Page 21 of Daredevil Lady and the Mysterious Millionaire (The Hidden Hearts Collection #3)

It was always Sunday afternoons now that seemed the longest, the time she missed her father the most. A tiny sigh came from Rory, which seemed to echo round the great cavern of the warehouse. As though to escape the sound, she turned and hurried up a narrow flight of stairs.

They led to a small office that overlooked the rest of the warehouse.

Rory had reached for the knob when she stilled.

A noise carried to her ears, one that had nothing to do with the scrape of her own shoe on the stair.

Holding her breath, she listened intently.

All was silent. She must have been imagining things.

Just as she released the air from her lungs, she heard it again.

A stirring on the other side of the office door. Inching closer, she stole a peek through the door’s small glass window. Someone was there. She could make out a masculine form sprawled on the floor behind her desk.

It would not be the first time some old vagrant had managed to sneak into the warehouse to sleep. Angelo was always so careless about locking up. Last time, Rory had gotten a real fright, tripping over a body at the foot of the stairs, but the poor old man had meant no harm.

All the same, Rory had prepared herself in case the like should ever happen again. Groping underneath a loose floorboard beside the door, she located a section of lead pipe she had squirreled away there. Hefting the heavy weapon, she inched open the door, her pulses racing.

This was foolish. She should go get help, summon a policeman. But if it was only that poor old tramp, she didn’t want him arrested. She would take just one peek, and if the sleeping intruder looked at all dangerous, she would retreat.

Steeling herself, Rory tiptoed inside the office. She craned her neck, weapon at the ready, until she could see over the desk. The interloper was definitely male, his long limbs uncomfortably disposed on a makeshift bed of silk material. Rory could just make out a profusion of jet-black curls.

“Tony!” Rory breathed.

Relieved, she dropped the pipe onto the battered old desk and managed to light the oil lamp. Neither the sudden glow nor any of the sounds she made were enough to rouse Tony.

Coming round the desk, Rory stared down at her friend, wondering what he was doing here asleep on the office floor. How long had he been there? Had he waited up for her all night and through the day too?

She was stricken with remorse. During the past hours, she had hardly scarce given her old friend a single thought. She had wondered why he hadn’t come to the flat earlier looking for her, but she had been too grateful to be left in peace to give the matter much consideration.

Bending down, she brushed aside his dark tumble of curls, her fingers skimming over a cheek roughened with a morning’s growth of beard.

It still seemed odd to note signs of manhood on one who in her mind would forever be the boy who used to tie her braids together, swing off her fire escape and share his peppermint sticks.

At her touch, Tony stirred. He rolled onto his back, his eyes fluttering open. Their brown depths clouded with confusion and then cleared as he focused on her.

“Rory!” He jerked upward. Too close to the desk, he banged his head on the corner and swore. As Rory straightened, he struggled to his feet, rubbing his crown.

“What time is it? When did you get here? Where the devil have you been?”

“Which question do you want me to answer first?” She stretched, flexing her back muscles like a lazy cat. She tried to keep her voice light, sensing a quarrel coming and wanting to avoid it.

When he glared at her, she settled on the most harmless question and replied, “I think it must be close on five o’clock.”

“Five o’clock! And you’re just now getting back here?”

“No, I’ve been at the apartment all day.”

“No, you haven’t. I sent Angelo round to look for you early this morning.”

“He must have just missed me. Look, Tony, I am sorry I wasn’t here to help with the balloon last night. I hope you managed all right.”

“Oh, I managed all right—to go half out of my mind worrying about you.”

Sinking into the chair behind her desk, Rory used the scarred surface as a barrier between them. “You needn’t have fretted so much about me. I can take care of myself. I hope you haven’t been waiting here all day.”

“All night and all day, until I fell asleep! I didn’t know what you were up to, where to find you, but I was sure this would be the first place you would come.”

His words only added to her discomfort, for he was right. Ordinarily that would have been her one thought, to get back to the warehouse, to examine the damage to the Katie Moira. It was the first time in her life, anything or anyone had ever managed to distract her from her work with the balloons.

“I had something more important to attend to,” she said.

“You mean this?” He drew a crumpled paper from his pocket and tossed it on her desk. She recognized the remains of the note she had left for Tony at Morrison’s house.

“I spend all day tracking you from those stupid fairgrounds, thinking this time that you must have broken your fool neck for sure. I finally located where the balloon went down, only to be told you have gone flitting off with some strange feller.”

“I wasn’t flitting”Rory snapped, then checked herself.

She hated it when Tony assumed this badgering, dictatorial tone.

But she also hated the deep shadows beneath his eyes, the look of hurt lurking beneath the anger.

She resumed in gentler accents, “I had a business meeting with Mr. Morrison. He took me to supper at Delmonico’s. ”

“It took you all night to eat?”

“No, afterward, we went dancing,” Rory admitted reluctantly.

“Dancing! That sounds like a funny kind of business meeting to me.”

“I was spending as much time with Mr. Morrison as I could, trying to persuade him to invest in the balloon company.”

“And did you?”

“No. After all, it seems he was not interested.”

“Damn right. I could have told you what he was after. I thought you had better sense than to set yourself up as a mash date for some rich swell.”

“It wasn’t like that at all.”

“No, I suppose he was a perfect gentleman,” Tony sneered. “He didn’t even try to get fresh.”

Rory didn’t want to blush, but she couldn’t help it. The memory of how it felt to be in Zeke’s arms was too strong. Tony stared deep into her eyes and looked as though she had just kicked him in the gut.

“Gawd, Rory. You didn’t let him kiss you?”

Rory wished she could glare back at him with defiance, even deny it. Instead she said, “That’s really none of your business, Tony.”

He whirled away from her and slammed his fist against the wall. “Damn it!” he choked. “I don’t care how rich or powerful the bastard is. I’m going back there and break his face.”

“Don’t be so silly. You will do no such thing. Honestly, Tony, you are worse than my Da ever would have been. Sometimes I think you have been trying to take his place.”

“No, it’s not your father I want to be.’ He was regarding her with that hungry look again, the one that made Rory hurt for him and want to shake him as well.

Please, Tony, don’t. Don’t say anymore, she begged silently.

Seeking any kind of distraction, she yanked open the desk drawer and produced a well-worn ledger book.

But it was impossible to make sense of any of the rows of neatly inked figures, not with Tony hovering over her desk, his hands jammed into his pockets.

“We have more important things to worry about than Zeke Morrison,” she said. “Like how I am going to pay the rent on this warehouse. I don’t suppose you collected our fee from Mr. Dutton before you came looking for me yesterday?”

“No, I didn’t. Since I was expecting to find you dashed to pieces all over New York, the money somehow slipped my mind.

But I guess you can always have another go at that rich friend of yours.

” The bitterness in Tony’s voice was as scalding as acid.

When she didn’t reply, he demanded, “Are you going to see him again?”

“Who?”

“You know damn well who. That Morrison.”

It would have been so easy to set Tony’s mind at rest, assure him that she never expected to keep company with Zeke again. Hadn’t she already decided as much? Instead she surprised herself by murmuring, “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you ever read the papers, Rory? The World calls him the mysterious millionaire. Everyone wonders where he came from, how he got his money.”

“Not everyone. I never gave it much thought.” Rory tried to sound indifferent, yet she could already feel herself begin to tense, ready to rush to Zeke’s defense, and Tony had not even accused the man of anything yet.

But Tony was working up to it. He braced both hands on the desk and leaned over her, glowering, “You might be interested to hear that Angelo knows this fellow who says that Morrison?—”

“Doesn’t Angelo always know someone? Your brother is a worse busybody than Miss Flanagan.”

“Angelo knows this fellow name of Julio from the old neighborhood,” Tony said, raising his voice to drown her out.

“And Julio says there’s nothing mysterious about Morrison.

He’s nothing but a bum that used to work down on the docks, an orphan kid who ate out of garbage cans and picked pockets until he was adopted by this widow. ”

“How many dockworkers do you know that could earn enough money to live on Fifth Avenue?”

“None that could do it honestly. Julio also said?—”

“Oh, stop it, Tony!” Rory slammed the ledger book closed. “I don’t care what Julio says. And as for you and Angelo, I think you could find better use for your time than to gossip like a couple of old hens. I begin to wonder what I am paying the lot of you for.”

Tony straightened, a bright flush stealing beneath his olive skin. “You don’t have to pay me for nothing anymore ‘cause I quit.”

“Good!”