Page 39 of Silver-Tongued Devil
You have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing.Maybe if she said it enough times, she would actually believe it.
She didn’t go straight home, even though she was already late. Instead, she pulled into the lot at City Beach, sent Russell a quick text, and went for a swim.
No hesitation. Not here. Not anymore. She ran into the cold water, then dove under and swam for her life. For her self-respect. For her dignity, and most of all, for her courage. If it didn’t come easily—well, nothing did. It came hard, always, but she wasn’t getting out until she had it back.
When she walked into the kitchen at last with Bella following her inside, disappointed out of a session with her dog toy, the table was set, but Russell wasn’t there. She followed the sound of the TV into the living room.
“Hey,” she said, her tongue sticking on the “Dad” as it had all week, ever since that dinner with Evan and Blake. “Sorry I’m late. I hope dinner isn’t ruined.”
Russell turned the set off and struggled to stand. “No problem. You told me. Not like I’ve got someplace else to get to. Go clean up. I’ll get the burgers started.”
Even after her shower, though, which usually made her feel better, the food didn’t go down easily. She should be hungry—shewashungry—but she was having trouble anyway.
She’d look at her glass after dinner, that was what. She wouldn’t work on it—she’d mess up if she tried, and she knew it—but she’d look at it, and she’d believe in herself a little again. She’d feel better.
Russell had been nearly silent since they’d sat down. She hadn’t seen much of him lately anyway, between the work, her glass, and the excuses she’d made to be somewhere else. Now, though, he spoke. “I was checking the bills today. I looked at the mortgage balance, and it said it was almost out of the red. Looked to me like about four thousand bucks too much in there. That a mistake? If it is, I’ll take it.”
Dakota glanced up at him, then back at her burger. “Blake Orbison bought two of my glass pieces on Friday. The eagle and one of the flowers. He paid me thirty-nine hundred dollars for them, too. Once we get the last payment for the resort, you’ll be all the way out of the red. Then it’ll just be keeping up with the payments.”
Russell had stopped eating. “That’s a hell of a lot of money. It’s a whole lot more than you’ve ever charged. He paid that? Why? And you shouldn’t be putting that money into the mortgage anyway. That’s yours, for your own start someday.”
“It’s my debt, too. Mine to help with.”
“It’s not your debt.”
She wasn’t even pretending to eat anymore. “I know. It’s not my house. You told me so. I got it. It’s still my debt. You took me in when I had no place else to go, and then you kept me. That’s my debt, and I pay my debts.”
“You stop that right now.” Russell shoved away from the table, and she saw the spasm of pain that crossed his face. Sudden movements always hurt. “Kids don’t owe parents. That’s not how it works.”
“Except that I’m not your kid.”
The words hung there. Her throat was tight, her breathing shallow as Russell stared at her, pale blue eyes in a face creased beyond its years. The face she loved. The man who wasn’t her father.
He said, “Of course you’re my kid.”
“You forget.” It was hard to say. She said it anyway. “I heard you. This isn’t my house, and you’re not my responsibility. But I still owe you.”
His palm came down on the table, rattling the silverware, but she didn’t jump, and she didn’t flinch when he raised his voice, either. “Goddamnit! That wasn’t what that meant! You telling me you’ve spent all this week thinking I was saying you’re not my daughter? That’s why you’ve been so messed up? I thought it was Orbison, and you having to paint his house. Why would you think something that crazy? Just because I don’t want to be reminded that I’m useless, and that you’re carrying all the weight for me like nobody’s daughter should have to do? That you have to work for him like you never wanted to do? What the hell does that have to do with whether you’re mine?”
Her voice was shaking, her hands gripping the paper napkin in her lap. “I thought…”
“Well, stop thinking.” He was glaring at her, barking the words out. “Maybe I had some payback of my own to do, you ever think of that? Man stays drunk the whole first two years of his son’s life, lets his girlfriend go off with somebody else without even putting up a fight, never tries to get those kids back? And then they finally come back to him through nothing he’s done, and he still barely manages to hang onto them? What kind of payback do you think he needs to do for that?”
“But you did,” she managed to get out. “You held onto us. You stopped drinking so they let you keep me.”
“And how much good did it do? Riley still had to join the Army, didn’t he? You still left town. And now you’ve had to come back.”
“I’ll survive.” She took a gulp of iced tea, then choked on it and coughed helplessly for a minute, the tears she’d held back earlier coming to her eyes with the force of the spasms.
“If you’re taking favors from Blake Orbison,” Russell said when her coughing had subsided, “that’s too high a price. I’m not letting you do that for me.”
It was her glass hitting the table this time, its force surprising both of them. Russell jerked back, and Bella, who’d been standing up leaning against his leg, barked twice, the sound unexpected and sharp.
Dakota jumped, but she went on anyway. “I am not prostituting myself for Blake Orbison. I wouldn’t be worth that kind of price to him, so there’d be no point even if I wanted to. I’d be fifty bucks on the nightstand and ‘That was great, honey. See you next time.’ That isn’t paying any mortgages, and I’m not doing it.”
“You bite your tongue.” The leathery skin on Russell’s cheeks had darkened. “Don’t you ever think that. Don’t you dare. You’ve got more in you than any ten models Orbison ever dated. You ought to know it. And if he’s pressured you… you’d better be telling me, and telling Evan, too. You switch jobs with Evan, and if Orbison doesn’t like it, he can talk to me about it, and I’ll tell him how it’s going to be.”
Dakota shrugged, suddenly so tired. “I don’t need to do that. It doesn’t matter. I asked that price for my glass, and he paid me. Maybe he’s a fool. Could be. He has too much money, that’s for sure. But I didn’t trade anything for thirty-nine hundred other than my glass, and I’m not going to.”
