Colorado 01 The Gamble (30 page)

“Max!” I snapped, losing patience.

He grinned and changed the subject. “You
bought a little pitcher, baby.”

I decided to let him change the subject as
this one was safer and less likely to make me angry. I’d been angry
enough that day for at least a week. Maybe a year.

“It’s a gift,” I informed him, “for taking
care of me when I was sick.”

“You bought me a little pitcher as a
gift?”

“Yes,” I said. “And a sugar bowl.”

He shook his head like I was adorable then
he stated, “My gift was better.”

“Sorry?”

“The ring.”

I immediately pulled my hand from behind his
back, placed it on his chest and stared at the ring he gave me that
I hadn’t taken off.

Then I looked at him and said, “Yes, agreed,
this ring is a whole lot better than a little pitcher even with a
matching sugar bowl.”

He threw his head back and laughed, one of
his arms sliding high up my back as he crushed my arm between us
and gave me a tight hug.

“Are you saying you don’t like my gift?” I
asked after he stopped laughing.

“I’ll like the one you’re givin’ me this
afternoon a fuckuva lot better,” he replied and I shivered again in
his arms before his face got close and I saw he was fighting a
grin. “Go take a shower, honey, I’ll make breakfast.”

“I can make breakfast.”

He shook his head. “You take an age to get
ready. You’re gettin’ a head start.”

He wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t one of those women
who was ready to face the day after a shower and an application of
deodorant.

Though I didn’t take “an age”.

Even so, instead of arguing I looked over
his shoulder and mumbled, “Whatever.”

His arms tightened before he let me go,
grabbed his mug and turned toward the fridge.

“What do you want, oatmeal, toast, granola?”
he asked.

“Toast.”

He opened the fridge but turned to me.
“Jelly?”

“What do you think?”

He smiled, tipped his head toward the
ceiling and said, “Shower, it’ll be done when you get down.”

“Thanks, Max.”

His head was in the fridge when, as if the
two words he said didn’t hold colossal meaning, he muttered,
“Anything, baby.”

Anything, baby.

Simple as that.

Anything, baby.

Before I could let those words settle in my
soul, I grabbed my mug and nearly ran to the stairs.

I was quickly making the bed when Charlie
spoke to me.

What’d I say, Neenee Bean?

It sometimes used to annoy me, but I had to
admit, Charlie was rarely wrong.

“I think, just maybe,” I whispered under my
breath but even I could hear the hope in my tone, “just maybe
you’re right, Charlie.”

Charlie didn’t respond as I finished
smoothing the duvet, fluffing the pillows and then I took a
shower.

* * * * *

We were driving through the streets of town
and I was looking out the side window, thinking maybe I could go
for another buffalo burger sometime relatively soon when Max asked
a question.

“Niles loaded?”

I turned to look at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Niles. Is he loaded?”

Something clawed at my insides coming close
to tearing away precious tissue.

“
He makes good money,” I said off-handedly,
looking out the side window again. “His parents, however,
are
loaded.”

“Your Dad looked loaded.”

I pulled in breath through my nostrils then
said, “Dad’s loaded too but Niles’s parents are on a whole other
level of loaded.”

There was silence a second before Max said
softly, “Thinkin’ today, Duchess, you might’ve gotten written out
of your Dad’s will.”

That claw curled up and slid away and the
tension in my body relaxed as I murmured, “No big loss.”

He glanced at me and stated, “You make good
money too.”

That claw came back with a vengeance.

“I’m not loaded.”

“Nina, don’t know much about ‘em but your
fuckin’ purse looks like it cost more than my couch.”

“It didn’t,” I replied sharply and
hurriedly.

“You know how much my couch cost?”

“Unless you got a major bargain, it didn’t
cost less than my purse,” I retorted.

He glanced at me again and said, “All right,
relax.”

“I’m relaxed,” I lied.

“You’re wound up tight,” he observed
accurately.

“I am not,” I lied again.

“You got a problem makin’ more money than
me?”

“I don’t know that I do.”

“Honey, you’re a lawyer.”

“So?”

He didn’t answer my one word question,
instead he asked one of his own. “Can you practice in The
States?”

I looked out the side window again and
informed him, “I passed the bar and practiced here before moving
there, worked for a small firm and I’m still licensed in America. I
had to take a conversion course when I moved to England.”

“Then you’re set,” he muttered under his
breath but I heard him.

I looked back and asked, “Set for what?”

He again didn’t respond to my question but
turned my attention back to one of his. “You didn’t answer my
question.”

I was getting confused. “What question?”

“You got a problem makin’ more money than
me?”

“If that is, indeed, the case, why would I?”
I asked back.

“It’s important to know.”

“Why?”

He glanced at me again and repeated
disbelievingly, “Why?”

“Max, seeing as you’re a man and you brought
this up then my question would be, do you have a problem with
it?”

“Nope,” he replied immediately.

“Then why are we talking about this?”

We’d driven out of town and he made a turn
into a residential area as he said, “You get used to that kind of
life.”

“What kind of life?”

“The life you get bein’ with someone who’s
loaded.”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

“Duchess, not sure I get what’s funny,” Max
said over my laughter.

I shook my head and looked out the
windshield. “It isn’t exactly champagne and caviar on his yacht. He
doesn’t own a yacht and I’ve never tasted caviar. Niles mostly
watches TV.”

Max made another turn out of the residential
area, up an incline and asked, “TV?”

“TV,” I repeated.

“Think things’ll be more excitin’ in the
mountains, babe.”

He could say that again. Though I wondered
why he said it at all.

After we went up a ways, he pulled into a
lane that led up to a huge, nearly ostentatious, weirdly almost
overbearing house that looked down on the town as I said, “Now, can
I ask, why we’re talking about this?”

He stopped in front of the house, turned off
the ignition, undid his seatbelt, I undid mine and Max twisted to
me, draping one forearm over the steering wheel.

“Why?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

He looked slightly thrown, slightly annoyed.
“Are you kiddin’?”

I felt my brows draw together in puzzlement
and I replied, “No, I’m not.”

“Duchess, what do you think is happenin’
here?” he asked, his hand at the steering wheel flipping out with
his question, now he sounded slightly annoyed, slightly
incredulous.

The claw was long gone, now my insides were
seized with something else. It didn’t feel bad, entirely, but it
was still downright terrifying.

“Max.”

He took his forearm from the steering wheel,
reached out, hooked me at the back of my neck and leaned toward me
as he pulled me toward him.

When we were close, he started talking. “You
got a lot to think about but today you proved you can handle it so
I’m layin’ it out. When I say I want to explore this, what happens
this afternoon is half as good as the promise of you, I mean that
seriously. And I sure as hell am not gonna fuck around with this
over an ocean and I’m also not leavin’ my land. So that means you
come here. You need to visit there, we’ll do it as often as we can
but you’ll be here, with me, on my land. Yeah?”

“
Sorry?” I whispered, now
I
was thrown, so thrown I was
having trouble breathing because I was mentally trying to catch up
and he shook his head impatiently.

“I’m not doin’ that long distance shit,” he
explained.

“Long distance shit?” I repeated, still
whispering.

“
Nina, we’re as good together when we’ve
actually
been together
as
we are now, when we haven’t, I’m not havin’ you sleep in a bed half
a world away from me.”

“We’re good together?” Yes, I was still
whispering.

“You had better?”

“No,” I said before I thought better of
it.

His face got soft and he murmured strangely,
“Yeah.”

I blinked then stammered, “Are you saying
you want me to… to… to
move in?
”

He smiled and replied, “It works out,
Duchess, I don’t wanna live in the A-Frame while you take a house
in town.”

“So, essentially, you’re telling me to move
to Colorado?”

“Nothin’ ‘essentially’ about it.”

“But, I live in Charlie’s house,” I
whispered and held my breath.

He didn’t do what I thought he’d do or was
conditioned to a man doing.

Instead, his face got even softer, his smile
died and muttered, “Fuck.”

“Max –”

“You don’t want to let it go,” he surmised
astutely.

“It’s all I have left of him.”

Max’s eyes held mine for a long time.

Then he sighed heavily, gave my neck a
squeeze and declared, “We’ll work somethin’ out.”

This surprised me so much I didn’t process
what he was saying.

“I’m sorry?”

“We’ll work somethin’ out.”

“What will we work out?”

“I don’t know, somethin’.”

“Max –”

He brought me even closer and he said in a
voice that was strangely fierce and vibrating, “Listen to me,
Duchess, you got somethin’ good, you got somethin’ solid, you find
a way to work shit out. Your brother’s place means somethin’ to you
then we’ll work somethin’ out.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed which was what, I
suspected, if the moment was verbalized, any woman would breathe
when she figured out she was falling in love with a Colorado
Mountain Man she barely knew but that knowledge hit her with the
certainty a freight train.

“What?” Max asked.

“Nothing,” I said quickly to cover.

He examined my face for a moment and he did
this with an intensity that made me feel more than a little exposed
before he said softly, “Crack.”

“Sorry?”

He smiled, looking satisfied, and finished,
“In your shield.”

Yes, I was right. Exposed but more than a
little.

Before I could say a word, he brought me to
him, touched his mouth to mine and then, when he pulled away, he
muttered, “We’ll talk tonight.”

Then he let me go, turned and got out of the
Cherokee.

I followed but I did it a lot slower, mostly
because my legs were shaking.

I rounded the hood and looked up at the
extravagant house. A woman in a wheelchair was sitting waiting for
us just outside the front door. She was watching me as I got close
to Max; he took my hand and led us up the steps.

I was a little surprised by her. She had
shining, heavy hair that wasn’t light brown but wasn’t dark either
and had what appeared to be natural and appealing auburn
highlights. She was dressed fashionably in a lovely, soft yellow
sweater, jeans and boots, all, I noticed with a practiced eye,
superb quality. She didn’t look like she lived in that chair.
Instead she looked like she’d just sat down in it to take a load
off. As we got close I saw she had a hint of a healthy, becoming
tan and she was smiling at Max and me. Her smile was small but it
was also genuine and friendly.

“Nina,” she said, “’spect you know I’ve
heard a lot about you,” she finished and lifted her hand toward me
when Max and I made it to within a few feet of her chair.

“Yes, I figured that,” I smiled back. “And
you’re Bitsy,” I greeted, taking her hand.

She gave me a firm squeeze and then dropped
mine.

“Yep, that’s me, Bitsy, new widow,” she
replied and I realized under her healthy tan and smiling face, she
looked tired. Her words weren’t sour, just real with a hint of
forlorn she didn’t try to hide, both making them heartbreaking.

“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly.

“You, me and Shauna Fontaine are the only
ones in town who are,” she responded with brutal honesty but still
no bitterness, more like a sad understanding. Then she put her
hands to the wheels of her chair, looked at Max and continued, “Hey
Max, would you mind comin’ inside a sec before we take off?”

Without waiting for us to answer, she deftly
turned her chair and wheeled herself into the house.

Max glanced at me and with a tug at my hand
we followed. He let me go when we got into the massive foyer and he
closed the door.

“Don’t mean to be rude, Nina,” Bitsy
announced after she turned her chair toward us again, her voice was
a bit hesitant. “But could you wait in the living room a minute
while I talk with Max? Just need –”

I cut her off, letting her know she didn’t
need to explain anything to me, she could have whatever she needed,
saying, “That’s fine. I’ll wait.”

“Thanks.” She smiled again, a hint of relief
in her expression now then she wheeled to my right and Max and I
followed. She talked as she went. “You want a cup of coffee or a
soda or somethin’?”

“No, thanks, I’m okay.”

She swept out a hand to the room and
invited, “Make yourself at home. We won’t be long, promise.” Then
her eyes went to Max before she pushed herself toward the door.

“Be back,” Max murmured, chucked me under
the chin and then he went after Bitsy.