"The thought did occur to me," he admitted.
"But hell, the day might come when I actually will be able to get
myself to go up again. Though next time, I'd prefer to be in the
basket."
"Me too," Rory said with a wavering smile,
her wonder increasing along with the accelerated tempo of her
heart, the wild hopes fluttering inside her.
She could hardly believe she was hearing
these things from Zeke. He appeared much the same, with his
heart-stopping grin, the inflexible line of his jaw, and yet she
sensed a difference as well, a thoughtful stillness in the depths
of those jet-black eyes. Deep shadows rimmed them, hinting at what
he must have suffered in the past hours from Mrs. Van Hallsburg's
cruel revelations.
Rory longed to stroke back the strands of
hair that drooped stubbornly across his brow, kiss away some of
those shadows, but she felt suddenly shy. Perhaps it was the
unaccustomed diffidence in Zeke's own manner that communicated
itself to her.
For the first time she realized what he had
fetched away from the wagon. Clutched in one of his large fists was
a small bouquet. When he noticed her staring, he thrust the flowers
toward her.
"Here, you better take these. I'm beginning
to feel a little foolish holding them."
It was a simple arrangement of violets and
daisies, but Rory accepted it with delight, burying her nose among
the blossoms, enjoying the sweet scent.
"Goodness," she said. "I've never received
flowers from a gentleman before."
"Haven't you?” he asked with a rush of his
former impetuousness. "If I had known that, I would have bought you
an entire—" He checked himself with a self-conscious laugh, looking
sheepish.
"These are just fine," Rory assured him.
Their eyes met, locking in a sudden silent understanding that the
rush of words that followed couldn't hope to match.
They both burst into speech at once.
"Rory, I want to tell you how sorry I am
about everything. That's why I came to the warehouse today."
"Oh, no, Zeke. It was all my fault. I
shouldn't have gotten so angry with you."
"You had every right to be. I was a pigheaded
fool."
"But all those dreadful things I said. I
never meant any of them."
"Everything you said was perfectly true."
"No, I was cruel and unkind."
With each breathless rush of words, they
inched closer, Zeke grasping one of her hands between his own.
"Then you can forgive me for what I did? I'd give you the warehouse
or it could belong to both of us if-. Aurora Rose, could you
possibly still consider being my wife?"
Rory doubted that John Ezekiel Morrison had
ever made such a humble request of anyone in all of his life. She
whispered her response. "Oh, yes, Zeke. Yes."
She flung her arms about his neck, half
crushing the bouquet, sending a shower of daisy petals raining down
over Zeke's frock coat. His head bent down to hers, seeking her
lips in a tender kiss that erased all the misery and
misunderstanding of the past twenty-four hours.
She clung to him, urging him to intensify the
embrace with a passion that was at both fierce and gentle. Lost in
each other's arms, they hardly noticed the last of twilight
deepening into darkness or the lamplighter making his rounds,
setting McCreedy Street softly aglow.
Rory lingered with Zeke, whispering pledges
of love in the darkened, rustling shadows. They sat side by side on
her front stoop, her head resting against his shoulder, as they
made plans for a future that now beckoned brightly with
promise.
He told her all that he had done the night he
had slammed out of her apartment, his walk back through his old
neighborhood, his reunion with his family.
"I realized then," he said, "that there were
some parts of my past, no matter how painful, that I couldn't and
didn't want to put behind me. Cynthia Van Hallsburg abandoned me to
a life of hell. If it hadn't been for a woman like Sadie."
He had to pause a moment before he could go
on. "There's a lot of kids, a lot of people back there in the slums
that weren't so lucky. I never really believed any of that misery
could be changed; I thought that Addison's dreams were all a little
cockeyed. But I've been doing some thinking. I'll never be any
wide-eyed crusader, but I've always been a fighter. Maybe I could
make a difference."
Rory gazed up at him, her heart full of
pride. "I know you could. I would help you. If you did run for
mayor, I could drop pamphlets for you from my balloon."
He grimaced a little at that, but laughed and
said, "I hope I can keep your feet on the ground for a little
while. At least until I take you home to meet my family. I have
strict orders from Caddie to bring you to dinner. I only wish that
my mother could be there as well. Maybe Cynthia Van Hallsburg gave
me life, but it was Sadie that made it worth living. There's so
much I regret now, so much I wish I could have made Sadie
understand, how grateful I was, how much I loved her."
Rory reached up to touch his cheek. "I have a
feeling she understood more than you imagined, and wherever she is
now, I am sure she knows."
Zeke pressed a kiss against her palm. "I'll
have to take your word for that. My faith has always been shaky. I
guess until it grows stronger, I'll just have to borrow some of
yours."
"I'd gladly lend it all to you," Rory said,
wanting to share everything with him—her faith, her dreams, the
rest of her life.
Zeke tightened his arms about her, straining
her hard against him. "That's one mistake I'll never make again
with you, Aurora Rose, keeping my feelings all dammed up inside.
You're always going to know how much I love you, never be left to
doubt it a single day of your life."
Her heart too full to answer, Rory could only
show him how much his words meant to her by upturning her face to
receive his kiss. From a great distance, she could hear Finn McCool
barking, the creak of Miss Flanagan's front door as it opened.
Swept up in the heady sweetness of Zeke's embrace, Rory tightened
her arms about him, determined to give her inquisitive neighbor
something well worth craning her neck to see.
###