by Anne Stuart
He could feel it coming. It always started with sleep, with a bone-numbing exhaustion sweeping over him, one he was powerless to fight. It was sliding over him like a warm, soft blanket, comforting, enveloping, and even though he wanted to bat it away, to cling more tightly to Helen, he knew it would only make it worse. The best thing he could do for her was let it take him. Let her wake in the morning to an empty bed. And if he was really noble he'd hope that when he came back next year she'd have gone on with her life.
But he wasn't noble. And he knew she'd be waiting. And he closed his eyes, and let the darkness come.
The light was brilliant, bright white and blinding. Rafferty opened his eyes, blinking against the glare, covering his eyes with his arm. Beside him he felt someone move, heard a muffled curse.
He yanked his arm away, sitting up with a jerk. He was in the middle of Helen Emerson's bed, the white sheet pulled up over him, Helen curled up beside him, holding a pillow over her head as she tried to shut out the bright midwinter sun. The clock radio beside the bed said 9:05, and the voice of an announcer was a muffled rush of words.
He reached over and after several false starts managed to turn up the sound. "And it's another cold winter day in the Windy City," a man's voice said. "Sunday, February 15, and if you missed Valentine's Day this year, there's always another chance next year. This is Simon Zebriskie on WAKS, with you until eleven o'clock, and if you forgot to tell her you loved her, now's the time to do so. Maybe this will help."
Rafferty knew the song. It was an old one, though not as old as he was. "When a Man Loves a Woman."
He turned back to look at Helen. She'd emerged from the pillow, staring at him in joyous disbelief.
"You're still here," she said, her voice rusty.
He didn't bother to agree. "I love you," he said.
She smiled then, her smile as blazingly bright as the midwinter sun. "I know you do," she said, sitting up and holding the sheet around her in a belated show of modesty, and it took him a moment to realize that he was going to have time to teach her not to blush. To show her so many things that she'd become positively brazen. With him alone. "But I don't think I believe anything else you told me." Her voice was just the slightest bit uncertain.
"It's better that way," he said. "We get to start anew. We'll get married…"
"We'll have babies…"
"I'll find a job…"
"Mel Amberson already offered you one…"
"I love you."
She leaned over and kissed him, dropping the sheet to her waist. "I love you, too," she murmured. "And you're going to love my family."
Rafferty remembered the small battalion of cops surrounding Helen, and stifled a groan. "Anything's possible," he muttered.
"Yes," she said happily, "it is." And the bright Chicago sunlight shone down on them through the window as they welcomed all their new tomorrows.
Epilogue
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It was one more Valentine's Day, one year later. Like most Valentine's Days in Chicago, the day was cold and blustery, a light snow falling. For the first time in sixty-five years there were no more unexpected returns to Clark Street. Everyone, including Ricky Drago's tortured soul, had found its own kind of peace.
There'd been too many questions and not enough answers. Such as the mystery of a stolen car found dented and hot-wired outside the former site of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre, with no fingerprints inside but those of a crook who'd been dead for almost seven decades.
Or the question of Rafferty's birth certificate, or any means of any formal identification when Helen and Jamey applied for a marriage license at the end of February. Fortunately a circuit court judge named Clarissa was willing to expedite matters and do them a favor, even if she had to fudge a bit, and the wedding went as planned, with Billy and Mary and Jamey Moretti in attendance, looking uneasily at the assembled, blue-coated Emersons across the aisle.
Rafferty discovered an almost indecent flair for the stock market under Mel Amberson's tutelage, though he insisted the money wasn't any cleaner than the stuff he used to make from the infamous Bugs Moran. And he found he had an equal talent for fixing up old houses. Crystal Latour's old town house began to shine.
Even the glowering assembled Emersons were powerless against Jamey's determination and charm. Particularly when Helen seemed so happy, how could they begrudge the mysterious upstart who suddenly appeared in their lives?
Ricky Drago's death was never fully explained, but then, as the state attorney said, who the hell cared? He'd come to a bad end, but one he more than deserved. May God have mercy on his soul.
As for Rafferty, it was all astonishingly clear. He'd spent thirty-four years of his life, sixty-four years of his nebulous afterlife, looking for someone to love him enough to save him. What he'd never realized was that he was the one who needed to find love. Not in another person, but within himself. It was his love for Helen that had saved him. And given him a lifetime of Valentines.
Including the first and most precious. Ms. Annabelle Emerson Rafferty was born at 3:35 a.m. on the morning of February 14. And big, bold, brave, bad Jamey Rafferty was there, holding Helen's hand for labor and delivery, longing for the days when all a father had to do was pace and smoke.
And he only passed out once.
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