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 only 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 bad 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?"

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."

"I'm relieved to hear it. For the love of God, Rory, stop looking at me that way. You had had better- had better-."

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.

Tentatively at first, then growing bolder, her fingers skimmed over him, exploring the taut contours of his skin, his muscles rippling like tensile steel beneath.

He kissed her again, hard and fierce, but it was a fierceness that was belied by the tender way he eased her onto her back. Poised over her, he panted for breath and Rory could sense him trying to leash the passion that had been building in him.

"You seem so small," he whispered, caressing back her tangled strands of hair. "Too fragile for me."

Rory smiled up at him, her mouth trembling with desire. She would have thought that Zeke knew better than that by now. She would simply have to teach him. Gliding her hands over the expanse of his hair-roughened chest, she went lower still, daring to caress that most secret part of him.

As Zeke's breath snagged in his throat, she wrapped her arms about his neck, and pulled him insistently downward, kissing him, her lips both pleading and demanding, restoring the urgency of his desire.

There was no fear as she opened herself to him, only a throbbing need, a hushed expectancy as he eased himself inside her. She accepted everything, even the initial pain of his entry. Somehow it all felt so right, so natural that their bodies should join, become one, no more barriers between them, their hearts sure to follow.

As Zeke moved inside her, that first pain gave way to a most exquisite pleasure. Rory moaned, writhing beneath him, half-closing her eyes, the image of his face flashing before her like streaks of lightning, his eyes dark, storm-ridden. Like the god of thunder she had once proclaimed him to be, he swept her off into a whirlwind of passion. Ever a creature of the skies herself, she matched his every movement, following him without fear.

Zeke strained with all his will to go slowly, be gentle, but sweet Christ, Rory wouldn't let him, this tormenting sprite of a girl who seemed both angel and woman, earth and spirit. Her nails raked his back, her kisses hot, feverish as though demanding he hold nothing back, give all he had to give—not just the power of his body, but his heart, his very soul.

The feeling was too strong to resist, and he was forced to surrender, the sweetest surrender he had ever known. His entire body shuddered with the release as he spilled his seed deep within her.

Long moments after the storms of passion had subsided for both of them, Zeke lay collapsed upon Rory, his face buried against her neck, their thundering hearts still beating as one. By degrees, his pulse slowed to its normal rhythm, and he shifted, fearful he might be crushing her beneath his great weight. Gazing down at her, he saw that her lashes had fluttered closed as she strove to take deep, even breaths. She looked so slender, so pale, was likely even bruised from the force of his lovemaking. The first niggles of remorse ate at Zeke.

"Rory," he murmured, stroking the velvety-soft line of her cheek. "You were a virgin. I shouldn't have."

Her eyes fluttered open to regard him anxiously. "Why? Wasn't I any good at it?"

The question, so outrageous, so thoroughly Rory, provoked him to laugh in spite of himself. He rolled over onto his back, pulling her with him, so that she now rested atop him, her hair spilling across his chest.

"You were-" He paused, trying to find the words to tell her all the wonderful things she had been in his arms, but there were none adequate to describe all he was feeling in his heart.

"You were incredible," he finished lamely, tangling his fingers in those glorious chestnut curls. "I only meant that for your first time, it should have been different. In a bridal suite with satin and roses and champagne, on the evening of your wedding day."

"Pooh!" Rory raised herself, splaying her hands against his chest. She arched her head, looking down at him. "You're starting to sound like my friend, Gia, talking about weddings. Wouldn't I look silly all tricked out in a lace veil?'

"You would look like an angel."

"These are mighty strange remarks, coming from a man who once asked me to be his mistress."

“That was when I barely knew anything except how badly I wanted you."

"And do you still?" Her question came so soft he could barely hear it, the quiver of her lips betraying her sudden fear, her uncertainty.

By way of answer, he tightened his arms about her, pulling her down for a long and very thorough kiss. If there only was some way to make her understand exactly how much he did want her for now and always. One look into her eyes was enough to rouse his desires all over again, desire and another emotion that cut so deep it frightened him.

"Ah, Rory," he murmured, "There was a moment back there, when we were both in the sea, that I lost sight of you. I thought you were gone from me forever. If that had happened, I realized I would have lost everything and the sea might as well have taken me."

When she raised her head to look at him, her eyes were misty, but she smiled. "What a silly thing for you to have worried about. Didn't I ever tell you that I visited a gypsy on Forty-second Street? She read my tea leaves and said I'm going to have a long life, at least a dozen children."

"Banshees, fortune tellers," Zeke grumbled, but he returned her smile. "Is there anything you don't believe in?"

"I like to keep an open mind." After a pause, she added, "I believe in you."

Her statement made him uncomfortable, as Rory had feared it would. But in the depths of his eyes, she read a real gratitude as well.

"Then marry me," he said huskily.

"What?"

"I want you to marry me. In a church with a priest, the lace veil, everything."

For a moment Rory was too stunned to answer. Those times Rory had ever imagined herself receiving a proposal, she had always envisioned some fool dropped to one knee, an embarrassing and daunting prospect. Nothing should have been more embarrassing than hearing an offer of marriage lying naked in Zeke's arms. Yet somehow it seemed so right.

As though fearing she meant to say no, Zeke rushed on. "You know I am a wealthy man, Rory. You wouldn't want for anything that money can buy, clothes, jewels—"

"Oh, Zeke, Zeke," she said, trying to stem this tide of reckless promises, half-laughing, half-aching for him that he still did not realize he had so much more than money to give.

"And that big house of mine," he continued, "There is more than enough room for a dozen kids.” His eagerness abated, a shadow of doubt clouding his face. "Though I'm not sure how good a parent I can be. I haven't much experience of fathers. I sometimes wondered what my own old man was doing when my mother was out tossing me into that trash can."

Before Rory could begin to reassure him, Zeke flexed his jaw with determination. "But I know I can do better by my own kids than that. At least, I promise I'd always be there."

Rory tried not to be swept away by the images his words painted: herself, Zeke, some cozy cottage spilling over with love, laughter and children. She was helped by the realization that Zeke was not talking about some snug little home, but that vast barracks of a mansion on Fifth Avenue.

"What would all your rich friends think of your marrying someone like me?” she asked. "All those people you have been trying so hard to impress. I could never fit in, become a society hostess like your Mrs. Van Hallsburg."

"To hell with Mrs. Van H. and her set. As if I ever really gave a damn about any of them. All I care about is you."

Rory could tell he meant it, and that should have been enough for her, especially when she was ready to swear the same. But something held her back. Despite all her dreams, she was essentially more practical than Zeke. She could see problems, rising like ghosts between them, shades of the past not dealt with, both his and hers.

For one thing, there was the Transcontinental Balloon Company. She wasn't sure how it fit into Zeke's rosy picture. She had a sinking feeling that it didn't. He appeared to have forgotten all about it. But she couldn't.

All the same she hated to mention the balloons and stir up the inevitable discord that would follow, not with Zeke so eager, waiting for her answer.

"You'll have to give me a little time to think," she said. "This is all so sudden."

She had disappointed him, but he appeared to understand. "As long as you remember, I'm not noted for my patience, but I appreciate that it wouldn't be too prudent to accept a fellow until you know for certain he's not going to be hung for murder."

"Zeke, no! That has nothing to do with it."

"Yes, it does, everything in the world. You have already become involved far more than I wanted. I would as soon keep you clear of the rest of this mess until I prove my innocence."

"But you said you thought everything would be all right as soon as you got back to Fifth Avenue."

"I've been doing some thinking about that, Rory. I'm not going home, at least not until I pay a call on Mr. Charles Decker."

Zeke’s grim smile alarmed Rory. She knew full well how volatile his temper could be. She feared to see him cleared of one murder count only to end up arrested on another.

"Then I'm going with you," she insisted.

"No, you're not. That meeting will hardly be any place for you. I'm not planning to take tea with the man."

"I know exactly what you have in mind, and you're only going to get yourself into more trouble."

"You misunderstand me entirely, my dear. I intend to be quite civilized, just a little gentle persuasion until Decker confesses what he had done to Addison."

"It will never work, Zeke. If Decker is the coward you say, he'll shriek for help at the sight of you. With a houseful of servants at his command, you'll be overpowered before you get near him.”

"Then what do you suggest I do? I don't have any way to prove Decker is behind all this, just a gut feeling. That doesn't hold too well in a court of law."

"Then we must gather some evidence that will."

"And how do we begin to do that?" Zeke asked. "I'm no copper. Neither are you."

"I don't know." Rory sat up, dragging her hands through her hair in frustration. But the glimmering of an idea came to her. "Zeke, the police aren't the only ones who do investigating. What about that reporter, the one who wrote the story about you for the World?"

"Duffy?" He's nothing but an infernal pest."

"Yes, but we both agreed it was odd that story should have been published so fast. If we could find out where Duffy got his information, we might get a link to Decker that way."

"Maybe," Zeke said. Although she got him to agree that her plan had some merits, Rory could sense that Zeke was still more set on pursuing the confrontation with Decker.

As he pulled her back down into his arms, Rory sighed. She could only hope she would better be able to persuade Zeke in the morning. Anchor Annie said there were tricks to managing men. Rory wished she had a few of them at her disposal.

She wanted to beg Zeke to be sensible, to stay away from Charles Decker, but it was difficult to say anything with Zeke's lips melding to hers again. His arms closed about her, deepening the kiss, until she was unable to think, to remember that anything else mattered except the heated emotion Zeke aroused in her. The flames of desire stirred all over again, until both Charles Decker and New York seemed very far away.