With the tip of his fingers, he tucked a stray lock of her silky hair behind the shell of her ear. It was a shocking intimacy, but she didn’t pull away. She leaned into his hand, and it was all the permission he needed.

He lowered his head and kissed her. She kissed him in return, and soon her arms entwined behind his back. It went on and on until he needed to come up for air.

“Well, this is a bit of a surprise,” he said.

“Not to me.”

Raw hunger overcame him, and he swooped down to kiss her again. She met him measure for measure. He hadn’t expected this—the buzz, the spark, the intensity that flared to life as he held her.

“Don’t go,” she whispered, low, soft, and velvety. “Stay until the last streetcar.”

He glanced at the clock on the mantel. They had an hour until the streetcars stopped running for the night. He closed his eyes and savored the way she leaned against him for support. “I’m not going anywhere, Mrs. K.”

He wanted her to be the one. It felt right. A tiny piece of him shouted that she was too far above him and this could only lead to trouble, but he silenced the voice. They were a match, and he’d be a fool to deny it.

16

To Patrick’s amazement, Gwen started visiting his apartment each evening. At first, she used the excuse that she wanted to observe his mother’s progress, but soon she simply came to spend time with him.

He looked forward to her visits all day. Each time she arrived at his apartment, she got a quick update on his mother’s health, and then they hurried out onto the fire escape to be alone. In between kisses, they talked about everything. They debated whether Charles Dickens was better than Mark Twain. He explained why Catholics say the rosary, and she talked about her hope of one day becoming a professor of botany if she could ever tear herself away from home long enough to earn a doctorate.

“I even know what I’d like to study,” she said one evening while watching the sunset from the fire escape. “I have a theory that old seeds can still sprout under the right conditions, and I’d like to see if I can accomplish it. There is a monastery in Spain that found seeds from an extinct date palm that are at least three hundred years old. I’ve asked them to send me some, but so far they have refused.” She glanced at him, curiosity in her face. “I don’t suppose you have any special pull, do you?”

He swallowed back a laugh. After abandoning his priestly vocation, he was the last person likely to have sway with those Spanish monks. “I’ve got no connections. Have you tried buying them?”