All Through the Night Read Online Free PDF

your gun is.”
Okay, it was a lot suggestive. She’d probably had a beer too many at the picnic, but did he have to make such a big deal of it? By the time Kerry found out about her mistake, everybody in the design division was whispering, and Gamble’s assistant, a snippy little thing with Altoids breath and bright blue eyes, courtesy of her tinted contacts, had confronted Kerry about her “tacky and inappropriate” behavior.
She’d actually used the words “appallingly lewd” and warned that a sexual harassment suit was in the offing, and before it was over Kerry had been told to fold her tent and leave Genesis. The assistant’s parting remark was that Gamble had sent her to deal with Kerry rather than do it himself to avoid “embarrassing” either of them further.
Chicken, coward, yellow running dog.
“I walked out that afternoon,” Kerry said, still smarting from the fiery sting of rejection, “and I haven’t been back since.”
She hadn’t told the whole story, but it was as much as she was willing to say. She’d left that afternoon, but she didn’t officially quit until the next day, and it wasn’t totally because of Joe Gamble’s cadlike behavior. The next morning as she was leaving for work, she collapsed on her doorstep, gasp-ing for air, and that was as far as she got. She’d been dealing with anxiety symptoms because of the muggings, but nothing to compare with these. She’d barely left her house since.
She couldn’t blame that on Joe. It was her neighborhood.
Kerry finished her story with a shrug of indifference, but she was sad inside, and even though her “fearless guide” couldn’t see it, he could probably hear it. Maybe it was in how she phrased things, her syntax, but he seemed to be able to detect her moods. He was good, and so was the game.
“That was your most recent?” he asked.
“Romantic fiasco? Yes, and my quickest. So now you know why I’m wary of men.”
“I know why you’re wary of that man. He’s not worthy of your pain. He’s not worthy of anything. Kerry, save your tears for someone who knows what they cost, someone who will treasure them—and you—because he knows how deep your feelings cut. Don’t waste another drop on him.”
“Jean?” Kerry sat up to look at him.
He’d spoken with so much conviction—or was it passion—that he’d brought her up out of the chair. She studied his features, surprised at the furrows in his brow, the tension in his mouth. He could have been scowling, but he wasn’t angry. She could almost believe that he cared.
“Do you actually feel things, Jean?” she said. “I mean human feelings?”
“I’m not sure. Can a man feel things without a body?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but a woman can not feel things with a body. I haven’t felt much of anything but fear in quite some time now.”
“Which is why I’m here, to help you throw open the doors and windows and feel whatever you want to feel, the entire rainbow.”
She smiled and so did he. Was that coincidence or could he see her?
“How do you feel about riddles?” he asked her.
“Pretty much the same way I feel about men… but go ahead, if you must.”
“I must,” he said with a tone of wry forebearance. “Remember the fantasy I promised you, the one that could anticipate your every need, wish and desire? I’m going to need a little more information.”
Kerry bent over and hitched up her socks, which made it that much more convenient to get up from the desk and walk over to the window. A fluttery chill passed over her, like curtains caught in an updraft. Maybe she should put on another sweatshirt.
Who said she wanted all those things anticipated?
Several moments passed, and the chilliness felt less and less like a draft. It was her skin. She was a porcupine inside out. The quills pricked her. So far, she wasn’t too crazy about this rainbow of his.
Abruptly, she said, “What’s the riddle?”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s just a riddle isn’t