Kissing Corpses Read Online Free Page A

came around to open the door for me.
    The gallery was on the corner of an alley, next to a museum and just up the street from a bank and a Chinese food restaurant. There was soft jazz playing when we entered and people were standing around in cocktail dresses with glasses of wine. I was relieved that I had chosen dark denim jeans that looked a bit dressy with my scarf and coat thrown on, but I sorely wished I had showered between cleaning house and going to a cultured event like this one.
    “There are an awful lot of bronze bears,” I said, spewing out the first thing that came to mind.
    Rawdon nodded. He looked around the room, silently, sizing up every piece of art and each patron present. Finally he walked over to a pair of bronze sculptures of two women sitting on cubes. I followed him, glad to be out of the cold doorway. “This is the best piece in here,” he said.
    I looked around the room, but I found no piece to contest this statement. “It is.”
    “But I'm not shopping tonight.” Tension slipped out of his shoulders and he reached for my hand. Even though he was wearing those tight leather gloves, it still felt nice. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
    “Maybe one,” I said. “Free wine, right. Shouldn't pass that up.”
    We headed over to the bar. The server poured me a glass and then looked to Rawdon. “Oh, no, thank you, Miss. I'm not twenty-one. He put a tip in the jar on the bar and we made our rounds of the room as I sipped on the generous glass of red wine.
    We didn't spend very long in the gallery. There wasn't much to see outside of prairie paintings and bronze bears and rabbits. It wasn't that they weren't well-done, it was that they were ordinary. I imagined that most of these images would be reproduced or mimicked for a line of home accent at Target. I was itching to escape Cheyenne and find myself in some place like New York or San Francisco. I imagined that those cities didn't showcase ordinary art.
    We hadn't parked far from the gallery, but even that short walk in the brisk November air was uncomfortable. It was a relief to get back to Rawdon's car and feel the heated seat warming up. I was telling him about a book I read when he started the engine and as we pulled out of our tight parking space, he told me about a recent literary best seller that he had enjoyed.
    “That sounds really cool,” I said. “I'll have to read it.”
    “Would you like to borrow it?” he asked.
    “That would be great. I don't think I have the shelf space to own too many more books.”
    “Sounds like you need a Kindle,” Rawdon said. “I just bought one last week. I love it, but I have the physical copy of this book to lend out.” He put on his blinker to head in the opposite direction of my house.
    “Are we going to get it now?” I asked
    “Is that alright? You don't have to be in bed by a certain time, do you?”
    “No. It's fine. I can be out a little later.” I was going to be tired at work tomorrow.
    “Good.”
    We left the downtown area where Geneva and I lived and pulled up outside of a large house with stone siding and a red wood panel below the roof. It was a new construction with a sprawly, tidy lawn. I followed him to the front door and waited as he unlocked it.
    The front room was a large, open, floor plan with a living-room and kitchen connected by mock-wood laminate flooring. Beyond the kitchen was a doorway to a hall that must have lead to the basement and other bedrooms. Immediately to my left was a built-in shelf that held a number of expensive-looking objects. There was a painting of a woman on a miniature easel, a pair of Art Deco bronze cat bookends, and a collection of hand carved figurines. There was a working jukebox plugged in at the far corner of the room. Outside of a few of these kinds of oddities from various eras of American history, the rest of the house seemed to be decorated with modern furniture that mimicked a Victorian style. The sofa was off-white with a wood