell them.
And in answer to that, Bo gave Astrid’s legs a bold perusal that sent a quick thrill through her chest.
Unaware of their silent communiqués, Dr. Navarro studied the idol, turning it over carefully before giving Mathilda a turn. They looked it over for a long time, and when they were both done murmuring small exclamations and pointing things out to each other in Spanish, Dr. Navarro took off her glasses and smiled up at Bo and Astrid. “Hadley was correct, as usual. This piece was certainly made in a style that was common in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.”
“Teoxihuitl is what the Aztecs called turquoise,” Mathilda added. “It’s a Nahuatl word that means ‘stone of the gods.’ It was used in special religious and ritual items, and no one was allowed to wear it as casual jewelry, like they do today. That would have been sacrilege. Therefore, this is not an everyday object.”
“Do you recognize the figure?” Bo asked.
“I believe it’s meant to be Ometeotl, who is a little mysterious. Many believe he was a supreme creator deity with a dual nature not unlike the Holy Trinity. Other scholars think he has been confused with another earlier god who makes life from bones—the Bone Lord, he was called. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we’d find a bone armature beneath the turquoise, were we to remove it.”
“Someone has already altered it,” Bo pointing toward the word “NANCE.”
“Yes, that is a disgrace,” Mathilda said, shaking her head. “No museum will buy it, of course. And I’d wager that’s someone’s name. Names have great power. Tell them, Maria.”
Dr. Navarro stretched out her legs and lay back against her chair, pulling her shawl over her arms. “When Mathilda and I lived in Mexico City, we occasionally heard a legend from other anthropologists about a group of royal soothsayers who advised the Aztec nobility for almost two hundred years. They weren’t native. They were said to have come from a foreign land—where, exactly, was unknown. But the interesting thing about them is that they supposedly performed a secret ritual once every decade in order to extend their life.”
