Rory tensed in surprise. She thought he hadn't even noticed those few tears that had escaped her when she saw the Seamus being sucked beneath the sea. After their lives had been spared, it had seemed foolish and wickedly ungrateful to mourn the loss of her balloon. She shook her head in denial, not saying anything, knowing Zeke would never understand.
He drew her back against him. She resisted at first, but the feel of that solid presence was so strong and comforting. She allowed her head to droop against his shoulder. The quilt was yet pulled up to his waistline, but the curve of his bared chest felt firm and warm to her touch.
He pressed a kiss to her brow. “Rory, if it was anything else in the world but one of those accursed balloons, I'd buy you a dozen of them first thing tomorrow."
"I don't need a dozen. I have other accursed balloons. But that one was named after my Da."
"I didn't even know it had a name." Zeke wrapped both arms about her, cradling her closer. "I realize how much you loved your father, but you can't spend the rest of your life pursuing his wild notions. You've got to find a dream of your own."
"But it's my dream too. From the time I've been a little girl, I've always—" Rory broke off, floundering for words to describe that sensation she got when she was flying, the total freedom of a soul entirely loosed from any earthly bounds. A dull ache settled into her heart. She knew this one thing that was so important to her was something she could never share with Zeke. It was enough to make her tears spring afresh.
Although she knew it was useless, she struggled to make him understand. "Don't you see? My Da never made me help him with the balloons. I wanted to. If my friend Gia hadn't just had her baby and needed my help, I probably would have gone with Da on his last flight."
"Your father died in a balloon crash?"
"Yes. He was attempting an Atlantic crossing, but a storm blew up before he was ten miles out and I'm afraid Da wasn't much of a swimmer either."
"And you're still flying in those damned things?'
Rory scrambled out of his arms and off the bed. She glared at him, dashing away the last traces of her tears with the back of her hand.
"If my Da had been an army captain killed in battle and I was his son, you wouldn't think it was odd if I wanted to be a soldier."
Zeke started to come after her, then stopped at the edge of the bed, clutching the quilt around him. "But damn it, Rory. You're not a son and you're not a soldier. You're a woman."
"I was never particularly troubled by that fact until I met you!"
Enough moonlight rimmed his features that she could see clearly his frustration, but the hint of a smile as well.
"Rory, you're tired," he said in coaxing fashion. "This quarrel can wait until morning. It must be past midnight. Come back to bed."
"I'd sooner sleep on the floor." But she hugged herself, already feeling a draft tugging at her nightgown, the insidious cold creeping over her flesh.
“Forgive me, my dear, but I am little unclear as to why you are sleeping in here at all. Not that I have the least objection, but you'd best keep your voice down. I have a feeling that battle-axe of a woman who owns this cottage might toss us back into the ocean if she caught you in here."
"She knows I'm with you. She thinks we're married."
"Where the blazes did she get an idea like that?"
"I told her so." Rory raised her chin in defiance as a rumble of laughter escaped Zeke. "It seemed like a good idea."
"Oh, an excellent idea. I'm beginning to appreciate that fact more and more all the time."
She sensed his gaze warm upon her and realized that the mammoth nightgown had shifted, slipping off one shoulder down far enough to expose the curve of her breast. Rory yanked the fabric back up, clutching it together at the neckline. Zeke made a sudden move, and she tensed, fearing he meant to carry her back to bed. But he checked himself, resorting to pleading instead.
"Come on, Aurora Rose. You'll catch your death of cold. Look, I'll move back to my own side and I won't even try to touch you."
Rory wasn't sure how far she trusted his promise.
"It's a long time yet until morning," he reminded her.
It might be longer still if she spent it bundled into bed beside a man now fully awake and aroused. But as he retreated back across the bed, she took a reluctant step forward—although she was not certain which lured her more, the prospect of those warm blankets, or that even warmer voice, all too seductive. She gingerly eased herself back down on the bed.
Lying stiffly on her back, she dragged the quilt up to her chin. Zeke rolled to his side, propping himself on one elbow, resting his head against his hand, gazing down at her.
"I can hardly fall asleep with you staring at me," she complained.
"Sorry," he said, but he didn't alter his position a jot. "I was just wondering if this was what it was like to be married."
"I wouldn't know."
"It might not be as bad as I'd always thought, especially not if I awoke to find you beside me."
Rory knew she shouldn't encourage him to keep talking, especially not in this vein, but she couldn't help asking, "Just how bad did you think being married would be?"
"Maybe not that bad, but certainly not a very attractive prospect. With Mrs. Van H. and her friends, it seems such a cold arrangement, more like a property merger. Back in the slums, it mostly involved a lot of arguing, hollering, smacking, throwing pots and pans."
"It was never like that for my parents," Rory said. "And what about your foster mother?"
Zeke lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Rory shifted to her side to face him. Zeke was never much disposed to talk about his past, so it surprised her when he finally answered.
"I guess Sadie was happy in her marriage. She was a widow by the time she adopted me, but she always kept her husband's picture by her bedside and gazed at it kind of sad-like when she thought none of us kids were looking. I believe she missed him a lot."
"It was the same with my Da when my mother died," Rory said. After a pause, she ventured another question. "What was she like, your mother?"
He hunched his shoulder. "Sadie was one of those big, warm-hearted, Italian women. You know, always fretting you aren't getting enough to eat, trying to make you wear a coat when it's ninety degrees outside."
Although he tried to make a joke of it, Rory could hear other emotions in his voice—tenderness, regret, a very real sensation of loss.
"You loved her very much, didn't you?" she asked softly.
Zeke sagged back down against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. "Yeah, I guess I did." In some ways that old curmudgeon Anchor Annie reminds me of her, only Sadie was a lot more gentle."
Rory shifted nearer to Zeke, closing up the distance between them. "Is that why you were persuaded to stay here tonight?"
"No, it was because Annie pointed out to me what a selfish bastard I was being, wanting to drag you back out again after you'd been through such an ordeal. I ought to be ashamed of myself subjecting a sweet little wisp of a girl like you to the dangers of flying in one of those balloon contraptions."
Although she giggled, Rory had the grace to blush. Zeke reached out and twined one strand of her hair about his finger. "I am sorry, Rory. Annie was right. I was being blasted selfish, not considering your feelings. I haven't been looking after you very well. I fear I have never been much good at that. Tessa always said—"
He broke off, withdrawing his hand from her hair, the memory of his sister seeming to pass over him, like a cloud obscuring the brightness of that silvery full moon hovering in the sky outside the window.
Rory wriggled closer. She almost could have nestled her head against his chest. "I think you fret too much over the things your sister said to you."
"Maybe. Tessa always was able to get to me. Probably because no matter how harsh, what she said was always essentially true. I never meant to break Sadie's heart, but I did. I just couldn't be what she expected of me, no matter how I tried.
“All Sadie wanted
was a God-fearing son, content to work and live the simple life. But I seemed to have been born hungry, never satisfied. I couldn't see spending the rest of my life breaking my back down on the docks, watching Sadie and the girls slaving in one of those damned sewing factories. `It's good honest work, Johnnie,' Sadie would say. But good honest work didn't seem to me to get you anything but an early grave."
He must have noticed that Rory was regarding him with a troubled expression, for he said, "Oh, don't look so horrified, Aurora Rose. No matter what Tessa says, I didn't take to stealing or anything. I just got mixed up with one of those East Side gangs."
"You were a Dead Rabbit?" Rory faltered.
"No, not quite that bad. I became one of the boys working for a Bowery saloon keeper named Silver McCahan. He backed me for a while in the ring, but I wasn't much good at prizefighting. My blasted temper. I couldn't keep a cool enough head."
Rory didn't find that terribly surprising, but Zeke's next admission shocked her.
"So I became sort of an agent for McCahan instead, putting my knuckles to other uses, collecting on bad debts."
"Oh, Zeke!"
"Not a very reputable profession," he agreed "but don't waste too much of your sympathies on my 'victims.' They were all street toughs the like of that thug that knocked me cold the other night. I would never have agreed to harass anyone weaker than myself, any honest person. That is until-."
He paused, frowning. Rory thought he'd reached the end of his confidences, but he continued with a rush. "Hell, until one day McCahan paid me a lot of money to help him fix an election and make sure that the candidate he favored won the race. That kind of thing went on all the time in our local ward. All I had do was hang out about the polls, wielding a big club and see that everyone voted the 'right' way."
When Rory said nothing, Zeke shifted to obtain a better view of her moonlit features. She was looking as disappointed in him as his mother had that night so long ago.
Tessa had found out about his job somehow and of course had promptly tattled. Zeke remembered facing his mother across the kitchen, dumping a wad of money on the work-scarred table.
"Look," he had shouted. "There's more there than you could make in a year, killing yourself in that sewing factory. You can quit now, lady, because there's lots more where that came from."
"More?" Sadie whispered, angry tears spilling from her eyes. "More money for what, breaking people's heads? Oh, Johnnie, what's happened to you? You used to hate bullies, fight against them. Now you are becoming one yourself."
Zeke shook himself out of the memory, dragged himself back to the present reality of Rory's sad eyes.
"Don't look so grim," he said. "I never went through with the election job. I changed my mind at the last minute, used my club to make sure the voters got to use the polls in peace." He gave a dry laugh. "I'll bet it was the first honest election that ward ever had.”
Rory's beaming smile was as bright as the moonlight.
"Glad to see that makes you so happy," he grumbled, but he couldn't help feeling warmed by the approval that glowed in her eyes. "I wish I could tell you the whole thing had a better ending, but Silver McCahan wasn't used to being crossed. He didn't even care that I gave him his money back. So what if I didn't exactly hand it to him? If he had been a little quicker, he could have caught it before it blew off the end of the dock."
Rory's laughter sounded like music in Zeke's ears.
"Anyhow, McCahan told me I was a dead man and I knew he meant it. I was stubborn enough to have risked his anger and stayed, but I was afraid of bringing down trouble against Sadie and the girls. So I ran for it, fled New York."
Zeke went on to tell Rory about his years in Chicago, how he had eventually parleyed a small gambling windfall into a fortune, discovering a talent in himself for speculating, choosing the right investments at the right time.
He hardly knew why, but he felt a strong need for Rory to know everything about him now, even the worst. He didn't spare himself relating the details of his return to New York, how he had become more and more drawn into playing the role of Fifth Avenue tycoon, finding it harder and harder to pay visits back to his old home on the East Side, look into Sadie's sorrowful, worried eyes.
Up until the end, he had tried to get her out of that flat on Pearl Street, but she had always refused, always looking as though she had been waiting, expecting something different from him, just the way she had that night he tried to give her the money from the election job.
When he had been summoned by Caddie to attend Sadie's deathbed, his mother had already been delirious, nearly beyond the point of recognizing him.
Yet she had whispered his name over and over again. "Johnnie Johnnie, I should have-." Then she had mumbled something about his real mother and father.
“You are my real mother,” he had choked out, but he doubted she even heard him.
"Johnnie, forgive me," she had begged with her last breath. "I should have told you-."
He didn't know what she had done to ask forgiveness for. If anyone had left too many words unsaid, it had been him. And now it was too late.
When Zeke fell silent, Rory stirred beside him. She had been quiet all this time, listening, seeming to pass no judgments, asking no questions until he had finished.
Now she said, "But what about your sisters? What happened to them?"
"Agnes married a bank clerk and moved to Brooklyn. Caddie wed some kind of an artist and had three kids. They live in the Village now. And Tessa, well, you heard her story, how I blighted her life by running off that Duracy bum. But I still am not that sorry I did it."
"Perhaps you did her a favor," Rory agreed. "But, Zeke, you can't always be so roughshod with people, even those you care about. Sometimes you have to let them make their own choices, even the wrong ones."
Zeke grimaced. "That's what Sadie always used to say." He twisted back to his side, smiling down at her. "She would have liked you. Although she would have thought you could use a little more meat on your bones."
He touched her lightly beneath the covers, his fingers brushing the area of her rib cage just below the swell of her breasts. It was a mistake to do so. When he had awoke to discover himself in this extraordinary situation, Rory in his bed, so warm, so near, he had resolved to act the gentleman for once, not take any unfair advantage.
Maybe that's why he had been blathering on for the past quarter of an hour, to keep his mind off her delectable curves so poorly concealed by that gown half falling off her. He had so much more he could tell her, so much more he wanted to say.
But as he gazed into her face pillowed so near to his own, her eyes quicksilver pools of innocence, her lips so sweet with the promise of pleasures he'd already tasted, his throat suddenly went dry and he ran out of things to talk about.
"Maybe we should try to get some sleep," he said.
"I don't know if 1 can. I just can't seem to get warm."
Zeke nearly groaned aloud. To resist an invitation like that, he would have had to have been a saint instead of the son of Satan that he was.
Taking care not to jar the bandage loose from his arm, he drew her closer, cradling her against the lee of his shoulder.
"Better?" he asked.
She nodded.
Maybe for her it was, but not for him. He was achingly aware of every soft curve, the heat of her flesh seeming to sear him through the thin layering of the nightgown, rousing in his loins a fearsome need.
Damn! He caught his breath as, in an effort to get more comfortable, Rory shifted, her fingers brushing along the flat plane of his stomach, lower-
She snatched her hand away, half-jerking to a sitting position. "Zeke, you don't have any clothes on."
"That blasted woman took them." He half-hoped that the realization he was naked would send Rory scuttling back to the safety of her own side of the bed
Instead she hovered over him, her eyes filled with wonder and longing. "I've never been in bed with a naked man before."
He didn't know what she had better do, but it didn’t matter. Rory didn't let him finish the sentence. She caught his hand, laying it alongside her cheek.
He could feel the heat of her skin, the way she trembled, but he sensed it was not owing to any embarrassment or shyness.
"Rory."
Her name on his lips was an anguished plea. He tried to remember that he had decided not to let anything like this happen, that Rory was better off without him in her life. He tried to search deep into his soul for all that noble resolve he had formed, and found himself searching her eyes instead. Searching and discovering a want that equaled his own.
Slowly, she bent to him, her mouth but a fraction away from his own. Their lips whispered against each other, a whispering that fast became a clamoring of passion.
With a low groan, he caught his arms about her, pulling her down hard on top of him. His tongue delved deep into the sweet hollows of her mouth, and he could feel the thundering of her heart.
Rory was long past considering the wisdom of her actions. She didn’t know at what point she had decided she wanted Zeke to make love to her. Perhaps it had happened sometime as she lay beside him in the darkness, listening to him open up his heart, share his past, or perhaps back there on the beach when she had rejoiced to find them both alive and realized how fleeting, how precious a thing time could be.
Or perhaps it had happened even earlier than that, much earlier, that day when they had first met.
She didn't know. She only knew that the time, the moment, was now, to find the promise of a desire they had only touched upon before.
When Zeke stripped the nightgown from her shoulders, baring her to the waist, she felt no shame, only a shivering delight at the hunger that burned in his eyes. He cupped both her breasts, molding them to the rough texture of his fingers with a gentleness that left her breathless, feeling as though it was her heart he cradled in his hands.
He followed each caress with his kiss, fire-hot, insistent, as though he would brand her forever as his. With each touch, he evoked new sensations, so pulsing, so warm, Rory ached with the wanting all the way to the center of her core.
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