Page 25 of Silver-Tongued Devil
Now, she was more than flinching. She was white. Evan said, “That’s not fair.”
Russell turned on him. “I’m not yours, either. I know you think so. Well, you can stop. I can’t change what happened, and neither can you. Shit happens. It’s over. Right here and now, I’ve got a mortgage that’s one more goddamned missed payment away from foreclosure, and both of you know it. The man paid me two hundred dollars. I’m a working man who doesn’t have a job and can’t get one. I’m taking that two hundred bucks, and the hell with what either of you have to say about it.” He looked at Blake. “I apologize for my daughter. Seems nobody ever taught her how to treat a guest.”
“He’s… not… a…guest,”Dakota said. She was still pale, but her teeth were nearly clenched, those cheekbones standing out again. “You took hismoney?I’mhandlingthings, Dad. I’vegotit. You can’t throw away your pride like that.”
“Wait,” Blake said. “I need to know what this is all about. I want the whole story, and I want it now.”
“No,” Russell said. “It’s over. It’s decided, and it’s done. I’m no crybaby victim out to sue the world because I got hurt and it isn’t fair. I’m going to watch baseball. Blake, you’re welcome to come join me. Dakota, you can clean up.”
It’s mine. My house. My rules. I’m not your responsibility.
Russell might as well have said, “I’m not your father.” Dakota knew that was what he’d meant. And she wasn’t going to cry, because the man whose responsibility all of this was,the man who had caused it, was sitting next to her, and she wasn’t going to show him that kind of weakness.
He’d flirted with her, had taken her hand like that would make her forget the whole thing, like she was just another woman to fall at his feet no matter what he’d done. Like being hot and rich could get him anything, including her.
Well, it didn’t. It didn’t get him her. She told Evan, hating that the words came out pinched, “You take Gracie and go on home. I’ll clean up later. I’m going for a walk.”
She didn’t care about Blake. She wasn’t going to say goodbye. It wasn’t her house? Well, she wasn’t his hostess. He was the cause of everything, and if she’d forgotten that for a few heady minutes, she wasn’t forgetting it now.
Evan said, “I’m here anyway. I’ll clean up. Go take your walk.” He didn’t look at Blake either, and Dakota figured Blake was smart enough to get the message. He was smart enough to make millions of dollars, or hundreds of millions of dollars, or some number that regular people with regular lives couldn’t even dream of. He was smart enough to know how to manipulate people and towns and review boards and get his way. He could be smart enough to know when he wasn’t wanted. She was out of here.
She was around the side of the house on the thought. She only realized she was barefoot when she hit the sidewalk. Too bad. She wasn’t going back until he was gone.
“Dakota.” Like a bad dream you couldn’t shake, Blake was there beside her. “Hang on.”
It wasn’t an entreaty. It was a command. What right did he have to command her? “Go away,” she said. “Go home.”
“Sounds like you’re talking to your dog.”
She whirled on him. “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m talking to a dog who doesn’t think it’s enough to cripple my fa— my stepfather, who wants to rub salt in the wound.”
She started walking again, and he stayed right with her. She was barefoot, andhewas wearing boat shoes like some preppy from Maine with a sweater tied around his shoulders. Because he’d been out on hisyacht.
“What kind of boat do you have?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “Hatteras.”
“Of course you do. And you took Russell out on it and showed him the difference between the two of you. You paid him to guide you like he was your… Sherpa. Your native bearer.”
“No,” Blake said, and damn it, he didn’t even sound rattled. “I paid him to guide me like he was my guide. Like he was a good fisherman who knew the lake. Which he was. I learned a lot, I enjoyed his company, and he earned his money. And I’m still waiting to hear the rest of it. Tell me how he got hurt.”
She was walking faster, ignoring the chill settling into the evening air, the rough surface of the asphalt under her bare feet as she crossed the street. “You don’t even know.” It only made her angrier. “Does that happen on every job, then? That must be a pesky problem for you, but hey, that’s what you pay workers’ comp insurance for, right? So they can give the guy some pitiful amount that isn’t going to let him pay his mortgage, so he’ll lose his house, but you don’t care about that, because you earned another million dollars? The job came in under budget! Yay, you!”
He said, “You don’t know how much I want to grab you right now.”
She turned on him.“What?What did you just say?”
He ran a hand though his dark hair and exhaled. “I don’t mean ‘grab you.’ I mean grab your arm and make you shutupand talk to me.”
“If I shut up,” she said, “I won’t be talking to you.”
“You know exactly what I mean.” She stepped off the curb again, stepped on a rock, cried out, and hopped, and he said, “Stop. Stop walking. You’re killing me here.”
“Ask me if I care.”
“Now you’re acting like a little girl. You’ve got something to tell me? Then sit down and tell me.”
A little girl? A littlegirl?She stepped back onto the curb, but only because her heel still hurt, and said, her voice low and trembling, “I am not a little girl. I am awomanwho’s justifiably angry.”
