Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,84

Owen, piles of towels nobody was going to want to use ever again, and a whole, whole lot of blood. Footprint-sized patches between the couch and the door, not to mention between the couch and the bathroom. And then there was the bathroom, which looked like a crime scene. And Harlan, who looked like he’d lost a fight, and was sitting down on the arm of the couch and asking, “Is this day over yet?” Then taking her hand, leaning down, kissing her forehead, and saying, “You did good. That was nasty. All right?”

“No,” Dyma said. “Not all right. Tell me. I go for a swim and dinner, assuming that my loving mother, who has trouble staying in this decade—in this millennium—will be sitting in here worrying about my safety like she always does, and instead, you’ve got the cops here. And a doctor. And blood. I thought I was being modern talking about my blood. This is serious blood.”

Harlan said, “Don’t go in your mom’s bathroom, then.”

“Exactly why?” Dyma asked. “And explain the cops.”

Jennifer said, “Maybe you’re not the only one with an exciting life.”

“Mom,” Dyma said. “I am so the only one with an exciting life.”

“I’m trying to think up a good story,” Jennifer said, “but the truth is, I broke my wine glass in the bathroom and stepped on the broken glass. That’s the whole story. The cops came because …” She waved a hand, then asked Harlan, “Are there any more wine glasses? Because there’s still that first bottle left, plus whatever’s in the bag.”

He eyed her and said, “How about a glass of water? At least until you get some food?”

“You’re no fun,” she said. “Anyway, the cops came because of the blood. They interrogated Harlan in your bedroom, I’m guessing, Dyma. As the suspect in my assault. To be fair, he is covered in blood. I thought they were going to take him down right at the door. One of them had his hand on his gun.”

“You’re kidding,” Dyma said. “Because you cut your foot?”

Harlan came back with her glass of water, and she struggled up to sit, attempted without much success to keep her robe closed around her, contemplated how many men she’d flashed tonight after a lifetime of flashing exactly none, and said, “So. If we’re having a party … does anybody else want wine?”

26

New Rules

Jennifer wasn’t on the couch anymore. She was on his bed.

Dyma had packed the two of them up, after the front-desk clerk had apologized over the phone that, “We only had one open room, but it has two beds. I hope that’s acceptable.”

Harlan said, “Yeah, that’s fine,” then hung up, explained, and said, “Owen, if you can handle the move, I’ll take Jennifer to my room to eat. It’s after nine-thirty, and I made her drop her bratwurst.”

“I think I can handle the move,” Owen said. “If you spell it out real slow.”

“Excuse me?” Dyma said, because of course she did. “I think I can just about follow a hotel employee to another room without getting lost. I can probably even figure out how to turn on the sink and flush the toilet all by myself.”

Owen grinned. “Yep,” he told Harlan. “I think we’ve got it.”

Jennifer didn’t say the thing again about Dyma’s curfew or wherever it was. Whether she trusted Owen by now or was just too tired, he didn’t know. Or, rather, he thought he did. He suspected that looking out for Dyma would be the thing that faded last in her, the way they said the voices of your loved ones were the last thing that remained, after all your other senses had gone dark. Which meant that she was finally relaxing about Dyma with Owen. And there were only so many things a person could worry about, multitasker or not. Especially, he hoped, when she was being carried down the hallway, her arm around his neck and her warm breath on his cheek, feeling warm and curvy and relaxed in his arms.

Now, she was sitting beside him on his bed, her injured foot on a pillow, wearing another hotel bathrobe. His, which he’d gone to get for her to change into before he’d brought her here. “Because,” he’d told her, “you deserve to be clean.” While he’d been gone, she’d managed to get the blood off her arms and legs, hopefully with Dyma’s help. He’d used his last ten minutes before the food had arrived to take his own shower and wash off