“Blake!” She shouted his name, and he turned. His teeth were bared, his eyes staring. “Get out!” she said. “Come on!”
She put her good hand down for him, and he gasped. “No. Guy. Get the guy.”
She saw him, then. A man in jeans and boots and a black T-shirt with SECURITY in white across the front, lying next to the flames that were licking up the building. She ran to him, got his ankle in one hand, and started to drag him away, and Blake was there, grabbing the other ankle. He was moving backward now, still in that horrible crab stance. And then they were dragging desperately at the dead weight of the body, getting him clear. Getting him out.
Blake heard shouts, running feet, the wail of a siren. And another thing. Eric Halvorsen, yelling like he was on the field. “Whoa whoa whoa!”
Blake tried to turn, and his knee collapsed under him. He couldn’t get up, and he couldn’t get clear, but he could see Dakota, and he could hear her. Her left arm was hanging by her side, and she was shouting to Eric, “Hold him down! Get him down!”
Blake saw him. Jerry Richards, on his feet again. Coming at him with a hammer.
Which was when Number 72 took him out. Blake’s blind side tackle, doing what he did best. Protecting his quarterback.
For Dakota, it was a very long night.
First, there was all the confusion as the paramedics loaded Logan Mansfield, a security guard who was surely due for another raise, onto a stretcher. Logan was groaning, and that was so much better than the motionless figure she and Blake had dragged away from the building. Dakota could breathe a little as she tried to explain what had happened to the sheriff, no doubt making a disjointed mess of it.
Jerry Richards, bully and coward, had his own ambulance. She’d hurt him, but Eric had just about destroyed him. Three hundred pounds of Eric, tackling Jerry onto blacktop. That would’ve hurt. And Dakota wasn’t one bit sorry. That was what excessive use of force looked like if you were on the receiving end, she guessed. And karma was a bitch.
There weren’t any ambulances left, so she and Blake sat on the sidewalk on one side of a makeshift barrier and waited as the firefighters worked to put out the blaze and the spectators talked and exclaimed, taking in their second spectacular show of the night.
Her arm hurt. It hurt a lot. But Blake’s knee hurt worse. His face was taut with pain, his teeth gritted tight, and he had his hand around his knee like he’d hold it together by force. That is, until a paramedic finally slapped a mask on his face.
Dakota watched Blake’s face relax, his eyes go fuzzy, and took his hand with her good one. “Hey,” she said, “you’re all good.”
His eyes shifted above the mask, and she said, “Yeah. We both made it. How about that? I wrecked my shoes, though. I expect…” She had to breathe a few times herself. “Replacements.”
Finally, they made it to the hospital, where a doctor set her arm, which was no fun, and she sat in a waiting room for hours along with Russell, Evan, and Blake’s parents, which was worse. It was a long time later when she was finally sitting beside Blake’s bed in a curtained cubicle and holding his hand as he emerged from yet another knee surgery.
His eyes were still fuzzy, and his voice was a croak. “Your arm,” was the first thing he said. “Cast.”
“Yep.”
“Going to have to… what about… your glass.”
She laughed. “Oh, Blake. Yeah, that’s a delay. But I think you’re worth it.”
“Jerry. He had a… hammer.”
“He sure did.”
“Security. The guy. Uh… Logan.”
“He’s badly concussed, but he’s going to be all right. You got there in time.” She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it. “Good job.”
“He was coming after me. Jerry. Going to hit me in the… head. I remember lying there. I remember the… hammer. What happened?”
“Well, could be I took Jerry out. It could be.”
“You?”
“Yes. Me. I was assaulted once. It wasn’t going to happen again if I could help it. I’ve been taking self-defense courses for a long time. Turns out they’re Blake-defense courses too. Good thing, huh?”
“Going to have to… keep you.” His words were slurring now. “So… fierce. So… strong.”
“Yep.” She put her good arm gently around him and laid her cheek against his. “I am. You see… I’m Lakota.”
Blake hung around Wild Horse longer than he’d planned.
In the end, he just hired a few nurses to come in around the clock. Anything else was inefficient when you had three patients.
There was him and his knee, but he was used to rehabbing his knee. There was Dakota’s arm, too, though, and she wasn’t the best patient. She kept getting frustrated. But at least she was staying at his house, which meant she was able to go for long walks around the lake and dream up enough pieces to fulfill her commitment to the gallery. “If only I could do them,” she kept saying, as she worked on her physical therapy with renewed determination.
Blake just smiled and took her occasional grouchy mood in stride. He’d been there, and he knew what it was like to long to do the one thing that mattered most and not to be able to do it. He also knew that once she got back to it, she’d be throwing her whole self into it, and that it would all be good.
Then there was Russell. He had it the worst after his complicated, impossibly delicate back surgery, and he complained the least. But he got better, and then better still. It was a slow rehab, but he took it, as he said, “One day at a time.”
Blake now had a criminal record, too. Yes, he did, though it could have been worse. The prosecutor had talked about “aggravated battery” for that punch in the nose. It had actually knocked Sawyer out, which Blake was pretty proud of, especially after it developed that Sawyer had held him up on purpose. He found that out because Sawyer and Jerry Richards couldn’t wait to rat each other out.
Unfortunately, Sawyer couldn’t be nailed down hard enough. Blake had always had trouble imagining the man risking his entire reputation and livelihood to destroy the resort just because Blake had fired his painting team and asked questions about Russell’s accident. It hadn’t made sense for such a self-involved guy. Which was why Sawyer had limited his efforts to encouraging Jerry and offering a helping hand here and there. Unfortunately, that meant that the max anybody could have pinned on Sawyer was driving the boat while Richards dumped the crib frame over the side, and as his cousin the sheriff said, “That’s not even littering. Just aiding and abetting littering.”
On the night in question, his “aiding and abetting” had amounted to getting in the way of anybody important leaving the fireworks display before Richards had a chance to set off his “accidental” firework on the other side of the resort. The fact that it had been Blake who’d been leaving had just made Sawyer a little more zealous in carrying out his part.
In the end, Blake’s attorney pleaded his case down to simple battery, Blake paid a fine, and that was the end of it. As far as Blake was concerned, a fine and some reconstruction on the resort were a small price to pay for knowing it was all over. He’d have paid a lot more to get the chance to hit Sawyer a few more times, but at least he wasn’t quite as pretty as he’d used to be. His nose had a definite bump in it now after being broken by both Riley and Blake. That was satisfying.
It was also satisfying that Jerry Richards was in jail and would probably be going to prison. And if Blake paid a visit to Sawyer’s house on his crutches early on and suggested that, given his part in the whole deal and the fact that the entire town knew about it, it might be wise for him to get out of town and stay there? If three oversized specimens of NFL muscle went with him to do it? The sheriff didn’t have to know about that.
All of that took a while to happen, but by Thanksgiving, Sawyer had moved to Coeur d’Alene with Ingrid, Richards was still in jail, and Dakota had recovered enough to finish six glass pieces, which were hanging in a Portland gallery with a couple of the earlier ones. Only a couple, b
ecause she’d sold five in the first month, and was in the process of replacing them.
This Thanksgiving turned out a little different from every past one Blake had spent, though. Or a lot different. For one thing, it was the first time in sixteen years that he hadn’t spent the holiday either playing a football game or getting ready to play one. And for the other, he’d flown Russ and Dakota to Charlottesville to spend the holiday with his family. That was good. The day after Thanksgiving, he took Russ out to breakfast at Ace Biscuit & Barbecue, which wasn’t.
Oh, the food was tasty enough. Blake just didn’t seem to have an appetite.
Russell was tucking into his fried chicken, waffles, fried green tomatoes, and sweet tea like he’d been kept out of heaven too long and the angels had just opened the gates. Finally, though, he glanced at Blake. “You’re not eating. Knee bothering you?”
“No.” Blake rearranged his plastic silverware one more time.
Russ shot him a look. “Spit it out, son.”
“Right.” Blake shook his head at himself and dove in. “Here’s the deal. I’m planning to ask Dakota to marry me, and I’d like your blessing to do it.”
Russell stopped eating, which was some sacrifice. “Do you need my blessing?”
“No. But I’d like to have it. I want Dakota to have everything she wants, and she’ll want this.”
“Well…” Russell said slowly, and Blake thought his heart was going to gallop straight out of his chest. “It’s been, what, six months?”
“Yep. And that’s long enough.” Blake cut himself a slice of biscuit, ham, and gravy, and then didn’t eat it. “I knew after three weeks. I just didn’t know I knew. When I saw her in that hospital bed, though, I couldn’t have known any clearer. And since the Fourth, it’s been just about killing me not to be married to her. I want to know she’s sure, though. I decided to wait until she’d sold some more of her glass first, so she’d know she had a future. So she’d know she didn’t have to choose me to get it.”
“Huh.” Russell sounded dubious. “That’s a whole lot more high-minded than I’d ever be.”
Blake had to laugh. “All right, maybe that’s a little bit of a lie. Maybe I was scared she’d say no. Maybe I still am.” He sobered again, because this was too important. “I’ll give her a good life. You have to know that.”
Russell thought a while, which was a while too long, then said, “I don’t care so much about that. Dakota can make it on her own. I care that you give her your best, and that you don’t give it to anybody else. That would flat-out destroy her. She’s had enough broken promises in her life. If you let her down, you’ll answer to me. I like you fine, but that little girl’s my daughter.”
“I’ll be making some promises,” Blake said. “Some vows. I’ll make them in front of my family, you, and God, but I’ll be making them to Dakota. I haven’t always been a perfect guy, but I’ve always kept my promises. I’ll be keeping these. You’ve got my word on it.”
“Then, son,” Russell said, “I guess you better ask her.”
“I guess so.” And never mind that the thought made those butterflies rise again, worse than before the biggest game of his life.
“When you planning on doing it?” Russ asked. He was getting back to his breakfast now, and Blake decided he’d better start in on his own. He didn’t get to Charlottesville often enough to pass up biscuits and gravy done right.
“Well,” Blake said, “I tell you what. Here’s my plan.”
Two weeks later
Dakota couldn’t stand to wait for the boat to reach the shore. She needed to be in the water again, because it was warm, and that shoreline wasn’t fringed with cedars. It was edged by palms and ferns and a Four Seasons hotel.
A Four Seasons hotel in Costa Rica, to be precise. She was here, and she’d explored the rainforest canopy and seen more birds than she’d known existed. She’d jumped into an impossibly blue plunge pool at the base of a waterfall and been overtaken by the soul-deep vibration of the roaring water. She’d hiked on a volcano, and she’d snorkeled in the Caribbean. And today, she’d swum with dolphins, and that had been the best of all.
Everything she’d imagined had come true. And more.
How could a woman stand still and wait for a boat to dock with that kind of happiness fizzing inside her? She was jumping over the side on the thought and swimming for the beach. When she heard a shout behind her, she turned in the balmy water and shouted back to Blake, “Why are you still up there? Why aren’t you racing me?”
He dove right in, and she laughed out loud and swam hard. She didn’t beat him even with her head start, but she gave it her best shot.
By the time the boat had docked and Blake’s parents and Russell had made their leisurely way to the resort’s veranda, Blake already had a daiquiri in front of her, and she was leaning back in her cane chair in her brand-new yellow bikini, playing with the tiny little beach umbrella in her drink and teasing him.
“I’m going to beat you one day soon,” she told him. “Just wait. I’m practicing.”
“Oh, yeah, wild thing,” Blake said. “You tell yourself that.”
Russell joined them first, because that was how fast he walked these days. “You did good, son,” he told Blake. “Keep her on her toes.”
“Hey,” Dakota protested.
Blake’s parents followed close behind Russell. “Well,” Margaret said as Elliot handed over the beach bag Blake had left behind, “that was fun.”
“I’d call that the highlight of the trip so far,” Elliot said, picking up his mojito and taking a sip. “Although the drinks aren’t bad.”
“No,” Dakota said, “that wasn’t the highlight. That was the best thing ever. That was one from my bucket list.” She smiled at Blake, he smiled back at her, and her heart turned over one more time. “Thank you. I love you. Have I mentioned that?”
“Just because I took you to swim with dolphins?”
“Maybe.” She was so happy, she thought she might float away. “Or maybe because you do all those things Evan said once. You look good, you talk good, and you sound good. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s more than that. Maybe it’s that you make me laugh and hold my hand and make my life so much better. Maybe because you’ve got the sweetest heart a man could ever show a woman, and you keep showing it to me and telling me it’s mine. Maybe because I’m so grateful to have you, it scares me.”
Everybody else was smiling, but Blake wasn’t. “That’s a pretty good declaration, darlin’,” he said. “Sounded like you meant it, too.”
“Because I’m reckless,” she said. “I’d have to be, to say that in front of everybody. But then, Dad told me something once, too. He said that if people didn’t like all my Dakota, I should go find better people. And I did. I found you.”
“You did.” He wasn’t looking at her, though. He was rummaging in the beach bag, and she got a pang of unease. That probably had been too reckless. Too much, as always. Too intense. Putting him on the spot.
He stood up, and she thought he was going to make an excuse to walk away.
Reckless. Wild. Too much Dakota.
He didn’t walk away, and he didn’t make an excuse. He was kneeling on the patio. On his good knee. And he was holding a box.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move.
He took her left hand right there in front of everybody, and when he started to talk, he was trying his best for his usual amused drawl, but he wasn’t making it. Maybe because his voice wasn’t quite steady.
He said, “Seems to me it’s almost Christmas, darlin’. And you’re probably thinking, what do I give Blake? Can’t give him a robe, because he won’t wear it. Can’t give him a tie, because it’ll never make it out of the closet. So I have this real good idea. Seeing as I love you more than life itself, and being where you’re not is doing its best to kill me, I think you should marry me. That’s what I want for Christmas, for you to come to Virginia again and marry me out there. Turns out I’ve got a church
and a minister just waiting to do it.”
He opened the box with his thumb, then. And she stared. That… that ring. It was three intertwined circlets studded with diamonds, and there was a stone in the middle that was… that was…
She couldn’t look at the ring anymore, though, because she had to look at Blake. She asked, “You mean… now? What? For Christmas? That’s… uh… less than two weeks away.” The hand he was holding was shaking, and Blake’s eyes were shining gold.
“That’s what I mean,” he said. “But I should say the words, I guess.” He laughed, and that wasn’t steady, either. “Miss Dakota, I truly do love you, and I surely hope you’ll agree to marry me.”
“Yes,” she said, and watched his smile come. Watched it grow. “Yes. Of course I will. Of course I do. I love… I love you. But, uh…” She couldn’t think. She had a hand over her mouth, and she couldn’t hold herself together. There was no way. “But… Evan. A dress.”
He sighed. “We’ll get Evan down there for it. I hereby accept Evan, even though I’m not sure he accepts me. And I tell you what. My grandma had this dress, sort of a mermaid deal, and I think it’d look real pretty on you. Seems my mom’s been hanging onto it, because it did all right by her own mom. There’s sixty years of marriage in that dress, and seems to me we could probably take it over a hundred. We could even pass it on if we wanted. I’m going to want some babies, and I hope you’ll want to make them with me. I sure would like a little girl, and if I got a son, too… well, I’d have just about everything a man could want.”
“But… but…”
He was still talking. “I hear you thinking it, because I thought it, too. What about your adventures? What about your work? See, the good thing about babies is, they’re portable. You can carry them through rainforests, and you can walk through Paris in the rain with them. I want to give you adventures, and I want to give you babies. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
She was smiling, or she was crying, or both. And so was his mother. Russell and Elliot were just sitting there looking smug. And Blake was sliding that ring onto her finger and threading his fingers through hers.
Silver-Tongued Devil (Portland Devils Book 1) Page 36