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 settledinto 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.
