Page 37 of Silver-Tongued Devil
The seconds ticked away. He was going to say he didn’t want it after all. Now that he saw it in the house, he was realizing everything that was wrong with it. That part at the bottom of the left wing, the awkward place where she hadn’t gotten the shadow just right. And she’d already sent the money from his check to the mortgage company. It wasgone.
He said slowly, “I don’t know. I’m wondering, now…”
“Oh.” She thought she was going to throw up. “Uh, I can… I could switch it for the owl, if you want.” He’d liked the owl. He’d stood there in Russell’s room and studied it. She couldn’t have mistaken the look in his eyes that day. “Or make you another piece, maybe, if you…” It had been so much money. She’d known it. Way too much for two pieces. What had she beenthinking?
“Dakota. No.”
The blood had left her head. She swallowed hard and said, “I’m going to… put these things in the truck.” There would be an answer, some answer. But she couldn’t, shewouldn’tlet him see her cry.
She headed fast into the circular drive and shoved her supplies into the back of the truck. She could tell he was still behind her, and sure enough, he set down the paint can and the dropcloths.
Get it together.She took a breath that was unfortunately unsteady, but even as she was doing it, his hands were on her shoulders, turning her around. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded. “What could you be thinking I was going to say?”
There was nothing but concern in his eyes. And she’d gotten it wrong. How was she going to explain this? “Oh,” she said weakly. “Huh. I thought you were saying you didn’t like it.”
“If I hadn’t liked it, I wouldn’t have bought it. But I did buy it. It’s mine, and I’m not giving it back. There’s no way I’m letting it go.” He must have realized he was holding her, because he dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Come on back inside with me, and let’s look at it together. Your room, and my eagle. And whatever you were thinking—it’s not true. We’ve got to work on your confidence, darlin’.”
She didn’t answer that, maybe because he was right. She went back into the house with him, the smell of paint hitting her hard, like always. Blake didn’t seem to notice it. He turned in the middle of the entryway to study the eagle again, and this time, she concentrated on breathing and not making assumptions, and waited.
“It looks good there,” he finally said. “It looksgreatthere, and if I didn’t like it so much… but I don’t think you can see it well enough up that high. I want to see his wings. I want to see his eyes, and the way he’s grabbing for that fish. I want to feel him doing it.”
“If we put him in one of the living-room windows, though,” she said, “he’ll be smack dab in the middle of your lake view. I don’t think that works. That’s why I put him here. Maybe the dining room?”
He.Blake thought of his eagle as a “he”? Like it was a real bird, the same way it seemed to her? And he wanted it. It was as good as he’d thought at first. He wasn’t going to change his mind. The thought was making her lightheaded.
“That’s a point about the lake,” he said. “But I’ve got an idea. Come with me.” He took her hand and headed for the stairs, then stopped and said, “Are you comfortable?”
“Uh… what?”
“Aren’t you hot? Don’t you want to change?”
“I’m looking forward to it, yeah, but I’m always hot while I work. Nothing new there.”
“Baby, you’re the artist here. You’re doing me a favor right now. So why don’t you say, ‘Blake, honey, quit pushin’ me around. I’m off the clock.’”
“I don’t know.” Suddenly, she was feeling a whole lot better, and not just because she wasn’t going to have to somehow figure out how to pay back twenty-four hundred dollars she didn’t have. “Maybe because I’m never going to call you ‘honey,’ just like I’m never going to let you call me ‘baby’? And you might have caught me off guard there.”
His eyes were smiling again, even though his mouth wasn’t. “I must’ve, the way you lost all your badass like that. Good to see it coming back. You’ve wounded me again, too, but I’m ignoring it. So what do you think? Tell me to quit wasting your time and to go get you that beer? Tell me to quit wasting your time, period, because you’ve had a long day and you’re heading on home? Or take off those clothes and come help me figure out where to hang my bird? Which sounds dirty. Why is that?”
She was laughing. “Let’s go for ‘combination.’ Let’s go for ‘my choice.’ I’m taking off these clothes. I’m washing my hands. I’m telling you to get me my beer first, and then, if you ask me nicely, I’m helping you figure out where to hang your bird. In a non-dirty way.”
He grinned. “See, I knew you had it in you.”
She was still smiling when she headed into the bathroom. Until she had another of those moments of truth.
This house had way,waytoo many mirrors. Painter’s cap, check. Overalls, check. Knee pads and paint-smeared tennis shoes, double-check. And she still had a smear of paint on the corner of her mouth. That was extra attractive. When she took off her cap and took her hair out of the braid, she found she had paint in there, too.
It was a while before she headed back out the door carrying a handful of clothes and shoes, but by the time she did, she looked a little better, and more importantly, had given herself a much-needed reality check.
The woman who’s going to paint your ceiling or gut your fish,she’d told Evan, and she’d been right. And maybe, horribly, something else.The woman who’s going to be your short-term good time, because you’re bored, she’s in your house already, and you’ve heard she’s good for it.
Blake was waiting for her in the kitchen. “That’s better,” he said, taking in her shorts, white T-shirt, and bare feet, then handing her a wonderfully cold bottle of beer. “Dump those somewhere, and I’ll show you my idea.”
It sounded casual, and in the right way, too. It was “paint your ceiling,” then, not “swipe right for tonight.”
He took her upstairs to his office, next to the master suite. A huge black walnut desk sat in the middle of a room dominated by five panes of bay windows, with an upholstered window seat made for reading, for sketching, for dreaming.
“I do like your house,” she said.
