Rory shook her head. O’Connell wasn’t the sort to delve into the society columns. Besides, in his battered state, no one would have recognized Zeke as J. E. Morrison Esquire of Millionaire’s Row, not even his dear friend Mrs. Van Hallsburg.
“Then O’Connell must have heard you say my name” Zeke gave an impatient shrug. Taking her gently by the elbow, he urged her into movement once more.
“I suppose that must have been the case,” Rory agreed, but she didn’t feel quite satisfied with that explanation either. Themore she considered the matter, the more she thought that O’Connell could have done more to apprehend Zeke’s assailants if he had chosen. She had seen the policeman bring down a malefactor with one expert flick of his nightstick tossed between running legs.
And when O’Connell had tried to send Rory on her way, offering to guide Zeke to a doctor himself, she had been beset by a vague feeling of alarm.
It was almost as if— Rory drew herself up short. It was almost as if Rory Kavanaugh was letting her imagination run wild again. She tried to put a shivery feeling of foreboding behind her as she directed Zeke’s steps toward her own block.
McCreedy Street was as quiet as ever, the gas lit lamps like a row of miniature beacons heralding the way to the snug row of brownstones. Front parlors glowed with that after-Sunday-supper contentment, families settling down to make an early night before the next work week began.
Mrs. Flanagan had even taken in Finn for the evening, although as Rory led Zeke up her front steps, she noticed the spinster’s lace curtain stir. By this time tomorrow, it would be all over the neighborhood that Rory Kavanaugh had brought a man home with her.
“It’s only the devil, Miss Flanagan,” Rory muttered under her breath so that not even Zeke could hear. She felt a quiver of unexpected nervousness run through her.
Outside the corridor to her flat, she fumbled with the keys until Zeke removed them from her grasp and unlocked the door himself. His muscular frame seemed to dwarf the narrow hallway, casting a looming shadow on the opposite wall.
What was she doing, bringing Zeke Morrison up to her flat? By now she knew danged well he was faking much of his misery. Whatever the extent of his hurts, they didn’t prevent him from regarding her with that wicked gleam in his eye.
Still, the bruise swelling his jaw did need attention. She couldn’t have just left him that way. All her life she had gathered in strays—abandoned baby birds, wounded kittens, lost puppies. But she knew Zeke was far more dangerous.
The wolf was back at her door, but instead of barring the way, she preceded him, lighting the gas jets so he could see his way to come inside. With the soft glow of the lamps, her parlor seemed to surround her, as it always did, like a pair of loving arms. Little had changed about the place since the days when her mother had kept it all so neat and tidy. The rose print wallpaper had faded a little, but the overstuffed sofa and chair stood in their customary places next to the dark oak of the parlor table. Velour curtains fringed with tassels shut out the night, while the wobbly corner shelf all but collapsed under the weight of bric-a-brac, wax flowers under glass domes, Da’s stuffed owl, Mama’s precious collection of teacups and saucers, Rory’s own wooden music box.
She turned to invite Zeke to enter, but he already had.
“Do come in and make yourself at home, Mr. Morrison,” she murmured wryly as Zeke strode about the room, inspecting everything with an approving eye.
“This is real nice. You live here all alone?”
Zeke could make the most innocent questions sound fraught with seduction.
“Yes, but I have neighbors just across the hall,” she said quickly. “Aren’t you still feeling dizzy? Perhaps I should fetch my smelling salts.”
Her sharp reminder caused him to waver, to recollect that he was supposed to be on the verge of collapse.
“I am still feeling pretty groggy.” He made a great show of rubbing the back of his head. “If I could just rest here for a while.”
With a soft groan, he sagged down into the depths of the armchair. Rory pulled a face at this bit of melodrama, but all she said was, “I’ll go get you a compress for that jaw.”
Retreating to her tiny kitchen, she chipped some ice out of the icebox and wrapped it in clean linen. Searching through the pantry, she found what remained of her Da’s store of Irish whiskey and poured some into a tumbler.
By the time she returned to the parlor she was a little dismayed to see Zeke had already removed his coat and the collar of his shirt. It was a natural enough gesture, considering both garments were stained with dirt and blood, but it left Zeke’s shirt open at the neckline. Rory’s gaze was drawn by the intriguing dusting of dark hair, a glimpse of deeply tanned chest.
Her cheeks firing, she nearly thrust the icepack and whiskey at him. “H-here,” she said somewhat unsteadily.
As Zeke held the ice to his jaw, she perched primly on the sofa opposite him. He seemed grateful for the compress, even more grateful for the whiskey. It seemed so strange and somehow so natural to see Zeke sprawled in the old armchair, as though he had been there every night of her life.
As he sipped the amber liquid, he stared at her over the rim of the glass. A silence settled over the room, weighted by the memory of that passionate kiss they had shared barely twelve hours ago. Rory thought she could count every beat of her own heart.
Seconds ticked by without Zeke making a move or saying a word. Why had he taken such pains to find her again? She didn’t think it was merely to sit and stare at her. She could sense a tension in him as sharp as the crack of a whip. When he finally did clear his throat to speak, she caught herself holding her breath.
“Is that your father?”
“What?” The question was so far from anything she had expected, she could make no sense of it.
“In that photograph over there.” Zeke indicated a small oval-shaped portrait resting upon the parlor table. From within the frame, Seamus Kavanaugh peered proudly out at the world, a mere stripling in an overlarge blue jacket, the uniform of the Union Army. “Is that your Da?”
Rory had a feeling that that was not what Zeke had originally intended to say, but she nodded.
