Wrath's Storm: A Masters' Admiralty Novel by Mari Carr (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

“Jakob!” she exclaimed.

Walt followed her in, glancing around what he considered a fairly standard dining room. However, given the way Annalise’s eyes widened as she looked at the table, she thought the room anything but ordinary.

“An antique clawfoot table! I can’t believe you have one of these. My Oma had a table almost exactly like this in her dining room. My sister and I used to tease her, swearing that one night when she slept, we were going to paint the toenails on the claw feet.”

Walt chuckled. “Sounds like you and your Oma were very close.”

Annalise nodded. “We were, though I’m sure Jakob is tired of hearing all my stories about her and her house.” Annalise ran her fingertips over the top of the table, the piece clearly evoking happy memories for her. “The hours Oma and I spent sitting at a table just like this, playing board games or doing puzzles.”

“Wow. What are the chances you and Annalise’s Oma would have the same table?” he asked Jakob, sinking a little too much faux surprise into his tone.

Annalise didn’t notice.

Jakob did.

He stared hard at Walt, who blinked a few times, stopping just short of fluttering his lashes.

“The stairs are this way.” Jakob pointed, but not before he narrowed his eyes at Walt, issuing an unspoken warning.

Ah. The game was afoot.

Walt loved this game, though it never lasted long when he played with his brother, Oscar. Oscar would have already stormed out of the room or house while using “fuck” as the subject, verb, and object of a sentence.

Walt ignored the sudden stab of homesickness and the sad feeling that followed when he remembered that “home” didn’t mean what it once had. His siblings were all married now.

Once again, Annalise preceded them. She paused as they all reached the top, waiting for Jakob to direct them to the next room.

“The office,” he said, opening the door directly at the top of the stairs.

Annalise’s delight only magnified as they continued the tour. “Oh my God. I thought the kitchen was perfect. This room…” She spun around. “This is the best room in the house.”

“You haven’t even seen it all,” Walt teased. “I’m betting the master bedroom is pretty special too.”

Jakob growled, the reaction so out of character, Walt couldn’t help but laugh. Perhaps that would have annoyed Jakob more if Annalise had a clue about the undercurrents of their conversation. Instead, she’d crossed to the center of the room, glancing upwards to take in the skylight.

“No windows,” she said softly. “And yet there’s so much natural light. It’s perfect. You could work in here for hours and never be afraid.”

Walt and Jakob exchanged a glance, but there was no humor this time. There was no question in Walt’s mind that Jakob had remodeled this house with Annalise in mind, the Ritter going to great lengths to create a home that Annalise would not only feel comfortable in but also safe.

“It is a great office,” Walt conceded.

“There are two others.” Jakob seemed almost reluctant to say that. “Connecting doors.”

Annalise and Walt both looked around. “Where?” Annalise asked. Besides the door they’d come in, there were no other doors, just built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that made it feel like a library.

Jakob walked toward a shelf, but Annalise gasped and ran past him. “Secret doors?!”

Jakob put his hands behind his back, a military parade-rest pose. Maybe it was to keep his hands off Annalise when she came close. Walt twisted to peer at the other man’s face. And since Annalise wasn’t looking at them, Walt grinned at Jakob, then made a heart shape with his fingers.

Jakob’s lip pulled up in a snarl, but his eyes gave him away. The Ritter didn’t like having his secret feelings exposed. He looked almost embarrassed.

Annalise was scanning the shelves. “A whole section on psychology. Austrian, of course, with Freud. Some more contemporary names. American, British, Canadian. Only one German?” She tsked but then paused, and though he had a three-quarters profile view of her face, he saw her cheek lift as she smiled. “Hermann Ebbinghaus. The man who first described the forgetting curve. Who better to hide a secret than the man who knows why we might remember or forget?”

She put her finger on the top of the spine and pulled. The book tipped, there was a click, and then the bookcase swung into the room on the other side.

Walt abandoned teasing Jakob and went to the other bookcase to start trying books. There were some things more important than poking the bear, and that included finding secret doors. It took him several minutes, but Die Grundlagen der psychischen Entwicklung by Kurt Koffka opened the bookcase on that side.

He stepped in, then looked over to where Annalise stood in the matching office on the other side. The second and third offices, flanking what was clearly Annalise’s office, were almost spartan, with only desks and ergonomic chairs—facing large windows—and built-in sideboards that turned out to be combination storage and filing cabinets.

Walt walked back into Annalise’s office.

“So whoever is in this room would be protected on both sides,” Walt said with faux casualness. “Though the door is right at the top of the stairs…” Walt gestured to the entrance.

“Reinforced steel in the walls, with a remote-activated bolt lock, and it’s also bulletproof,” Jakob said.

“Of course it is.” Walt smirked at Jakob, whose jaw muscle twitched.

Annalise was stroking the desk. “Very safe.”

By the time they reached the master bedroom, it was painfully obvious what Jakob had done and whom he’d done it for.

Annalise glanced around the room, then turned to face Jakob. “Burgundy, my favorite color.” The long wall behind the bed was painted a rich burgundy, while the other walls were a crisp, pristine white. The accent wall drew attention to the hand-stitched quilt covering the massive bed. It had to be Alaskan king or something like that. It was definitely made for at least three people.

Jakob hesitated for just a moment, then nodded once.

She pointed