Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,139

awfully lonely, if we’re both gone?”

He snorted. “Of course I’m sure. I’ve lived in Wild Horse my whole life. My favorite coffee shop’s here. My best fishing spots are here. My friends are here, too, at least the ones who aren’t dead yet.”

“You sound like Russell,” Dakota said.

“Russell’s all right,” Oscar said. “Course, he’s a Mariners fan, but you can’t hold a guy’s bad judgment against him. See, I could watch some sports with Russell, if there weren’t all these women talking all the time.”

“Careful,” Dyma said. “You just lost Elaine Marks and the meatloaf-sampling.”

Oscar said, “This doesn’t matter anyway.” He looked at Harlan from under his eyebrows. “So what you’re telling me is, you’re going to take care of Jennifer and Dyma.”

“Yes, sir,” Harlan said. “I sure am.”

“He doesn’t have to—” Jennifer started to say.

“Yeah,” Harlan said. “I do. That’s my part of it, don’t you get it?”

Jennifer said, “We’re friends. That’s it.”

“I heard you the first time,” he said. It was hard to feel warm and loving when a woman was giving you that squinty-eyed look, not to mention when your proposal had caused her to burst into tears, and not in a good way.

“Good,” Jennifer said. “Then I guess … we’re doing that.” She blew out a long breath. “Moving to Portland.”

“Good,” Harlan said. “And can I just say … I’ve never negotiated so hard in my life. I feel like I needed my agent.” He was smiling. Why? He hadn’t gotten what he wanted. Nowhere close. He’d just promised to be friends. Who the hell wanted to be friends? Not to mention her big, strong new boyfriend.

Yeah, that wasn’t happening. No way. She didn’t think he was good enough? He was going to be good enough.

“You don’t need to look like that,” Jennifer said. “Like you won. You didn’t win.”

“Oh,” he said, “I think I did. You know what? I think so.”

43

The Bigger Man

Jennifer was sitting in a chair on her driveway in the mid-May sunshine, trying to hold firm in her mind to her rock-bottom price of eighty dollars for her actually pretty nice couch, when a black pickup pulled up. A familiar black pickup.

Mark Mathison got out of it, looking fit and handsome and long-legged. Also annoyed.

He came over to her table, hitched up his belt like he’d forgotten he wasn’t in uniform, did the manspreading thing, and said, “What, you’re moving?”

Jennifer said, “Excuse me, please. I’m in the middle of something. What price could you pay?”

Mark snorted like that was the worst bargaining he’d ever heard, which it probably was. The young brunette, with her hair in a ponytail, a toddler by the hand, and a baby in a stroller who was chewing on the ear of a stuffed dog, checked her wallet and said, “I could do sixty, I think. I just found a job, finally, and we were able to get a place of our own again, is why I want the couch. It’s so nice, not messed up and stained like all the other ones I’ve seen, but I just …” She blew out a breath. “Can you hang on while I call my husband?”

Jennifer said, “You can have it for sixty, if you can haul it away today. I don’t have a truck.”

“Really?” The woman’s entire face lit up. “Thank you. That’s so … that’s great.” She handed over the bills. “Could you hang on to it for me? Just for the rest of the day? My husband’s at work until four, but I’ll have him come over the second he’s done. And if you need any help moving stuff back into the house or anything, he could give you a hand.”

“Sure,” Jennifer said. “I’ll hold on to it until then. And hey. If you want some curtains, too—go on and take them.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Hey, I’ve been there. And congratulations on the new place. That’s such a great feeling, isn’t it?”

The other woman, who couldn’t be more than twenty-five, blinked back tears and said, her voice choked, “Thanks. It’s just … everything costs so much, you know?”

“Hey.” Jennifer stood up, reached across the table, and gave her a hug. “I know.”

The woman gulped the tears back, fished in her diaper bag for a tissue, and said, “Thanks. I mean it,” before she moved off to check out the curtains.

Jennifer wrote SOLD on a sticky note with a Sharpie, stuck some tape onto it, and told Mark, “Since you’re here, go stick that on the couch, would you?”

He took it, but