Page 101 of Daredevil Lady and the Mysterious Millionaire
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 differenceas 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 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 hiskiss. 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.