Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,93

too. Hey, we could be chaperones. That’d be a new twist. If you give me your number, we could get together. Go out to dinner at an actual restaurant again, now that I don’t have the hair. Not ski.”

She turned her head and looked at him. Her face was normally transformed by her smile, like … like daffodils in spring, or something.

Daffodils in spring? He was losing it.

Without the smile, she looked pale and drained, half of her normal warmth missing. There were purple shadows under her eyes, too, like she hadn’t slept well. She said, “I had a great time, Harlan. I appreciate it. I really do. You’ve been sweet, and you’ve been kind. It was an incredible night. I got what I wanted. I don’t want to want more.”

He hadn’t known what to say. He always knew what to say, or could at least come up with an approximation, but he was blank. And then Dyma came up the steps again, not crying, Jennifer refocused, and … that was that.

The whole thing ending with a whimper, not a bang. So to speak.

An hour later, in Wild Horse, in the snow, Blake told her, “The problem is that you’re on crutches. And that you ran off with Harlan Kristiansen, who’s probably the reason you’re on crutches. What the hell did he do?”

“Hey,” Harlan said. “I’m right here.”

“You took Dyma, too,” Blake told Jennifer, still ignoring him. “What’s gotten into you?”

Jennifer didn’t have her hands on her hips, but that was probably because she was on crutches. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. Sweetly. “Maybe being fired?”

Dyma said, “Well, yeah, she took me. What was she supposed to do, leave me in Yellowstone? We didn’t go to any strip clubs or whatever you’re imagining. It was all extremely PG-13. She stepped on broken glass. What, Harlan cut her as part of his BDSM routine? Do you even know my mom? And by the way? If you’ve got something bad to say about Owen Johnson, don’t say it to me, because he’s taking me to prom. Also, he’s amazing.”

Blake glanced at her, possibly shelved whatever he wanted to say for another occasion, then looked back at Jennifer. “I told you. I am not firing you. I’m helping you transition. I told you I’d help you get another assistant job with a good guy. Harlan isn’t the kind of guy I meant. Not even close.”

“Uh-huh,” Jennifer said. Her face didn’t look white now. It was flushed. Maybe it was the cold, and maybe it was the temper. Harlan’s money was on the temper. “I shouldn’t be his assistant, you’re saying. Because he’d, what, charm me, sleep with me, and dump me?”

“Well, yeah,” Blake said. “You know how I know that? By taking a look in the damn mirror, that’s how. He might get there sometime. I did, eventually. He’s not there now.”

“Which is fascinating,” she said, “except that he hasn’t asked me to be his assistant, he’s already charmed me and slept with me, and you could say that now I’m dumping him. Here’s a thought to chew on. Maybe that’s what happened, some of those times. Maybe they were dumping you, too, because you couldn’t give them what they wanted.”

Dyma looked shocked. What, Jennifer hadn’t told her? As for Blake, his mouth opened, and then it closed, and Harlan was in two spots at once. He was enjoying the sight of the quickest-witted ex-quarterback in the NFL lost for words, and he was also—well, a little hurt, if you wanted to know the truth.

“Emotionally, I mean,” she went on to say, proving that this was, yes, still Jennifer. “Because obviously, I believe you gave them what they wanted physically. Like Harlan. I mean, obviously you’re both athletic and good-looking and all. And attentive. At least I’m assuming, in your case, Blake. Which is someplace I’ve never wanted to go, so I’m backing off now, extremely fast. But still. Maybe they were just using you, was my point. Not that you were using me,” she told Harlan, shifting even further back to Jennifer-mode. “I was all clear. I am all clear. And now,” she told Blake, “I’d really, really like to get in this car and go home. I need to get my foot better by tomorrow, if I’m going to come into work.”

Dyma looked like she was dying to say something. She also looked like she had no idea what it would be.

“You do not,” Blake said, with the kind of