Silver-Tongued Devil (Portland Devils Book 1)

by Rosalind James

  “We weren’t expecting a football player,” Margaret said. “Oh, my goodness, we weren’t. We were just so thrilled to get that little boy, and he was little. Undersized. Right skinny, really. His birth mother probably hadn’t been getting enough nutrition, poor thing. But oh, how he grew, and how fast he developed, too. He did everything too early. Rolled over, sat up. Blake didn’t start walking. He started running. At ten months. When he was three, he could dribble a basketball. You’ll think I’m exaggerating, but you never saw a child like him. We knew we had something special on our hands. I should’ve brought the album to show you, Dakota.”

  Blake groaned and put a hand over his face. “Mom. Please stop. Dakota doesn’t want to see my baby pictures.”

  “No?” Dakota couldn’t help laughing. “And yet I find I do. I totally do. Especially if he’s in the bathtub or wearing a ladybug costume for Halloween or something equally humiliating.”

  “Not as many pictures as there ought to have been,” Elliot said. “He was usually out of focus. Always running away.”

  “It wasn’t a ladybug,” Blake said. “It was a mouse. An extremely manly mouse. And I’m changing the subject. Dakota’s pretty much a prodigy herself, Mom.”

  “Oh, I know,” Margaret said. “Blake already showed us your beautiful art.”

  “I’ve got an eagle out at the resort that has to be seen to be believed,” Blake said. “I’ll take you out in the morning and show you.”

  “How’s everything going with that?” Elliot asked. “Blake told us what happened to you,” he told Dakota. “Terrible thing. I’m glad to hear it’s taken care of now.”

  Dakota saw the moment when Blake’s expression changed. “What?” she asked him.

  He hesitated, and she said, “Something’s happened.” The cold was right back in the pit of her stomach, and she was clutching her fork too hard. “Tell us.”

  He took her hand under the table, and she was glad of it. “I do feel like I need to tell you,” he said. “Just in case, since it was you it happened to before.”

  “Of course I need to know,” she said. “Of course you need to tell me.” She didn’t want to hear, and she needed to.

  “It’s worrisome,” Blake said. “When we were talking with the sheriff, Dakota suggested that somebody could dump something nasty on the lake bottom under these boulders. The too-high kind of rocks that kids tend to jump off of. She was talking about something spiky, where somebody could jump and get…” He hesitated again. “Impaled.”

  His mother made a sound of distress, and Dakota had stiffened. Blake squeezed her hand and said, “Yeah. So you can guess. We didn’t find anything at the time, but I’ve kept them checking, and yesterday, they pulled something up all right. Part of a crib frame. Upside down, legs sticking straight up. One of those legs was sharp, and a couple of the springs were broken off. Looking accidental, but you know it’s not.”

  Dakota didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. But Russell did. “Evil. Pure evil.”

  His parents looked like they agreed, and Dakota said slowly, “But wait. That’s too coincidental. All right, the broken glass. That was obvious. But this—after we’d talked about it? After you’d looked for it?”

  “Yep,” Blake said. “That’s what I thought. We didn’t spread that around, either. We told the sheriff, of course, and I told Walt Crane, my head of security, what we were looking for, and he told his guys, obviously. That’s it. And a week later, it’s right in that spot.”

  “People talk, though,” Margaret said. “The more sensational something is, the more they talk. And the idea that someone would sabotage a brand-new upscale resort… that would be interesting to anyone.”

  “It’s not that likely to get from a security guy to a radical environmentalist in six days,” Blake said. “That’s not the same social circle.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” his father said. “If it’s family.”

  “True,” Margaret said. “The brother-in-law nobody can stand. The crazy cousin. But it’s worrisome all the same. Are you saying it could be aimed at you personally, honey?” she asked Blake. “Or through Dakota? Surely she’s not jumping off boulders.”

  “Not anymore,” Dakota said. She was trying not to show it, not to shake. But her breath was coming short, and she was tangled in the net again as if it were happening right now.

  Blake said, “I knew I shouldn’t have told you. But be careful, baby. Swim at City Beach, and that’s it. Watch your back when you’re out and about. Lock your doors. Or you could come stay out here. I just don’t like this.”

  “If anybody’s in danger,” she said, “it’s you, not me.”

  “Nope,” Russell said. “A man will risk anything for himself. He can’t take it happening to his woman. That’s going to be worse every time.”

  “I’m not Blake’s woman,” Dakota said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Blake said. “You are. And whoever this is will know it. They know who pulled you out of the lake. They know who’s been taking you out. And Russ is right. Having it happen to you would be worse. It already was worse.”

  “You obviously have people checking, though,” his father said. “When was that dumped, do you know?”

  “Sometime this week. We’ve got cameras, but it must not have been obvious. Plenty of boats passing that spot, and a crib frame—that’s small. Run the boat in close, dump it over the far side. Nobody saw anything in time to save the tape, anyway. It gets recorded over.”

  “What I don’t like,” Dakota said, “is that they’re… taunting you. They know you know it’s not an accident, and that the sheriff does, too. A bed frame was your idea, or mine, which is the same thing. They’re saying they don’t care anymore. That’s different from the glass and the net. It’s escalation.”

  “Yep,” Blake said. “So—want to move in for the week, while we’re opening?”

  She laughed. “No. That’s silly, Blake. You won’t be around that much longer. If I moved in, it’d look like more than it was. I mean, we would. It’d do the opposite of what you’re saying. You’re going to open the resort, and after that, you won’t be here that much. You can’t be a target, or you would have been already. Which means I certainly won’t be a target. The resort might be, but you’re watching for that. You’re doing all you can.”

  Blake looked like he wanted to say something else but wasn’t sure what. His mother said, “Well, that’s just awful, but all the same—I wish Victoria could have come out with us, Blake, and seen how beautiful it is here. Blake’s sister,” she explained. “She’s a chemist, and she’s in the middle of a series of experiments. At the University of Virginia, like her dad.”

  “Fortunately,” Elliot said, “linguistics professors are flexible. I need to be, to accommodate Margaret’s schedule.”

  The conversation changed, and the moment passed. And an hour later, Dakota said, “We should go. It’s getting late.”

  When they’d said their goodbyes, Blake headed outside with Dakota and Russell, and Bella tore herself away from Margaret and came along. Russ opened the door of the pickup, told Bella to jump up and hauled himself inside, said, “I’m not looking,” and slammed the door.

  Blake smiled. Then he took Dakota in his arms, gave her a long, slow kiss that had her melting against him, and kept his arms looped around her lower back. “Thanks for coming,” he told her. “That’s not enough to say, but I’ll say that.”

  She couldn’t see him very well in the deep purple twilight that lingered so late at this time of year, this far north. She didn’t need to see him, though. She heard the warmth in his voice, and she felt the security of his arms.

  “Thanks for insisting.” She felt a little shy, still. “I like your parents.”

  “They like you, too. And they like Russell.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they’re my parents. Because if they didn’t, my mom would be giving me these little looks. Concerned looks. ‘Oh, my Lord, what’s Blake gone and go
t himself into now? And how am I going to set him straight without him realizing I’m doing it?’”

  She laughed. “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. You could say I’ve had experience. You’re the real deal, though, and they both know it. I’m all good.” He gave her another kiss. “Well, not all good, because I’d still rather you stayed.”

  “Mm.” She rubbed her cheek against the soft cotton of his shirt. “I need to get started on my glass tomorrow, though. And I need to get myself beautiful for your grand opening on Thursday, too. You’re not allowed to see until the end. I do want to knock your socks off, as much as I can when you bought me the dress and the shoes.”

  “You can. You do.” He smoothed her hair back where a lock had fallen out of the clip. “Will you do something for me?”

  “Probably. I don’t seem to have much self-restraint.”

  He laughed, low and soft. “Wear your hair up. I want to see your pretty shoulders in that dress. I do love your skin.”

  “You also want to take my hair down afterwards. I haven’t forgotten that your parents will still be here, by the way.”

  “And I’m still going to take your hair down. They know I’m a big boy. They also know I’m in love with you, because they’re smart like that. But you know, darlin’…”

  “What?” She was floating some now. On the warmth of the night, the shining points of light beginning to appear now, including that brightest one, Venus. On the warmth of Blake’s arms and the tenderness in his voice.

  “There are a few words you haven’t said to me,” he said. “And I’d sure like to hear them, if you’ve got them in you.”

  She put her hands on either side of his face. He’d shaved for her again, or for his parents, but she thought it was for her. She traced her thumbs gently over his jaw and said, hearing the catch in her voice, “I’ve got them in me. But it’s scary.”

  His arms tightened. “I know it is. That’s why I jumped first. But if you want to jump in yourself, I’ll be right here to catch you. I promise.”

  She looked up at him, but there was nothing to fear in that face, or in his arms. Not right now. “I’ll tell you, then,” she said, because she couldn’t have stopped herself if she’d tried. “I love you, too. I’ve been falling in love with you for so long. When you came to find me after Evan interrupted us that time, when you asked me to give you another chance… maybe that was when I started for real. When I saw that you cared enough to try that hard. And now, I’m in so deep, I don’t even know how to get out.”

  “Yep.” He sighed, and he didn’t let her go. “That’s about it. Guess we’ll have to keep holding on. Keep making that spot a safe place to land. That’s what I want to be for you, and, baby… if you could do that for me, too, that’d be good. That’d be just about everything I could ask for.”

  Her heart was so full, it was going to overflow. She pulled his head down and kissed him. “I love you. And I’ll see you Thursday. And no, you don’t have to come get me. You’ll be doing all your grand opening things. Russ and I will come out there and find you in all your glory, and when we do, I’ll do my very best to knock your socks off. You wait and see.”

  It was after eleven, and Blake had a full day tomorrow, but he couldn’t sleep. His parents had said goodnight more than an hour earlier, but he was sitting at the edge of the deck, his feet on the rail, looking out at the blackness that was the lake and the mountains, and the impossible, heart-aching blaze that was the sky.

  He heard her behind him. He didn’t even need to turn around. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi.” Her hand gripped his shoulder, and she kissed him on top of his head. “Want some company?”

  “Sure.”

  She pulled up a chair beside him and sat. In her robe and slippers, her curly brown hair undisciplined at the end of her own long day, all of it as familiar and comforting as warm bread out of the oven.

  He said, “More wine in there. Want me to get you some?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve had enough.”

  He sipped at his own beer. “I’m surprised you couldn’t sleep. Three hours of time change is no joke.”

  “Hard for me to sleep when I know one of my kids is struggling.”

  He laughed softly. “Is it that obvious?”

  “To me. I noticed Dad and I were the only ones drinking tonight, by the way. Is there a reason for that?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not me. Don’t worry.” He hesitated a moment, since it wasn’t his story to tell. But this was his mother, and nobody understood weakness better. “It’s Russell. He’s been sober almost fifteen years, but I guess it’s still a fight. Dakota won’t drink around him, so it doesn’t seem right for me to do it.”

  “That’s a hard fight. And a good fight.”

  “He’s a strong man.”

  “Like his daughter.”

  “Stepdaughter, actually. Her half-brother was his. Riley. He died in Iraq about eight years back.”

  His mom took a breath. “Oh, my.”

  “Yeah. Tough times.”

  “I noticed that Russell’s been injured, too. And you want to make it better for both of them.”

  He had to smile. “You don’t mess around.”

  “Messing around doesn’t get anybody anywhere. Want to tell me about it?”

  “It’s confusing.”

  “Most important things are.”

  He tried to marshal his thoughts, but they refused to be herded, so he just spilled them, messy as they were. “When I had to retire, I decided it was just as well. I was thirty-four. I wasn’t going to get many more seasons anyway. And it was time for me to change. Time to move on, do all those adult things.”

  “You don’t think you’d been doing adult things?”

  “Some, sure. Football’s a game, but it’s hard work.”

  “Of course it is. It always has been, the way you’ve done it. So what wasn’t adult?”

  He glanced across at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking up at the stars, her hands folded in her lap. It reminded him of the way she’d used to be there, standing in the kitchen after school, after practice. Folding clothes, doing the dishes. Not demanding anything, but there to listen if he wanted to talk. “You’re a good mom,” he said.

  “I know. So what wasn’t adult?”

  “Oh, you know. Women. And the nine to five. Living like other people live. I made this…” He laughed softly. “This checklist for the right kind of woman. The right wife, the right mom. I was going to find her. I sort of did, but she was never right after all, or I wasn’t. And then I met Dakota.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  He sighed and took another sip of beer. “She’s nothing like my list. Not one single thing. But her heart… it’s… I just…”

  He got stuck, then, the way he always did when he tried to think about this. “I just like her,” he finally said. “It’s better when she’s with me. I leave, or she leaves, and I miss her too much. And it doesn’t stop.”

  “I imagine not. I imagine it gets worse.”

  “Yeah. It does. I thought it was physical, and it would… burn out, if we could just get started. But then we did, and it hasn’t burned out.” He rubbed a hand over his chest. “It’s worse. It aches.”

  “And? Are you worried she doesn’t love you as much as you love her?”

  That knocked some breath out of him. “We just said it tonight.”

  “Mm.” She sounded sleepy. “Saying it isn’t the first step. For somebody as cautious as you, it’s probably the last step.”

  “I’m not cautious.”

  “Oh, honey. Why do you think you aren’t married?”

  “Because I was having a good time. Because I never found the woman who made me want to give up the good time. Because of who I am genetically, probably. My wild side.”

  “I’ll tell you why. Because you wanted to wait to be sure. That’s caution. It doesn’t matter how much you’re willing to get tackled or how many businesses you start. Th
at’s your body and your head, not your heart. Your heart’s in a whole different country. Your heart’s uncharted territory.”

  He tried to think of something to say about that, but he couldn’t. She was pretty much right. At least that was how it felt.

  After a minute, she went on, “So you love her, and she loves you, and you want to take on that new life. You want to move on. But…”

  “But she’s not right.” It was out there, and it was the cold truth. It was impossible.

  “Hmm. How?”

  “I want to do it the right way. I know it’s time to settle down and have that adult life, where I focus on the business, but I go home to my wife. Where I have kids. And Dakota… she wants the opposite. She wants adventure. She already has the kind of life I want, and it isn’t right for her, and I see that. She wants to travel and see the world. She wants to… I don’t know. Swing out on vines into the water in some rainforest. Swim with dolphins. Go to Antarctica, probably. Dream up her glass, and make it, and get somewhere with it. So how do I ask her to choose something else, when I see her dream, and I see it’s right for her? When she’s given it up for Russell already? How do I ask her to give it up again for me?”

  “Is that what you’d be doing?”

  He felt a stab of annoyance. “I just said. It’s exactly what it would be. It’s bad enough now. I’m restless enough. I need a woman to help me with that, not somebody who’s even more restless than me. She’s the right woman, and she’s exactly wrong. And I think she knows it.”

  “That thing she said tonight about you going away soon, you mean.”

  A lurch of his heart. “You noticed. And what can I say? ‘No, I’m not’? Of course I am. ‘Come with me’? She can’t. She’s got Russell. And anyway—what? She’s flying around with me, sleeping in hotels? How’s she going to do her work?”

  “It does seem like you think you have a problem.”

  Another stab of irritation. “I don’t think. I know.”

  “Or,” his mother said, “it could be that you’re looking at it the wrong way around.”