All Through the Night Read Free

tried on a few occasions. It was where he’d rocked Kerry endlessly, telling her stories about how wishes always came true if you wished hard enough. And Kerry had probably believed him once, impressionable child that she was.
This was how she kept her grandparents’ memories alive, she realized, by staying. But she couldn’t tell Malcolm that.
“I’ll have noodle soup for lunch today,” she assured him. It was the kindest way she could think of to get him to leave. And she did need him to leave. He meant well, but he could get spookier than she was, if that was possible.
“Oh, sure, good,” he said, seeming to get her drift.
He turned toward the door, and Kerry saw the bouquet of tulips he’d been hiding behind his back. They were bright spring colors, pink and deep rose reds, sunny yellows and oranges. It wasn’t a bouquet, it was a rainbow.
“Tulips, Malcolm? Where did you find tulips in the middle of winter?”
Apparently her tenant had forgotten all about the flowers because his shoulders lifted in surprise. “The tulip store?”
Kerry did laugh at that, and when Malcolm turned around, his blue eyes were twinkling like stars. She accepted the flowers and thanked him warmly, but for the first time since Kerry had rented him the room, she wondered about her new tenant. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if it was possible that Malcolm was hiding something other than a bouquet of tulips.
She didn’t ask.
Kerry’s cordless phone had become the enemy. It sat on the enormous tower of mail-order catalogs that she’d been collecting since she started working out of her house, and it had begun to ring shortly after Malcolm left. She could have broken a Guinness record with the tower, she imagined. Kerry Houston, Catalog Queen. But that was beside the point.
Her ringing phone was the point. She knew exactly who was calling, which was why she hadn’t answered. She’d finally had the sense to turn down the volume, but that hadn’t turned off the emotion churning inside her.
One look at the Caller ID number had told her it was starting all over again. The Genesis Software people would not give up! Genesis was the company she’d left three months ago, under the most embarrassing of circumstances, but their human resources person kept calling and insisting that she come back. He’d offered her everything under the sun, including more money, big money. She’d actually bundled up today with the thought of going over there to negotiate a new employment contract, that’s how much damn money it was.
The man had tempted her, and she’d almost succumbed. But in point of fact, there wasn’t a salary big enough to pay for the humiliation she’d been through at Genesis. Even if she could get out her front door, she would never go back there.
She peeled off her hat and the parka, along with several layers of clothing, and piled it all in the leather rocker that sat next to the catalog tower. The weather wasn’t the only reason she’d bundled up. The bulk was meant to make a very average, five-feet four-inch woman look less vulnerable. If the local toughs thought she was an undersized hockey player, all the better.
She picked up the phone and dialed the software company’s number with purpose and resolve. She didn’t know the man who’d been calling as anything other than Phil in Human Resources, but she was ready for him when he came on the line. She didn’t even bother to introduce herself. He had to know her voice by now.
“I want you to stop calling me, Phil. I’m not coming back and I never will.”
“I’ve never called you Phil… and did you intend that to rhyme?”
Kerry smiled despite herself. Lucky for him that she had smiled or he might have gotten another verbal one-two. It also worked in his favor that he had a great voice. He was no Mr. Quick-Where’s-My-Vibrator, but his conversational tones were low and masculine and sort of steamy, like a pot on simmer. That might even be the reason she’d