Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,158

be an adventure, since I don’t know where anything is anymore. They had everything pulled out of there. I thought we’d be living in squalor for days, but nope. Dyma’s pretty much a human dynamo. How’d you name her that well? Did you wait until she was two, or what?”

She smiled, but it still looked tired. “I don’t know. Magical foreknowledge? She brings a lot of energy to the room. That’s one way of putting it.”

He brushed a hand over her cheek. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you go get changed, or better yet—bring your stuff over and have a swim, some gym time, whatever, while I make dinner? That’d be relaxing, right?”

“Well, the way I swim, it would be,” she said, getting some spark back. “Not the way you do it, like you’re in the Olympics. Although I don’t know where the gym is. Do I have to take the elevator, or what?”

He laughed. “I’ll give you the tour.” After that, he kissed her again and said, “Go get changed. I’ve got this.”

He’d worked out hard himself today, she was right about that. Because he’d been nervous, that was the truth. He’d said he loved her. To Orbison. Why had he laid himself on the line like that? But either Blake hadn’t told her what he’d said, or she’d brushed it off. He couldn’t tell which.

Nobody at the gym had brushed it off. When he’d hung up after that call, Julio had said, “I’m just gonna ignore the ‘padlock’ thing, because I’m classy, and go for the ‘pregnant’ part. Your lady’s pregnant?”

“Didn’t know he even had a lady.” That was Calvin, who was in a wheelchair, but had been building up his upper body with the kind of single-minded determination that earned a guy a starting spot. Harlan would bet he’d been a hell of a soldier.

“Well, yeah,” Harlan said. “I’ve got a lady. You heard it here first.”

“Uh-huh.” That was Brandon, who was on the leg press machine now, since he’d nudged Harlan off it somewhere in that conversation. Brandon was missing an arm, and an eye, too. He was also leg-pressing three hundred already. People thought Harlan motivated these guys. In fact, it was more the other way around. Brandon didn’t usually say much, but now, he said, “Sounds like it might be news to her, too. Which is weird, but I’m not sayin’ nothin’. New job, though, huh.”

“Yep,” Harlan said, and then, for some reason, added, “Working for Blake Orbison. She was his assistant before, up in Idaho. She’s a little nervous about the new job. Not really a big-city girl. Just moved into my place, along with her daughter.”

He was confiding. He never confided, and here he was doing it. To five guys. What was he, crazy?

“Well, damn,” Julio said. “If she was already working for Orbison, guess you can’t use the money and the looks and the cee-lebrity status to impress her. Man, that’s all your ammo shot. What else you got?”

Brandon said, “Sounds like he’s going with telling the truth.”

Some hooting and hollering at that, and Julio said, “Dangerous move, ’mano. Tell you one thing, though.”

“Yeah?” Harlan asked. He might as well get advice here, he guessed. Not like good advice was pouring in from anywhere else in his life.

“If she’s pregnant?” Julio said. “New job, too? Single mom? Be sweet to her tonight. Like the man said. Try a little tenderness.” That sparked some singing. Of course it did.

They gave him some more shit after that, too, but he figured the advice wasn’t bad.

A little tenderness. He could do that.

It was such a relief to get out of her shoes. Her feet had swollen a little today in the fancy new shoes—which had cost seven hundred fifty dollars? Really? They were just pumps. Pumps that hurt at the moment. A swim would feel good, though. A swim would feel great. With no onlookers to stare at her in her too-small bikini? (Which she had to wear, because the one-piece didn’t fit at all.) That would feel extra great.

Except that when she put the top on, there was no way. How had her breasts grown even more in about four days? She struggled with the hooks, ripped it off, shoved the thing back in the drawer, and wanted to cry. Just … climb into bed, pull the covers over her head, and cry.

This was too hard. She’d known it would be too hard, and it was too hard, and …

Suck it up, she