Colorado 01 The Gamble (76 page)

“Yeah,” he agreed then tipped my face up,
touched his lips to mine and when he was done he pulled back a bit,
dropped his hand to curl around my neck and changed the subject.
“How would you feel I was on that plane with you?”

I liked the lip touch and the heavy warmth
of his hand at my neck and the fact that he was nice so much I was
focused on those things and I wasn’t following.

“Sorry?”

“Could talk to Bitsy, Trev can keep things
goin’ for awhile. I could go with you, see Charlie’s house, stay in
England a couple of weeks.”

“Are you serious?” I breathed, my eyes
wide.

He looked at my face a second then burst out
laughing.

When he was done laughing but he was still
smiling, he instructed, “Don’t bother answerin’ the question,
babe.”

“
Okay,” I whispered, too overcome with
happiness that this meant another week with him in his A-Frame and
two more with
him
in
Charlie’s
house.

I could show him pictures of Charlie!

“For once, I don’t know what you’re
thinking,” he broke into my thoughts, his smile now a grin, “except
it’s good.”

“I’m thinking, if you come to England I can
show you pictures of Charlie,” I shared happily and watched with no
small amount of fascination as his face got soft but his eyes grew
warm.

“I’d like that,” he muttered.

“Nina!” Niles’s voice snapped from my
left.

My head twisted to the side and Max’s hand
moved from my neck as I stared in shock at Niles in tan, large
whale corduroys, a navy pea coat with a navy turtleneck showing out
of the collar, standing on the wooded sidewalk facing Max and I,
his tan, leather glove-covered hands on the wooden railing. He was
wearing this get up even though the weather had again turned and it
had to be at least sixty degrees Fahrenheit.

The minute I looked at him, his face paled
and his eyes grew huge.

Then, his voice almost shrill, he asked,
“What happened to your face?”

“What are you still doing here?” I asked
back.

“
What happened to your
face?
” he shouted then
his eyes went straight to Max and he demanded to know, “Did
you
do that to her?”

“I’m gettin’ tired of that shit,” Max
murmured as his body got tight in my arms.

“No!” I answered Niles sharply, giving Max a
squeeze. “I have a mountain man gone bad stalker.”

“A what?” Niles asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” I told him, reluctantly
dropping one arm from Max and turning to face Niles and when I did,
Max turned too, his arm going around my shoulders and my other arm
dropped to his waist, my thumb hooking in his side belt loop as I
went on, “I asked, what are you still doing here?”

“I called you four times yesterday,” Niles
told me, not answering my question.

“And?”

“You didn’t take any of my calls.”

“And?”

“I’d like to speak to you,” Niles
clipped.

I pointed out the obvious, “Niles, honestly,
I think we’ve said all there is to say.”

Niles’s face went hard and he informed me,
“And I think the least you could do is allow me a moment to speak
to you,” his eyes went to Max before he finished, “privately.”

Unfortunately at this point, seeing as Niles
had interrupted a nice moment between Max and me, and he was being
kind of a jerk, I was starting to see red.

“The least I could do?” I asked irately.

“Duchess,” Max muttered at my side.

“The least you could do,” Niles
affirmed.

“You’ve had two years of me talking with you
privately and you never listened,” I reminded him.

“But –” Niles started.

I was moving forward taking Max with me,
heading to the two step opening at the railing by the Police
Station just down from Niles. I wasn’t going to get into this with
him, not now, not ever. It wasn’t worth it,
he
wasn’t worth it.

Therefore, as I headed that way, I told
Niles, “I need to go press charges.”

“Against who?” Niles asked.

I stopped, glared at him and answered
impatiently, “Who else? Against my mountain man gone bad
stalker!”

“
Nina! Max!” I heard shouted and looked to
the left to see Linda bearing down on our party, she got a good
look at me, came to a juddering halt and kept shouting, “Oh
my
God!
What on
earth happened to you?”

“Damon,” Max answered without hesitation and
my head snapped back to look at him.

“Max!” I hissed.

“Everyone’s gonna know,” Max told me.

“They will now,” I mumbled.

“
Damon!
” Linda yelled very loudly, proving my mumbled
point.

“I’m fine,” I told Linda.

“Nina, that word I’d like to have
privately…” Niles butted in.

“Babe, seriously, get rid of him,” Max’s
voice was getting a little scary.

“Niles, go home,” I said to Niles.

“You don’t look fine,” Linda said to me,
ignoring Niles.

“I am,” I promised her. “Really, it just
feels a little bit tight.”

“
That Damon Matthews,” Linda spat. “You
know, take one letter out of his name and it spells
‘
damn
’ as in
‘
damn,
that kid’s
a worthless sonovabitch’.”

“Nina! Max! Hey!” I heard and looked to the
right to see Becca approaching. Then she caught sight of me and
skidded to a halt two feet from Niles. “Whoa! What happened to your
face?”

“Fuck me,” Max muttered.

“Damon,” I told her, talking over Max
cursing.

“
That
dick!
”
Becca screeched.

“Nina! For God’s sake!” Niles bellowed and I
looked at him.

“
Niles! Go!
Away!
” I shouted at him.

Becca’s torso reared back, her eyes got wide
and they were on Niles.

“
Dude,” she said low, “
you’re
Niles?”

Niles just scowled at her so she looked at
me.

“
Seriously, Neens, Max is
way
better,” Becca informed me.
“Not only is he hotter, he’s taller, has great hair, that awesome
rough voice and he dresses nearly as hot as he just plain
is.”

Becca was not wrong about that. Any of it.
Therefore I had no response.

“Who’s Niles?” Linda asked Becca, finally
examining Niles.

“I’m Nina’s fiancé,” Niles answered Linda,
now scowling more irately at Becca.

“Ex!” I shouted.

“Jesus, enough!” Max cut in on a sharp,
impatient bark and looked at Niles. “Man, it’s over. Deal with it
but deal with it somewhere else.” He looked at his mother. “Mom, we
gotta go in so Nina can swear out a statement. I’ll call you
later.” He looked at Becca. “Babe, Nina’ll call you, yeah?”

“Cool,” Becca said on a grin.

“Is it pasta bake tonight?” Linda asked.

“No,” Max answered instantly.

“When am I gonna get pasta bake?” Linda
pushed.

“I don’t know, Mom,” Max replied and I could
tell he was losing it.

“Saturday,” I told her quickly. “That’s my
parent’s last day here. We’ll have a little party.”

“Duchess,” Max said to me, sounding
exasperated, “when I’m in England, we gotta get your shit sorted so
you can move here and people’ll get used to having you around so
maybe they’ll back the fuck off so I can spend some fuckin’ time
with you.”

“You’re moving here?” Niles asked on a loud,
horrified whisper.

“Yes, Niles,” I answered him.

“But you said you’d never leave Charlie’s
house.”

Now
he was hearing what I said a million times over
the last year.

“I’m not leaving Charlie’s house, Max and I
are going to…” I stopped speaking as it hit me, I looked at Max and
whispered, “We can’t do that anymore, can we?”

Max’s arm at my shoulders gave me a squeeze.
“We’ll talk about it later.”

I ignored him, remembering what he’d told me
the morning before about taking the job in town and how wonderful
it was that he’d make that sacrifice for me, taking over Curt’s
business, but how he couldn’t do it, seeing as it was Curt’s
business and Curt was a jerk, so I announced, “And you can’t take
that job.”

“Babe, we’ll talk about it later.”

“What job?” Linda asked.

“
Fuck,
” Max clipped.

“Nothing, nothing,” I said quickly to Linda.
“We need to go in.”

“What job?” Linda repeated.

“
Mom,
later,
”
Max bit out.

Linda’s hands came up. “All right, all
right. Yeesh. Later.” Then she looked around Niles to Becca and
asked, “Do you wanna get a coffee? I’m meeting Barb and Mindy at
the café.”

“Awesome,” Becca answered.

“Mindy?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Linda said to me then invited, “You
guys finish, you can join us.”

I smiled at her and said, “That would be
lovely.”

“Someone kill me,” Max muttered, I looked up
at him to see he was looking up at the blue, cloudless sky.

“Darling,” I called, putting my free hand to
his stomach, “we need to go into the Station and get this done so I
can see Mins and get a coffee.”

Max’s head tilted down and his frustrated
gray eyes locked on mine. “Babe, just gonna say, you’re lucky
you’re so damned cute.”

That was when I curled my body into his, got
up on my toes, pressed close and smiled at him before I said
softly, “I know.”

And I did know. At that moment with Max
looking irritated but still amazingly handsome and I was tucked
firm in the curve of his arm, I knew.

I knew I was possibly the luckiest woman in
the world.

And Max proved me correct when his eyes
moved over my face, his expression cleared, his face warmed and his
mouth came down on mine.

* * * * *

We were sitting in the little room that Mick
questioned Kami in, Max at my side, his chair pushed slightly back
but close to mine, his arm draped around the back of my chair, his
legs stretched out in front of him, feet crossed at the ankles.

This seemed like a pose of masculine
relaxation but it wasn’t.

I knew this when he clipped, “What’s takin’
so fuckin’ long?”

I looked up from returning the texts my
friends had been sending.

Before texting I’d found that yesterday
Niles
had
called four
times, Mom three and I had five calls from three numbers I didn’t
know. After interrogating Max I found that one call was from his
home phone (so I programmed it in), three from his mobile (so I
programmed that in too) and the last one was from Arlene (which I
also programmed in). Mom had given Max my number, Max had given it
to Arlene and her message was mostly about how next time we were at
The Dog I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye and partly about
her asking when I was making another fish casserole without any
mention at all about my heartbroken getaway which, I suspected, she
knew would be foiled.

“
They
are
investigating a murder, darling,” I attempted to soothe the
wakening beast.

His irritated eyes sliced from their
impatient examination of the door to me and I decided just to let
the beast wake and take my chances.

Thankfully at that point the door opened
and Jeff walked in carrying papers and a pen.

“Fuck, sorry, I mean, um…” he looked at me
and repeated, “sorry.”

“Max curses all the time, Jeff, you don’t
have to apologize for saying the f-word,” I assured, smiling at
him, he smiled back, headed to the chair opposite us, dumped his
papers and sat down.

“Shit, Jeff, we been here twenty minutes,”
Max put in, proving me right about the swearing.

“Yeah, I know, things are crazy.” He looked
at Max then he looked at me. “Sorry to say, Nina, we can’t find
Damon.”

This wasn’t exactly good news.

Max straightened in his chair and glared at
Jeff. “Jesus, we’re talkin’ Mathews here. He ain’t the brightest
bulb.”

Jeff nodded. “I know but he’s proving
elusive. We been lookin’ for him since the spray paint incident,
talkin’ to folks all over town. His boss says he hasn’t been to
work since you and he had your thing and he wants him to come back
real bad, mostly so he can fire his ass.”

That wasn’t good news for Damon but I
couldn’t find it in me to care since maybe it would mean he’d be
forced to move away from Gnaw Bone, his self-appointed stalker
duties and Mindy.

Jeff kept talking. “And none of his friends
admit to knowin’ where he is. His old landlord said he caught him
last Friday tryin’ to put a bolt cutter to the lock on one of the
storage units he’s got. The old guy aimed some buckshot at him,
chased him off, didn’t know we were lookin’ for him. Other than
that, we got nothin’. Mathews is in the wind.”

“
He doesn’t even know how to
spell
‘wind’, he can’t be in it,” Max
bit out and I pressed my lips together to stop from
laughing.

“We’ll find him,” Jeff promised. “But we’re
low on resources, seein’ as we got every man we can spare here, at
the county sheriff’s and even the frickin’ highway patrol tryin’ to
track down Shauna and that Robert Winston guy.”

Both Max and I stiffened but it was me who
spoke. “Really?”

“
Yeah,” Jeff answered, distracted and
sorting through the papers he’d put on the table. “She’s
vanished.
Gone.
” He looked
up at me and said, “We got a warrant to search her house, nothin’
there, no furniture, no clothes, nada. Totally clean. Last person
to see her was Kami and Mick said we can’t talk to Kami, ‘less we
talk to you, so, by the way, Mick says I need to set that up while
you’re here.”