All Through the Night (14 page)

The closer he got, the more Kerry backed up.

“Listen,” he said heatedly, “you were dynamite in those sessions, and I wanted you back. I thought it was for the company, but after Jean came to life the first time, I knew it was for me.”

Pain stabbed her. Jean. He was Jean, and she had cared about him.

“Congratulations, man of many voices,” she said. “You really suckered me good. You actually had me convinced that Jean was cursed and needed me to set him free. How stupid, huh?”

“It wasn’t Jean who needed you, it was me. I’d lost my passion for anything but work, and believe me, that’s its own kind of curse.”

“You were never cursed,” she protested hotly. “Your life is blessed. You have everything.”

“When there’s no feeling attached to what you have, it’s meaningless. Everything is
nothing
.

“What I did was wrong,” he admitted. “I concocted this whole elaborate fairy tale to get close to you, and obviously I got carried away with the poetry of my plan. I’ve been known to do that.”

The breath he took sounded like a sigh, a weary one. “The truth is, I was worried about you. This neighborhood isn’t safe, and you were all by yourself in the house. I wanted to be around in case you got into trouble, so I invented Malcolm. That’s when I realized what was really going on, that you were trapped.”

Recognition dawned. “So you pretended to be trapped yourself, as Jean?”

He nodded. “I thought if it became your goal to free Jean, you might be able to get past your own fears. But I didn’t realize what it was going to take until Malcolm spoke up in your living room that day. He surprised me as much as he did you.”

Kerry remembered it word for word. ‘“You’ll let go of your fear when something is more important to you than your fear.’”

“That’s when I knew something was going to happen to Malcolm, something bad. It had to be more important to you than your fear, and I figured if you thought Malcolm was in trouble, you’d stop at nothing.“

She stared at him, confused. “But he
was
in trouble.”

“Well… no, not at first. Those were some kids I bribed to make it look like they were roughing me up. What I didn’t count on was the second gang. They were the real thing, and when I saw that punk grab you and pull a knife… God—”

The words balled up in his throat. Muscles locked powerfully, struggling with some unexpected emotion, some savage emotion. “The thought that I’d endangered you when all I wanted to do was protect you—”

Kerry didn’t know what to say, but she couldn’t let him go on.

He looked away and roughly cleared his throat. “Last night I told you that you’d taught me something important, but I didn’t really know what that meant until now. I had to almost lose someone I loved to understand.”

“Joe, don’t—”

“I felt it to my soul, Kerry. When I thought I’d lost you, I…”

He didn’t finish, but Kerry knew what he was going to say. And she knew what he was feeling for the first time. There was an emotion welling inside her, too, a new emotion. It was piercingly sweet.

A snowflake landed on her lashes and melted away like a tear.

“I told you I was cursed,” he said. “I don’t expect you to forgive me for invading your life like this.” He looked up, apparently resigned to his fate, whatever that might be. “I’m not asking that, but whatever happens, it’s almost worth it to see you this way. Outside like this.”

“Oh, my God,” Kerry whispered, realizing where she was for the first time. “I’m outside.”

Her heart began to race, and she reached out involuntarily. His hand caught hers, and she squeezed it hard enough to cut off his circulation. Any minute now she would fall to her knees because she couldn’t walk. She could almost see herself crawling to the stoop. She would never make it back into the house.
What was she doing out here
?

“Let me help you,” he said.

He tried to lead her to the steps, but she held him off. She had to do this herself, and she wasn’t running back inside. She had fought off thugs in the street without giving it a thought, and she would fight her way out of this.

“Breathe.”

He said the very word that she was thinking, and his voice was as hushed as the falling snow. It cut through her rising panic and spoke to the urgency inside her. Instead of struggling with the sensations, Kerry stopped and drew in a breath, and even that first draught of air had a calming effect. The second restored her thought processes, the third her voice.

He was good. Maybe he was even good for her. The way she figured it she was probably going to have to take a chance on that.

“Did you mean it about me being dynamite in those sessions?” she asked him accusingly.

He nodded. “I meant it, Kerry. You are a force of nature.”

“And did you mean it about not wanting to live like a normal man if you couldn’t have me?”

“I did.”

She still wasn’t at all sure she ought to forgive him. He had gone to elaborate lengths to deceive her, and yet when she tried to imagine life without Joe Gamble, it made her want to shudder… to her soul.

Make your wish with an open heart, because only open hearts can receive.

Kerry’s lips curved into a smile as bittersweet as Joe’s.
Grandpa
, she thought,
if you had anything to do with this, it worked
.

She reached for Joe, and he pulled her into his arms.

They kissed under a veil of new snow, and the last thing Kerry saw before she closed her eyes was the couple in Lover’s Park. She had always wondered how it would feel to be that much in love, and now she would have her chance to find out. This was the beginning of a new journey, and Kerry Houston, perhaps the most unlikely of winter lovers, would not be making it alone.

No Mercy

Thea Devine

Chapter One

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Deep in the night, when plans and schemes and desires and dreams seem within the realm of possibility, what is the one thing a woman wants above everything else?

A pair of Mascolo five-inch stiletto heels digging into the prostrate body of the one man who got away.

And Regan Torrance was not immune to the allure and the attraction of a Mascolo fantasy, real or imagined, especially when the two collided in the form of The Shoes flung carelessly in the window of the exclusive east side Mascolo shop with the words On Sale in seductive gold letters across the bottom of the display.

“Ang…” she called to her former sister-in-law who was already several yards ahead of her and utterly unaware that she wasn’t following. “
Ang
—”

Angie stopped, turned, groaned, and started back toward Regan. “Oh, Regan, we don’t have time for—” She stopped short as she saw Regan’s expression and where she was standing. “Don’t tell me—”

“I’m telling you.” Regan shook herself. “C’mon.” She pushed open the door and stepped down into the elegant, minimally decorated shop, with its burnished mahogany wall that showcased the most outrageous and expensive shoes on elegant ledges.

“Don’t you have a Mascolo fantasy?” Regan asked, pick-ing up the shoe in question, a black satin sandal with a skyscraper heel and crisscrossed straps studded with crystals, and handing it to the discreet saleswoman. “Size seven please.”

“Yeah,” Angie said. “It’s called a bank account. I add to it every time I
don’t
buy a pair of Mascolos. You’re not planning to wear those things in public, are you?”

“Maybe tonight,” Regan said, sounding slightly distracted as she browsed through the several other styles that were on sale.

“Jesus. Tony’ll go nuts.”

“You think so?” The saleswoman returned with the shoes and Regan sat down, kicked off her own inch-heeled pumps, and reverently slipped them on.

“I think I don’t know how you’re going to walk in the those things.”

“Oh, it’s easy,” Regan said airily, levering herself to her feet, a little unsteadily. “You just… Just do the model walk thing.” God, she felt like she was walking on stilts. The “things” lifted her as high in the air as a crane, and putting one foot in front of the other instantly became a logistical nightmare of trying to look good while balancing on the head of a needle.

“See—?” She wobbled a little. But, Lord, they were the epitome of
fuck me
shoes, the kind you wore barefoot with deep red nail polish.

“Sure, I’ll just get your bustier and whip.”

“Just what I planned to wear tonight,” Regan murmured.

“Oh, yeah, Ms. All Business All The Time who never walks out of the house in anything but a suit and practical shoes?”

Regan wasn’t responding. Angie paused in her tirade and slanted her a look. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Sure am. I’ve coveted these little babies for months. And now that Tony’s finally promoted me, I’m going to celebrate for all I’m worth and dress like I’m worth it.”

“Wait till you see the bill for those things. It’ll take all you’re worth,” Angie muttered as Regan slipped off the shoes and indicated she wanted them.

“Anyone who walks in here knows the price they have to pay,” she said gently. And stumbling onto a sale was just icing on the cake, pure synchronistic luck, when she’d been considering paying full price for them. Which didn’t mitigate the fact she was still signing a charge slip for just over three hundred dollars, but what was the point of being successful if the money didn’t buy you the things you wanted?

And she was successful. Tonight was a celebration of just how far she’d come: Regan Torrance, the girl from the wrong side of town, the young ex-wife of Bobby Torrance, the now well-known media mogul and her ex-husband of seven years; and she herself, a top real estate agent, who, along with Tony Mackey, and his real estate agency, had been instrumental in developing Riverside Heights, the sleepy enclave just north of Manhattan, into the hip and happening place to live.

It didn’t take long, once the prices for a Manhattan apartment soared into the stratosphere. The Heights had apartments to spare, and undervalued and roomy homes built in the twenties. And low taxes. And an underutilized waterfront. Not to mention proximity to highways for that East Hampton weekend or that skiing vacation in Vermont. The same highways on which Bobby Torrance rode out of town seven years before, after their divorce.

A lot had changed in seven years. The Heights had become a suburb of elegant homes, roomy apartments with priceless vistas over the Hudson River, trendy restaurants, name-brand shopping, and seasonal waterfront events to take advantage of the new park and facilities that had been built under the auspices and sponsorship of the Mackey brokerage firm.

And now it was time to bring in big business, to offer them what they were finding on the other side of the Hudson—low-cost space and lower taxes—and that was to be Regan’s purview. That was what she was celebrating: increased responsibility, more money, and the excitement of the chase.

Especially more money. And the chase. She just loved the chase. There was something about getting there first and closing the deal that was as satisfying as good sex. And thank heaven for that, because there hadn’t been any good sex for a long time.

Not that there hadn’t been offers. Not that she wasn’t looking.

She shook off the thought. Not to think about that now. She took the elegant Mascolo bag from the salesperson. “Ang…”

“I’m there.”

And that was the eloquent punctuation that defined her relationship to her former sister-in-law: Angie was there, always there, never ever talking about Bobby, never taking sides, somehow keeping her brother separate from her friendship with his ex-wife, and how she’d done it all these years, Regan didn’t know. But they never talked about Bobby, and she had to assume that Angie didn’t talk to Bobby about her, either.

If Bobby ever came for a visit, Regan never knew about it. He had been discreet and invisible since the divorce. The stormy year she’d spent with him seemed, in retrospect, like a bad novel she’d read, and she’d had no contact with his family, barring Angie, in all that time.

“You have a dress to wear with those stilts?” Angie asked as they walked briskly toward the subway.

“What time am I supposed to be at Mary’s?”

“Six o’clock for drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Buffet dinner at seven-fifteenish. I think there’s a cake. You know Mary. If she can go over the top, she’ll jump the barricade.”

“She’s Tony’s sister.”

“She’d like to be your
other
sister-in-law,” Angie said trenchantly.

Regan knew it. It was nothing they hadn’t discussed many times before. Nothing Angie hadn’t said before, either. But tonight was tonight: the crest of a rolling wave of new money and increased interest in the Heights, and a time when they were all euphoric over annual sales, and the possibility of major expansion into the commercial market.