Kate Quinn - The Huntress

“C’mon.” Garrett sneaked an arm around her waist, nuzzled her ear in that way that also made her knees buckle. “Sunday lunch. We can go for a drive afterward, park somewhere …”

“I can’t,” Jordan said, regretful. “Mass with Dad and Mrs. Weber.”

“It must be serious.” Garrett grinned again. “So, how is this Fräulein of your father’s?”

“She’s very nice.” There had been another dinner, this time at Anneliese Weber’s tiny spotless apartment; she had been warm and welcoming, and made crisp fried schnitzel and some kind of pink-iced Austrian cake soaked in rum. Jordan’s father had gone all soft around the edges as Anneliese served him, and Jordan already adored little Ruth, who had asked in a whispery voice how der Hund was. It had all been fine, absolutely fine.

Jordan didn’t know why, but she kept thinking back to that picture. Anneliese Weber looking by a strange twist of light and lens to be about as soft and welcoming as a straight razor.

“She’s very nice,” Jordan said again. The Sox went down 4–2, and soon Jordan and Garrett were streaming out of Fenway with the rest of the fans, crunching peanut shells and discarded scorecards underfoot. “It’s our year,” Jordan proclaimed. “This year we win it all, I can feel it. Walk me to the shop? I promised Dad I’d swing by.”

Hand in hand, they made their way through the game crowd and finally turned onto Commonwealth, Jordan stretching her steps to match Garrett’s, who still walked with a slight limp. It was that day , she thought, the sudden spring day coming at the end of a too-long winter. As they turned down the central mall on Commonwealth, it seemed like all Boston had tossed their heavy coats and come outside, winter-pale faces blissfully skyward as they stumbled along absolutely drunk on the warmth. It was why Jordan loved Boston—there was something about its citizens that was curiously welded together, more like a small town than a big city. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, their heartaches and their secrets … And that brought a frown to Jordan’s face.

“I wish I knew more about her,” she heard herself say.

“Who?” Garrett had been talking about the classes he’d take in the fall.

“Mrs. Weber.” Jordan fiddled with the Leica’s strap.

“What do you want to know?” Garrett asked reasonably. They were passing the Hotel Vendome, and Jordan nearly stepped in front of a Chevrolet coupe. Garrett pulled her back. “Careful—”

“That,” Jordan said. “She’s careful. She doesn’t say much about herself. And I caught the strangest expression on her face when I took her picture …”

Garrett laughed. “You don’t take a dislike to someone just because of a funny expression.”

“Girls do it all the time. Sometimes you catch a boy looking at you in the hall at school, when he thinks you can’t see him. I don’t mean looking at girls the way all boys do,” Jordan clarified. “I mean looking at you in a way that gives you the shivers. He doesn’t mean for you to see, and maybe that expression only lasts a second, but it’s enough to make you think, I don’t want to be alone with you .”

“Girls think that?” Garrett sounded mystified.

“I don’t know a single girl who hasn’t had that thought,” Jordan stated. “I’m just saying, sometimes you catch the wrong look on someone’s face and it puts you off. It makes you not want to take chances, getting to know them.”

“But this isn’t a boy leering around the locker door at school. It’s a woman your father is inviting home to dinner. You have to give her a chance.”

“I know.”

“Your dad’s really serious about her.” Garrett tweaked Jordan’s ponytail. “Maybe that’s the whole problem.”

“I am not jealous,” Jordan flashed. Then amended, “All right, maybe I am. A tiny, tiny bit. But I want Dad happy, I do. And Mrs. Weber is good for him. I can see that. But before I trust her with my father, I want to know more about her.”

“So just ask her.”

McBride’s Antiques sat on the corner of Newbury and Clarendon—not the best shopping district in Boston, but distinguished enough. Every morning, as long as Jordan could remember, her father had walked the three miles from their home to the shop that had been his father’s, mounting those worn stone steps toward the door with its ancient bronze knocker, unlocking the shutters to unveil the big giltlettered window. Jordan frowned at the window display as it came into view today, seeing that the tasseled lamps and Victorian hatstand from yesterday had been swapped for a tailor’s dummy in a wedding dress of antique lace, and a display of cabochon rings sparkling on a velvet tray. Jordan mounted the steps ahead of Garrett, hearing the sweet tinkle of the bell as she pushed the door open. She wasn’t really surprised to see her father beside the long counter, holding Anneliese Weber’s hand with a proprietary air. “I’ve got wonderful news, missy!”

Jordan couldn’t describe the mix of emotions that rose in her—why her heart squeezed in honest pleasure, seeing the happiness on her father’s face as he looked down at the Austrian widow’s left hand with its cluster of antique garnets and pearls … and why at the same time her stomach tightened as she came to give her soon-to-be stepmother a hug.

JUST ASK HER ,Garrett had said. Jordan got her chance two days later, when Mrs. Weber invited her to go shopping for wedding clothes after she came home from school. As they sallied down Boylston Street, Jordan was still trying to find a casual segue into the questions she wanted to ask when Mrs. Weber took the initiative.

“Jordan, I hope you don’t feel you must call me—well, not Mutti , I suppose for you it would be Mother or Mama .” A smile at Jordan’s expression. “At your age that seems silly.”

“A little.”

“Well, you certainly don’t have to call me either. I don’t mean to take the place of your mother. Your father has told me about her, and she sounds like a lovely woman.”

“I don’t remember her very well.” Just her absence once she got sick, really. And all the reasons why, which they wouldn’t tell me, so I made them up for myself. Jordan wished she remembered more than that. She looked sideways at Anneliese, gliding along in her blue spring coat, pocketbook in gloved hands, heels hardly clicking on the sidewalk. Jordan felt large and clumping beside her, naked without her camera.

“I thought we’d go to Priscilla of Boston,” Anneliese suggested. “Usually I make up my own clothes, but for a wedding one needs something special. I don’t know if your father discussed the plans with you, men can be so vague about wedding details. We thought a quiet day wedding three weeks from now, just the four of us at the chapel and a few of your father’s friends.”

“And on your side?”

“No one. I haven’t been in Boston long enough to make friends.”

“Really?” For a woman who’d said she was trying so hard to make friends in a new country—and whose English was so good—it seemed odd. “Not even a next-door neighbor, or someone at the beauty shop, or another mother at the park?”

“I find it hard, talking with strangers.” A tentative smile. “I hoped you would be my maid of honor?”

“Of course.” Though Jordan couldn’t stop wondering. Months in Boston, and you don’t have one single acquaintance?

“Your father and I planned for a honeymoon weekend in Concord,” Anneliese continued, “if you could watch Ruth.”

“Of course.” Jordan’s smile was unforced this time. “Ruth’s a darling. I love her already.”