Silver-Tongued Devil (Portland Devils Book 1)

by Rosalind James

“Stone’s nice, though.”

  That would be one way of describing it. Predominantly jade green, but with so much depth and richness to it.

  An enormous fireplace and chimney surround dominated one wall, the band of stone rising the entire two-story height of the ceiling. Pale green, gold, cream, black, and gray ran through every thick-tiled piece in complex patterns full of life and texture. The floor was more of the same material, and it was gorgeous.

  Those puke-green walls, though… at least the trim was painted a glossy white. But then there was the furniture. Couches and chairs in over-upholstered brown leather, with great rounded arms and tufted backs, like English club chairs on growth hormones. Coffee and side tables made of all sorts of terrible things, from reclaimed barrels banded in copper and covered with glass to barn-wood tabletops that looked like they’d give you splinters sitting on top of deer-antler bases. Drapery fabric in apple-green gingham falling in swags and pooling on the floor, and—to add a final touch of horror—topped by bows at the corners. And since there were a lot of windows, there was a lot of that fabric.

  All of it shouted “rustic retreat” in the most over-the-top way possible, like a stage set for “Annie Get Your Gun,” as if a troupe of yelling cowboys and square-dancing maidens would be bursting onto the scene at any moment and starting a hoedown. It was horrible.

  “Who the heck,” Dakota asked, “was this guy? And who was his decorator, Buffalo Bill?” You’d think she’d know, but there were plenty of rich people tucked into acreage on north Idaho’s scenic lake frontage. Either they flew in and out and took no part in the life of the town, or they descended on City Council meetings to offer the inbred backwoods dwellers the benefit of their insight. Those types were less popular.

  “Some investment banker from New York,” Blake said. “His wife wanted a cabin in the wilderness, but she decided it was a little too much wilderness after all, and they bought a place in Vail instead. I think they came out here about three times. So what do you think? Looking past the hideousness. You said color. You still sure about that? I don’t think my eyeballs can take much more color.”

  She turned in a circle. The view—you had to account for that, whatever you did inside here. The scene was so vibrant, it nearly came inside. Deep-green mountains reflected in silver-blue water across thirty feet of window. In the winter, it would be all grays, whites, and blacks, but the view would be just as dominant in this room.

  The enormous kitchen at one end seemed to have counters and breakfast bar made of something more subtle than the flooring, which was good. A barely-veined cream-colored granite, she found when she went closer. Whoever had designed the house originally had had taste, even if the person painting and decorating it hadn’t had one bit.

  She crouched to study the flooring more carefully, running a hand along one of the veins of sand-colored rock that interrupted the predominant green. Blake, to his credit, didn’t say anything, just waited.

  “I think,” she finally said, “you want a taupe. Do what they did here, pick up a color in the stone, but the right color that won’t compete for your attention, so you keep the focus on the natural materials and not the décor, and then you choose harmonizing textures and colors in your furnishings. Taupe.”

  “I hear… words words words,” Blake said. “And damned if I know what taupe is. Is that like tan? I don’t want tan.”

  “No. It’s taupe. And I know you can’t be as much of a Philistine as that. You’re building that resort. You liked this house. Clearly, you know what you want.”

  “Usually,” he said, and she looked up at him standing over her and got a little… breathless.

  She pulled a Pantone color deck from her bag and fanned it out for him against the stone floor. Get it together. Color. “Here. This.”

  “I can’t tell.” He crouched down beside her and touched first one tiny block of color, then the next, his hand brushing hers.

  “It’ll give you warmth,” she went on desperately, “especially if we keep it light but do a touch of red in it, give it a slight rose undertone. Then you do some browns, some mushroom, some splashes of pale gold in your decorating, in your window treatments. You warm it all up, make this big space cozy just with color. Subtle, but warm. Restful and masculine. The opposite of what it is now.”

  “Rose undertone?” His eyes were amused. Warmth was the word, all right. “Are you paintin’ my house pink, darlin’?”

  She sighed. “All that, and that’s what you heard?” She didn’t mention the “darlin’.” He couldn’t help it, or he didn’t want to. And maybe she didn’t hate it. “I’m not painting it pink. Your testosterone levels will remain intact. Hey, you want the whole thing in Decorator’s White, we’ll do it. You could’ve just gotten Evan out here for that, though. No need for my talents. You’d be speaking each others’ language. ‘White,’ you could grunt at each other with manly nods. You’d be getting Navajo white, max. That’s about as frisky as Evan gets.”

  “Navajo White, huh? You know, that’s exactly what you remind me of. How you look, how you act…”

  He was looking at her, not the walls, and definitely not the fan deck. Crouching so close to her, she could smell the scent of him. Warm, clean cotton, and something else, too. Something faintly spicy. Soap or shaving cream, maybe, except he hadn’t used shaving cream this morning. He still had that dark stubble going on, and he was all firm lips and square jaw, warm eyes and no smile. Broad shoulders and a forearm, thick with corded muscle, resting on a lean thigh.

  It took a minute to realize what he’d said. When she did, the blood drained from her head. “Pardon?”

  “You’re part Indian, aren’t you?”

  She stood up fast. “Show me the rest of the house. Taupe’s a good basic color, but if you want some variation, we can do that. Maybe in the bedrooms.”

  “Wait.” He put a hand on her arm, and then, when she looked down at it, took it off. “What did I say?”

  “How I act?” She wasn’t doing very well on her customer management. Her professionalism was all over the place, and she couldn’t help it. “Part Indian? Why don’t you just call me a squaw and get it all out there?”

  “What? Oh.” He looked truly discomfited, and she tried not to let that bother her. “Sorry. I’m so used to the NFL, to being in such a…”

  “A diverse environment,” she finished. “So it’s not possible for you to say a racist thing. You’re just honest, that’s all.”

  “Well, yeah.” He wasn’t as cool as usual, either. “I’m used to saying what I think, and to everybody else saying it back. Which you’re doing, if I can point that out.”

  “You don’t have to be politically correct, because it’s stupid, and anyway, you’re the boss. Just like you were the quarterback. You’re in charge, and other people can just get over it if they’re going to be that sensitive.”

  His eyes were hard now, his mouth set. “Right, it was rude of me to ask you about your ethnic background. I apologize. But the way you see those birds and the flowers you make, the way you see this stone… it all fell into place. I wasn’t judging you or calling you names. I was just trying to get at why you’re the way you are. It was a compliment.”

  “You think you’re doing better,” she said, “and you’re digging yourself in deeper. There’s not actually an Indian gene for ‘appreciation of nature.’”

  “All right. I stand corrected. I stand pretty damn embarrassed, too.”

  She shot a quick look at him. He actually seemed like he meant it. He went on, “Maybe you could come sit down in my ugly green kitchen and have a cup of coffee with me and tell me why that stung so bad. And before you answer, I’ll say one more thing. Maybe I said it because I’ve been thinking too much about how you look. It’s different, and I like it, and I keep noticing it. You could say it’s been at the forefront of my mind.”

  He’d actually thought for a minute that she was going to turn around and walk out. Walk out on the job and the money, e
ven though she needed it, and badly, and he knew why. What he’d said still didn’t seem so terrible to him, but for some reason, it had been. It had hurt.

  She didn’t exactly leap into his arms at his apology. Instead, she stood for a second, hovering like a dragonfly poised over a pond, ready to dart away. She was solid, and she was quicksilver. Both things. And he was holding his breath.

  “Nothing to talk about,” she finally said. “Show me the upstairs, if you don’t mind.”

  The ease, the responsiveness he’d felt while she’d been crouched beside him, his hand brushing hers—they were gone. She’d dressed for distance today, and he wanted the other Dakota again. The one in the ugly swimsuit and the messy hair, the one who laughed at him and teased him back. Even the one who faced him down and gave him a piece of her mind with all that passion he wasn’t supposed to talk about.

  He wasn’t getting that Dakota, clearly. “Sure,” he said, and led her up the staircase, down the hallway, railed off from the great room downstairs but with the same view that had made him buy. He opened the double doors at the end of the hall and said, “Master. This is the other room I really care about.”

  She walked into the middle of the enormous room, glanced at the California king bed—which, yes, had legs made of sections of tree trunk, and a headboard of intertwining branches that was uncomfortable as hell—and he could see when she noticed the huge mirror hung on the wall to one side of the bed. She moved on hastily to the wraparound windows with their lake view that took up most of two walls, and the deck outside. Everything about her body language now said “tense,” as if she’d imagined that chase and tackle herself, as if she’d looked into that mirror and watched him taking her clothes off, had seen him behind her, kissing her neck as she’d knelt on the bed, and none of it had been a positive experience. And yet he’d swear…

  “Bathroom,” he said, indicating with his head. “Dressing room.”

  She went in and looked, and he didn’t follow her, because he could tell it would make her even more uneasy. Anyway, he knew what she’d be seeing. More of the stonework in the bathroom and double shower. She came back out of the bathroom again and said, “A gray, but a taupe gray, is what I’d do. White trim. Very crisp, very masculine, very simple, and it would be fine with this gray carpeting. I’d probably keep that for all the bedrooms and other rooms up here, whereas the hallway would be the same color as downstairs. You’ll harmonize, because you’ll have the shades of taupe, but it’s not all the same. Or we could do it all the same, if you’d rather.”

  “No,” he said. “Gray’s good.”

  She nodded. “Show me the rest of what’s up here to make sure.”

  He did, and then they went down to the bottom level, to a second office, the media room, the game room, and a fourth small bedroom and bath, all of them opening onto the lake view.

  “Taupe gray down here too,” she said when she was standing in the game room, which was dominated by a mahogany bar more suited to a drinking establishment and enough chairs and tables to set up your own sports bar, plus a pool table, another fireplace, and a TV that defined “big screen.” “At least that’s my suggestion.”

  “Go for it. Sounds good to me. Don’t you wonder one thing, though?”

  “What’s that?” she asked cautiously.

  “How much drinking do you really want to do?” He smiled at her, trying to get that ease back again. “That’s what I always wonder when I see houses with this much bar.”

  “Well, yeah,” she said. “It wouldn’t be what I’d do with the space, but people want to fill it up, I suppose. And I thought athletes and drinking basically went together.”

  “Not if you want to perform. And I do tend to want to perform. So what would you do?” He leaned a hip against the mahogany bar and took her in. Waist and hips and long legs in those cowboy boots. And when she turned around… yeah. Call him a dog, but he was still going to be looking at that. He could mind his manners, but he couldn’t mind his mind.

  “Me?” she said. “Well, pretty obvious. I’d use it as a studio. All this natural light, all this window space where you could hang your pieces, all the wall area for storage. Since I don’t have a teepee. And by the way? If you think that last thing was subtle, you’re wrong.”

  “Ah.” He rubbed his nose. “Yeah. Maybe I mentioned I was sorry about the Indian deal. And I’ll just say… you’re cutting me off at the knees here. All my best stuff, purely wasted.”

  “I’m keeping to the point. Which is to accept your apology.” She took a second, then said, “Maybe I overreacted, too. It’s just that around here, people say these things.”

  “To you.”

  “Yes. And my father was Lakota. At least so I hear. The reason for my name. It’s my mother’s fault that my last name is ‘Savage,’ but that didn’t help. And if you don’t mind, that’s all I’m going to say about that. I can send you a written estimate for the painting, or I can tell you right now, or both.”

  That was a whole lot to think about. “Tell me now.”

  “Five thousand two hundred fifty. Plus paint and materials.”

  He blinked. It wasn’t much, but it was a little on the high side for Idaho. “Yes,” she said, “you can get another estimate. Go get it from Steve Sawyer, or anybody else. It might be cheaper. It won’t be as good a job. Plus, there’s that rush fee.”

  His smile started slow and grew, and finally, she smiled back, let out her breath, and asked, “How’d I do?”

  “Darlin’, you did awesome. That’s what I’m talking about. And, yeah, I said the word again. Guess I’m a slow learner.”

  “Oh,” she said, “I don’t think so.”

  He was still grinning like a fool, and the planes and angles that made up her remarkable face had softened some, too. She looked great, though she’d look a whole lot better if he could take her hair down. He asked, “How about my flower and my eagle? Going to sell them to me?”

  “Oh. I wasn’t—” She cut herself off. “If you’re willing to pay what I’m asking.”

  “Tell me the damage. Tell me what to give you to get you started on the paint, too.” He pulled his checkbook and a pen out of his pocket. “Go.”

  “Twenty-four hundred for the eagle. Fifteen hundred for the iris. Thirty-nine hundred for both. No discount.” The words spilled out fast.

  “Now, how hard was that to say?” he asked, starting to write.

  “You’ll never know.”

  “Betcha I would.” He signed his name, ripped the check out of the book, and handed it over. “Paint.”

  “Um… five hundred twenty-five to start. Ten percent.” She was looking at the check, sounding breathless. “I’ll bill weekly, and bill separately for the paint. Pay within ten days on the labor, and you get a two-percent discount.”

  “That’s good business. That you, or Evan?”

  “Me.”

  He nodded and wrote the second check. She took it, too, folded it up with the other one, stuck it in her bag, and said, “Wow. I would’ve taken half that for the stained glass. I would’ve been thrilled to take half.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Here’s something to chew on. I would’ve paid double.”

  She was hanging onto her purse like the checks would blow away. “Don’t tell me that. It annoys me.”

  He laughed. “I’ll tell you this instead. I’m taking off this afternoon, and I won’t be back until Monday night. So if you want to get started right away, go for it. If I’ve got to wait for you to finish your glass piece, don’t tell me. It’ll annoy me to know I don’t come first with you.”

  She smiled sweetly at him. “But you know… I’ve decided I like annoying you. It’s a very powerful feeling.”

  Blake wished he could look at his watch. It was Monday. That much, he knew. He’d flown to Denver on Friday afternoon, then down to Dallas and on to Houston last night before returning to Wild Horse this afternoon. He’d come into the resort straight from the jet again, and he
had restless feet. And restless hands.

  He stood in the middle of the largest of the retail spaces at the resort, all blank white walls and echoing emptiness, frowned absently at Melody Farnsworth, and clicked the volume buttons on his phone up and down while his assistant Jennifer typed on her own phone beside him.

  “We’ve got leases signed and ready to go on all but a couple of the retail spaces,” Melody said. “And we’ve got a few companies on the fence for those. I’m confident they’ll be rented and set up by the time the resort opens, even though the time frame’s getting tight. To be honest, some of them have been a little hesitant about how much draw the resort will have in such an unknown area, although of course your celebrity and that NFL-studded opening weekend has helped to convince them.”

  Melody had a sheet of the straightest, shiniest dark hair you could imagine, and now, she smiled at him and shoved it back over her shoulder, where it fell into place in a way that seemed too perfect to be real.

  His ex-girlfriend Courtney had explained to him once in eye-glazing detail how you got your hair to do that. He’d zoned out, to be honest, as he did through most of Courtney’s beauty and fashion critiques, but it had started out with, “I was out at the mall today, and I’ve decided to do a post dedicated to hair improvement. Not maintenance—improvement. It’s an investment of an extra half-hour a day, a salon visit, and a couple hundred dollars a month, that’s all. Women would be surprised how fast it would pay off, because good-looking people always make more money. If women got that, maybe they wouldn’t let themselves go like they do. As it is, they let themselves go gray and gain weight and don’t update their makeup for the new season, and then they wonder why they don’t get ahead. It’s just grooming.”

  She’d followed up with specifics, but that was when he’d stopped listening. He’d been too busy imagining his mom or sister spending an extra couple hundred dollars a month on their hair and going to some website to figure out how to update their makeup for Spring.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t been quick enough—or been too blitzed on those pain pills—to catch that one when he and Courtney had gone to visit his folks over Christmas. And sure enough, his mother had skewered Courtney in the nicest possible way, starting with, “Is that the best use of a woman’s time, though, do you think?” and “I wonder if we don't have to be careful about telling women that their best path to success is focusing on their looks.” His sister had stared at Courtney as if she were analyzing her DNA and it was coming up lacking, and his dad had said, “You both make interesting points. Fascinating subject, grooming, all the way into prehistory. Now, the Egyptians…” And Courtney had cried in the bedroom later, telling him, “Your family hates me. I can tell.” And then there’d been his mother the next day, saying, “Honey, I don’t like to interfere, and of course you’ll choose your own partner, but…”