But remembering the incident, it now struck
him as strange, especially considering that Rory had also taken a
strong aversion to Mrs. Van H. on first sight. What was it Rory had
said when Zeke had awoken her from that nightmare in his bed?
She had been dreaming that Mrs. Van. H. was
some sort of a monster. "She's evil," Rory had insisted.
These women and their peculiar instincts.
Zeke wished he could dismiss them that lightly, but the memories
continued to trouble him. He was still pondering the matter when he
heard the scrape of metal behind him. Someone was mounting the fire
escape.
A half-formed hope seized him that Rory might
have awakened, found him missing. If she had noticed the window
open, perhaps she had guessed where he had gone and decided to join
him. Earlier he had only wanted to be alone, lick his wounds from
the scrap with Tessa. But now he welcomed the thought of Rory.
He glanced over his shoulder, but his smile
froze on his lips. For the second time that night shadows fell
across one of the ugliest faces he had ever seen, the man with the
scarred chin.
"What the devil?" Zeke exclaimed, tensing for
battle, but this time his reflexes were a shade too slow.
A heavy club swished down through the
darkness, catching him hard on the side of the head. The stars
above him seemed to explode, a thousand pinpoints of white hot
light.
Then they vanished and there was nothing but
unrelenting black.
CHAPTER TEN
Rory awoke from a deep, dreamless night with
a headache niggling behind her eyes, oppressed by the feeling that
something was wrong. Her mind yet fogged with sleep, she remembered
that she had gone to bed troubled, but her thoughts were not
collected enough to recall what that trouble had been.
Whatever it was, it had sent her to sleep
hugging her pillow as she always did when beset with some worry.
Even now that downy cushion was crushed close to her breasts.
Thrusting it away from her, Rory rolled onto her back, rubbing the
haze from her eyes. She blinked at the sunlight streaming across
the oak railing at the foot of her bed.
The morning was well advanced past sunrise
judging by the sounds emanating from the sidewalks below. She had
left her window open a crack, allowing the clatter of passing horse
carts to invade her bedchamber, the shrill voices of children
marching off to school, shouting and scuffling, the milkman cursing
at Finn MacCool for nipping his ankle again, Miss Flanagan
hollering back it served Mr. Peaby right for forgetting her second
bottle of cream.
Just the normal Monday hubbub on McCreedy
Street. Why then did something seem so different? There was always
enough noise on a workday to wake the dead.
Or Zeke.
Rory sat up with a start, memory flooding
back to her. That's what was unusual. She was not alone in her
apartment. Zeke Morrison had spent the night on her sofa and was
likely still lost in slumber.
She must have been crazy, insisting that he
stay. Yet when she recalled that hollow look in his eyes, she
realized she could have done no differently.
In truth, part of her regretted she had not
led him to the warmth of her bed, cradled him in her arms and
offered him comfort.
Comfort, Aurora Rose Kavanaugh? A stern voice
echoed in her head, sounding like the old nun who had taught her
her catechism. Are you sure that was all you wished to offer
him?
Rory refused to answer that question, even to
herself. She scrambled out of bed and pulled a dressing gown over
the white muslin of her nightgown. She shouldn't even be thinking
about such things as having Zeke in her bed. Hadn't she come close
enough to being a sinner last night? Recollection of what had
nearly happened with Zeke upon the sofa should have shamed her. She
should have been grateful Tony arrived when he did, interrupting
Zeke's lovemaking.
Instead she felt curiously bereft. It was
like hearing the opening notes of some lilting melody, only to have
it cut off and being left yearning, wondering whether she would
ever hear the rest of that haunting refrain.
What romantic nonsense. Rory tried to give
herself a swift mental shake as she reached for the comb on her
nightstand, tugging it through her tangle of curls, Nonsense it
might be, but she still felt angry at Tony for his intrusion,
dragging Zeke's sister to Rory's flat, setting off that
confrontation.
Zeke Morrison is a bad man.
How childish and how spiteful Tessa
Marceone's words had sounded. Yet no matter how it was worded, the
woman's warning was not so different from those that Rory had
repeated to herself. Hadn't she tried to run away from Zeke,
determined never to see him again? Tessa's accusations should have
reinforced Rory's own qualms about the man.
Instead they had had the opposite effect.
Rory had wanted to spring to Zeke's defense. She sensed that Zeke
had been brutalized enough in his life without his stepsister
pouring acid into old wounds. Strange that someone like Zeke, so
street-toughened, so ready with his fists, should have stood so
helpless against the mere cut and thrust of a woman's tongue.
Stranger still that Rory should feel so tenderly protective of a
man large enough to crush her slender frame with one blow.
But the thought of being alone with him in
her flat no longer frightened her. It disturbed her in an odd
shivery kind of way, but it didn't frighten her. She caught her
heart racing as she contemplated slipping into the parlor, rousing
him from sleep.
They had never eaten supper last night. She
bet he'd be hungry. She derived immense satisfaction from the
thought of leading him into her tiny kitchen, bustling about
getting the coffee ready, setting before him a plateful of eggs and
toast.
She pictured him sitting opposite her, his
hair mussed, his jaw shadowed with dark beard. He would regard her
over the rim of his cup with that languid manner of appraisal that
set all her skin a-tingle. Maybe their hands would meet. Maybe,
just maybe, he would feel like talking, opening that locked vault
that was his heart.
This domestic scene in her imagination grew
so strong that Rory slipped eagerly into a pair of carpet slippers.
She was still forcing her heel into one as she limped through the
bedroom door and down the short hallway.
She tiptoed beneath the arch that led into
the parlor. “Zeke?" she called softly.
Her gaze tracked to the couch, and she
frowned to see the coverlet tossed upon the floor. The pillow bore
the indentation made by his head, his coat was flung over the
chair, but the tiny parlor was empty.
Somehow Rory knew there was no use searching
for Zeke in the kitchen or tapping upon the door of the narrow
closet that comprised her bathroom.
He was gone.
Disappointment washed over her, and for a
minute, she just stood, staring at the vacant sofa as though if she
looked long and hard, she could conjure out of thin air the solid
frame of muscle that was Zeke.
Eventually she was roused from this gloomy
contemplation by a clacking sound. The side window had been left
flung wide open, and the brisk morning breeze was causing the
curtains to billow out, knocking against the etagere, threatening
to dislodge some of the knickknacks.
Rory moved to close the window. As she
struggled to do so, she glanced into the street below. Perhaps he
had only stepped out for a moment to- to what? Pet Finn McCool?
Pass the time of day with Miss Flanagan? Foolish thoughts. There
was no one down there except a mother pushing a perambulator, some
clerkish-looking male sprinting past her, obviously late in
catching the horsecar uptown.
Rory forced the sash closed and drew the
drapes. "Well, Mr. Morrison," she murmured. "It would seem this
time it is you who has run away."
Run away from her? That hardly seemed
possible, not after the determined way he had been pursuing her,
tracking her to her own part of town. More likely it was memories
that he fled, those ghosts of the past that forever seemed to be
looking over his shoulder.
Damn Tony anyway and Tessa too." She took an
angry pleasure in imagining the tongue lashing she would give Tony
the next time she saw him, her thoughts interrupted only by the
sound of a knock at the door.
"Oh, the devil!”
Rory wondered who could be plaguing her at
this early hour. But hope stirred within her. Yes, it just might be
the devil, with his wicked dark eyes and lazy grin.
Rory rushed across the room and flung the
door open.
But it wasn't Zeke come back to her, full of
apologies and explanations. It was only Tony, shuffling his feet,
looking awkward.
"Uh, g'morning, Rory."
"After all the trouble you caused last night,
Tony Bertelli, I don't have much to say to you." She tried to shut
the door in his face.
He jammed the heel of his hand against the
frame, preventing her.
"Aw, come on, Rory, please. I ain't here to
fight with you anymore. I only want to tell you I am sorry."
She hesitated, but she could see that he
meant it. The hollows beneath his eyes told her that he'd had a bad
night, Tony who always slept with the imperturbability of a granite
boulder.
Not that he didn't deserve to pass a
sleepless night after what he had done. But how could she keep her
heart steeled against him when he stood twisting his cap in his
ungainly hands, looking at her so wistfully?
Grudgingly, she stepped back, allowing him to
enter. He stepped inside the door, making no move to come any
farther into her parlor, shuffling his feet as uncomfortably as any
stranger not sure of his welcome—Tony, her friend, her brother, the
kid from the next block, the boy whose heart she was breaking.
A small sigh escaped her. "Oh, stop acting
like such a goose, Tony. I'm not going to bite you."
"No? The look in your eyes when you opened
the door reminded me of Miss Flanagan's dog." He tried to smile,
but his joke fell flat. He took in a deep breath. "I am sorry about
what happened last night. I shouldn't have brought that woman
here."
"Indeed you shouldn't have. You caused a
great deal of upset."
"You're telling me!" Tony rolled his eyes.
"That Miss Marceone cried all over my jacket the whole way home.
She told me some more about how Morrison stopped her from marrying.
Mother of God, that fool woman was going to run off with Marco
Duracy."
Apparently the name conveyed something to
Tony, but Rory merely shot him a blank look.
"Marco Duracy? You never heard Angelo talk
about him? Well, see, Angelo knew this fellow from down on the
docks whose uncle's third wife's daughter—"
"Oh, Tony, please." Rory groaned. "It's too
early in the morning for this. Just make your point."
"Anyway, this Marco Duracy was a real
worthless piece of—" Tony broke off, with a cough. "He was a
bounder, lazy, good-for-nothing. Mean tempered. I wouldn't let any
sister of mine get within a mile of him."
“Then perhaps whatever Tessa might say,
Zeke's actions were justified."
“Maybe. But it doesn’t make me like this
Morrison guy any better. There are still some things about him that
are real doubtful. But I didn't come here to get you all riled,
talking about him again."
He crumpled his cap some more, staring down
at the threadbare carpet. "What I really came to say is that I know
I was acting beyond the limit. No matter how I feel about you, I
got no business meddling. You have the right to love whoever you
want to even if it isn't me."
"Oh, Tony."
"No, I mean it, Rory. You should be free to
choose for yourself, no matter what kind of bum you pick, no matter
how rotten—"
"Thank you, Tony," she intervened sharply,
before he went on to ruin the whole effect of his apology and make
her angry all over again.
"I just wanted you to know that I'll always
be here if you need me. I understand I can never be anything more
to you, but we have been friends for a long time. I still want
that."
"So do I."
She wanted to fling her arms about him, give
him a big hug, but the longing in his eyes was yet keen. She
couldn't risk it. Instead she gave him a poke on the arm, which he
returned, the gestures awkward rather than playful. But it was a
beginning.
Tony settled his cap back on his head,
exhaling a deep breath of relief. "There! Now that we got that all
cleared up, maybe we can be heading for the warehouse. Did you eat
breakfast yet? We could-"
His voice wavered as he noticed the rumpled
coverlet on the floor by the sofa and Zeke's coat lying over the
chair. Tony swallowed, looking a little sick. "He’s still
here?"
Rory shook her head.
Tony frowned. He appeared to be biting his
tongue in an effort to keep from haranguing her any more about Zeke
It was a heroic struggle, but he won it.
"You better get dressed," he said gruffly.
"So we can get to work."
Rory hesitated, feeling reluctant to leave
the flat. There was always a chance that Zeke would come back here
looking for her. And how long do you propose to wait, you fool? a
voice jeered inside her. All of the morning, the day, the rest of
her life perhaps? She was being idiotic, but she had never felt
less like going to the warehouse, dealing with the problems of her
floundering company.
"I don't know if I'm feeling up to going in
to work today," she said.
"Rory! You can't have forgotten, this is the
day the government man is coming to look over our operation, to
decide about giving us the army contract."
Rory let out a low groan. She had forgotten.
She couldn't believe that she had let such an important happening
slip her mind. The truth was that ever since meeting Zeke, she had
not been giving her full concentration to the Transcontinental
Balloon Company. She cast a guilty glance to where Da's picture
stood on the parlor table. The youthful soldier that had been her
father seemed to bristle with reproach, a reproach that Tony should
have been heaping on her.