No Kind of Hero (Portland Devils Book 2)

by Rosalind James

  “I know,” Beth said. She was pleading, but Rosie deserved pleading. “But if you could have seen what a good dog she is, Mom. She never growled or nipped or anything at anybody, as badly hurt as she was. The vet was checking her, and it hurt her so much, and when it was over, she . . .” She had to stop a moment, take a breath. “She licked my hand.”

  “You’d better not get too attached,” her mother tried next. “She’s bound to belong to somebody.”

  “Who? Look how skinny she is. She didn’t have a collar, either, and she was on the road. If she did belong to somebody, and they weren’t feeding her better than that, or keeping her at home, they don’t deserve to have her.”

  Beth was never fierce, but she was fierce now. It was Rosie, and it was Evan. He was letting her talk, but he was standing beside her while she did it, giving her strength. “I know I’m asking a lot of you, Mom,” she said, and now, a tear or two escaped. She couldn’t have stopped them. “But Rosie matters. She’s a good dog. She deserves a home. Please.”

  She’d won that day, and so had Rosie, but it had taken all day, and it had been dark for an hour by the time Evan packed up his things and prepared to leave.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him, standing at his truck with him and wrapping her arms around herself against the cold. “You lost almost a whole day of work. I didn’t even think of that. You could have left once we got Rosie to the vet. I’m so grateful, but I’m sorry I didn’t think to tell you that.”

  “No,” he said. He wasn’t exactly emoting all over the place, but he was looking straight at her, and somehow, the emotion was there. His face was impassive, but she could see into him anyway. “I couldn’t have left you. And I wouldn’t have. And I’d like to take you out.”

  “Did your mom say why she did that?” Evan asked. Not that he was surprised. Putting Rosie down without telling Beth had been a purely lousy thing to do. Which was why he wasn’t surprised Michelle Schaefer had done it.

  He was sorry about Rosie. She’d been a good dog, and she’d sure stuck like glue to Beth. That first week, her leg in the cast, she’d defied the paint smell that irritated her sensitive nose in order to be close to her savior, and maybe that was natural. But when Beth came home from college the next summer, nothing had changed. Rosie had loved Beth with all the adoration a dog could give, and Beth had loved her right back. Evan had thought he was seeing that Beth knew how to love, that she knew how to stick. Good thing he knew better now, and that he wasn’t looking for anything more than right-this-minute.

  He should get a dog like that for Gracie when she got a little bit older, though. Except that he wasn’t home enough for it, and his mom didn’t like dogs much. Too bad. A dog would be good for a girl when she was sad and lonely and her dad couldn’t fix it, as much as Evan wanted to think he could fix anything. No matter what her troubles were, a dog would always let a girl know she was wonderful, and Evan wanted that for Gracie.

  “What?” Beth asked, like she’d forgotten what they were talking about. She put her roller back in the pan and rolled it around. She wasn’t painting very fast, but you could say that Evan didn’t care.

  “Why she had Rosie put down then,” he reminded her.

  “Oh.” Beth climbed up onto the draped counter and started painting above the mirror. “She said I didn’t need that distraction before the bar exam, that it was better that way.”

  He thought about that a minute. “Like you couldn’t handle the truth.”

  “Yes.” She was slapping the paint on like it had offended her. “And I hated that I wasn’t there to hold Rosie through that so she wouldn’t be scared. She should have fallen asleep feeling loved. Feeling safe. I could have done that no matter what test I was taking. I felt so selfish that I hadn’t asked about her enough, or I hadn’t come home to see her anyway, no matter what my mom said. I was too . . . focused, and Rosie was the one who suffered, and she shouldn’t have had to suffer. I knew it was really me, my fault, but I was mad at my mom anyway. You know how she is, so sure that she’s doing what’s best for me. She has trouble with boundaries.”

  “Yeah.” If Evan’s tone was dry, who could blame him? “I remember.”

  Which should have been enough right there to make him take one big old step back. It might have been, too, if he didn’t . . . well, still like Beth so much. Not to mention remembering the day when she’d showed him every bit of her courage and her heart. She’d walked him out to his truck that night after their Rosie-Rescue, and he’d told her he wanted to take her out. Instead of playing any kind of games, she’d uttered a startled little laugh and said, “I spent all this morning trying to get up the courage to ask you. Yes. Yes.” And he’d thrown caution to the winds and taken the fall.

  He’d stood there the next night listening to the popcorn machine as the minutes ticked by, had told himself she probably wouldn’t show up and it didn’t matter anyway, because she was going back to Seattle in a week. And then she had showed up, and her smile had been so wide at seeing him, it had been all he could do not to take her in his arms right then and there, except that he hadn’t wanted to scare her off, as tentative as she always seemed. Like she was as drawn to him as he was to her, but she wasn’t sure it was all right to be. Exactly the same way he felt.

  He hadn’t missed that she was meeting him at the theater instead of having him pick her up at home. Another red flag that should have warned him off and hadn’t, even though he’d caught the don’t-even-think-about-it daggers from velvet-over-iron Michelle Schaefer every day for a week, in a cold war that had escalated to DEFCON-3 by now. And then there was richest-man-in-town Don Schaefer, who probably wasn’t too happy about Evan either.

  Of course, now that Evan was a dad himself, he got that one. He knew what kinds of ideas he’d had about Beth during those first days of her winter break, when she’d wander into whatever room he was painting as if she were bored, and as if she could wander right out again. Tight jeans, long legs, and long-sleeved T-shirts that covered her up and showed her to him all at once, and that multicolored hair falling over her shoulder in its braid. By the time he’d finally cracked, had stopped thinking about her dad and her mom and the job and the company he and Russell were working so hard to expand, about how this was his best ticket, his only ticket . . . by the time he’d forgotten about the word-of-mouth that got them the jobs, about his bank balance and Russell’s and all the rest of it and had asked Beth out, he’d been fairly obsessed with getting his hands in that hair. Preferably while she was on her back, although if he was sitting with her in his lap and unfastening her braid while she looked at him with those shining blue eyes, maybe even trembled a little from all the passion she hid under the cool exterior? And then he put her on her back?

  Well, yeah. That worked too.

  It had been another long four nights after that first date before he’d managed to get his hands in her hair that way. The problem with a North Idaho winter was that you had so few places to sneak away to, especially if your fellow sneaker wasn’t even twenty-one yet and redneck bars in the boonies weren’t an option.

  A back road way out at the eastern end of the lake, though, with the truck’s motor running, the heater going, the windows fogging, and his body all the way over Beth’s on the cracked bench seat? That worked. That almost-last night, their last night, of her winter break, when she’d been wrapped up in his arms, her hair falling around her and all of her as smooth and rich as silk, and he’d slid a careful hand up under her shirt for the very first time?

  Let’s just say he still remembered the feel of that high, firm breast, and the way she’d sucked in her breath when his fingers circled the erect little nipple. Which he knew would be a perfect shell-pink when he got to see it, and he wanted to see it. He wanted his mouth on it, too. He wanted to hear the noises she’d make then, because once Beth let go, she was all the way gone. He’d been right all along. Underneath all that careful reserve? She was fire.

  They kissed and touched on t
hat last night while the snow fell around the truck and the silence surrounded them, and he thought about getting stuck out there all night long, and wanted it. He knew her skin would be flushed and abraded from his kisses if only he could see it, and he wanted to see it. Her own increasingly bold hand was under his T-shirt, stroking up his body, grazing his chest, and he thought he’d explode just from that. His heart was beating like a jackhammer, he was hard enough to do damage to something, and he knew he’d be aching for hours. And he didn’t care.

  What she said wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. She gasped out, while his mouth was at her neck, marking her up some more, “Evan. I want to . . . I want to so much. But I . . . I don’t think I . . . can.”

  He sat back, but he kept his hands where they were. He wasn’t sure he could move them.

  “I’m leaving the day after tomorrow,” she said, as if he would’ve forgotten. “And I want to do this, but I’m so . . . I think about you every night. I’m so . . . pulled, I can hardly stand it. I have too many . . . hormones.”

  He had to laugh. “I’ve got some hormones myself.” He did move his hands, then, because even in the dark, he could sense how troubled she was. “Hey.” He brushed that gorgeous hair back, smiled as much as he could manage, ignored his aching body, and said, “If you don’t want to, we won’t.”

  She leaned into him, then, laid her head against his shoulder, and said, “The problem is, that just makes me love you more.”

  His hand stilled on her hair, then tightened around her, and she laughed into his shoulder and said, “Now I went and said the word. But if you can’t say the word, if you don’t feel the word—well, if I don’t, anyway—how can I even think of doing this?”

  He said, gently, so she’d know it was safe to tell him, “Are you a virgin, baby? That what you’re telling me?”

  He couldn’t believe it, not really. She was twenty, and she was so pretty. Oh. Wait. “Is it something else?” he asked as the cold dread filled him at the thought. “Did something happen to you that makes you not want to go ahead?” He’d kill the bastard. Even if the guy was all the way in Seattle. Didn’t matter.

  “Option A,” she said with a sigh, still wrapped up tight in him, where he needed to keep her. “Embarrassing to admit, but you’d know as soon as we got going anyway, so I might as well tell you.”

  Relief. And, yes, pleasure. He wanted to be her first. He wanted that bad. “You know what I love about you?” he asked. She’d said the word first, so it was the least he could do. And never mind that it was too fast, and it was all wrong, and she was going to leave for Seattle again and he wasn’t even going to get to see her naked first.

  “Right now, it’d probably have to be my awkwardness,” she said, and he had to laugh again.

  “Nope.” He kissed the top of her head, which smelled like flowers, and felt a rush of tenderness so strong, it scared him. “That you tell the truth. You say things nobody else would. Everything comes from your heart. I love that you say it to me.”

  She pulled back, put her palms on his cheeks, and said, so close he could see the way her smile trembled around the edges, “If I do that? That’s because I’m telling you, and I know that no matter how hard it is to say, it’s going to land in a safe place. And do you think you could come to Seattle sometime? It’s too long until summer. It’s too long until Spring break. But . . .” She sighed. “I have a roommate, and I know I’m being . . . too scared. And even so, I’m so selfish. I want to see you.”

  “Then,” he said, “you’ll see me.” He kissed her again, then laughed, because the bubble of happiness in him wouldn’t allow for anything else. “Try to keep me away.”

  “Even though . . .” she said, then hesitated.

  “Even though what? I already know I’m not getting laid tonight. Nothing else could be worse than that.”

  She smiled, and then she didn’t. “Even though it’s where the football thing didn’t work out?”

  It was, and he wasn’t talking about it. The past was gone. All he had was the here and now, and that was Beth in his truck and in his arms.

  If going to Seattle was hard? He was going anyway.

  Beth finished painting the area above the mirror. Evan had gone quiet again. First the dead dog, then her mother. She was some sexy conversationalist. But even so, he didn’t seem tense anymore. She’d always been able to read him, and right now? Things were all right. He was glad she’d come today, and so was she.

  She said, “You used to always work with a radio. Not anymore?”

  “Hmm?” He looked at her, his eyes faraway, then gave her that faint, lopsided grin that had always done her heart in. “Yeah. Guess I got distracted by you. I need to check on the scaffolding and my crew, too. Going to help me finish in here?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Until lunchtime. How’s that?”

  “That would be good.” Everything about his body language told her it was true. That was the thing about Evan. He was like a dog that way. You could believe him. You could feel his truth. “Back in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll do the insides of the stalls,” she said. “Leave the edges for you. Like before.”

  He smiled again, which was twice in a minute. “You talk about your dead dog, and I have you paint toilet stalls. Guess we both know how to do romance.”

  “Nope, and I still don’t,” she said, so bold she surprised herself. “I just thought that you were like a dog. Trustworthy, you know. Honest. That’s not too romantic, but then, you were always better at it than me. I’m counting on you to pull us through.”

  He hesitated a long moment, then shook his head. “I barely get myself right, and you mess me up all over again. I’m back in ten.”

  In fact, he was back in about thirty seconds. With the radio. He plopped it down, turned it on, and said, “Just for you. Be back soon.”

  He went out again, and she painted, swayed back and forth to upbeat country music, heavy on the guitars and the twang, sang along about how she wasn’t here for a long time, she was here for a good time, and wished it were true. When her phone rang in her pocket, she didn’t even glance at the display before she answered. “Hello?”

  “Simon here.” His usual rapid-fire delivery, and her pulse rate spiking just that fast, too. “Ten days gone. Tell me that means you’re fifty percent back to normal.”

  “I’m painting a toilet stall,” she said.

  “Nope. Bzzz. Wrong answer. Try again.”

  She laughed. She should be tensing up, but something in her, something stronger than caution, felt giddy and totally heedless of the consequences. Maybe it was the woman on the radio singing about winning the lottery, or maybe it was something else. She gave the roller a couple more careless swipes and said, “Just a sec. I’m stepping down off the toilet seat.”

  “No,” Simon said. “Just no. Tell me you’re volunteering at the homeless shelter, at least. We encourage our associates to give back to the community, blah blah. Except that that’s what the words pro bono were invented for, and they’re not about painting toilets. And I’m not talking about pro bono anyway. I’m talking about the brand-new client who came in today. Marjorie Sinclair, eighty-two years old, crazy as a loon, and not one bit pro bono. You may have heard of her. You may not have heard that she’s got a charitable foundation, three pugs she’s crazy about, four sons who hate each other, a second husband the sons hate more, and the most complicated mess of an estate you’ll ever have the pleasure of sorting out. She’s fired her lawyer, and she doesn’t trust men and told me to my face that if I think I’m doing her estate, I’m crazy, because I’ve got shifty eyes. Which is true. Consider this your lucky day. Fifty percent of you is good enough. Four flights a day from Spokane to Seattle, and two of them haven’t left yet.”

  “Except,” Beth said, edging her way out of the cubicle and going for the paint pan, “that I’m on vacation.”

  “Painting toilets isn’t a vacation. Lying on the beach is a vacation.”
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br />   “Really?” Beth came back and started to prime the back of the next stall in line. Maybe Evan should paint each one a little differently. Like what? Affirmations, maybe. Quotes. Like graffiti, but better. On swirly ribbons of paint. A different one in every stall. Or star scenes.

  Ooh. The Zodiac. Who didn’t sneakily love reading their horoscope? How fun was that? “I can’t picture you on the beach, somehow,” she told Simon.

  “That’s because I’m not there. Why would I be? What, an hour of sweaty boredom, a sunburn, and sixty minutes I’m not billing? No. It was a hypothetical. And I’m not billing right now, either. I’m investing five minutes of overhead to tell you to get yourself back here and talk to Marjorie Sinclair before I give her to Felicia Diaz, who’s a partner, in case you forgot. I don’t want to do that. Marjorie doesn’t want personality. She doesn’t want emotion. She wants icy cool and competent. She wants results.”

  “Maybe that’s what I’m on vacation for.” Once again, the words were slipping out of Beth’s mouth like she had no will of her own. “To get a personality. To get some emotion.”

  “You can have personality and emotion when you make partner. Anyway, you don’t get to choose. People like you and me don’t have emotion. We have success.”

  “Eight-point-five more days,” she said. “Think of it as my personality-reassignment surgery.”

  “It’s noon already. Eight days. Max. And it’s not going to work anyway. I know. I tried relaxing once. Then I realized that I wasn’t the one who was crazy. It was all the relaxed people.”

  “So why did you try?” You didn’t talk to your senior partner like this. Not if you wanted to be a junior partner. But then, she wasn’t working. She was on vacation.