All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas Read Online Free Page B

All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas
Book: All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas Read Online Free
Author: Suzanne Brockmann
Tags: Fiction
Pages:
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something to eat.”
    Jules was breathing slowly and steadily. He’d been tired before the fireworks—good word for it—and now he was completely wrung out. Robin leaned over and kissed him gently on the forehead before standing up.
    â€œThanks,” he said, even though he was thinking,
A sandwich with Sam. Oh, boy.
Sam was even scarier than Alyssa. He had this way of looking at Robin as if he were fresh birdcrap on the windshield of his recently detailed sports car.
    Still, Robin was going to have to sit down and have a conversation with the big former SEAL one of these days. Why not right now?
    He grabbed his jacket as he crossed to the slider. But before he got there, Alyssa said, “Hey, Robin?”
    He turned to look at her in the dimness.
    â€œI understand, too,” she said. “How much you love Jules. And for the record? I think it’s great. He’s been waiting for you, his entire life.”
    â€œThat means a lot to me,” Robin managed to choke out, and great. Now as he pushed past the closed drapes and stepped out into the chill of the balcony, he had fricking tears in his eyes.
    Sam had the light on out there, and as Robin closed the slider behind him, the former SEAL put down the book he’d been reading.
    And there it was, that birdcrap-on-the-windshield withering look.
    Jesus, Robin needed a drink.
    And okay. Great. Maybe this wasn’t the right time for this altercation, if it meant he was going to start thinking
that
kind of bullshit.
    â€œAlyssa said there were sandwiches?” Robin made it a question, but there was an obvious deli bag on the table next to Sam. Maybe the man would just point to it, and let Robin eat in silence, after which he’d go back inside and curl up in that bed, with his arms around Jules.
    And sure enough, Sam pointed. But he also said in his Texas cowboy drawl, “Turkey and swiss, roast beef, or veggie wrap. I wasn’t sure what you’d want.”
    â€œTurkey’s perfect,” Robin said, digging through the bag. “Thank you so much.”
    â€œThere’s soda, too.” And there was, indeed, a second bag on the floor. “Or bottled water. Have a seat.”
    Robin sat, because that was an order, not a request. But he’d never been particularly good with authority, which was probably why he said, “No beer or wine coolers, huh?”
    And okay. He was now disgusting purple birdcrap.
    â€œI’m curious,” Sam said when he finally spoke. “Why do you think that’s funny? Because I don’t find it funny at all.”
    â€œIt’s not funny,” Robin agreed. “You scare the hell out of me, and not just because you could probably kill me with your pinky finger. I’m well aware that you don’t like me—for good reasons and…You know, I could really use a meeting.” He looked up from his sandwich and said around it, “Alcoholics Anonymous. I go. A lot.”
    â€œI know what a meeting is.” Sam managed to look even more annoyed. “I’ve been to plenty. Both AA and Al-Anon.”
    Robin just looked at him.
    Sam shrugged. “My mother,” he said. “She’s been sober for over a decade. She’s still involved in the program, so yeah, I’ve been to my share of meetings.”
    â€œI didn’t know that,” Robin said.
    â€œJules told me,” Sam said, “that
your
mom didn’t make it.”
    This was surreal. Of all the topics to broach among relative strangers…Still, Robin managed to nod. “DUI and DOA when I was eleven.”
    â€œFuck.” The word was heartfelt.
    â€œShe left me long before that,” Robin said. For years, he’d said those same words, but it was only recently, after going through rehab and fighting to stay sober, that he really understood what it meant.
    Sam put his cowboy-booted feet up on a little side table. Clunk and clunk. “My mother pretty much

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