All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas

by Suzanne Brockmann

  He came up to Sam now, and they shook hands.

  “That was nice,” Jones said. “The ceremony.”

  “Yeah,” Sam agreed as the photographer took a series of shots of Jules and Robin, hand in hand at the front of the church.

  “I used to…get freaked out by…” Jones shook his head.

  “Live and learn,” Sam said and Jones nodded.

  As they watched, the two grooms now got their picture taken with their collective families. For Robin that meant just Jane, Cosmo, Billy and Cos’s mom. But all of Jules’s cousins were there—he had seventeen of them, most much older, with families of their own. Jules had told Sam once that he wasn’t particularly close to most of his cousins, due to the age differences, but that they’d rallied around and supported him completely when he’d first come out. They’d also all gone to great efforts to attend this wedding, and their love for their little cousin was evident in the multitude of wide smiles.

  “Jules wants to do a group shot, so don’t go anywhere.” Sam turned at the sound of Alyssa’s voice.

  She was smiling a greeting at Jones. “Thank you for not assassinating anyone during the ceremony.”

  The man laughed aloud. “It was hard,” he teased back, “but I managed to control myself.”

  “I’m rounding up everyone from Troubleshooters Inc., and Team Sixteen, too,” Alyssa continued. “But Jules wanted to make sure you knew that he wouldn’t take it personally if you don’t want to be in the picture. He said to tell you that Jim Nash doesn’t do photos either, so…The words he used were Tell Jones it’s no biggie.”

  Jones nodded. “Typical of Cassidy,” he said. “Always watching out for his friends.” He straightened up from where he’d been leaning against one of the old-fashioned boxed pews. “I’ll go give the rest of the Florida contingent the heads-up.”

  “Thanks,” Alyssa said, and then her smile was all for Sam.

  He put his arm around her, unable to resist touching the swell of her belly where their baby was growing. And there they both stood for a moment, watching as the photographer set up the next shot, as Jules burst out laughing from something Robin had whispered into his ear.

  Max and Gina were nearby—Max holding little Emma in his arms. They laughed, too, as did Cosmo and Jane, who were holding Billy’s hands.

  The rest of the Troubleshooters team were gathering, as well as all the SEALs, and the joy in the church was a palpable thing.

  “May the greatness of life bring you peace,” Alyssa quietly repeated the words that the pastor had spoken. “And may your days be good and your lives be long upon this earth.” She turned to look up at Sam with a smile that was pure love. “In case you were wondering? My days are very, very good.”

  Sam greeted his wife with a kiss. “Mine are freakin’ great,” he told her, past a sudden huskiness in his throat.

  Laughing, Alyssa pulled him toward the front of the church, where their friends were waiting.

  “Do you miss having champagne at times like these?” Robin asked as the limo pulled away from the church.

  “Nope.” Jules didn’t hesitate as he brought Robin’s poor, battered hand to his lips and kissed him.

  “I’m glad,” Robin said. “Jeez, it looks like you married a boxer.”

  There had been a moment, during the ceremony, where Jules had worried that Robin wasn’t going to be able to get the wedding ring past his swollen knuckle. He’d pushed it on, and it must’ve hurt like hell, but he didn’t flinch—he just smiled.

  “Maybe you should take the ring off now,” Jules suggested, but Robin looked at him as if he were crazy. He laughed. “Or not.”

  Robin tugged him close and kissed him. Mmm. But then he reached out and brushed something from Jules’s hair.

  “Bird seed?” Jules asked, smiling up into Robin’s incredible eyes.

  “Yeah, mixed in with the plaster,” Robin said. “Jesus.”

  Jules laughed.

  “I am so sorry about that,” Robin said. “So, what’d you guys do on your honeymoon? Well, we patched and painted the master bath and bedroom.”

  “So what exactly was it,” Jules asked, “that you went back to the house to get?”

  Robin rolled his eyes. “It seems kind of stupid right now. Especially since…I feel like I need to take lessons in being romantic from your mother.”

  Jules gazed at him, just waiting.

  “That didn’t make sense, huh?” Robin asked.

  “Not much,” Jules agreed.

  “Your mother put all those candles and flowers in our room,” Robin reminded him. “It was…really beautiful. And romantic.”

  “And how that relates to whatever it was that you went back to get is…?” Jules let his voice trail off.

  “I was trying to be romantic,” Robin confessed. “So…” He dug in his bag and pulled out…

  He handed it to Jules—it was a CD case. He opened it. “A mix CD?”

  Robin went back to the house and got locked in the bathroom because he’d forgotten a mix CD?

  Robin obviously saw that Jules was struggling to comprehend, so he said, “The photos didn’t take half as long as we thought, and…it occurred to me that maybe we could, um, decompress here in the limo.”

  They’d purposely put some extra time between the ceremony and the start of the reception, in case the wedding photos took longer than they’d anticipated. They’d also thought it would be nice to have a little extra time to arrive at the restaurant before the crowd, so that they could…and yes, the word Jules had used was decompress.

  As he looked at that CD, he suspected Robin’s definition of decompress might be slightly different than his. Still, he took it out of the jewel case and put it into the CD player and…

  Jules laughed, because sure enough, “Hooked on a Feeling” was the first cut. That was the song that had been playing on the radio the first time he and Robin had made love. They’d been in a limo, just like this one.

  But only a dozen bars of the song played before it faded out, and another song started. It was “All Through the Night”—the old Cole Porter song with the haunting melody and even more haunting lyrics.

  All through the night I delight in your love…

  It was one of Jules’s favorite songs. He looked at Robin again, this time questioningly.

  “I figured, unless we did something about it, we would still be dancing to “Hooked on a Feeling” at our fiftieth wedding anniversary,” Robin told him quietly. “And maybe we will anyway, but…I thought, maybe, our first time making love now that we’re married…you might prefer a different soundtrack. So I made a mix CD of your favorite songs.”

  “You definitely don’t need lessons in being romantic,” Jules said, past his heart, which was wedged tightly in his throat.

  Robin wasn’t so sure. “Flowers, candles, the softest sheets in the universe, versus a mix CD to play while I jump you in the limo…?”

  “After promising to love me forever,” Jules reminded him. He kissed Robin—his lover, his best friend. His spouse. “Works for me.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I created the character of Jules Cassidy long before my son Jason came out, long before he was old enough to identify as gay, back when he was still just a little boy.

  But all those years ago, I suspected that Jason was gay (I had a few clues!), and as I looked around at the world, I could see that attitudes were changing in terms of acceptance and tolerance. But things weren’t changing fast enough for me.

  So I brought Jules Cassidy into the world of my Troubleshooters series, because not only do I believe that diversity is what makes America great, I wanted my readers to meet a gay man who was out and okay with himself—and a damn fine FBI agent, to boot.

  Jules’s first appearance in the series was in the second installment, The Defiant Hero. After that, he played a part—usually a major one—in nine of my eleven Troubleshooters books. And as the series grew, Jules grew, too.

  In the early book
s, Jules was in a serious relationship, but his partner, Adam, was only mentioned in passing. And then the terminally unfaithful Adam left Jules to go to Hollywood to try his luck at becoming a serious film actor.

  For the next several books, Jules nursed his broken heart, but finally, in Hot Target, he was forced to confront Adam again. He also met Robin Chadwick in that book—although at the time Robin was so deep in the closet he didn’t even know he was there. In Hot Target, Jules, entangled with both Adam and Robin, graduated from his role as witty gay sidekick and finally got his own romantic subplot, including a steamy kiss or two.

  And the world didn’t end.

  In fact, Hot Target not only hit the New York Times hardcover bestseller list, but was given the Borders Group award for Bestselling Hardcover Romance of the year.

  Late in 2006, I wrote this past summer’s release, Force of Nature, which featured Jules and Robin. This book was supposed to be the next installment in their ongoing story arc, but Robin surprised me. He mutinied and demanded his happy ending right away.

  I’ve dealt with unruly characters in the past, but this time (and it was the first time in forty-five books that this has happened to me!), no matter how much I threatened or cajoled, Robin would not compromise. I told him that I’d planned, in a few years, to write a romantic suspense where he and Jules were the two main characters. It would be one of the first mainstream romance novels where there was a hero and a hero instead of a hero and a heroine. It was, I told Robin (I often converse with my fictional characters), going to be an Important Book.

  But he just shook his head. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Jules, and he wanted that rest of his life to start immediately.

  In the end, I was the one who compromised. I let Force of Nature end the way Robin wanted it to end.

  Which brings us to January 2007.

  As a mother of a gay son, and as a Massachusetts resident, I’ve spent years supporting groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the Freedom to Marry Coalition, and MassEquality. I’ve donated both money and time. I’ve stood, one of thousands, shoulder to shoulder with my son, in candlelight vigils. I’ve fought against prejudice and ignorance, trying to open eyes and minds. And I’ve celebrated the milestones and victories, toasting the happiness of gay friends who, after decades of devotion and commitment, could finally be legally married.

  By the end of 2006, we thought we’d had the battle won. We thought that hope, tolerance, freedom, diversity and love, sweet love, had triumphed over ignorance, fear and hatred. But in January 2007, we found out that, like Frankenstein’s monster, the attempt to take away equal marriage rights had been brought raging back to life.

  And that’s when I got really angry.

  This is my son’s future we’re talking about. There are people out there who want to take away my son’s right to someday marry the person he loves, the right to have the kind of solid, legally recognized relationship that I’ve shared with my husband of twenty-four years. (One of these days I’ll write a blog about my idea of a truly invincible army made up of perimenopausal PFLAG moms. Don’t piss us off. We will kick your ass. Have a nice day.)

  So in January 2007, I decided to do something that my publisher had been urging me to do—write a holiday novella. I did it in somewhat record time, in order to have it ready for release this year. And I decided to continue Jules and Robin’s story and do what I’d originally intended—make them the hero and hero of a mainstream romance novel. I also decided to turn the concept of the holiday romance novella onto its ear by writing a story centered around Jules and Robin’s wedding, set in Boston.

  And I decided that every single penny I earned from this book, from now until the end of time—all advances, royalties, subrights, the whole enchilada—was going directly to MassEquality, an organization whose sole purpose is to preserve equal marriage rights in Massachusetts. Because enough is enough.

  I hope, with all my heart, that by the time you read these words, the battle will have been won, and the citizens of Massachusetts won’t be facing a ballot vote in which the majority gets to decide whether or not to take away the marriage rights of a minority group. (Could that really be possible in America…?) I fervently hope by the time you read this that my son’s right to marry will have been preserved.

  But if not, then I have this to say to the people who are rapidly becoming a minority themselves, people who don’t think that gay Americans should have the same rights as the rest of us—

  What part of love don’t you understand?

  To everyone else, to all the friends of Jules—past, present, and future—thank you for believing, and for helping to change the world.

  Happy Holidays,

  Suz Brockmann

  To MassEquality, for helping to make the dream a reality,

  To the people of Massachusetts, who’ve made our great state a beacon of light and hope, and a place where the words “freedom and justice for all” really do mean freedom and justice for ALL,

  And to all of the friends of Jules, everywhere.

  Your openness and acceptance made it possible for me to tell this story, and for that I am eternally grateful.

  Find out more about MassEquality at www.MassEquality.org

  OTHER TITLES BY SUZANNE BROCKMANN

  Force of Nature

  Into the Storm

  Breaking Point

  Hot Target

  Flashpoint

  Gone Too Far

  Into the Night

  Out of Control

  Over the Edge

  The Defiant Hero

  The Unsung Hero

  Bodyguard

  Heartthrob

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Since her explosion onto the publishing scene more than ten years ago, SUZANNE BROCKMANN has written more than forty books, and is now widely recognized as one of the leading voices in romantic suspense. Her work has earned her repeated appearances on the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists, as well as numerous awards, including Romance Writers of America’s #1 Favorite Book of the Year—three years running in 2000, 2001, and 2002—two RITA awards, and many Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards. Suzanne Brockmann lives west of Boston with her husband, author Ed Gaffney. Visit her website at www.suzannebrockmann.com.

  Want more pulse-pounding action? Don’t miss any of the exciting, sexy books in

  Suzanne Brockmann’s acclaimed Troubleshooters, Inc. series (in series order):

  The Unsung Hero

  The Defiant Hero

  Over the Edge

  Out of Control

  Into the Night

  Gone Too Far

  Flashpoint

  Hot Target

  Breaking Point

  Into the Storm

  Force of Nature

  All Through the Night

  Into the Fire

  Dark of Night

  Hot Pursuit

  Breaking the Rules

  When Tony Met Adam (e-short story)

  Headed for Trouble anthology, coming in 2012