No Kind of Hero (Portland Devils Book 2)

by Rosalind James

  Which was why, after he’d sent in the invoice for the job and was feeling richer already, he was jogging off the stiffness from the day before, pushing Gracie in the stroller on a pretty damn good August morning, past silver maples and oaks and locusts whose leaves rustled faintly in the breeze. He nodded a hello to dog walkers and the occasional runner, then stopped at Elmer McClusky’s for a word, since the old man was out on the sidewalk and you couldn’t very well just run on past a guy.

  “Thank you kindly,” Elmer said when Evan bent down for his newspaper and handed it to him. “Going to be a good summer day.”

  “Sure is.”

  “Headed into town?” The old man peered at him and hitched up his baggy brown trousers.

  “Yep,” Evan said. “Taking my girl here out for a spin.”

  “Huh.” Elmer took the rubber band off his paper and slipped it into his pocket. “Whole place has changed since the resort opened. Only a month, and there’s already so many cars on Main Street that you can’t find a parking place. Resort would bring in new businesses, they said, but I don’t know how much use they are. Who needs a store that sells just soap? Heard about that one the other day. Haven’t seen it yet. Can you imagine that, though? Just soap? How in the wide world could that pay the rent?”

  “Got body lotion in there, too, I hear,” Evan said, carefully not smiling.

  Elmer snorted. “Body lotion. Fwah. What’s wrong with going to the drugstore? Some people got too much money, and that’s the truth. Looks like they’re putting in another ice cream store, too, except they call it something else fancy so they can charge more for it. And then there’s that new place where all you can buy is some kind of weird-colored cookies. That’s what they ought to call resort towns. One-thing-store towns. Pretty soon, you’re going to have to drive out to the highway to True Value because the hardware store can’t pay the rent, and it’ll be nothing but knicknack stores and boutiques. Whole durn town of ’em.”

  “That’s true,” Evan said, “but on the other hand, you’ve got more jobs coming in. No doubt about that.”

  “Well, I got to admit you got a point there. Yes, you do. I guess it always depends, don’t it?”

  “That it does.” Evan stayed patient. Not like he didn’t have time. “Of course, personally, I’m just glad of the extra work. Can’t help but look at that first.”

  “Course you can’t,” Elmer said. “Family to support and all. Gracie’s getting all big. She sure is growing up fast. You ever hear from her mom?”

  “No.” Maybe he didn’t have that much time.

  “Don’t know how a woman could do that. My wife, now, if she was still here, she’d have something to say about it. But I guess you probably said it all to yourself already.”

  “Probably so.”

  “Well, you’ll find some gal, I’m sure, wants to be a mom to Gracie, sweet little thing like she is. Got your house fixed up good now and all, business going all right. Plus you still got your hair, even.”

  “Could be.” Evan couldn’t decide if that last part was a joke or not.

  Elmer looked him over. Nothing wrong with his brain, even if eighty-five was receding in the rearview mirror. “Yeah. You don’t want to hear that yet. I’ll let you get going, then, and go in and read up on how the politicians have messed us up this time.”

  Evan jogged away, took Gracie to the park, and put her on his lap and did the swing with her, which was her favorite. Gentle, that was all, but she still loved it. Plus, he’d read that swinging made kids smarter. Something to do with neural connections. He was the only dad there, because it was a weekday, but he was used to that by now. He let her play in the sandbox a while, too. Then they went by the hardware store and bought light bulbs and new batteries for the smoke detectors, and the woman at the checkout made a fuss over Gracie before Evan stuck their purchases in the basket of the stroller and headed out again.

  So it wasn’t a tropical vacation. It still beat painting somebody’s office building in your respirator and goggles. He shoved the door of the store open, heard the bell tinkle behind him, and told his daughter, “Know what? I think we should go for ice cream.”

  Probably Elmer’s fault. He’d mentioned ice-cream shops and got Evan thinking about Robinson’s and how good that sounded. “And I hear you saying that it’s eleven in the morning,” he told Gracie, “but we’re rebels. We ride to our own rules. You’ll have a bottle, I’ll have a chocolate shake, and we’ll be living large.”

  That was why he was stuck in line at Robinson’s Ice Cream, though, when Beth Schaefer walked in and stood behind him.

  If she didn’t get into town soon, Beth thought on Friday morning, she was going to become a hermit. She’d stay here in her parents’ guest house, growing steadily older, thinner, and grayer, until she turned into the crazy lady out at the lake with twenty-six cats.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t even like cats much. She was the type of person who liked cats—the quiet sort who’d always rather read than go to a party, much to her mother’s chagrin—but except at work, she was insecure enough as it was. She didn’t need a pet she wasn’t even sure liked her back.

  Those were some pretty cheerful thoughts. She was probably depressed. She’d thought she needed a break, some time away. No, she’d known she needed a break. She’d needed time to think.

  Except that she hadn’t done any thinking. Instead, she’d hiked and run the trails around the lake every day until her thighs ached and her feet were sore, listening to Jane Austen audiobooks on her headphones because she was too restless to sit and read. So far this week, Elizabeth Bennett had snagged Mr. Darcy, and today, Captain Wentworth was about to be restored at last to Anne Eliot.

  When Anne was standing at the table reading Captain Wentworth’s letter, Beth knew she absolutely had to change this up. She was coming down the trail from Forester Peak, the lupines covering the hillside in all their purple glory and tears streaming down her face, sobbing over a woman discovering that the man she’d wronged all those years ago wanted her back. Crying because Anne had never stopped loving the Captain and regretting him, and somehow, his feelings for her were as strong and steady as ever, and there would never be another woman for him. Never mind that the people in question were (a) fictional, and (b) would have been dead for two hundred years even if they’d been real.

  When Henry, her parents’ Viszla, came tearing back up the trail and stuck his wet nose into her palm, she laughed, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and said huskily, “Next book had better be a thriller, don’t you think? I clearly can’t be trusted with romance, even of the Jane Austen variety.” Especially of the Jane Austen variety. Anne Eliot, her early bloom faded and with nothing but intelligence, a generous heart, and a gentle nature to recommend her, felt way too close for comfort, and Captain Wentworths were noticeably thin on the ground these days. Beth didn’t think nineteenth-century English sea captains with honorable natures and manly features hung around in the kind of see-and-be-seen Portland bars favored by aggressive young lawyers.

  If she were going to cry about something, she should cry about her job and how much this leave would cost her. Except that she couldn’t bring herself to care. Anne Eliot moved her to tears. Kentworth, Docherty and Valentino, LLC, didn’t.

  That was why she and Henry ended up going to town, though. They’d wander around a little, she’d check out the bookstore and have something to eat, and then she’d go to the grocery store. She needed to talk to actual human beings, even if it was just to say, “Cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich, please.” Work her way back up to social interaction.

  Robinson’s had a new coat of paint, she noticed when she came out of the bookstore, thriller duly purchased. If she could focus enough to read print, that would be progress. Baby steps. The venerable ice-cream shop had a new sign, too, an oval thing hanging on chains, its robin’s-egg-blue lettering quaint and curlicued, ready for the wealthy tourists from the new resort.

  “Ice cream,�
�� she said to Henry, unfastening him from the parking meter where he’d been tied. “Doesn’t that sound good?’

  “Excuse me?” a woman getting out of a Prius next to her asked.

  “Nothing,” Beth said. “Just talking to the dog.” And then felt like an even bigger idiot. She took Henry’s leash and headed across the street, jaywalking like a lawbreaker, and put Henry in the far corner of Robinson’s patio beside a jogging stroller, where he could lie in the shade of the weeping willows that hung over the creek. A mother mallard was leading a vee of fluffball babies downstream, each of the babies creating its own tiny wake. This was definitely a good idea, she did not tell Henry. Ice cream and baby ducks? That would cheer up the most morose heart.

  She went into the store, realized her earbuds were still in her ears, which meant she’d probably been yelling about ice cream at Henry in front of the Prius woman, and yanked them out, stuffing the cord down the front of her exercise capris. She should probably have showered and changed before she’d come to town, not to mention putting on some makeup, but she hadn’t been able to summon the energy.

  All of that, though, was why she didn’t notice Evan O’Donnell until she’d been standing behind him for twenty seconds. Until two teenage girls came in and got in line behind her, talking too loudly, and Evan turned to see.

  He didn’t say anything to her. In fact, he didn’t react at all. He just looked at her, totally expressionless, one of his big hands absently removing his daughter’s tiny exploring fingers from his chin. The baby smiled at Beth, though, and Beth couldn’t help smiling back. She was just too cute. “You guys are having ice cream too, huh?” she asked.

  “No,” Evan said. “We’re here for the hot dogs.”

  “Oh. Right.” She knew she was flushing. What a stupid thing to say. And why didn’t the line move? The two women at the front seemed to be taste-testing every one of the twelve varieties in the freezer chest. She should leave, but she didn’t know how to leave without looking pathetic, and she couldn’t stand to be pathetic again with him.

  Professional, she thought. Court face. And couldn’t summon it.

  Evan’s expression shifted. To what, she wasn’t sure. “That was nasty,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “That’s OK,” she managed to say.

  “No, it’s not.”

  She nodded once, then went on desperately, because he was still looking at her, “So do you have a day off? And I know that’s obvious, too. I just can’t think of anything else to say.”

  “Yeah. Finished a job last night. Took a run.”

  He was wearing running shorts and a T-shirt. He’d always been ridiculously tall and broad-shouldered, even when he’d been fifteen, and more so when he’d been twenty-four. He’d filled out since then, though. In the chest, shoulders, and arms, mostly, because he sure wasn’t fat. He was just . . . big.

  He took Gracie’s hand off his chin again, and Beth said, “She seems really curious. Really, uh, active.”

  He actually smiled a little. “Yeah. She’s a busy thing.”

  The women in front of them were finally paying. Beth indicated the counter and said, “I think it’s your turn.”

  “Right.” He stepped up and said, “Chocolate milkshake, please.”

  “That sounds good,” Beth said. “I think I’ll get one, too.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder, and she realized she’d said it aloud as if they’d still been having a conversation.

  Oh, man. She was channeling Rain Man here. She was going to sit at home, replay this in her mind, and cringe. Audiobooks would be necessary for sure.

  “Two,” Evan said to the girl behind the counter. She had a ring through the edge of one nostril and a stud in her eyebrow. Beth tried to imagine coming home with those and failed utterly. Of course, it wouldn’t go over big at Kentworth, Docherty and Valentino, either. Not before you’d made partner. Not even afterwards.

  Wait. What had Evan said? “Oh, really,” she said, “no. I can get my own. I didn’t mean for you to—”

  “I can afford a milkshake,” he said.

  “I know you can afford a milkshake. But you aren’t buying mine just to show me you can. That’s stupid.”

  “Guess that’s what you have to expect. Not all of us went to law school. If you talk real slow, I might be able to pick it up.”

  “All right,” she said. “That’s it.”

  She surprised some expression from him at last. All his face registered was “startled,” but that was something.

  The girl stuck the two metal tumblers onto the old-fashioned shake machine, then turned back and said, “Eight dollars.”

  She had dark blue nails. Nobody had ever told her, “In Estate Planning, our clients expect us to look like attorneys, not like we’re headed out clubbing.” Beth didn’t look like an attorney now, though. Her nails weren’t painted blue, pink, or anything else. They weren’t painted at all. She was definitely depressed.

  She knew she was keeping the girl waiting, not to mention the two girls in line behind her, but for once, she wasn’t going to care. Evan reached into the back pocket of his shorts for his wallet and pulled out a ten, and Beth said, “No” and told the girl, “Two separate transactions.”

  “I said I’ve got it,” Evan said. It was more of a growl, really.

  “And I said two transactions. You want to put me in the wrong. I get it. Well, go ahead, I guess. But you’re not buying my milkshake.”

  The girl behind the counter sighed, resignation written all over her heavily-made-up face. “Which is it?”

  Beth said, “What I just said,” and handed over her debit card.

  She should have let Evan go first. He’d been first in line, and he was the one holding the baby. But he was also the one who’d caused this whole thing, and she was sick of being polite. It had worked just great for Anne Eliot. Here in the twenty-first century, though, it just got you run over, and she was tired of getting run over.

  Beth had taken her milkshake and gone. Good. Evan didn’t need to see her anymore. What right did she have to show all that attitude with him?

  He handed over the ten and shoved aside the nagging sense that he’d been a jerk. The look on her face. Confusion, hurt, anger . . .

  Yeah. He’d definitely been a jerk. He stuffed two bucks into the tip jar as a sort of blanket apology to women, grabbed his own milkshake, and headed out to the deck.

  Gracie had started to fuss and chew on her hand. Diaper change. Bottle, he thought as he shoved open the door with the milkshake hand, stepped outside, and . . . stopped.

  There was the red jogging stroller at the back, beside a table he’d picked so Gracie could look at the ducks. And beside it, at another of the little iron tables, sat Beth, with a dog lying under her chair.

  Great. Wonderful.

  Gracie was making some more noise, like she sensed her bottle was almost there but her doofus dad wasn’t getting it to her, and Evan was standing like a statue. Beth had her back to him. Maybe he could just . . . Except that the diaper bag was in the stroller, and he needed the diaper bag.

  For God’s sake, O’Donnell. Man up. He walked over, set his milkshake on his table, and grabbed the diaper bag.

  Beth looked up at him, and he could see the movement in her pale throat as she swallowed. Then something in her expression shifted and she said, “I’m not changing seats.”

  “I don’t remember asking you to change seats.” He was pissed off again, which was better than feeling like he’d kicked a puppy. Beth wasn’t twenty-one and fragile, no matter what kind of dark circles she had under her eyes or how pale she looked. She was almost thirty years old, she had a fancy job in a fancy law firm, and she’d made her choices. She sure wasn’t any responsibility of his.

  He took Gracie back into the building, got her diaper changed in the men’s room to the tune of some more fussing, with her trying to wriggle off the plastic mat that he’d had to put down on the floor when there’d been no other option. He p
ut a hand on her to hold her down while he fastened up the dirty diaper with the other hand and told her, “You realize I’m doing you a favor here. If you roll off this thing, you’ll get a disease. Stop it.”

  Of all the annoyances of single fatherhood, changing your baby in places that hadn’t considered that men might actually need those facilities ranked right up there. Or maybe he was just in a bad mood. A mood that Gracie was picking up, because she was fussing now like a starving baby who was being unfairly punished.

  “You’ll get the bottle before I get the milkshake,” he told her, managing to fasten the snaps on her legs while she continued her escape attempts. “You could think of that. Bet it will have melted by the time I drink it.”

  He got the warm water into the bottle and shook it to mix in the formula powder while Gracie started to cry for real. He told her, “You know, people can wait two minutes to eat,” but she didn’t listen. She was crying while he carried her out through the store again, and she was downright screaming by the time he got back to his table.

  Beth turned at his approach. Well, everybody turned at his approach. Gracie was making that kind of entrance. He dumped the diaper bag into the stroller with one hand, kicked a chair out, sat down, and plopped the nipple into Gracie’s mouth.

  Blessed silence, except for the thup-thup-thup of a very greedy baby.

  Beth said, “I guess babies have their own ideas.”

  Evan laughed, to his own surprise. “Yeah. You could say that. They work your blood pressure up like that to make you do what they need.”

  “I suppose it’s a sort of evolutionary thing,” she said. “Human babies being born so helpless and all. Not like ducks.” She indicated the creek, where a mother mallard was giving swimming lessons to eight fuzzy ducklings. “Babies are helpless because they have big heads, right? Because of brain size?”

  “Uh . . .” He adjusted Gracie in his arm and tipped her bottle up so she wouldn’t swallow air. “Brain size?”