Early morning mists curled off the East River, rising slowly to assume the form of a woman, a flowing white gown hanging from her in tattered shreds, silvery hair tangled wildly about a face pallid as death, the eyes as empty as the black void of a grave.
Rory shuddered as that pitiless gaze turned in her direction. She slashed frantically at the ballast bags weighting down the balloon, seeking to rise above the mist and that terrifying visage. But as the balloon lifted, soaring skyward, the spectral figure below let out a shriek of laughter.
Stretching her arms upward, the white witch floated after Rory until her hands closed over the side of the gondola, her fingers more bone than flesh. Rory sought to pry away those cold grasping hands, but at the first touch, she could feel that deathly chill spreading to herself. In horror she watched as her own hands began aging, decaying before her very eyes.
“No!”
With a loud cry, Rory sat up, wrenching herself awake. Bathed in cold sweat, it took her a moment to realize she was safe, sprawled on the sofa of her flat. The packages delivered by Altman’s yesterday were bestrewn upon the floor, minglingwith the cozy furnishings of her parlor, familiar, reassuring surroundings, and yet her heart thudded with fear. The dream had been so vivid. She took a trembling survey of her hands, relieved to find her skin smooth and warm, life yet thrumming through her veins.
She released her breath in a shivery sigh and raked her hands through her hair. Damn! She hated dreams like that. Go back to sleep and forget about it, her Da would have told her. He had always scoffed at the old superstitions of the banshee and been sorry he had ever let her head be filled with such nonsense.
Rory wished she could be equally as scornful, but in the past her nightmare had always been followed with a death. Whose might it be this time— her own?
Zeke had warned her she was going to break her neck one of these days. But she wasn’t even taking the balloon up today. She had formed far different plans. The heavy ring of keys left lying on the parlor table reminded her of what she had to do, reminded her also of a future so bleak she didn’t care if she crashed to her death or not.
That was a wicked thought, and Rory was quick to cross herself. All the same she did feel utterly miserable. Ever since Zeke had stormed out of her apartment, she had drifted into a state of lethargy, unable to do anything but replay their dreadful quarrel over and over in her mind. Furious and despairing by turns, her fretting had culminated in a sleepless night.
She had at last curled up on the sofa, eventually drifting off somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, falling asleep in time to have a nightmare. Just her luck.
Struggling to her feet, Rory pressed one hand to the small of her back, stiff and aching from the posture she had been sleeping in. She nearly tripped over one of the boxes. She would have to notify Altman’s to have them retrieve the parcels, or else have the whole lot packed up and sent to Zeke’s mansion.
Her trousseau, Zeke had called it. But there could be no trousseau when there was to be no wedding. She had no doubt but that all was ended between her and Zeke. What he had done, trying to force her to abandon her dream, was dreadful, but the words she had hurled at him were more unforgivable.
She could hardly believe she had been so cruel, even in the grip of her rage and anguish. But perhaps what she had said, driving Zeke away as nothing else could, would prove kinder in the long run. It should have been obvious from the beginning how unsuited they were for each other.
Even as she sought to convince herself, other memories intruded, of dancing until dawn, sharing stolen kisses in the little cottage by the sea, snuggling against Zeke’s shoulder on the bench in City Hall Park while watching the sun set. Memories of how they had laughed, loved, even fought together, side by side, ready to take on the toughest of villains, the whole world. Memories that she had to suppress if she were going to make herself believe that she was better off without Zeke Morrison in her life.
She strode resolutely to her bedchamber. She had spent enough time moping. She needed to get dressed and go to the warehouse. Tony and the others would be expecting her to get ready for the return of the government contractor. It was going to be difficult enough to explain to them why they would be spending the day otherwise engaged without facing them all with reddened eyes.
Perched upon crates in the warehouse, Tony, Pete and Angelo faced her in varying postures of confusion and disbelief. She had finished explaining how Zeke Morrison had bought the warehouse, rendering it necessary for Rory to remove all her equipment from the premises.
“Wait a moment.” Angelo scowled, scratching the back of his head and succeeding in making his cowlick worse. “Didn’t you just say that Morrison left you the keys?”
“Yes, he did.” Rory tapped her foot impatiently, not wanting to offer any more explanation than she had to. “And so?”
“Then the fellow must have changed his mind about tossing us out, right?” Angelo appealed to Pete, who shrugged but nodded in agreement.
“It makes no difference even if he did. I have no desire to be the recipient of Mr. Morrison’s generosity.”
“Resippy-what?” Angelo echoed. “What’s that mean?”
Tony, who had listened in silence, his arms crossed over his chest, now spoke up, “It means Rory and Morrison had some sort of a row and now Rory is being stubborn.”
Rory glared at him. “It means nothing of the kind. It’s merely that I can no longer afford the rent here. So get up off your tails and start packing.”
Pete and Angelo slid off the crates, still looking nonplussed, but preparing to begin. Tony, however, kept shaking his head in a way that made Rory want to hit him. As the other two shuffled off, he said, “I don’t know what this is really about, Rory. But I can take a good guess and for once I sympathize with Morrison. If you were going to be my wife, I wouldn’t want you flying the damned balloons anymore either.”
That Tony would range himself on Zeke’s side both wounded and annoyed her. “I’m not going to be anyone’s wife, Bertelli. Now I would appreciate your getting busy.”
“What do you think you’re going to do with all this stuff?”
Rory hadn’t thought that through clearly, but she blustered, “For now, I suppose I’ll have to cram it all into my flat.”
Tony rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. With a snort of disgust, he moved off to supervise the other two boys.
They all fell to their task in a manner less than enthusiastic, moving so slowly, exchanging so many superior male glances over the illogic of women that Rory could no longer bear to watch them. She stomped off upstairs to clear out her office.
But as the minutes ticked by, she packed very little, sitting behind her desk, staring up at the familiar cracks on the ceiling, wondering if she was, as Tony said, merely being stubborn.
