Stubborn.I laughed. Didi had been the most stubborn and strong-willed person I’d ever known. Once she made up her mind about something, that was it.
Garrett was almost as bad.
“She believed in people,” Henri continued. “Sometimes when the evidence suggested she shouldn’t. My father wrote that she saw the best in everyone, including the ones who didn’t deserve it.” He looked at me. “Does that sound like her?”
My throat tightened. “Yeah. It does.”
Outside the window, the platform began to slide away. The train was moving, pulling out of Zurich, carrying us toward Prague. Toward answers. Toward Kessler’s territory.
“Didi always said ‘Life’s too short.’”
Garrett glanced at me from the doorway. “For what?”
“Everything. That was the point.‘Life’s too short to skip the scone.’Or‘Life’s too short not to walk in the rain.’”
His brow furrowed.
“I guess life’s too short not to visit Prague,” I said, nodding toward the dark window.
Henri chuckled and continued with his stories. He shared small moments his mother had recalled from Marcel’s letters—the risks they’d taken, the close calls—all coded text she had to interpret.
I tried to picture it: occupied France, danger everywhere, and two people finding reasons to keep going. To keep believing. The kind of story I’d read a hundred times in my novels, except this one was real. This one wasDidi. My grandmother. She’d been… what? A spy? A courier? A fighter?
When Henri finished his third glass of wine, he stifled a yawn. “I should sleep while I can. Tomorrow will be busy.”
Dmitry rose. “I should do the same.”
I stood, and Garrett stepped back to let me out of the compartment. We said goodnight to Henri, and Dmitry disappeared into his own compartment two doors down.
The corridor was narrow, lit by dim yellow lights, windows on one side showing little more than darkness rushing past. We passed through the rattling connection between cars, the floor shifting beneath our feet, and we soon arrived at my compartment.
I tapped the pass card which had come with my ticket and stepped inside, giving Garrett space to collect his bag. “Are you going to stay in the other car? In your room?”
He was quiet for a moment. The train swayed, and he gripped the handles of his bag, without picking it up. “Your safety is the most important thing, Grace. I’m not sure how I would have felt if I was in the next compartment, but I definitely don’t like the idea of staying in a separate car from you.”
My heart did a complicated little flip.
“I can’t protect you from there. If anything happened, I wouldn’t even hear it.” Garrett looked down at me, his voice low. “Is it all right with you if I stay here tonight? There are two bunks, so there’s plenty of room.”
This man had held me while I fell apart. He’d remembered my lip balm and put himself between me and every threat as if itwere the only thing that mattered. We’d slept in the same room in London and on our first night in Paris, and I hadn’t thought twice about it.
But after last night? After the kiss and how he’d run away? I tried not to think about my dreams last night—and completely failed—when I said, “I’d feel better if you were in here, too.”
Chapter 25
Galahad
I navigatedaround the cramped bathroom, unable to even close the glass door for my shower. The water pressure was surprisingly decent for a train, and I definitely did not think about the fifteen-minute shower Grace had taken before me. Nor did I think about her having to hold the shower wand over her head to wash her hair, or the way her back would have arched as she did. Nor about the way the lather would have flowed between her breasts and slid down her stomach to her thighs before vanishing down the drain.
When I came out in my sleep shorts and a T-shirt, Grace was sitting cross-legged on the lower bunk, rubbing cream into her hands. Vanilla and something floral. She had a dreamy smile on her face, distant and soft. She’d dimmed the compartment lights while I was cleaning up, switching them to a cool blue that made the space feel smaller. More intimate.
Brain chemicals, Garrett. That’s all this is.
“Did you pick your breakfast from the menu?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm.” She didn’t look up. “Do you think they were lovers?”
I paused in placing my items back into my duffel. “Who? Marcel and your grandmother?”
