Page 57 of Silver-Tongued Devil
That wiped the smile off her face. “I didn’t go.”
He turned onto the lake road and started around the first of its curves. “Let me guess. You were one of those artistic types who thought prom was juvenile. Wore dark eyeliner and a lot of black. The kind of girl the jocks always had a secret thing for. Or maybe that was just me.”
It took her a moment to answer. “I didn’t have a great time in high school.”
“Oh.”
He seemed to be thinking about how much to pursue that, so she asked, “Who’s going to be at this thing tonight?”
“I don’t know, really. Michelle said something about ‘putting together some people you’ll want to know socially, going forward,’ which I translated as ‘People guaranteed to be boring.’ You see why I invited you.”
“Oh, isthatwhy?”
He grinned. “Maybe it’s one reason.” He turned off the road and headed down the winding drive. “You been out here?”
“Oh, no.” Her tone was dry again, and he shot another glance across the car, then parked in an enormous circular driveway that already held ten or twelve other cars.
“Well, whoever it is,” Dakota said, “it’s a lot of them. It won’t be too concentrated.”
She hopped out and reminded herself,Classy. Mysterious.
That idea deteriorated as soon as the door swung open to reveal Don Schaefer. Balding, glasses, golf shirt and slacks, as genial and casual as his wife tended to be cool and scary.
“Blake!” Don said, pumping his hand and clapping him on the back for good measure. “Glad you could make it.” He turned to Dakota, put out his hand, and said, “Don Schaefer.”
The dryness was all the way back as she put her hand coolly into his and said, “Hello. But you know me. Dakota Savage.”
He stood still for a moment, and then he laughed, a jollyho-ho-hothat actually made Dakota relax some. “Well, how about that? Didn’t even recognize you. That’s how women are, though, isn’t it, Blake? They get so glamorous, it’s like they’re living in some different world, whereas us poor slobs just go on looking exactly the same no matter how they try to shine us up.” He rubbed a rueful hand over his scalp. “Or not. I swear, Michelle looks prettier every year, and I lose a little more hair and gain another couple pounds. But why am I talking to you out here? Come on in and say hello to everybody. Some folks you’ll know, Blake, and some you won’t. Way it should be. Get you settled down and feeling at home, now you’re part of the community. Dakota can help you there, too. She’ll know just about everybody.”
He was ushering them into a living room even bigger than Blake’s. A fairly astonishing room, in fact. All three sides were walled with windows, opening the room to the outdoors in spectacular fashion. One entire wall opened onto a wraparound deck, creating an indoor/outdoor space that doubled the room’s already substantial size. A grand piano sat in a corner, looking no larger than an upright under a peaked ceiling that rose twenty feet above it, while three separate cozy seating areas invited guests to settle in.
Their hostess, Michelle Schaefer, detached herself from a group standing near that opening to the deck. A group that included not only Steve Sawyer and his parents, but his wife Ingrid, too. And Ingrid’s best friend and fellow cheerleader, Melody Farnsworth, withhermother, Candy, and her father, Rob.
The contractors, the realtors, and the banker. Of course they were all here, and more of them, too, out on the deck. The mayor would be out there, Dakota was willing to bet. Steve’s uncle. Plus everybody else who was anybody in Wild Horse. It was no surprise that they socialized, but it didn’t matter. Dakota wasn’t the hired help, she wasn’t in high school, and she was Blake’s date. She was a guest.
She saw the exact moment when Michelle recognized her. The pause in her step, the falter in her smile. “Blake,” she said, coming up to him and reaching out a hand. “I’m so glad you could make it. And Dakota.” Another warm handshake, a less sincere smile. “What a nice surprise. Don’t you look beautiful. Doesn’t she, Don?”
“She sure does,” her husband said, andheactually sounded like he meant it. “I made a fool of myself back there, didn’t even recognize her. Happens to me all the time with you younger folks, friends of Beth’s. I keep expecting all of you to still have your hair in pigtails.”
“Well, I’m not in overalls now,” Dakota said, liking him better all the time. “You’re forgiven.”
“That’s right,” he said. “Taken over your dad’s painting business, haven’t you?”
“With Evan O’Donnell,” she said, and saw Michelle’s smile slip again. She’d always wondered whether Beth’s parents had been behind her breakup with Evan. Looked like it was true.
“How’s your dad doing these days?” Don asked.
“Her stepfather, honey,” Michelle said.
“He’s not doing so great,” Blake said, saving Dakota from the minefield that this whole conversation had become. “Hurting a lot. That was a bad accident. I hate to say that I only just found out it happened on one of my jobs.”
“Well, anybody who’s got any kind of business knows that accidents happen, no matter how careful everybody is,” Don said. “But hey. Come on over and say hi to some people. And here’s the liquor, finally.” A young woman, who’d been circulating with a tray filled with glasses of red and white wine, was approaching. “Or there’s beer in the fridge if you’d rather.”
Dakota took a glass of white wine, since the one way this evening could get trickier would be if she spilled red wine all over herself. Blake grabbed a red, and Don was ushering them across the room and straight into the shark tank. She whispered to Blake, “You didn’t tell them you were bringing me.”
“She said to bring somebody if I liked,” he murmured back. “And I said I’d do that.”
That was all they had time for, because they’d reached the others. Don was making jovial introductions, saying, “But you all know Dakota Savage, of course.”
