“There’s a lot you don’t know. We Birdwines play our cards close,” Birdwine said, and then he did look back at me, right into my eyes. “We’re great at poker.”
I had a cat-stretch kind of feeling in my belly then. One I hadn’t felt in quite a while. I propped myself up on my elbows, gratified to find the room didn’t swing around me and the nausea didn’t come back. I was all at once aware of how thin my silk shell was, how bare I was under it. Something about silk, it could feel more naked than naked. It would be nice, really nice, to get up and out of here. Grab Birdwine and take him someplace quiet before he got all his lines back into order. Not think about my surprise brother and all the ways he reshaped my past and grayed the future into something murky. Let the world spin on, unsupervised.
I remembered exactly how sweet and rough Birdwine could be. I remembered the way he would throw my body toward the bed, catch it on the way down, one big hand cradling my head to save it from the headboard. Birdwine was looking back at me, but I couldn’t get a read. He did play a good hand of poker, as I well recalled.
There was a quick double tap on the door—purely perfunctory—and then it swung wide open, and there was Nick. Worse, he had a client in tow. She was a bobbed, preppy forty-something in a prudish floral headband. I didn’t know her, which meant that she was new, or worse, a potential he was trying to land.
Nick was talking as he came in, but he stopped dead in the doorway and went silent when he saw me. The client’s momentum ran her into his shoulder. I jerked my feet down, scattering stacked pillows.
Nick’s mouth unhinged as he took in the scene. There I was, scrambling to sit up with bare legs, bare feet, and my bra on the table, very white against my black jacket. Half the couch’s little cushions were now scattered on the floor, and I could smell the faint electric crackle that had risen in me right there at the end, sexing up the air.
“Good God, Paula,” Nick said, nostrils flaring.
Over his shoulder, the client’s eyes had gone as round and wide as a bush baby’s. Ten to one she was some kind of dedicated Anglican. My luck.
“You’re driving down the wrong track,” I said to Nick, straight up, but his face and his assumptions didn’t change. He should know better. I’d never leave my door unlocked and roll a man around in here like an amateur. Not during business hours.
He was too pre-angry to think it through, especially today, when I’d no-showed at his meeting and we’d lost the client. Now Prudence Headband looked ready to rabbit out in Oakleigh’s footsteps. She put her hand over her mouth and her wedding set alone, heavy with diamonds, told me this was a client Nick would very much want.
Birdwine rose to his feet and came between us.
“Hey, Nick. Ma’am. Please excuse us. Paula’s had some awful news. Her mother died.”
His words hit the room like a second shockwave; I saw the client’s face trying to readjust itself, wobbling toward sympathy, but finally settling on puzzlement. Grief did not a bra on the coffee table explain, and Birdwine, thick and muscular in his workman’s boots and untucked, rumpled shirt, didn’t hit this woman’s demographic.
“Oh. I didn’t know,” Nick said. His voice had gone solicitous, but his gaze on me was chilly. He did know how long Kai and I had been estranged.
“Yes. It was quite a shock,” Birdwine said to Nick. I drooped sadly, letting my body language back his story. “I’m Zach Birdwine, Paula’s investigator. Please excuse my casual dress. I was on a stakeout until ten minutes ago.” He smiled his more formal, closed-mouth smile, stepping forward as he introduced himself to Headband. She relaxed a bit, shaking Birdwine’s hand and mumbling her name and some condolences in my direction.
Nick looked down to straighten the lapel of his jacket, which was beautifully tailored and did not need any straightening. Clearly a dead-mother story of dubious origin wouldn’t poof him out of his justifiable temper.
“I’m not handling it well, Nick,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I meant it, and on more than one level.
“And I’m sorry for your loss. We’ll definitely talk later.” Nick gave me a reckoning stare, unmollified.
“Yes, we should sit down together,” I said. “Maybe Monday? Right now I should go home and see to things.”
Not much he could do with a client in the room. By now she’d bought what Birdwine was selling and was giving me a look full of genuine sympathy.