Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,148

from under her lashes, and only realized after she’d done it that she was, yes, flirting. Maybe you just needed the right guy for that, one who knew how to tease and how to make you feel beautiful, and excited, and so desired. Almost … scared. In a good way. In a hold-your-breath way.

He smiled. It looked pained, even a little sad. “I want to see you put on a pretty dress and pretty shoes, and sit and watch the sunset with some candles burning and maybe some music playing, and let yourself enjoy being with a guy who’s willing to do whatever it takes to please you. Even if that’s just smiling at you across the table, kissing you on the cheek afterwards, smelling your perfume and having it spin his head all the way around, and telling you goodnight. Even if he wants a whole lot more than that. I want you to have the kind of night you would have wanted to tell your mom about.”

“Oh. I can’t ....” It was everything she could do not to cry.

Stupid hormones.

“And maybe,” he said, “I want to give you the kind of night I could’ve told my mom about, too. Maybe I want to be a better guy. The kind of guy who can put somebody else first.”

“Harlan. You’re already that guy. You’ve been that guy.” She had a palm on the side of his beautiful face now and was trying to smile, but her mouth kept trembling.

It was the mention of her mom that had done it. She wanted to go back to her room and pick up the phone, or better yet, most of all, she wanted to sit at her mom’s kitchen table and tell her all about it, to have her mom listen all the way through, and then say … whatever she would have said.

To wait until she was sure? To go for it, risking everything? What?

You should get out of here, spread your wings, her mom had said. But what did that mean? Wasn’t she supposed to want to do the single thing, the free thing?

Well, as free as you could be with a new baby. Which wasn’t actually all that free. But still.

She remembered, suddenly, what her mom had said the night before she’d died, when Dyma had been clearing the table after their dinner of slow-cooker Italian chicken and peppers, and Jennifer had said, “When I win the lottery, I’m going to cook with chicken breasts instead of thighs. Boneless and skinless. Organic. Free range. Eight dollars a pound. Drop them in the slow cooker, and I’m done.”

“You know what you’ll find out?” Adele had answered. “That thighs will still taste better.” Her smile was the only part of her that hadn’t changed. Her red hair had faded, and her eyes, which were only a little darker than Jennifer’s, were lined and tired, but her smile was still warm. Still alive. “That’s the dirty secret of life. Thighs taste better, pot roast is as tender as any fancy cut of steak, you can only use one bathroom at a time, the prettiest view is the one you get after you walk up a hill, and a Ford gets you to work as fast as a Porsche does. And the right man’s not the one who buys you diamonds, he’s the one who loves you the sweetest and the dirtiest and who holds you when you cry. The rest of it’s just advertising.”

“Except health insurance,” Jennifer had said.

Her mom had laughed at that. “Yeah. Health insurance matters. And not lying in bed worrying about which bill to pay would be great, too. But you don’t need to win the lottery for that. You’ll get there. Also, my advice about men might be more worth taking if I wasn’t divorced. Your dad was pretty good at the loving part. Not so good at the steady part. I should probably think up a better list before I go around offering any more life lessons.”

“The sweetest and the dirtiest, huh?” Jennifer had asked. “Geez, I wish I’d known those were the criteria.”

“Oh, honey,” Adele had said. “You always knew that.”

Jennifer had wanted to ask, “So Mark isn’t it?” But she’d known the answer, or maybe she’d thought, I need to have a talk with her about that later, when the time was right. Except that “later” had been too late.

Which part matters more? she wanted to ask her mom now. The sweet and dirty, or