"Zeke?" Above the wind, the waves, Rory's cry came, faint and desperate.
Drawing in a deep breath, Zeke struck out after her, swimming as hard and fast as he could. Ocean water seeped through his bandage and salt got into his wound. His arms and lungs seemed to be on fire as he battled both the waves and his own weakness.
Twice he drew near Rory and the balloon, only to have them wrenched out of his reach. His muscles ached with the effort it took to keep kicking, extending his arms for just one more stroke.
Rory was so close, but he knew it didn't matter. He was never going to make it. Panting and choking on the briny waves, he was all but spent. Rory risked her tenuous hold upon the gondola, stretching out her arm to him.
Her fingers seemed to drift upon the water, like a slender thread, all that stood between him and going under one last and final time. With a tremendous effort, he forced himself forward. Rory's hand clamped upon his wrist, her fingers not so fragile, far stronger than he would have imagined.
Somehow he found himself beside her, clutching at the rim of the basket. But the ordeal was far from over. The remaining buoyancy in the balloon kept the soaked gondola from sinking, but with the great monolith pulled by the breeze, Zeke and Rory were left at the mercy of the wind and the waves.
Zeke knew neither one of them could last long at this rate, taking such a buffeting. Rory looked white with fatigue. When she showed signs of loosening her hold, he used the length of his body to shore her up, keep her hanging on.
It was going to take a miracle to save them, a blasted miracle. Zeke, who put no faith in such things, hardly recognized it when it came.
But suddenly a small dinghy loomed before them, two men in oiled cape coats and yellow sou'westers pulling at the oars, fishers by the look of them.
Zeke thought he must be hallucinating until Rory also lifted her head, a choked cry of gladness escaping her. She saw the boat too. It had to be real.
"Help!" Zeke croaked. "Over here."
He wasn't sure if the fishermen could hear him. But they had to be able to see the balloon, the two people clinging for their lives. The dinghy had drifted close enough now that Zeke could observe that the two men were frozen, staring.
"Help!" Rory shouted.
Her cry was shrill enough to have carried. Yet the fishermen made no move to come to their aid although by now Zeke could see the way their mouths gaped open, their dumbfounded expressions. A particularly large wave broke over Zeke's and Rory's heads, causing them to cough and sputter.
Zeke spit salt water and swore. It figured that when he finally got a miracle, it turned out to be a stupid one.
He shouted again and still got no response from the dinghy. Drawing in one final mighty lungful of air, Zeke raised his voice, letting loose enough curses to turn the gray Atlantic blue, not stopping until his throat was hoarse.
The two men sprang into movement, reaching for their oars. It wouldn't have astonished Zeke to see the dolts start rowing in the opposite direction. But with his string of imprecations, he seemed to have made some impression on them, like a stranger in a foreign land finally catching on to the lingo.
Pulling in unison, the fishermen drew alongside, the younger one reaching down weatherbeaten hands. Zeke saw Rory lifted on board before struggling after her and collapsing on the bottom of the boat.
He lay still for several seconds, numb to every sensation but relief at being alive and having Rory safe by his side. He thought she might have fainted, but she struggled to raise herself to a sitting position.
“The Seamus," she cried
Her words made no sense. She was shivering, and Zeke thought she must be in shock from being chilled to the bone and half-drowned. He wrapped one arm about her shoulders, but when she gestured with a shaking finger, he realized she was pointing toward the remains of her balloon yet bobbing on the surface of the waves. The bag was deflated, sagging into the sea, growing more distant with each pull the two men took at the oars.
Rory couldn't be so unreasonable as to expect something to be done about salvaging the blasted thing. A wave washed over the gondola, sweeping it from sight.
He pulled Rory firmly against him, trying to warm her and force her to lie still. But as he gazed down, she was still staring forlornly at the cresting waves, and Zeke had an uncomfortable feeling that all the salt droplets trickling down her face did not come from the sea.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Darkness overtook the shoreline, the sea becoming a mysterious, moving shadow, white-crested fingers clutching at the beach, raking away particles of sand. But beneath the wooden shingles of the fishermen's shack, the breaking waves were no more than a lulling whisper and Rory felt safe and warm. Wrapped in a blanket, she huddled before the crackling fire kindled on the hearth. She barely remembered the details of her rescue, how she came to be at the cottage; she only felt grateful that she was.
The place was small, but the oil lamps flickering in the tiny parlor beamed a welcome as powerful as that of any lighthouse. The furnishings were sparse but clean—a couple of rocking chairs, a table covered with a checkered cloth, a few scattered stools. Everything smelled of salt, as though the very lifeblood of the sea had seeped within these walls, perhaps even more so into the person of the woman serving as Rory's hostess.
Rory had never met any female as large as Mrs. Cobbett. Tall with burly arms, she looked almost big enough to heft Zeke over her shoulder, and there had been a point when Rory feared she meant to do so. Although on the verge of collapse when the two fishermen had deposited them on Mrs. Cobbett's doorstep, Zeke had not taken kindly to the woman's ministrations, her gruff demand that Zeke strip out of his wet things.
But even the two dour fishermen had stood in awe of this woman, one calling her "Anchor" Annie, the other calling her "Ma." When she had bade them go about their business and tend to gathering up their nets, they had both snapped to do her bidding. Zeke hadn't had much choice either.
The last Rory had seen of him, Annie had driven him through a door opposite into a chamber the woman, with fierce pride, had termed her guest room. Annie and Zeke could still be battling it out in there for all Rory knew. As for herself, she was too exhausted to do other than was she was told, bask by the fire, trying to get the chill of the sea out of her bones.
When the door opened and Annie returned alone, Rory glanced up anxiously. The woman's hair was a steely gray that matched the steel in her eyes. Her face had more crags than a rocky stretch of shore, her skin as brown and weather-beaten as driftwood. But despite the formidableness of her appearance, there was a bluff kindliness in her manner that Rory found reassuring.
"Zeke?" Rory asked, rising from her stool. "Is he—"
"I redid the bandages on your man's wound," she said.
Had the woman recognized it as a gunshot wound? Rory hated telling lies, but she could hardly tell Annie the truth, that Zeke had been winged fleeing the law on a charge of murder. At the very least, the woman would fling them both out of her snug cottage with its circle of light and warmth. Rory shuddered at the prospect.
"Well, he-he-." Rory stammered, trying to come up with some plausible explanation of Zeke's injury.
"Oh, shush, m'dear," Annie interrupted. "I'm familiar enough with menfolk and their scrapping ways. You don't need to get all flustered trying to explain to me. Fact is, I oughta be apologizing to you for the behavior of my boy Joe. I understand he was a little slow coming to your rescue."
"Yes," Rory said. "It was rather odd considering we were in danger of drowning."
"The problem is my Joe never saw one of those balloon things before. He took it to be some kind of sea monster. Joe's a good fisherman, but he ain't exactly the brightest one of my boys.
“Now you stay by the fire and keep warm." Annie placed one large hand on Rory's shoulder, easing her back down. "Your man is doing fine. A little cantankerous, but I got some of my elixir down him. He's tucked up and sleeping like a baby."
Rory could o
nly gape at her. Upon entering the cottage, although dead on his feet, Zeke had been determined to make his way back to New York tonight. He had been demanding a telephone, the distance to the nearest town.
"However did you persuade him to do that?”Rory asked.
Annie chuckled, a deep sound that shook her ample bosom. "Lord A'mighty, honey, I've had three husbands and five sons. A woman don't go through that many men without learning something about how to manage them."
If she hadn't been so weary, Rory would have asked the woman to part with her secrets. But Annie bustled about brewing Rory a cup of tea. Rory accepted the steaming hot mug with real gratitude. Annie poured herself a drink into a tin cup. Rory didn't see what it was, but she would have wagered it wasn't tea.
Annie plunked herself down onto one of the rocking chairs. As Rory sipped her tea, she was aware of Annie studying her, curious but after a friendly fashion.
"Now I saw one of them there balloons once at a circus. You people with the circus?
“No, I’m an aero-.” Rory started to protest, then broke off with a tired sigh. What was the sense of getting into all that? With the Seamus sunk to the bottom of the ocean, she didn't feel much like an aeronaut at the moment.
"Yes, we're with the circus," Rory concluded glumly.
"I thought so. A cousin of mine a few days ago traveled all the way to upstate New York just to watch some couple get married up in a balloon. Was that you two?"
"Yes, that was us," Rory agreed before she even thought, then was appalled by her lie. But she sensed that Annie would be mighty disapproving if she realized Zeke and Rory were junketing about together unwed.
The woman was scowling anyway. "Married in a balloon- I'm not sure I exactly hold with that. Don't sound as legal and binding as being wed in a church."
"People get married on ships, don't they?"
"That's so." Annie She tossed down the rest of her drink. "Well, I don't mean to sit here jawing at you all night. Poor little thing. You've had a bad time of it, but you'll feel perkier after a good sleep. Then, in the morning, I'll get my boy to hitch up the buggy and drive you into Sea Isle."
Sea Isle? Rory started at the mention of a town far down the south Jersey coast. She and Zeke had drifted much farther than she had imagined. They would have a long, dreary trip back to New York ahead of them. But she was better off not worrying about that now, or about the difficulties that would await them on their return.
Annie hustled off to her own bedchamber and returned with a voluminous nightgown, which she helped Rory to don. Rory felt swallowed up in it, like a child parading about in her mother's things, but she was grateful for any clothing that was warm and dry.
"Off to bed with you now," Annie said, jerking her head toward the door behind which Zeke had disappeared. "Your man's likely out so cold, he'll never hear when you creep between the sheets."
Rory fought down a blush at the thought of slipping into bed with "her" man. She barely concealed her expression of dismay as she realized the full consequences of the lie she had told Annie. But wasn't that just the way of it every time she told a fib? She always ended up in some kind of bramble.
What was she going to do? It would be far too humiliating to confess now. Annie was already marching about, blowing out the oil lamps. Rory had little choice but to inch toward the door, bidding Annie a nervous good night.
Her fingers trembled as she turned the knob and slipped inside. Closing the door, she leaned up against it, allowing her eyes to adjust to the chamber's darkened interior.
Like the cottage's sitting room, it was small, the chief object of furniture being a heavy wooden bedstead. Moonlight streamed through the open shutters, and Rory could make out Zeke's muscular form draped beneath the covers, his dark head resting on a downy pillow.
"Zeke?" Rory whispered.
But she got no reply. It appeared Annie was right—Zeke was lost in a deep slumber. The wind howled outside the cottage, rattling the panes. There was something unbearably lonely about being the only one left awake. Rory hovered by the bed, shivering, wrapping her arms about herself. It was cold now that she was away from the fire, the boards of the floor chill beneath her bare feet.
Her gaze traveled wistfully to Zeke, so snug beneath the softness of a patchwork quilt, drawn halfway up across the bared expanse of his chest. She took a hesitant step closer.
It wouldn't really be like going to bed with a man, she argued, not if both of them were asleep. Yet she knew what the nuns back at St. Catherine's would have told her. Far better to curl up on the floor, suffer one night of discomfort rather than put her virtue at risk.
But Rory wasn't sure she'd ever had much virtue, and it was difficult for conscience to win out with gooseflesh prickling her arms and her feeling half-ready to drop from fatigue.
"The devil with it," she mumbled. Tugging back the covers, she scrambled beneath them, trying to keep to the edge of the bed, putting as much distance between herself and Zeke as possible.
The bed was as soft and warm as she had imagined, but having allowed herself to become chilled again, it was difficult to stop shivering. She couldn't help staring at Zeke, lying flat on his back, one arm flung over his head. A silvery stream of moonlight outlined his profile, the muscular contours of his chest. Knowing the heat that radiated from that powerful body, Rory was tempted to snuggle a little closer.
She resisted, cuddling the quilt beneath her chin, trying to lie still, not wanting to disturb Zeke. Even in repose the rock-hard line of Zeke's jaw conveyed a certain belligerence, as though daring anyone to challenge him or to hurt him.
She wondered if he really meant what he had said earlier that day, about thinking it best if he never saw her again after they returned to New York. He had talked of being bad for her, causing her harm, but perhaps he was as much afraid of making himself too vulnerable. She would bet that Zeke Morrison had let many women come close to his body, but none near his heart, and Rory was fast realizing that was exactly where she wanted to be.
Stifling a sigh, she rolled over and lay with her back to him. She would never get to sleep this way, so tense, so much aware of that masculine form only a pillow's length away.
But by degrees, exhaustion overtook her and her eyes drifted closed. She found sleep, but not a restful one. Tossing and turning, fragments of dreams floated through her mind, tormenting images from events of the days gone by.
Tessa, garbed like a witch, cast some kind of spell, turning Finn McCool into a slavering beastie. Zeke lay sprawled on the street, his arm bleeding, torn open from the attack of a black-winged harpie with beautiful masses of ice-blond hair.
"It's Mrs. Van Hallsburg," Rory tried to tell Zeke, but he only laughed at her, and all the while Tony stood by smirking. "I told you so. I told you so."
Rory moaned, rolling over, but she escaped one dream only to tumble directly into another nightmare equally as tormenting. She was back in the sea again, feeling the icy chill of its embrace, fighting the waves. But this time it wasn't the balloon she was trying to cling to but her father. He was alive. He was still alive if only she could save him.
She had hold of his hand, and Seamus Kavanaugh shouted words of encouragement. "Just try a little harder, Rory, m'darlin'. You can make it."
But as a breaker crashed over her, her father's fingers were wrenched from her grasp. She flailed the water and by some miracle she could swim. It was not she that was drowning but him. She screamed her father's name as he disappeared beneath the waves.
Rory woke up with a start. She sat bolt upright, gasping for breath. As she rubbed her eyes, trying to brush away the last vestiges of the nightmare, she realized she was crying. It wasn't something she did often, but after such a day and such a dream, Rory supposed she was entitled to her tears just this once.
Drawing her knees up to her chest, she rested her face against them and snuffled quietly so as not to awaken Zeke. Such a strange dream. She had seen her Da's face so clearly. The pain was almost as b
ad as if she had lost him all over again.
Old Miss Flanagan said that when one dreamed about a person dying, it was a sign of guilt, that one had been neglecting him. But her Da was already dead, and Rory was certain she had never ceased to cherish his memory.
But she was definitely guilty of neglecting his dream. Worries crowded forward that Rory had been trying to suppress. The loss of the Seamus was one her floundering company could not afford. Even more than that, so much of her hopes had been tied up in the demonstration of that balloon to the man from the government. When that army official had shown up at her warehouse today, he had either found the place empty or else the police and chaos. It was unlikely Rory would ever get him to come back again.
Not that Rory had had any choice. Zeke's life had been in the balance, and Rory knew if she had it to do all over again, she would do exactly the same. But that didn't make accepting her loss any easier.
"Rory?"
Zeke's voice coming out of the shadows startled her. She shifted, dismayed to find him struggling to a sitting position. He knuckled his eyes, regarding both her and his surroundings with obvious confusion.
"Where the devil are we?"
"At Mrs. Cobbett's. Don't you remember? I didn't mean to wake you. Please, go back to sleep." She ducked her head, embarrassed. She didn’t know how to explain what she was doing in bed with him, and the fact that she was crying only made it worse. She scooted to sit on the edge of the mattress, trying to conceal her tear-streaked face.
If Zeke was astonished to awaken under such circumstances, he gave no sign of it. Nor did he take any heed of her request that he return to sleep. Rubbing the back of his neck, he seemed to become more alert. Shifting closer, he tried to peer into her face.
"Rory, are you crying?"
"No," she said and sniffed.
Perching on the bed behind her, he draped one arm about her shoulders. "Is it still because of what happened to the balloon?"
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