The apartment was still and silent when Rafferty finally shut the door behind them. He didn't bother to switch on the light, and the darkness was a blessed relief to Helen's ragged nerves. She slumped against him, exhausted, too weary even to cry, and his arms were tight, strong, comforting. The beat of his heart was slow and steady beneath her ear, the heat of him was palpable through his formal clothes. He was real, he was there. But for how long?

She tried to remember Billy's words to her as they'd bundled him onto a stretcher. He'd been pale, in shock, but he'd managed a weak smile. "Don't think about it," he whispered. "That's what Mary wanted me to tell you. Just take each moment as it comes, and don't think about the past. It's too crazy. Take what you can and hold on to it."

Helen was trying to do just that. The last day and a half seemed nothing short of insane—a dreamlike excursion from reality that both exhausted and overwhelmed her. She never wanted it to end. But it was about to, if she could believe Rafferty, and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it..

"Billy will be all right," Rafferty murmured into her hair, his hands strong and comforting. She was huddled into his overcoat, and his own clothes were wet from melted snow. She sighed, pressing against him, wanting to absorb herself into his very bones.

Rafferty's powers never ceased to amaze Helen. His ability to return from the dead, to take a bullet in the face with no aftereffect were impressive enough. His ability to withstand the assembled, familial power of the Chicago police department was nothing short of miraculous.

He wouldn’t have been quite so successful at expediting the removal of Drago's body and sending the dozen police on their way with promises of full cooperation if members of her immediate family had been present. As it was, there were two honorary uncles, three ex-partners and a couple of patrolmen she'd worked with in the past, all with a personal interest in Helen's well-being and an instinctive distrust for the still, silent stranger who was overruling them.

Rafferty won that particular pissing contest.  Once Billy was stabilized, his color pale but his pulse steady, once the initial questions were answered, Rafferty simply got rid of them. And no one, up to and including honorary uncle Tommy Lapatrie who'd bounced baby Helen on his knee after her christening, could stand up to him.

"I keep thinking about Drago," she whispered in the darkness, pressing her face against his damp white shirt, his warm chest. "To see him cut down like that.... " She shuddered, and Rafferty's hold tightened. "Did they have to use machine guns?" she whispered.

"They didn't."

She raised her head, as a fresh chill ran through her body. "What do you mean? I heard them, I saw them..."

"A police sharpshooter killed him. Three bullets, just to make certain."

"But I heard... And the dog..." she said.

His hand was cool and gentle against her face, pushing her hair back.  "Don't think about it, Helen. It was another time, another place. Drago is where he belongs now, and if you ask me, he's happy to be there. Losing his wife put him back over the edge. Now he can rest."

She looked up at him. "Is that supposed to be comforting?" she asked. "Is that what you're expecting? A nice, eternal rest? If I can believe what you've been telling me..."

"Don't believe a word I've said." He cupped her face with his strong hands, running his sensitive thumbs across her trembling mouth. "It's all a pack of lies. Just believe in the moment. That's all anyone ever has."

"That's what Billy told me," Helen whispered, looking into his bleak, sorrow-filled eyes.

"Billy would know."

"I just have one question."

"Don't ask it," Rafferty said, his voice desperate. "It will only make things worse. Either I'll lie to you, and you'll hate me, or I'll tell you the truth, and you'll wind up hating me anyway."

"I'm not going to ask if you love me, Jamey," she managed a pragmatic tone of voice, and his mouth began to curve in a reluctant smile. "I know the answer, even if you don't. I just want to know if you'd stay. If it were up to you."

"I don't think I should answer that, either."

She reached up and took his face in her hands, his dear, lost face. "I'm not giving you a choice, mister," she said firmly. "Would you stay?"

For a moment he didn't say a word. And then he closed his eyes, and she could see his soul flash across the dark planes of his face. "Wild horses couldn't drag me away."

From somewhere in the distance they could hear the sound of Crystal's grandfather clock, beginning the slow, sad chime of midnight. "Are you about to turn into a pumpkin?" she whispered, her fingers tightening.

He shook his head. "By tomorrow morning," he said, his voice rough.

"Then we have time? A few more hours?"

"A few more hours," Rafferty said.

"It will have to be enough." She reached up and kissed him, her mouth open against his, tasting his darkness and sorrow, tasting the decades.

The apartment was warm and dark and safe. Outside the storm raged, inside all was heat and flesh and love. She wasn't quite sure how they made it into the bedroom. She was trembling as she closed the door behind them and began to strip the clothes off him, pushing his jacket and shirt onto the floor, reaching for his belt buckle. She half expected him to protest, to take control, but he seemed to know she had to be the one to take the lead, to touch, to kiss, to run her mouth down his chest to the waistband of his trousers, to unfasten the unexpected row of buttons, to touch him, hold him, reveling in the warmth and strength of him, in his muffled groan of pleasure. He was like silk and steel in her hand, pulsing with desire, and she wanted more. In the few short hours remaining she wanted everything, a lifetime to last her through the long empty nights that stretched ahead of her, without him. She'd waited twenty-nine years for him. She wasn't about to settle for anything less.

“Take off your clothes,'' he said, and his voice was rough in the moonlit darkness, rough and caressing.

She obeyed, pulling the baggy sweater over her head, skimming her jeans down over her hips and kicking them away. She reached up to undo the front clasp of her thin scrap of a bra, but his large hand covered hers, stopping her, and he drew her closer, putting his hot, wet mouth over her breast, suckling it through the wisp of lace that covered her.

His hands slid down her sides, along her hips beneath the silk panties, cupping her, pulling her against him. Her knees felt weak, trembly, her heart was racing, her pulses were full and flowing. She was overwhelmed with longings so fierce, so intense that she was afraid she might fly apart. She needed him, all of him, in every way possible, she wanted him hard and fast, she wanted him slow and lingering. She wanted forever, and she only had one more night

He kicked out of the rest of his clothes and pulled her over to the bed. She lay down with him, leaning over him as he lay back against the pillows, and her hair was a curtain around them, shutting out the cold February night. She kissed his lips, running her tongue along the firm edges of his mouth as he tried to kiss her back. She moved her mouth down the tautly muscled planes of his chest, touching, tasting, savoring him, storing a thousand sensations inside her. She kissed his stomach, his navel, his hips. And then she put her mouth on him, feeling him jerk with surprise, his hands threading her hair, holding her there, gently, as she loved him, she loved him, and she never wanted it to end.

She was trembling, covered with sweat, when he pulled her away, and she fought for a moment. "Wait," she said. "I want to..."

"I want to come inside you," Rafferty said. "Not just your mouth. I need all of you. Now." He pulled her up and over him, so that she lay full-length on top of him, her hands clutching his shoulders.

He reached up and unfastened the bra she was still wearing. He pulled off her silk panties, roughly, and threw them off the bed. "I don't want to hurt you again," he said. "But I can't help it. It's too soon..."

"Show me," she said, overriding his concern. "We only have a few more hours. Show me what to do."

He groaned, and his last attempt at restraint vanished as he reached between her legs to the heated, aching center of her. She arched against his hand, whimpering softly with pleasure, and in the darkness he smiled, murmuring to her, telling her how sweet and responsive she was, how soft and sleek and damp and hot she was, and how much he needed, wanted her.

"Slowly, love," he whispered as he positioned her above him, throbbing and ready. "Very slowly. Make it last.  God, Helen..." the words were a jumble of pleasure as she followed his lead, sinking slowly, filling herself with his strength.

There was no pain this time. Just a tightness, a stretching, followed by the most glorious burgeoning inside her as she flowed around him, her heart bursting, her soul in flight as he held her hips in his big hands and showed her a slow, steady rhythm that was likely to drive her mad. His control was greater than hers. When she was ready to shake apart, reaching for something beyond her grasp, he simply rolled her over on the bed, covering her, surging against her with a slow, steady pace that made her want to scream, to pound at his shoulders and weep.

And suddenly his control was gone as well, and he thrust into her, again and again, in a frenzy of need that brought her own wild response, and when he went rigid in her arms, his body arched against hers, his voice lost in a strangled cry, she was with him, shattering around him, tossed into the maelstrom of a love that knew no boundaries of time and space, life and death.

His hands were still tight on her, and she hoped he'd leave a mark, a bruise, anything to hold on to after he left. Something to remind herself that he'd really been here. His face was buried in her hair, his heart still racing against hers, and she wanted to cling so fiercely that all the forces of heaven and hell couldn't touch him. And death shall have no dominion—where did that line come from, Shakespeare or the Bible? She only wished it were true.

Eventually their breathing slowed. "I'm crushing you," he muttered into her hair, making no move to get off her.

"I'm glad. Don't leave." Her body made an involuntary jerk at her choice of words. "I mean, don't..." *

"I know what you mean." He lifted his head, looking down at her, and for the first time his face was oddly peaceful. No dark mockery, no secrets lurking behind his eyes. "I didn't want to do this to you."

She found she could smile, still wrapped tightly in his embrace. "Really? You could have fooled me."

He kissed her, lightly touching her tender lips. "I didn't want to make love to you and then leave you," he said patiently. "You deserve so much more...."

"True," she said, indulging in her own lighthearted mockery, "but I don't happen to want anyone but you. Will you come back to me? Next year?" She didn't bother to try to disguise the anxiety and need in her voice. He would have heard it anyway.

"I can't ask you to wait three hundred and sixty-five days..."

"Three hundred and sixty-three," she corrected. "And I've already waited twenty-nine years for you. What's another three hundred days, more or less?"

"Helen, I..."

This time she stopped him, putting her fingers against his mouth. "You didn't want to say that, remember?" she whispered. "Tell me when you come back. I'll be waiting for you."

"I don't want you to..."

“I’ll be waiting," she said, implacably.

He closed his eyes, fighting it for one more moment. And then he opened them, and there was love and acceptance in the sunlit depths. "I'll find you."

"I know you will," she said, her voice sounding strange and deep to her own ears. "And this lifetime will be for us." She let her eyes drift closed, unable to keep them open a moment longer.

She didn't want to sleep. She didn't want to lose one second, one moment, one breath, one heartbeat. But her body had its own needs, its own wisdom. She'd just survived the most tumultuous forty-eight hours of her life, and she needed rest, renewal, no matter how much she fought against it. She closed her eyes, drinking in the weight of him against her, the scent of his skin, the sound of his breathing. And then she slept.

Rafferty waited until she was sound asleep, waited until he could wait no longer, and then he pulled out of her arms, gently, lying beside her, watching her in the moonlit darkness as she slept.

The snow had stopped long ago—even before they'd come down from the roof. The time up there seemed strange and distant. He'd never seen so many cops in one place at one time – it was enough to make him nervous.

But he hadn't been. He'd been too concerned with Helen, her face pale and crumpled, her muscles weak, her eyes wide and loving, too concerned with his unbreakable date with destiny, and the need to cram every minute of living, of loving, in before he had to go.

He lay in bed with her now, touching her gently, pushing the hair away from her face. He could see a trace of dried tears on her cheeks, and he wanted to taste them. He was so hungry for her, so starved for her, that he could never get enough.

He couldn't rid himself of his sense of lightness, of belonging. He knew he should regret touching her, taking her, loving her. Knew he should regret the fact that she'd be waiting for him.

But he couldn't. Logic and should-have-beens had no place in his life. He only knew what was right. And Helen was right, for now and for always. Even if it was only forty-eight hours at a time.

It had never made any sense, and he was far too weary to try to understand it. He'd fought for years, hoping to understand it, but reasons had always eluded him. He'd learned just to accept each day as it came.

He leaned over and feathered a kiss against Helen's bee-stung lips. He'd kissed her too hard, too often, and he wanted to kiss her again. But most of all he wanted to simply lie there and watch her, so that the last thing he saw was her peaceful, beautiful, sleeping face. To carry with him into his own tiny share of eternity.

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, finally able to tell her”

She smiled then, her smile as blazingly bright as the midwinter sun. "I know you do," she said gently, 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?”

He nodded.  "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.