She did, finally, but after a minute, she said, “So your attorney said no.”
“Yep. Told me I’d be as much as admitting liability. I pointed out that it was workers’ comp, the investigation is over, and that’s that, no liability possible, but she still didn’t like it.”
“And you said…” She cut a piece of chicken and studied him like she was a human lie-detector test.
“And I said the same thing I told my HR director. Thanks for her advice, and I was doing it anyway. I’m the boss, you see. I get to do that.”
“Oh.” He thought she might be breathing a little faster. “So… what?”
“So in about a month here, you and Russ go down to LA and talk to Dr. Fischer, see what he can do. And then, assuming that’s ‘anything at all,’ Russ goes down there again and gets it done.”
“And you’re going to pay for it? How could you do that?”
“I sure am. With a check, probably. And before you ask—yeah, that means your time off and a place to stay and all that. If it’s my fault, it’s on me to fix, and that’s it.”
She was definitely having difficulty with her breathing now, and she’d stopped eating again, too. “You make it so hard to hate you,” she said, sounding truly sad about it.
This time, he laughed. “Well, darlin’, let me keep working on it, and I’m sure you’ll find yourself moving past that obstacle and finding yourself some reason. But it’s not going to be this one. I’m guessing Russ isn’t going to want to be beholden, so I’m going to need your help. Or could be he’s going to worry about my motives, so I thought I’d better go right to the source on that.”
“Uh-huh.” She was eating again, and he thought she was smiling. “He’s going to ask you about your intentions like some kind of old movie, and you don’t want to squirm. Let me put your mind at rest. I already told him I wasn’t prostituting myself for him. I told him fifty bucks a shot doesn’t go that far. I’d never pay it off.”
He realized that his mouth was open and snapped it shut. She was still eating, and she didn’t look one bit vulnerable now. This was all badass. “What am I supposed to say to that?” he complained. “That it’d be a whole lot more than fifty? That’s what we call a no-win conversation. That’s a big ol’ pit that a man would never climb out of.”
“I know.” She was trying not to smile, but she wasn’t succeeding. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it. You reminded me, that’s all. But you’d really do that? What if they can’t fix it with surgery?”
“Then we tried, and I get a physical therapist for him, get him a better doctor, get him to the pain clinic to see what they can do for him without narcotics. I do what I can, is what. I do what I ought to do.”
She’d stopped smiling. She was holding her plate on one knee, but she took the other hand and set it on his forearm, and her expression was completely serious, and somehow… shining. That golden glow he’d only seen when she’d been talking about her art—that was what he was getting now. That glow was something special. Something beautiful.
“I shouldn’t have joked,” she said. “I guess I was trying to make it less… to feel less about it. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know anybody who’d do something like this. This is… you don’t know what it’ll mean to Russ. You don’t know how hard he’s had to fight.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. She hadn’t let go of him, and he wanted her right there. “I do. You think I don’t see him, the man he is, and you’re wrong. He’s a hell of a guy.”
“He took me in, you know.” Her eyes were bright, and their legs were so close, they were almost touching. He could feel every bit of her spirit, the shining core of her, and it was pulling him closer as if he were magnetized. “Before our mom dumped us on him—Riley and me—Russ went to the tavern every day after work. He didn’t go to work drunk, but he spent every night drunk. I bet that’s not news to you. I bet you heard that already.”
“I did. But people don’t have to stay stuck in what they used to be.”
“No. Maybe not. He was what they call a functional alcoholic, but he’s not one now. Or rather—he’d say he still is, but he fights that fight and wins it every single day. And you know why? Because they said he couldn’t keep me. He could keep Riley. He was Riley’s dad. But I was a girl, I was fifteen, and I wasn’t his, and that’s a recipe for risk. He had to go to court to be my guardian, and they said no. I was in foster care for months until he could prove he was able to stay sober, and if it hadn’t been for Riley…” She stopped, maybe because her voice wasn’t steady anymore. “Russell did that, and I know it was the hardest thing he ever did. He did it for Riley, and he did it for me. Do you know how much that means to me?”
Somehow, her legs were touching his now, or his were touching hers. She still had her hand on him, too. She was right there, and he was going to drown in her eyes, in her passion.
“I know how much,” he said. “I’m adopted.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh. I didn’t… I didn’t know that. I thought—”
“That everything had been easy. You aren’t wrong. Everything has been easy. It’s just that I know how lucky I am that it has been.”
“It can’t have been. You must have worked so hard.”
“I’d have told you I did. But when you can see the rewards right there, when you can see it all falling in your lap if you just keep pushing… that’s not the same as working for it when there’s nothing falling in your lap, when those rewards aren’t coming, when you’re fighting just to keep your head above water. It’s not the same at all. Not the same as what Russell’s doing. Or what you’re doing for him.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Wow,” was what she finally came up with. “Uh… I’m doing a serious re-think here.”
He smiled. “Nah. I’m still that guy you thought. But maybe I know I’m that guy.”
“No. You’re not the guy I thought.” She seemed to realize for the first time that she was pressed up close to him, holding him, because she sat back, tried to laugh, and said, “And thanks. For Russell… thanks. Even if it doesn’t work out, even if he can’t get better, thank you for being willing to try.”
He could see her pulling back into her shell again, and he couldn’t stand it. “Know what I’ve got upstairs?” he asked.
“Oh, geez. I can’t wait. The mind boggles. You know, you don’t have to convince me that you’re not a great guy. I could preserve my illusions.”
He laughed out loud. “I’ve got a swimsuit, that’s what. I’ll bet you do, too. If you didn’t have to look at my undershorts, maybe you’d put on that truly terrible swimsuit of yours and jump off my dock with me. I got all tired there, all that scary emotion. I need something to perk me up and somebody to break the rules with, or else I need a beer.”
“What rules?”
“Sign right there on the dock. No diving.”
“There is not.”
“There is. There purely is.”
“You can’t break the rules in your own house,” she protested, but she was laughing. “Speaking of which, I still have two-thirds of that house to go, and I’ve got this ruthless employer. You should see him crack the whip.”
There she was, teasing, and she still had those two little rings and that chain in her ear. She still had that mouth, too. And he wanted to go swimming with her. “Well,” he said, “you’re in luck, because I’m heading out again tonight and not coming back until Tuesday morning. You can finish your shell and paint my house this weekend, get all caught up. You’ve just got to promise me that you’ll show me the shell when you’re done. I get first dibs.”
“It’s pink.” She was looking at him from under her lashes, and wasn’t that a beautiful sight? “It could be a little sexy, too. It’s sort of looking into the… interior. It’s, ah… smooth. And pink. Like I said.”
His smile started slow, and that glow was more of a spark now, moving right up toward “flame.” He said, “That does sound mighty unappealing, dar
lin’. But I still get dibs.”
The nagging little voice in Dakota’s ear tried to buzz at her while she changed into her suit, but she shut it out. She didn’t care what that voice said. It was just a swim. The lake was out there beckoning, she was hot, and Blake hadn’t done one thing to try to make her stay on Monday. He’d let her choose, and he was letting her choose now. He was a guy who could hear “no.” And he was going to take care of Russ.
Plus, he was fun. She was allowed to have fun.
She didn’t see him when she came out of the bathroom, but when she headed down to the first floor of the house and out to the lake, there he was, already in the water. She headed down there, relishing the cool grass under her toes, moving more cautiously over the sun-heated boards of the dock. And when she dropped her swim bag and took off her glasses, he called out, “Come on, Dakota. Show me how it’s done.”
Forget caution. She backed up, got a running start, leaped out as far as she could, hit the cold water and felt every bit of the shock of it, came up laughing, and told Blake, “Whoa. That’ll wake you up.”
She didn’t hang around and talk to him, though. The water was still cold, after all, or maybe she just needed the release. She swam hard all the way around the point that separated Blake’s house from the next one along the lakefront, and then back again. She didn’t bother to check whether he was coming, but she saw him powering past her, moving smoothly, swimming the same way she was. Like he wasn’t messing around. Except that he was faster.
When she got back to the dock again and turned in a circle, he was still with her. She swam over to the dock and pulled herself up, then grabbed for her glasses. Which was why she was able to watch him getting out. He put two palms on the wood of the dock, shoved up with a flash of ridged muscle in arms and shoulders, and was out of the water with a grace she could only envy.
“Whoa,” she said, rubbing a towel over her hair, then wrapping it around her waist. “You’re pretty good at that.”
“What, swimming? So are you.” He slicked his wet hair back with one hand, but didn’t go for a towel. He just stood there, tall and lean, his swim trunks riding low on his hips, showing her that vee of muscle again. Maybe he could tell she was looking, because he smiled at her, sweet and slow, and just like that, she was heating up.
She said, “I was mostly talking about the way you got out.” She was teasing. She knew it, and she didn’t care.
“Well, now, darlin’,” he said, his voice and accent both deepening, that dark-molasses sound that made her knees weak, “I could say the same thing, except that my mama raised me to be a gentleman.”
“Oh. That’s very smooth.” She was tingling from the way he looked, and how he looked at her, but she was laughing, too. “That supposed to be a comment about what? My legs? My butt? Let’s say that I know it’s a view. You could call it a panorama. Probably too much of one.”
“Oh, no.” He was still smiling, but the smile had changed some. “That’s not too much. That’s a Southern boy’s hello-baby. That’s biscuits and gravy you got going on there. That’s a long, slow good time, sweet tea in the porch swing and your sweetheart in a pretty little dress, shoving off with her bare foot and giving you that come-on-boy smile. That’s bourbon and Coke and Friday night, is what that is.”
Wow. She held onto her cool, but it wasn’t easy. “Huh. That was pretty good. That’s your Southern-gentleman description of my… assets?”
“Oh, yeah. I can do a whole lot better, though. Want to hear it?”
“Ah… we’ll call that a ‘no.’”
He sighed. “That’s mighty disappointing, but I’ll get over it in a second. Come on, wild thing. Let’s go up and get some iced tea, now that you got me all thirsty for it, sit for a couple minutes.”
“I should get back to work.”
“So should I. Fifteen minutes.”
She did it, too. He didn’t change out of his suit, and neither did she. He leaned back in the same chair where he’d eaten lunch, and she put her towel on the chaise, but this time, she lay back in it. She pushed a knee up like a bathing beauty, then had to laugh at herself. She so was not.
“You know,” she said, putting her arm up over her head and letting the sun bake her a little, “you’ve got quite the way of making a woman feel good.”
He turned his head to grin at her. His hands were laced behind his head, his ankles crossed. Biceps and abs and chest, all right there on display, but he didn’t look like he was posing. He just had it all to show, like he couldn’t help it. And then there was the long red line of a healing scar down the middle of his right knee. That was a show, too. A different kind of show. “Well, Miss Dakota,” he said, “we aim to please.”
She tried not to shiver. “So what do you think of your house?” she asked, going for safer territory.
“I think it looks real good. Can’t wait to see my eagle hanging up in that window.”
“Mm. That’ll be today, if you don’t waste too much of my time here. If you’re leaving tonight, I’ll do your bedroom and bathroom, all that, before you get back. They’ll take a while.”
“You can hang my flower, too. I do want my flower.”
“You want to show me where?” she asked. “Lots of people put them in the master bath. A little more… private.”
“Oh, no. I want my flower in the bedroom. Maybe I’ll put my shell in the bathroom, though.”
“You’re pretty confident you want it.” Her voice was languid. The exercise, the sun’s rays, Blake’s voice… they were all doing their best to melt her bones.
“I do tend to run that way,” he said. “Confident. And, ah… I tend to know what I want. But I already told you that.”
She fought the shiver again, and he went on. “If you do my bedroom over the weekend, though, you won’t be able to finish your shell. That’s what we call a dilemma, because I want both.”
“You can have both,” she found herself promising. “If you’re not back until Tuesday? I’ll make sure you get both. If you can meet my price on the shell, of course.”
“I’ll meet your price.”
“Sight unseen?”
“Yeah. Sight unseen. Because I know what that’ll do for you. It won’t make you slack off. It’ll make you even more determined to make it your best. That shell’s a passion project all the way around, and I’ve seen your passion projects. It’s going to be something special, and I want it.”
She hummed, because he was right, and because she was getting sleepy. He asked, “Is that what you’d do if you could do anything you wanted? Glass?’
“Sure.”
“So tell me,” he said. “What’s your perfect life?”
She looked out on the lake, the cedars, the mountains, drifted a little on the warmth, and finally said, “I guess it would be spending it in beautiful places. Traveling, seeing things. I’ve been to Seattle. I’ve lived in Portland, and a few other places when I was a kid. Nowhere I’d ever want to visit again. Now I want to see all the beautiful spots. Snorkeling from the beach in Tahiti. Walking through Paris in the rain. Flying over the Rift Valley in Africa with flocks of flamingos in the sky. Hiking through the jungle in Costa Rica, in the middle of the rainforest trees and the vines, the birds and monkeys and insects, where the air’s so warm and humid and filled with sound, it’s like you can touch it. I want to see all that, I want to explore it all, and I want to make glass from what I’ve seen. That’s my dream life. Emphasis on ‘dream.’”
“Scenes?” he asked. “Like painting? Or birds, or what?”
“Maybe those things. And maybe something else, because I don’t think you can capture all that in glass, not literally. It might be more abstract, but still with that representational element. Using texture and colors to create something that feels like the place, like the feeling it gave me. Pushing my own limits. Trying, and being scared I can’t do it. Failing, sometimes, and then, other times—creating something that makes me catch my breath. Where I can say, ‘I
did that. I went out that limb, and it worked.’”
“Doesn’t sound like much of that dream is about money,” he said after a minute. “Or being famous.”
She felt a stab of impatience. “Sure it is. It’s all about money. The luxury of doing what I want, going where I want? That’s money, because there’s Russ, and there’s life. And it’s not about famous, but is it about people loving what I do? Yeah, it’s that. Loving it enough to pay for it, loving to have it hanging in their houses. It’s hard, because it’s not ‘art.’ It’s craft. And nobody does craft to get rich. But it’s what I love.”
He didn’t say anything, and she turned her head and looked at him. He still had his hands behind his head, but his expression was serious. Thoughtful. She asked, “So what about you? What’s your dream life?”
He shifted position and looked away from her, out to the lake. “I had it.”
The words hung there, a cold dash of water on this hot day. She said, “Football.”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t know everything in the world, but she knew something about men. She knew Evan, and she knew Russ. Sometimes, a man needed to talk it out, and he couldn’t talk to another man. He needed a woman for that, so he didn’t have to worry about being strong, about being tough. He needed to let down his guard, and for that? He needed a woman. “What was special about it?” she asked quietly, not looking at him. Trying her best to show him that she was safe ground, the same way he’d just been for her.
“Oh, I don’t know. How about everything? You don’t really get it until you don’t have it. Being part of a team, I guess. That’s the big one. You can say it’s the same in business, but it’s not.”
“Quarterback,” she said. “That’s a little bit the same, I’d think.”
“No. It isn’t. I wasn’t the boss, I was just one of the leaders. There’s a big difference. When you’re on a football team, you—everybody—you’re not trying to win for your paycheck, for your ego. You’re doing it for the guy next to you, and the guy next to him. You know all you can do is your job, but you know that offensive lineman is doing his, too, that he’s putting his body between you and the sack. He’s got your back, and you’ve got his. Even if it’s a defensive player, a special teams player. You’re in it together, doing it for each other, winning or losing together. You can’t get that in business. Not possible.”
Silver-Tongued Devil (Portland Devils Book 1) Page 15
