Silver-Tongued Devil (Portland Devils Book 1)

by Rosalind James

  “You know the answer to that,” Evan said. “Why? You need some help?”

  “Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind coming over for an hour and giving me a hand to hang the storage unit Russ built me. I hate to ask, but otherwise, he’ll insist on helping me, and you know how much that’d hurt.”

  “You got it. I’ll do it tonight, if you want. My mom took Gracie up to Sandpoint to visit a friend. Not back till late.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He wasn’t looking at her; just carefully folding dropcloths. “That’s exciting for you, then. Been a while since you had an evening off dad duty, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good or bad?” she asked cautiously.

  “Hard to say. I haven’t really thought about it.”

  That was a soliloquy for Evan. He hadn’t said as much as that when April had taken off four months ago, practically on their way home from the hospital. He’d just moved the crib into his bedroom and gotten on with it by himself. With his mom’s help, but they’d always been going to need that. April hadn’t exactly been mother material. “Fragile” was one word. “Needy” was another.

  “You know,” Dakota said, “I keep thinking I can’t find a good guy. But there you are right next to me, and about the best guy I know. So why aren’t we having wild monkey sex?”

  He glanced at her, and she didn’t need to be a psychologist to read the alarm in his eyes. “Uh…”

  She sighed. “Never mind. Slow the heart rate down. I know—we don’t love each other that way. But how come?”

  “Because you were Riley’s sister. Little sister.”

  “Riley’s been gone eight years.” Even now, it hurt to say it. “But we were both involved with other people. At least at times.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I’m not your type,” she finished for him, since he’d never say it.

  She was right. He just looked at her and shrugged.

  “Huh,” she said. “I should probably feel all defeated, but I don’t. If I examine my feelings, I’m sort of relieved. I don’t need to wonder if there’ll be any weird awkwardness. I know we can stay comfortable.”

  “Maybe that’s why,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You’re always examining your feelings.”

  “Evan. That’s women. We do that.”

  “Kind of pointless. There they are anyway. Why look at them that hard? Just makes you feel worse if they’re bad. And if they’re good, you already know it, because you feel good.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. “Well, that’s true. And yet I persist in being female. So you know what? Since I know you won’t do it on your own—let’s go out. I’ll buy you a beer at Heart of the Lake. We could check it out.” The new wine bar-slash-restaurant was the hot ticket in town, opened in anticipation of the resort’s higher-end customer base. “They’re bound to have craft beer, since I know you won’t drink wine. Or hey, you know what—we’ve both been strapped down so tight, and we’re sending in that final bill next week. I’ll buy you dinner. Call it Dad’s First Night Out.”

  He glanced at her sidelong, then returned to hammering tops onto paint buckets. “I heard their food’s weird.”

  “Kale pizza,” she agreed. “I looked. Quinoa. Huckleberry sauce on the venison.”

  “See, that’s just wrong. Fruit and meat don’t go together.”

  “If I get you plain cheese pizza, instructing them to leave off the kale and the strange mushrooms and any other suspect ingredients, will you come? Have a heart. I’m trying not to be pathetic and broadcast that I don’t have a date for the weekend, and haven’t had one for quite some time.”

  “You aren’t going to get one if you’re out with another guy.”

  “Maybe I’ll find the competitive type, looking to take me away from another man. Alpha dog. Master of all he surveys. Gets all the hot women.”

  He shot another look at her, and she sighed and said, “Yes. My goggles are on my forehead, my respirator’s around my neck, my glasses are on my sweaty face, and I’m wearing overalls. Leave me my illusions. Dress up and go out with me. We can at least look.”

  Dakota’s night out didn’t start exactly perfectly.

  When she came out of the bedroom at six-forty-five, practically midnight dining by Wild Horse standards, Russell looked her over from his spot in his easy chair and said, “Maybe you want to wear some pants that aren’t ripped.”

  “They’re supposed to be that way. They’re distressed.”

  “Huh. See, now, I’d say they’re ripped, but could be I’m not up on fashion. It probably doesn’t matter anyway, since it’s Evan. I guess you’re not looking for attention.”

  She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sigh. “On that vote of confidence… I’ll see you later. I won’t be out late.”

  “Yeah,” she heard as she left the house. “Probably not.”

  She picked up Evan along the way, and he didn’t help much either. He just swung up into the pickup without a word. She drove the ten blocks or so into downtown, then said, “Russell said I shouldn’t have worn these jeans.”

  “Oh,” Evan said. “You looked OK to me. I mean, you cleaned up and everything.”

  Well, great.

  He looked good himself. Dark Levi’s, blue plaid shirt that showed off his broad shoulders, cowboy boots. His ruthlessly short reddish-brown hair was still damp from the shower, and he’d scrubbed all the paint off his hands. He looked like what he was. A strong, solid, hard-working guy. And she probably looked like what she was, too, she thought glumly. A working woman who’d taken a shower and changed her clothes to go out to dinner.

  “Do I actually repel men?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  “What? No. I don’t think so. You’re good-looking.”

  “Let me guess, though. More like the woman who’s going to paint your ceiling or gut your fish than the one you promise to love and cherish.”

  He didn’t say anything for a second, then said, “There’s a space on the left.”

  She pulled a U-Turn in the middle of Main, parallel-parked the old truck with a bunch of hauling on the wheel, and said, “Well, thanks anyway. You may have to drive home, because I plan to have at least two glasses of wine. Looks like I’m going to need them. I wore my contacts. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “Oh,” Evan said, sounding surprised. “I told you. You’re good-looking. I’m just used to looking at you. I wasn’t thinking about it. Get out of the truck so I can see, and I’ll tell you.”

  She rolled the window down so she could grab the handle from the outside, since it was stuck from the inside, then cranked the window up again, put the keys under the floor mat, and climbed down.

  Downtown Wild Horse wasn’t exactly hopping, but the Tervan, the bar across the street where some prankster had switched the letters on the sign twenty years earlier and nobody had ever switched them back again, was satisfactorily noisy. Sheila’s Steakhouse was doing a good business, too. Dakota stalked around the front of the old white pickup in her unaccustomed platform heels and told Evan, “Encourage me. Go.”

  “Your hair’s nice,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t notice the contacts.”

  “That’s what you’ve got?”

  “What do you want? Am I supposed to talk about your body? I’m not classy, but I’m not going to say ‘Nice ass’ or something.”

  “How about my outfit?”

  “I already said you looked good.”

  She sighed. “All right. Never mind. Let’s go.”

  She perked up on heading into Heart of the Lake. The historic building had been painted a soft gray—not by M & O, unfortunately—with darker gray accents, and inside, discreet lighting shone on clubby groups of black leather chairs, a back wall made of weathered brick, and a long, curved mahogany bar. It looked upscale, warm, and welcoming. Maybe this whole resort idea was going to work after all.

  “Primo chairs over in the corner,” she told Evan. “Let’s grab them
.”

  Even as she said it, two men detached themselves from the bar and converged on the inviting seating group. She was already turning away when she heard, “Well, well. Looks like you lose.”

  She could have walked away. She should have walked away. Instead, as always, her feet were taking her in the other direction. Jerry Richards and Steve Sawyer were planting themselves into that black leather and looking up at Evan and her with what could only be described as smirks. Two men separated by twenty years, but separated-at-birth twins in every other way that counted.

  “You could say I pick my battles,” she said. “Like the ones that come with a paycheck?”

  Steve’s good-looking face twisted beneath blonde hair that was cut short and neat, like the Homecoming King he’d been and the successful contractor he still was, thanks to stepping into the family business. “You bite the hand that feeds you,” he said, “and you might just find that you’re the one who gets bit.”

  “Your hand doesn’t feed me, and I already got bit,” she said, unable to keep the fury out of her voice. “And Russell stayed bit. I wish you could see him trying to get out of bed in the morning. I don’t know how you sleep at night. I know I’m not losing any sleep over you.”

  “I knew somebody had to’ve run around behind my back.” Steve’s expression was hard now. Frightening. She remembered that face, and everything inside her wanted to cringe, but she wasn’t going to let that show. “Somebody with a grudge. I guess I’ve figured out who that could be.”

  “I’m not the one who lost the job,” she fired back. She wasn’t sixteen anymore. She wasn’t weak, and she was nobody’s victim. “You did that all by yourself. I’m the one who cleaned up your mess. And when they told me they wanted somebody going along behind with a roller on every wall, I made sure we did it. It’s called satisfying the client. You should try it sometime. I didn’t need to rat you out. You cut a corner, and this time, you paid for it. Look at it this way. At least nobody fell. At least nobody broke his back.”

  “Because I don’t hire old guys who are past it anymore,” Steve said. “Or drunks or women, either. I hire guys who can handle the job.”

  She’d have lunged at him, except she couldn’t, because Evan had her arm. “Don’t,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “Let’s go. Not worth it.”

  “She carrying your balls in that purse of hers, O’Donnell?” That was Jerry. His heavy face was flushed, his voice slurred with what Dakota guessed were a good four beers already put away at the bar.

  The tips of Evan’s ears had reddened, his one telltale of emotion. “I heard you got canned, too, Richards,” he said. “Both of you are looking to take it out on somebody. Pick somebody else. I’m not biting, and neither is Dakota.”

  “Maybe you’d better not answer for her,” Steve said. “Maybe you don’t know what she’s doing when you aren’t looking. Ask her why Jerry got canned. Ask her who twitched her tail for Blake Fuckin’ Orbison the other night. Who did he strip down for and run off after when they were both still half-naked? How exactly did that go down, Dakota?”

  She was going to kill him. Except she couldn’t, not if Evan didn’t let go of her.

  “And then,” Steve went on, “she probably told him how Jerry made her uncomfortable. How she felt unsafe. Ain’t it just a damn shame that Jerry got his ass handed to him two days later? Now, why do you think that could be, O’Donnell? My guess is that whatever you’re getting, Orbison’s probably biting off a chunk for himself. But then, you’re probably used to that by now. Where’s your girlfriend again?”

  Evan still had his hand clamped around Dakota’s upper arm in a vice grip. A good thing, too, because the red mist had descended over her eyes, and she was straining against his hold. Her partner’s voice was absolutely level when he said, “I’m not too bright, I guess, because I don’t know what you’re talking about. I only know a couple of things. One of them’s that two of us here are drawing a paycheck out at the resort and two of us aren’t, and I know which ones are which. And the other one’s that guys who talk big in a bar do it because they’re scared to say it in the parking lot. I’m not a big talker, but I’m real good in a parking lot. Maybe you remember that. You’re welcome to try me again sometime. I’ll be right here.” With that, he all but hauled Dakota away.

  “Let me go,” she hissed.

  “Nope,” he said, still sounding as calm and cold as the lake in winter. “We’re going to sit down and have a drink, and you’re going to remind yourself that Steve Sawyer is a scumbag who doesn’t have any power over you, and Jerry Richards is nothing but a mean drunk. And then I’m going to eat pizza that costs four times as much as Domino’s and doesn’t even have a stuffed crust, and I’m going to tell you again, as many times as you need to hear it.”

  He was dragging her over to the hostess stand now. “You pick the worst moments to be assertive,” she complained. “Why didn’t you tell me Jerry got fired? How did you find out already? I could’ve helped you out in the parking lot, too. It wouldn’t even have been two against one.”

  “Might’ve messed up your pretty see-through shirt, though. You wouldn’t want some scumbucket’s blood all over it.”

  “I thought you didn’t notice what I was wearing.”

  “I noticed. You got dressed up, I’m about to pay way too much for a beer, and Wild Horse is about to find out that Jerry Richards got himself canned and the two of us are doing fine. So come on, Dakota. Let’s do it.”

  She hated it when he was right.

  This date, Blake thought, was like wading in molasses.

  The back patio of the Heart of the Lake winery and restaurant was probably what you’d call “enchanting,” if you were writing it up for a newspaper. Plenty of plantings around the perimeter, patio heaters taking the not-quite-summer chill off the evening air, candlelight and roses on every table, and tiny white lights winding through tree branches, all of it shouting, “Romantic as hell! You’re knocking her socks off, dude!”

  Except he wasn’t.

  It wasn’t her fault. Beth Schaefer was a pretty woman, and a very nice one, too. That was what had struck him when he’d met her at her parents’ over-the-top lake house two nights ago. Her parents being the previously richest residents of Wild Horse, and seeming not at all unhappy to be supplanted, especially once Beth’s mother had introduced Blake to her daughter.

  The occasion had been a cocktail party and silent auction on behalf of the Friends of the Lake. A conservation organization Blake had figured he’d be wise to join, because there were plenty of people in town who’d fought the resort hard, some of them with the resources to make serious trouble. He needed to get them on his side, or at least off his back. Jobs and tourist businesses and the tax base were one thing, but the environment was something else, and a golf course wasn’t the kind of “green space” people wrote letters to the editor about. Besides, he liked the environment himself. That was the whole point.

  He’d considered publicizing the amounts of his annual donations to the Sierra Club, but that could have put off as many people as it pleased in this north Idaho town. After some thought, he’d spent a very sizable chunk of money the previous autumn to buy a tract of land close to town containing a good-sized almost-mountain, with a promise to turn the whole thing into open space. As a tool to disarm at least some of the bad feeling, it hadn’t been too bad, but he’d been at the party to seal the deal. He could be a charming guy if he worked at it, at least that was what they said.

  The truth was, of course, that if you were rich enough and didn’t actually have a personality disorder, somebody would call you “charming,” especially if they wanted your money. In any case, he’d used the occasion to announce the start of the project to build a public trail to the top of his new mountain. That had gone over well, especially when he told them it would be named the Kalispel Trail after the local Indian tribe, and not the Orbison Trail as he was sure they’d expected. He’d even gone wild and bid high on a case o
f very pricey north Idaho Cabernet, which had turned out to be not half bad, and a huge stained-glass hanging that hadn’t been so great.

  It was of rainbow trout in the water, and it was stuck in his hall closet right now. He could hang it in a guest room window, maybe.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like trout. He liked them fine, on a plate and crispy-brown. Looking at their gaping mouths didn’t do much for him from an artistic point of view, that was all. But it had been that or another piece of a boat whose sails looked rigged all wrong. Or a painting of the lake—he’d rather look at the lake—or, finally, a coffee table with legs made out of antlers, an object he hadn’t wanted one bit. He didn’t care for animal parts as furniture, although he’d keep that opinion to himself up here. He also didn’t like tree trunk legs on beds or branches as headboards. He liked furniture to look like furniture, not like something that belonged in a kids’ book. The wine and the glass piece had been as far as he’d been willing to go, but they’d seemed like enough, together with his new trail and the promise of a signed and framed jersey, guaranteed worn to the Super Bowl, for a future online fundraiser.

  Of course, it wasn’t a jersey in which he’d won the Super Bowl, but there was no need to get all crazy about it. Some things, there wasn’t enough money in the world to buy.

  All that hadn’t been bad, not really. The evening had left him grumpy once again, though. Standing around wasn’t his favorite thing, but with running around off the table, let alone running around with any purpose, like to win a football game… at least it beat sitting around.

  Beth had been a surprise bonus. Her mother, Michelle Schaefer, was one of those women who’d adopted the platinum bob as their signature hairstyle twenty years ago and had never seen any reason to change it, and whose favorite brand of makeup was Botox. Blake’s own mother was always telling him not to judge so fast, though, so he was doing his best to put off his final verdict, despite the calculation in Michelle’s eyes when she’d introduced him to her daughter.