He had to say something, tell her that if he’d proposed—which apparently he had—he’d been drunk and hadn’t meant a word. But how could he let her down? Especially when she was so excited?

He’d have to figure out a way to tell her later. . . .

“Tonight, then?” she asked. “You’ll come have dinner with my family and me tonight?”

“Maybe. I’ll see how work goes today.” He stuck his feet into his boots, not bothering to tie them before starting toward the door.

“Please, Dylan?” The thread of almost panic in her question stilled his hand on the doorknob.

He braced his shoulders. “I’ll try.”

“Thank you.”

There was a slight chance he’d go. Very slight. Which meant he wasn’t entirely lying to her, was he?

“And Dylan? Please don’t say anything to Papa or Mama or anyone else about—well, about us staying the night together. Papa will disown me if he finds out.”

“Don’t worry, darlin’.” He made himself glance back at her with a wink and a smile, even as he hated himself for acting so cavalier. “No one will ever have to know about it.”

Sitting in the middle of the sagging mattress, a sheet draped around her, with her long, dark hair cascading down her bare shoulders, she was a beautiful young woman. He was reminded of why he’d been attracted to her.

But no how, no way was he getting married to her. Not now. And not anytime soon. He wasn’t dragging a wife into the mess he’d made of his life.

As he left her and the tenement behind and started toward the police headquarters, he rubbed at the familiar ache in his head. All he really wanted to do was sleep for a few more hours. But he hated being alone in his little apartment and avoided going there whenever possible. He reckoned that’s part of why he seemed to find himself in trouble with women.

If only he could have left Chicago with Bliss . . .

He blew out a breath filled with frustration. For a Sunday morning, the streets were quiet, the usual hubbub reduced to a few homeless youth out peddling papers and a group of transient workers who slept on the sidewalks conversing over coffee.

From the church one block over, he could hear the piano strains of a hymn. Most good folk were attending a Sunday morning service . . . no doubt his brothers and their wives were all sitting in pews, maybe even singing the same hymn.

He passed by the closed storefronts, the usual vendors and peddlers absent. The advertisements, however, were always present, covering the wooden buildings with promises of products that could produce a brighter future. From what he’d learned, a brighter future wasn’t that easy to come by.