No Time Like Mardi Gras by Kimberly Lang Read Free Book Online Page A

would be a straight shot back to familiar territory. About two blocks to her left, she could see a traffic light and figured that had to be Canal Street, so she headed that way.
    Her head hurt, her ears were ringing, her heart was still pounding and her wrist was burning. She looked down to see that her watch was gone, the skin scratched and raw. It must have come off when Colin lost his grip.
    Colin. She nearly turned around, but good sense prevailed. The exodus from the Quarter would be nearly impossible for her to fight against, and if the police were clearing the streets, did that mean she could get in trouble by going back in? She really didn’t want to get arrested again.
    Automatically, she reached for her phone, only to realize she’d never gotten his number. She hadn’t needed to.
    She could go back to the Lucky Gator; surely someone there would know how to get in touch with him...
    What am I doing? It was bad enough she’d hooked up with Colin—who, now that she thought about it, she knew absolutely nothing about. She’d been enthralled and under his spell all day, but now that she was out of proximity, good sense came roaring back.
    As if she didn’t have enough going on right now. This was not how she needed to start off in a new city.
    It had been a fun day, one for the memory books, but it was probably best it had ended like this. She should take it as a sign, an omen, that like all the other Mardi Gras celebrations, it had ended at midnight.
    After all, the last thing she needed right now was to get involved with anyone. A new relationship of any sort had to be way down the priorities list, as she had to focus on the really important things right now.
    So she should probably just go home.
    Canal Street was a relief—still crowded, but the crowds were smaller and contained to the sidewalks. Without Colin’s energy to feed from, weariness settled in on her quickly, and her feet began to drag. In front of a hotel, she stopped a cab driver who had just dropped off guests and begged for a ride home, offering triple the fare. When he finally agreed, she sank into the back seat with a sigh.
    But what about Colin? He’d probably be worried about her, and she couldn’t just let it end like that. As the cab crawled slowly through traffic, she looked up the phone number for the Lucky Gator on her phone.
    The bar noise was so loud on the other end, the person who answered couldn’t hear her, no matter how much she shouted—earning her sour looks from the cab driver. She tried three more times on the drive home, finally getting the answering machine on the fourth try. “I’m trying to get a message to Colin, um...” She searched her memory banks for his last name. Sweet mercy, you had sex with the man and can’t even remember his last name. “Colin, the bartender. This is Jamie, and I just wanted him to know that I’m okay and made it home safely. I’ll—” The machine beeped and cut her off.
    She cursed, telling the machine exactly what it could do to itself in graphic terms, earning her another sour look from the driver. But he was easing to a stop in front of Kelsey’s building, and Jamie figured that the signs were piling up, unable to be ignored. She paid the driver with the emergency fifty she’d stashed in her sock that morning and climbed the steps with heavy feet.
    Only to find that her key had been lost somewhere in the Quarter, Kelsey wasn’t answering the bell and her phone went immediately to voice mail. Near tears, Jamie sat on the stoop and dropped her head into her hands.
    Oh, yeah. This had to be a sign.
    * * *
    Rainstorm Games had a carefully cultivated image as an exciting and dynamic company on the cutting edge of gaming. They had a wall full of awards celebrating their creativity and innovation, but on days like today, Colin missed those days when he and Eric had been holed up in that tiny hellhole of an apartment, building worlds for fun, but not necessarily profit.
    Not that he