Page 68 of Shame the Devil
He’d even done some real-estate shopping, but he hadn’t seen anything he liked. Which wasn’t good, because in another month, he’d be stepping up his training to the get-serious level, seeing as championships got won in the offseason and he didn’t plan to miss out next time. Not to mention helping Owen plan his football camp and getting tied up with minicamps.
This was his break, and he was blowing it. He needed to buy a house, so he could get himself moved into it. He needed to start working on a plan. He needed to organize his life.
He needed to stop thinking about Jennifer Cardello.
How could you get dumped after a mutually-agreed-upon one-night-stand? How would that even be possible?
It was probably just his pride, that he couldn’t seem to move on.
Yeah, it was definitely his pride.
When he’d carried her down the airplane steps in Wild Horse back in February, out into another freezing, snowy, gloomy day, the usual SUV had been there to meet them. But another SUV had been there, too.
With Blake Orbison leaning against the driver’s door, his arms crossed and not much smile on his face.
Harlan had paused a second, then walked over to the other SUV,hisSUV, set Jennifer carefully on her feet as Dyma handed her the crutches, told the driver, “Two suitcases on the plane. Purple and black,” and only then turned to Blake to say, “Hey. How’re you doing.” Half cautiously and half, probably, confrontationally, because Blake had that I’m-the-quarterback-and-what-I-say-goes expression. Except that he wasn’t Harlan’s quarterback anymore.
HewasJennifer’s boss, though. On the other hand, if he was about to bully her, Harlan was sticking around.
Blake nodded at him and didn’t uncross his arms. “So,” he told Jennifer. “You didn’t stay in Yellowstone, huh?”
“Nope,” she said, her cheerful mask right back in place. “I can report, though, that the lodge is fine. Very rustic. Nice food. Good drinks. And you do see animals. You see a little toomuchof animals, if you ask me. I’d have taken pictures, but I kept having to run for my life.”
“Since she almost got killed by a bison,” Dyma said.
“A snowmobile,” Jennifer said. “But I didn’t, because Harlan tackled me. Which wasn’t my first surprise encounter of the weekend, or my last. Very eventful non-vacation. Why are you here, Blake? I was never going to be back at work until Tuesday. It’s Monday. And of course I didn’t stay in Yellowstone. You knew that, because I called and told you so. I told you exactly where I was at all times, and what the time zone change was, if any, and that I was available whenever you needed me. More available than I was in Yellowstone, since they barely have internet service, and I wouldn’t bet money on their cell reception, either. Also, I’m freezing and my foot hurts. What’s the problem, exactly?”
Sounding not at all like an assistant, or maybe Harlan just didn’t know what an assistant sounded like. Also sounding not at all like the sleepy, sweet, sexy woman he’d carried to her room the night before, her arms wound around his neck, her mouth dropping little butterfly kisses on his cheek.
He’d worried, last night, about letting her down easy. He’d been dead wrong, because she wasn’t even stopping there. She’d decided, apparently, to let him down hard.
When they’d been dropping Owen off in Wyoming, for example, and Dyma had run down the steps after him onto another patch of frigid, windy tarmac, and he’d turned, cuddled her up good and close, and kissed her good and hard. When Harlan had told Jennifer, sitting opposite him again and looking out the window with too much seriousness on her face, “I own this movie theater up in Wild Horse, you know.”
“I know,” she said, her face still closed to him.
“Kind of a fun place. I could do something this spring, maybe. Some kind of … sports film festival or something, team up with the resort. Could be good. That would mean I’d have to come to Wild Horse for opening night. Maybe when Owen comes up for that prom, 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.Notski.”
She turned her head and looked at him. Her face was normally transformed by her smile, like … like daffodils in spring, or something.
Daffodils inspring?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,notcrying, 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 evenknowmy 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.”
