Colorado 01 The Gamble (8 page)

When he didn’t immediately let me go, I
tipped my head back and told him, “I think I made it.”

“You smell good,” he said in return.

“I’m sorry?”

“You smell good,” he repeated.

I pushed back against his arms but they
didn’t budge.

“Max –”

“You call him?”

I blinked at the same time I shook my head,
confused. “Sorry?”

“Your man, you call him?”

Something strange shifted inside of me. I
didn’t know what it was but I knew I wasn’t going to explore that
either.

“Yes.”

“You tell him you were sick?”

“Yes.”
“What’d he have to say?”

My hands slid from his shoulders to his
chest, I put light pressure there but said softly, “Max, I’m not
sure that’s any of your business.”

“Yeah,” he said softly back, “that’s what I
figured he’d have to say.”

“What?” I asked, back to confused but he let
my waist go, put a hand to my belly and pushed me back several
feet. Then he closed the door, beeped the locks, grabbed my hand
and started walking fast with wide, long strides. “Max…” I called
but stopped speaking.

We hit the boarded sidewalk and he answered,
“Yeah?”

I decided to let it go so I replied,
“Nothing.”

We walked fast, side by side, hand in
hand. I let the hand in hand thing go too. He was often a jerk but
he
had
nursed me
back to health and, anyway, his hand was big, it was strong, it was
warm and the night was cold.

I saw ahead of us that there were people
hanging outside a door looking like they were waiting to be let in.
When we passed the windows I saw it was a restaurant, rough looking
but also welcoming. And packed.

Max opened the door the people were standing
around, pushed me through using his hand in mine and kept the
contact as we went to the hostess station.

The hostess wore no makeup, a t-shirt that
announced she was a fan of the Grateful Dead and she had a mop of
coppery curls pulled up in a mess on top of her head.

She also had on a pair of unusual, huge,
silver hoop earrings, the silver hoop a wide, curled, web. They
were stunning.

She looked up, her face brightened
immediately when she saw Max and she shouted, “Max!”

“Hey Sarah,” Max returned.

Her eyes came to me, she did a body sweep
and her face closed down, just a little bit but it did it and I
thought that was strange.

Max stopped us in front of her and didn’t
let go of my hand.

“Got a table?”

“Yep,” she said instantly and I looked into
the packed restaurant. Then I looked behind us. Then beside us. All
the open space and outside was filled with people standing waiting
for tables.

I also noticed they were kind of dressed
like me, except different, slightly more casual. But they were
obviously tourists on vacation wearing vacation clothes, not
locals.

Locals, evidently, didn’t have to wait for
tables.

She grabbed some stuff from under the
hostess station, turned and walked into the restaurant. Max tugged
my hand and we followed her. She took us to the far, back corner
where there was an empty booth that a busboy was still wiping down.
He scurried off with a smile and a, “Hey Max,” before he
passed.

She slapped down white paper placemats,
utensils wrapped in napkins and a plastic bucket filled with
crayons.

Then she turned to Max and asked,
“Usual?”

“Yeah,” he replied, using my hand to
position me toward the side of the booth that had its back to the
wall, facing the restaurant. “Two,” he concluded.

“Gotcha.”

“Wait,” I called when she started to move
away.

“Yeah?” she asked, eyes on me.

“I like your earrings,” I told her. “They’re
stunning.”

She looked surprised a second before she
lifted the fingers of one hand to her ear and muttered,
“Thanks.”

“Did you get them recently? I mean, is there
somewhere I could buy a pair?”

She studied me for a moment before saying,
“Yeah, down the street, I got ‘em a year ago but they carry ‘em all
the time.”

“Thanks,” I smiled at her.

“Sarah, this is Nina,” Max told her and she
nodded to me.

“Hey, Nina.”

“Hi.”

“It’s called Karma,” she told me.

“What?”

“The silver place. They got other good stuff
too. Karma.”

“Karma. Thanks,” I said again.

“No probs,” she replied then turned and
walked away.

Before I knew what was happening, Max
maneuvered me into the booth before I could take off my coat or
purse. And again before I knew what was happening, he sat down
in
my
side.

“Max,” I said but he wasn’t listening, he
was shrugging off his coat, his arm bumping into me twice as he did
so. Then he threw it over the table to the opposite bench, turned
to me and said, “Coat.”

I pressed back into the corner, pulled the
purse off my arm, Max took it from me, threw it over the table and
it landed on his coat. I watched it sail then I watched it
land.

“You just threw my purse,” I informed
him.

“Yeah,” he replied then demanded,
“Coat.”

I stared at him a second, deciding that
fighting about taking off my coat and the fact that I’d rather he
not sit
by
me but
across
from me would keep me from
dinner. Therefore, still pressed into the corner, I shrugged off my
coat. He took it and threw that too.

Obviously a gentleman.

“Max –”

He twisted, leaned toward me, put one
forearm on the table, the other arm on the back of the booth and
considering his sudden proximity, the sheer size of his frame, the
effect of his clear, gray eyes on me and the fact I was pinned in a
corner, I stopped talking.

“Tell me, Duchess, how does an American come
to sound like you?”

I stared at him another second then
murmured, “It’s a long story.”

He looked over his shoulder at the
restaurant, turned back to me and noted, “This ain’t fast
food.”

“That’s too bad, considering I’m
hungry.”

“So, the American passport and the English
accent?” he prompted, ignoring my comment.

“In England, they say I have an American
accent,” I informed him.

“They’d be wrong.”

“Actually, they’re right.”

He shook his head. “You aren’t answering my
question.”

I sighed then I said, “I’ve lived there for
awhile.”

“How long?”

“Long enough, evidently, to pick up a hint
of an accent.”

“A hint?”

“Yes.”

“More than a hint, babe.”

I shrugged, looked at the table and gave in.
“If you say so.” Then I arranged the placemats and silverware, one
for him, one for me, all the while I did this I tried not to think
about how it felt, him calling me “babe”. Unfortunately, I failed
not to think of this and decided it felt nice.

When I was done arranging the table for our
dinner, he asked, “How old are you?”

My eyes shot to his and I told him, “That’s
a rude question to ask a woman.”

“It is?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

“You older than you look?”

“Probably.” Or at least I hoped so.

“Should I guess?”

I felt my body get stiff and I declared,
“Absolutely not.”

He gave me a grin and got closer. “Give me a
ballpark figure.”

“Older than Becca, younger than your
mother,” I told him.

His hand not dangling from the table came up
and touched my shoulder. I looked down to see my shirt had again
slid off. I rearranged it so it covered my shoulder, his hand fell
away and then I glared at him.

“That’s quite a range,” he commented and I
shrugged then he said, “You look thirty,” well, that was good, “you
act ninety.”

I stiffened then leaned toward him. “I don’t
act ninety.”

“Honey, it was possible, I’d think you were
born two centuries ago.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means you’re uptight.”

I leaned in closer and snapped, “I’m not
uptight!”

He grinned again. “Totally uptight.”

“I’m not uptight,” I repeated.

“Don’t know what to make of you,” he said,
his eyes moving down my torso to my lap and he finished with,
“contradiction.”

“What does that mean?” I asked but I really
shouldn’t have and I knew it.

His eyes came back to mine. “It means you
look one way, you act another.”

I leaned in closer. “And what does
that
mean?”

He leaned in closer too and we were nearly
nose to nose. “It means a woman who owns those jeans, those boots,
that shirt, deep down, is not uptight.”

“
That’s right, I’m
not
uptight,” I snapped and then jumped when two
bottles of beer hit the table.

I looked up to see a waitress standing
there, tray under her arm, white t-shirt, jeans, ash blonde hair in
a ponytail, pretty mountain fresh face, no makeup.

“Hey Max,” she said.

“Hey Trudy,” Max replied.

“Hey,” she said to me then she smiled.

“Hi,” I replied, not smiling.

Her smile got bigger and without leaving
menus she walked away.

I looked at the beer and Max, thankfully,
moved away, grabbed both, put one in front of me and took a pull
off his.

“Is that for me?” I asked and his eyes came
to me around his beer bottle then he dropped his hand.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t order that.”

“I did.”

He did? When?

I decided not to ask and informed him, “I
don’t drink lager.”

“What?”

I dipped my head to the beer. “I said, I
don’t drink lager.”

“What do you drink?”

“Ale, bitter, stout.”

“
So, you’re sayin’ you don’t drink
American
beer, you drink
English
beer.”

“
There are lagers that aren’t American.
Heineken. Stella. Beck’s. In fact,” I went on informatively, “I
think lager was invented by the Germans. In
fact
, I think beer, on the whole, was invented by the
Germans.” I didn’t actually know this for a fact, I was just
guessing.

“Jesus,” he muttered, dropping his head.

“What?”

He looked back at me. “Duchess, you can
argue about anything.”

“No I can’t.”

“So, now you’re arguin’ about not
arguing?”

I decided to be quiet.

Max twisted and shouted, “Trudy!”

Trudy turned from the table she was standing
at, hands up, notepad in one, pencil in the other, table of
tourists interrupted in mid-order and she shouted back, “What?”

“You got any ale?” Max asked and I shrunk
into the booth.

“Ale?” Trudy asked back.

“Ale.”

“I think so, sure.”

“Get the Duchess here one, will you?” he
called, dipping his head toward me.
Her eyes slid to me, she smiled and shouted, “Sure thing.”

At the same time I leaned forward and
hissed, “Max!”

He turned back to me and asked, “What?”

“Don’t call me Duchess in front of
Trudy.”

He grinned and replied, “All right, you tell
me how old you are, I won’t call you Duchess in front of
Trudy.”

I looked at the ceiling and asked, “Why? Why
me, Lord? What did I do?”

My body went stiff and my chin jerked down
when I felt Max’s fingers curl around the side of my neck and I saw
that he’d gotten close. Not only did I see he’d gotten close, his
face had grown soft and he looked amused and the combination was
phenomenal. So phenomenal, I held my breath.

His eyes dropped to my mouth and my lungs
started burning.

“Christ, you’re cute,” he muttered.

“Max!” I heard a man yell, Max’s head turned
and I let out my breath.

Then Max muttered under his, “Fuck.”

I looked into the restaurant to see a tall
man with a handsome, open, boyish face, light brown hair and a
lanky frame headed our way. He was smiling.

At his side walked a tall woman, thin and
utterly beautiful in a very cool way. Flawless skin. Long, ebony
hair, perfectly straight and gleaming, parted severely and then
pulled back just as severely in a ponytail at her nape. She also
wore no makeup. She had on almost the same thing as Becca this
morning except her poofy vest was less poofy and was a muted, sage
green and her shirt wasn’t a thermal, it was long sleeved, ribbed
and dusky blue. She and the man were holding bottles of beer, Coors
Light to be precise.

Her eyes were on Max and she was not
smiling.

Then her eyes slid to me and for some
bizarre reason her expression turned glacial.

“Max, didn’t know you were back in town,”
the man remarked sociably as they made it to our table and
stopped.

Max slid out of the booth and shook his
hand. “Harry.”

Harry looked at me and greeted, “Hey.”

“Hello,” I replied.

“Nina, this is Harry,” Max said then jerked
his head to the woman and I noticed Max was also not smiling, “and
this is Shauna.”

Shauna? Shauna with a U of the password on
Max’s computer? No wonder her look was glacial.

Oh my
God.

“Hello, Shauna,” I said, trying to cover my
surprise and discomfort.

Her eyes grazed over me and she said to the
wall at my side, “Hello.”

“Man, it’s packed tonight,” Harry noted,
looking behind him. “They’re clearing our table, you mind if we
hang here with you while they do?”

Then without allowing Max to answer, he
shoved our coats and my purse to the side and slid in the booth
opposite me. Shauna’s entire face grew so tight I thought it’d
split open but Harry just grabbed her hand and pulled her in,
oblivious to her state of mind. Or maybe he didn’t know his
partner’s name was the password on Max’s computer and all that
implied.