Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,44

was dreaming about driving a bulldozer. She was supposed to operate it, but it was too noisy, and there were too many levers. She had to do her job, but nobody had taught her how. She was pulling on a stick and pressing buttons, and somebody was trying to give her instructions that she didn’t understand. She was going to get fired if she didn’t do this right, but she couldn’t figure it out.

She swam back up to consciousness, because somebody was saying something. Oh. Kris, saying her name. She opened her eyes, realized that her head was on his shoulder and his arm was around her, and sat up fast. “What?” she asked, wiping her mouth. She’d better not have drooled on him. “What happened?”

“We’re here,” Kris said.

“What? Where?” This wasn’t Mammoth Hot Springs, where they’d transfer to a wheeled van for the long drive to Bozeman. This was … She blinked. Somewhere else. A town.

“West Yellowstone,” Kris said. “We’re changing to an SUV for the drive to the airport.”

She looked at her watch. The trip had only taken an hour and a half. She forced her fuzzy brain into action and said, when Kris was holding her hand to help her out of the high vehicle, “Oh. Does that work? The … uh, connections? They only fly to Salt Lake City out of here.”

“No worries,” he said. “It works.”

He looked nervous. She hadn’t realized he could look nervous. He was so laid-back, he was practically a professional at it. That was probably good for selling farm equipment, though. He’d be spending his days chatting about crops or weather or whatever with farmers, who probably didn’t appreciate high-pressure sales tactics.

He wasn’t looking laid-back now. She stopped where she was, in the snow and the freezing cold, halfway to the other vehicle, which was, for some reason, a black Suburban with blacked-out rear windows of the type you’d expect to see in a presidential motorcade. The Suburban was being loaded by a driver wearing a black outfit complete with chauffeur’s cap, with some help from Owen. That was fairly bizarre. What was the demand for uniformed chauffeurs in West Yellowstone, Montana? The guy must be really into his job. She said, “Wait.”

Kris stopped. Still looking tense, like he was sure she was going to say something bad.

She said, “First, it’s your birthday. It’s your day, and I just want to say—you’re choosing to do this, and that choice is coming from a place of strength. You’re doing it because you’re a good person, and you don’t want to let people down, and that’s admirable. I’m saying that, because I think you may need to hear it. And—oh.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a small paper bag. “Happy birthday.”

He unfastened the tape holding the bag closed and pulled out the flat little package, and then he smiled. It wasn’t the charming smile. It was more real than that. “Whiskey stones,” he said.

“With wolves on them,” she said. “You put them in the freezer and use them to keep your whiskey cold without diluting it, since you don’t like it with water.” She hesitated, then went ahead and said, “I saw them in the gift shop, and I thought they might remind you that you saved somebody’s life, and that she’s grateful. You weren’t just fast. You were brave, too, and you were … loyal, I’d say, to put yourself on the line for somebody you don’t even know. Brave and strong and loyal. Isn’t that how you said the Mountain Shoshone saw the wolf?”

She felt stupid and exposed as soon as she’d said it. Too much to say, except that she’d thought about him last night. About that boy whose father had beaten him, whose father was still telling him he wasn’t enough, whose mother had left. She didn’t want him to go into this thing today, whatever it was, still feeling like he wasn’t enough. Not on his birthday.

“I’ll think of you every time I use them,” he promised, then put a hand at her waist and kissed her cheek, and this time, she did hold his shoulder. His lips were warm despite the freezing morning, his clean scent filled her head, and his shoulder was so solid. He lifted his head, smiled into her eyes, and said, “I think I know which one of us is a good person. Let’s go.”

She climbed into the middle seat with him, because Dyma was already in the back