It was a serious face, an intense face, fined down and tanned desert-brown, intelligence showing in the bright blue eyes. A lean guy bulked up by the uniform, a wide receiver type made of muscle and sinew, all fast-twitch muscle fiber and quick reflexes.
Russell finished with the fish and made his halting way over to the table with his own iced tea. “My boy,” he said, seeing the direction of Blake’s gaze. “Riley.”
“Looks like he’d earned some stripes.” Blake indicated the map photo with his glass.
“Sergeant,” Russell said, all his pride there to hear in that one word.
“How old was he?”
“Twenty-three when he died. Nineteen when he joined up. Those two pictures… his commander sent me those with the letter. That one with the map? That was his last day, right before they went out. He won a Silver Star that day. They sent me that, too. Not much of a trade for my son.”
A Silver Star. That was for bravery. Blake looked again at the picture of the guy on the bunk, at the intensity in that steadfast gaze. He looked a lot older than twenty-three. “What happened?” he asked, because he got the feeling Russell wanted to tell him. Because he knew, like you did when your mother was a minister, that the dead didn’t seem quite so gone if you could talk about them. And because Russell was that thing he admired most. Mentally strong, with the guts to look your life in the face and the kind of courage that came the toughest, the kind you had to summon afresh every day to take what you had to take without whining. The kind Blake was still working on acquiring. He’d thought he had it, before. Easy to think so when you were on top of the world.
Russell said, “Have a seat,” and, when Blake did, got himself into his chair, which wasn’t easy. He looked down at his glass, rattled the ice, and said, “His squad was on patrol, came under attack. Machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades. He told his gunner to fire, cover them, and then he left the lead vehicle along with his squad leader to take care of it. They crossed over a berm and into the trenches the bastards had dug, took ’em on with grenades and assault rifles. The squad leader made it, and so did the rest of them. Riley didn’t. But that was my son. If it had to be done, he was on it. He’d never have asked anybody to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. He took that attitude into the Army with him. Got him killed.”
“But he saved his squad,” Blake said. “He died a hero.”
People had called him a hero. They’d talked about mental toughness, about playing when you hurt, about staying strong when you were down on the scoreboard, about holding onto your belief and doing it for the guys around you. Blake knew better, though. That wasn’t a hero. That was just a guy doing his job. The heroes… they didn’t get paid millions of dollars. They ran into buildings everybody else was running out of. They ran toward the gunfire. They risked a whole lot more than a game, or a paycheck, or even a knee. They risked it all, because it needed to be done and they could do it.
Russell said, “You think that makes it worth it? That he was a hero? It doesn’t. But would I rather have had a different kind of boy, if it had meant he’d have come home? I’ve asked myself that, and damned if I know the answer. I know I had a son I was proud of. I had no part in the man he was, but I was sure as hell proud.”
“You had to have had something to do with the man he was,” Blake objected. “I know my dad does.” Why was he thinking about his parents so much today? Being with Russell, he guessed, although there couldn’t have been two men more superficially unlike than the crusty, battered man opposite him and Blake’s courtly Virginia-gentleman professor father.
Russell said, “Bet your dad was around, though.”
“Well, yeah. Him and my mom both. Working, but we’ve all got to work.”
“You don’t get it. I wasn’t around. When he and his sister showed up here, Riley was seventeen. When my ex took off with him, he was two, and I wasn’t much good those first couple years. What do I take credit for? A couple years there, when he was practically a grown man already? No.”
“Oh.” That was strange. Normally, when a guy had stepkids, it was because they’d come with the woman, a package deal. “So your stepdaughter is younger, from when you and your ex got back together? Sorry,” he said when the other man looked at him sharply. “Just trying to get it straight. Bad habit. My mom’s a Unitarian minister. She goes on and asks the questions, pretty direct, so she can understand the situation. That’s where it comes from. There and in business. Could make me forget my manners.”
“Nah,” Russell said. “I like a man who speaks his mind. That’s the trouble these days. Nobody’s willing to talk straight. We didn’t get back together, the ex and me. You’re thinking, why’s my stepdaughter here with me, then? There’s more to family than blood.”
“I know that. I’m adopted myself.” It was no secret. The media had loved that story.
“Oh. Huh.” Russell finished off his iced tea, heaved himself to his feet, and said, “Come on. I’ll show you something you’ll like. Show you what my girl does. She’s an artist.”
Great. A woman who lived with her… not even her dad, and she was an “artist”? Russell was a lonely guy, that was obvious, but still. What a price to pay. Blake stood up, though. What could you do, say, “I’ll pass?” No, you couldn’t. He’d have to say nice things about the “art,” too.
On the other hand, there’d be fresh-caught salmon. Grilled on cedar planks? Couldn’t put a price on that.
When Russell unlatched a wooden baby gate and stepped on through, though, and Blake followed him into a workroom, he had to amend his opinion.
“She did the piece in the kitchen,” he guessed. “The flowers.”
Russell put the gate back into place, and Bella lay down with a heavy sigh and put her muzzle on her paws on the other side, a martyred dog who’d been unfairly shut out. “Yep,” Russell said. “One of my favorites, is why she let me keep it, because those poppies would’ve sold. Got one in my bedroom, too, of a snowy owl at twilight. About the prettiest thing you’ll ever see.”
Blake barely heard him, and he hardly took in the meticulously organized workroom, a space that said nothing like “hobby” and everything like “dedication.” He noticed the paper pattern laid out on the big worktable with paper-covered, numbered pieces lying on top of each numbered section of pattern like some kind of paint-by-numbers project, and then he forgot it. He was looking at something else. Something hanging in a corner like an afterthought.
It was big. That was the first thing that struck him. Probably four feet across. A bald eagle skimming over the edge of a rippling blue lake, its wings and talons outstretched, the vague suggestion of snow-capped mountains in the background. He didn’t know how you did something like that in glass. The perfect symmetry, the incredible grace. The sheer number of pieces of glass, their minute size.
It was meticulously done, but it wasn’t the craftsmanship that had him standing mesmerized. It was that he felt the eagle. He understood the bird’s total concentration as it stretched its yellow talons out for that fish. It was exactly what you felt just before you threw the pass you needed, the one in the final seconds when the clock was ticking down. When you waited, knowing the hit was coming and not caring, because the ball had to leave your hand right… now. Right… there. The moment before you won, and to hell with what happened next, with how hard that linebacker would hit you. It was all about this moment, about concentration and resolve, about getting it done.
“That’s one hell of a piece,” he managed to say. “That for sale?”
“Don’t know,” Russell said. “She does some stuff on commission, mostly for folks with lake houses, and other stuff for sale in the galleries. Coeur d’Alene, Seattle. I’m not sure which this one is.”
“Well, I’d like to buy it if it isn’t already spoken for. Or even if it is.”
Russell ran a thumb over his jaw. “Going to be pricey. See, it’s about how many pieces of glass are in it. Every piece… that’s a half hour�
��s work. Something like that, maybe two hundred pieces? You can do the math. She worked on that eagle every weekend for more than a month, right on through. Not really a good bet, tell you the truth, not that she thinks of that when she gets an idea in her head. Makes a lot more sense to do the easy ones. Most people can’t tell the difference, just looking for something pretty for the front window. They’re not going to pay a couple thousand bucks for a piece of stained glass, or give her more than minimum wage for her time. She could’ve done six easy ones in those six weeks, could’ve sold ’em and been way ahead.”
“Weekends? She doesn’t do it full time?”
“Oh, hell, no. Like you say. Everybody’s got to work.”
“I’d think this could pay the bills.”
Russell looked away, and something changed. Something Blake didn’t understand. Some darkness. And clearly, Blake had got his ideas all wrong.
Hasty, his dad would have said in his cultivated accent. Slow down, son. Think before you move, before you talk, before you act. Slow down and be sure.
Blake hadn’t been too good at slowing down then, and he hadn’t gotten a whole lot better since. He’d kept on running when the rest of the family had walked, jumping into the water when they were still unfolding their towels, asking the girl out while the other guy was still thinking about it, making three deals while another CEO was still weighing the pros and cons of the first one. It was his nature—fast-twitch fibers in the muscle and the brain, if the brain had been a muscle—and it served him well. Most of the time.
Now, he tore his gaze away from his eagle and studied the workroom. “Nice space. Organized.”
“Yeah. That’s my contribution, you could say. Doing the dividers, the frames and that.”
Blake went to the opposite corner, where a compartment held a dozen pieces framed in the same light wood as the eagle, leaning up against each other. “All right if I look?”
“Sure. Just be careful with ’em. You break it, you buy it.”
Blake started flipping through them, then paused. “Whoa.”
“Yeah,” Russell said. “Those ones are a little different. Those are the ones she hasn’t sold. Waiting to take ’em over to Seattle. Not everybody gets ’em, don’t want ’em in their living room, you know?”
Once again, Blake had stopped listening. He picked up a heavy piece, moved it against the storage dividers holding colored sheets of glass, propped it up, and stood back.
“Whoa,” he said again. “That’s… I’ve never seen anything quite like that. What is it?”
“Iris,” Russell said. “The flower.”
Blake guessed it could be that. Like the poppies, it was in a sort of extreme close-up. But this one…
He was standing here with the artist’s stepfather. His heart was beating faster, but that wasn’t the reaction that was concerning him. He was getting turned on by a flower.
But holy hell, that was some flower. He guessed irises did look like that if you got up real close, but he’d just say that the Methodist church wasn’t going to be hanging this thing in their community hall.
Delicate, curving, ruffled-edged petals unfolded and unfurled above the flower’s center, picked out in shades of pink from delicate pearl to more of an inside-of-a-shell deal. Below the center, the petals were in shadow, nearly lavender, gentle and open.
But that center. That secret heart, that deep-purple oval with its waving indentations around the edges. Your eye went right there, like the petals were all arranged for you, laid out there for you, inviting you to…
Yeah. Well. He wanted this one, too.
He got a better grip on himself looking at the others, not that they were much less imagination-worthy. More flowers, from morning glories to calla lilies to roses, all of them in that same close-up. Silken petals laid open, and a deep, secret heart.
They were erotic as hell, was what they were. No heterosexual man was going to look at them and not see it, surely. He glanced up from where he was crouching before the pieces and saw Russell watching him not quite impassively, a hint of amusement in his eyes.
When Bella let out a short, sharp bark and took off, her toenails skittering on the floor, Russell said, “That’ll be her. The salmon’ll be a good treat for her, too. I bet she was in here working all day.”
Blake heard the sound of a door closing and moved to slide the latest piece back into its spot. When he met Russell’s stepdaughter, it might be better if he weren’t literally sporting a hard-on from her art. Might be a little difficult to explain, although he had a feeling he wouldn’t be the only guy ever to have that reaction.
“They’re all that and then some, aren’t they?” Russell asked, waving a hand at the flowers. “Some of the folks in Seattle go for those big-time. Hang them in their bedrooms, I guess. Kinda making a name for herself with those, but it’s not a name she wants to make around here.”
“Ah, no,” Blake said. “I’m guessing not. Small town.”
“You got that right.”
Blake was turning, moving to stand when she came around the corner like an avenging fury. An avenging fury in an ugly navy-blue swimsuit. His girlfriend from the rocks. Dakota.
She skidded to a stop outside the gate and said, her voice vibrating with outrage, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Her dark eyes were flashing, she was practically panting, and her hair wasn’t in a braid this time. It was down and messy and dark and wet. One of her straps was falling down her shoulder, revealing a stripe of tan line and, where the suit fell away, the swell of a pale breast.
She saw the direction of his gaze and yanked the strap up. It was only then that he registered the other guy. The big guy, the linebacker from last night. He was with Dakota again. And this time, he was holding a baby.
The big guy muttered something and took the baby away, but everybody else just stood there. After a few seconds, Blake heard water running, but he wasn’t paying much attention.
When he’d seen Dakota last night, he’d been willing to overlook her flirting with him earlier, even though she’d been out with somebody else. He’d been out with somebody else himself, after all. She hadn’t been wearing a ring, and the way she’d walked past him, like she’d known what she was doing to him and had wanted to do it, had made him think that it might have been a first date for her, too. It had felt like they were both out with the wrong people, no matter how hostile she’d seemed earlier. That heat hadn’t just come from him. A fire couldn’t burn without oxygen. She hadn’t just been giving it oxygen, though. She’d been pouring the gasoline on, and he’d known it.
But now? This put it in a whole different category. She had a baby with this guy, and she’d still looked at Blake like that, talked to him the way she had, flirted that hard? And she’d made those… those glass pieces? He wondered if Russell knew what she really was. And he still let her—them—live with him?
She didn’t look one bit ashamed. She looked mad. No mistaking that lifted chin, those cheekbones showing sharp as knives. “What’s he doing here?” she demanded of Russell.
“Watch your mouth,” Russell said. “He’s here because we went fishing.”
“That’s whose boat you went out on? Why would you do that? I can’t believe it. How could you?”
“It’s not your business who I go fishing with,” he said.
“I’ll head on out,” Blake said. He didn’t want to stay anyway. He liked Russell, but he wasn’t feeling like using up all his manners on this situation. Dakota’s stepfather had been hurt on one of his jobs. That must be why she was mad. But how did she have any room to talk?
And, yes, part of him might have pointed out that she was mad about her stepfather’s serious injury on his watch, whereas he was mad because… because she’d confused him, and that those two things weren’t exactly comparable. But he didn’t care. He was still mad.
“No,” Russell told him, a definite snap in his voice. “You won’t head on out. You’ll come on outside with m
e and have some more iced tea, and then you’ll help me grill that salmon, and you’ll eat it.”
Blake had to blink. Well, that didn’t happen to him every day. He didn’t tend to get ordered around much.
Russell didn’t wait to hear his answer, just fumbled with the closure for the baby gate until Dakota reached down to unfasten it. She drew back, though, at another glare from Russell.
“And you,” her stepfather informed her as he stepped out of the room, forcing her to back all the way up, “will dial it right back and behave yourself. Blake’s a guest in my house.”
Her lips were pressed into a thin line, and she looked like she was holding back as many truth-bombs as Blake was, like she had a right, but she didn’t say anything. She turned around and stalked off, and if Blake watched her go despite himself, if he noticed her slim, tanned back in that suit, the length of her legs, and the way the suit was riding up again—well, she was right there, and it was a narrow hallway, and he didn’t have to like her to notice what she looked like. He was an observant guy. It wasn’t like he was going to do anything about it. He didn’t go after other guys’ women, and he sure as hell didn’t go after the mothers of other guys’ children.
She went into a room off the hall, and she didn’t slam the door, but she closed it hard. Russell kept on going until he was in the kitchen again, refilling the glasses from the pitcher without asking Blake if he wanted any.
“Come out on the patio with me,” Russell said. “We’ll get the barbecue going.”
“Sure,” Blake said, since he couldn’t figure out any way to leave without actually being rude.
He carried out Russell’s tea glass while Russell followed with the cedar planks, Bella trotting along behind. Russell set the planks on an old-fashioned picnic table before beginning to fuss around with charcoal briquettes and a Weber grill. “The Mariners are playing in a little bit, if you want to hang around and watch,” he said. “Down in Oakland. If you’re an A’s fan, don’t tell me, or I’ll probably have to kick you out without your salmon.”
Silver-Tongued Devil (Portland Devils Book 1) Page 7