could want to see in Japan is here.'
She stared at him, braving those insistent dark eyes, not certain what to think of him. He was quite the male animal, making his intentions known.
Joanna prided herself on her strength, not merely in business but in her emotional life. She seldom wept and never lost her temper. She valued self-control, and she was almost obsessively self-reliant. Always, she preferred to be the dominant partner in her relations with men, to choose when and how a friendship with a man would develop, to be the one who decided when - and if - they would become more than friends. She had her own ideas about the proper, desirable pace of a romance. Ordinarily she wouldn't have liked a man as direct as Alex Hunter, so she was surprised that she found his stylishly aggressive approach to be appealing.
Nevertheless, she pretended not to see that he was more than casually interested in her. She glanced around as if checking on the waiters and gauging the happiness of her customers, sipped the cognac, and said, 'You speak Japanese so well.'
He bowed his head an inch or two. 'Arigato.'
'Do itashimashite.'
'Languages are a hobby of mine,' he said. 'Like swing music. And good restaurants. Speaking of which, since the Moonglow is open only evenings, do you know a place that serves lunch?'
'In the next block. A lovely little restaurant built around a garden with a fountain. It's called Mizutani.'
'That sounds perfect. Shall we meet at Mizutani for lunch tomorrow?'
Joanna was startled by the question but even more surprised to hear herself answer without hesitation. 'Yes. That would be nice.'
'Noon?'
'Yes. Noon.'
She sensed that whatever happened between her and this unusual man, whether good or bad, would be entirely different from anything she'd experienced before.
----
5
The man with the steel fingers reaches for the hypodermic syringe
Joanna sat straight up in bed, soaked in perspiration, gasping for breath, clawing at the unyielding darkness before she regained control of herself and switched on the nightstand lamp.
She was alone.
She pushed back the covers and got out of bed with an urgency sparked by some deep-seated anxiety that she could not understand. She walked unsteadily to the center of the room and stood there, trembling in fear and confusion.
The air was cool and somehow wrong. She smelled a combination of strong antiseptics that hadn't been used in that room: ammonia, Lysol, alcohol, a pungent brew of germicidal substances unpleasant enough to make her eyes water. She drew a long breath, then another, but the vapors faded as she attempted to pinpoint their source.
When the stink was gone altogether, she reluctantly admitted that the odors hadn't actually existed. They were left over from the dream, figments of her imagination.
Or perhaps they were fragments of memory.
Although she had no recollection of ever having been seriously ill or injured, she half believed that once she must have been in a hospital room that had reeked with an abnormally powerful odor of antiseptics. A hospital in which something terrible had happened to her, something that was the cause of the repeating nightmare about the man with steel fingers.
Silly. But the dream always left her rattled and irrational.
She went into the bathroom and drew a glass of water from the tap. She returned to the bed, sat on the edge of it, drank the water, and then slipped under the covers once more. After a brief hesitation, she switched off the lamp.
Outside, in the predawn stillness, a bird cried. A large bird, a piercing cry. The flutter of wings. Past the window. Feathers brushing the glass. Then the bird sailed off into the night, its thin screams growing thinner, fainter.
----
6
Suddenly, as he sat in
She stared at him, braving those insistent dark eyes, not certain what to think of him. He was quite the male animal, making his intentions known.
Joanna prided herself on her strength, not merely in business but in her emotional life. She seldom wept and never lost her temper. She valued self-control, and she was almost obsessively self-reliant. Always, she preferred to be the dominant partner in her relations with men, to choose when and how a friendship with a man would develop, to be the one who decided when - and if - they would become more than friends. She had her own ideas about the proper, desirable pace of a romance. Ordinarily she wouldn't have liked a man as direct as Alex Hunter, so she was surprised that she found his stylishly aggressive approach to be appealing.
Nevertheless, she pretended not to see that he was more than casually interested in her. She glanced around as if checking on the waiters and gauging the happiness of her customers, sipped the cognac, and said, 'You speak Japanese so well.'
He bowed his head an inch or two. 'Arigato.'
'Do itashimashite.'
'Languages are a hobby of mine,' he said. 'Like swing music. And good restaurants. Speaking of which, since the Moonglow is open only evenings, do you know a place that serves lunch?'
'In the next block. A lovely little restaurant built around a garden with a fountain. It's called Mizutani.'
'That sounds perfect. Shall we meet at Mizutani for lunch tomorrow?'
Joanna was startled by the question but even more surprised to hear herself answer without hesitation. 'Yes. That would be nice.'
'Noon?'
'Yes. Noon.'
She sensed that whatever happened between her and this unusual man, whether good or bad, would be entirely different from anything she'd experienced before.
----
5
The man with the steel fingers reaches for the hypodermic syringe
Joanna sat straight up in bed, soaked in perspiration, gasping for breath, clawing at the unyielding darkness before she regained control of herself and switched on the nightstand lamp.
She was alone.
She pushed back the covers and got out of bed with an urgency sparked by some deep-seated anxiety that she could not understand. She walked unsteadily to the center of the room and stood there, trembling in fear and confusion.
The air was cool and somehow wrong. She smelled a combination of strong antiseptics that hadn't been used in that room: ammonia, Lysol, alcohol, a pungent brew of germicidal substances unpleasant enough to make her eyes water. She drew a long breath, then another, but the vapors faded as she attempted to pinpoint their source.
When the stink was gone altogether, she reluctantly admitted that the odors hadn't actually existed. They were left over from the dream, figments of her imagination.
Or perhaps they were fragments of memory.
Although she had no recollection of ever having been seriously ill or injured, she half believed that once she must have been in a hospital room that had reeked with an abnormally powerful odor of antiseptics. A hospital in which something terrible had happened to her, something that was the cause of the repeating nightmare about the man with steel fingers.
Silly. But the dream always left her rattled and irrational.
She went into the bathroom and drew a glass of water from the tap. She returned to the bed, sat on the edge of it, drank the water, and then slipped under the covers once more. After a brief hesitation, she switched off the lamp.
Outside, in the predawn stillness, a bird cried. A large bird, a piercing cry. The flutter of wings. Past the window. Feathers brushing the glass. Then the bird sailed off into the night, its thin screams growing thinner, fainter.
----
6
Suddenly, as he sat in
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