A Reason to Kill (Reason #2) (27 page)

Like they communicated across some mother-son connection, Maxine got up and walked over to him. He spoke to her in a whisper and both looked back at me as Maxine nodded. When he was done, she made her way back to the table as he turned, an arm around Annie’s waist, and headed for the door.

That feeling you get when you know something bad is about to happen tightened in my gut as I watched Max walk out the door. I waited for him to look back at me, to give me some kind of sign what was happening, but he walked right through the door without a backwards glance.

When Maxine made it to the table, I asked, “What’s happening?” then held my breath for her answer.

“Max needs to take Annie home, get her situated, and doesn’t know when he’ll be back, so he asked me to tell you he’d call you later if he could,”

“Okay,” I whispered back, but the knot in my gut started to spread to my chest.

“He’s just taking care of a
friend
,” Jess replied.

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Suzy chimed in.

“That’s what friends are for, right?” Joanne added to the mix and I smiled as if I didn’t have a care in the world.

Four sets of eyes watched me carefully as I processed what had just happened. Trying hard to rationalize why Max felt the need to be the one who took care of her, while leaving me here with no indication as to what was happening, I couldn’t come up with one. Then, feeling like a bitch since Annie was upset. I decided I needed to change the subject before I succumbed to my own insecurities and blurted out “Tell us about Brian, Jess.”

Jess, she didn’t miss a beat, she knew I needed a distraction so she saved me from sympathetic eyes when she gave us the full rundown on one Brian Snodgrass CPA.

“He’s been in Seattle for almost twenty years, can you believe it. All this time we’ve lived in the same city.”

“Technically, you don’t actually live there,” I reminded her. Crashing at a garage apartment a few times a year didn’t qualify in my book.

“He has three kids, but he’s been divorced for five years. We’re gonna have dinner at seven on Monday to catch up and with any luck, I’ll be in his bed by eight,” she laughed.

“When we get home remind me to pull out my bag of goodies, I’ve got edible massage oil that tastes like strawberries,” Maxine told her.

For the next two hours, Jess regaled us with her summer fling with Mr. Snodgrass. We heard about skinny-dipping in the ocean, hot sex on the beach, and how she cried when she walked away from the love of her life. However, the whole time she spoke, I only gave her half my attention, the other half was on my phone. It sat on the table mocking me as I prayed it would ring.

I kept reminding myself I wouldn’t want to be with a man who didn’t care enough to help a friend home, all while working myself up that he hadn’t called. This is why I’ve avoided relationships thus far. They’re messy and you turn into a twelve-year-old. I’ve seen many of my highly rational, highly educated friends, men and women, I might add, turn into raving lunatics when matters of the heart were involved. And, as the night dragged on, my sanity began to slip towards childish levels and I feared I’d be the same.

By ten o’clock, there was still no call and when the ladies were ready to leave, I had to ride with Suzy and Joanne or ride in Jess’s trunk. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I was quiet, my mind was coming up with a million different scenarios as to why he hadn’t called.

1. He was tired after a long day so he went home.
   
2. She was ill and he was holding her head while she puked.
   
3. They were playing Scrabble while she drank coffee to sober up and he’d gotten a triple word score and forgotten to call in his excitement.
   
4. While playing Scrabble, he looked into her eyes and remembered why he kept coming back for two years and was now making love to her.
   

See, I’ve turned into a twelve-year-old.

“You wanna run by her house and see if he’s still there?” Suzy asked breaking me from my thoughts.

“What? No, no I’m fine. She’s just a friend, I trust him,” I lied.

“Really?” Joanne asked

“Really, what?”

“You trust him? Girlie, if I had a dollar for every man that has screwed me over, I’d be living in the Bahamas with hot manservants by now. The only man a woman can trust is her daddy.”

“Every man you’ve ever been with?”

“Every man,” Joanne replied.

“Why don’t we just drive past her house to set your mind at ease,” Suzy replied and I bit my bottom lip in indecision.

They all screwed her over?

I dated once or twice, found them lacking and then moved on. The longest relationship I’ve ever had was Donald—five dates—and then I’d cut him loose. I’d never been screwed over by a guy cause I was too busy trying to get rid of them.

Hmm, maybe I wasn’t a good judge of character. Maybe I didn’t know Max as well as my gut thought. Maybe I SHOULD drive past and make sure he isn’t in her bed . . . or, maybe I should trust him . . .

I was still trying to decide what to do when Suzy came to a stop and whispered “Shit.”

When I didn’t respond, she nudged my shoulder and pointed. When I turned my head, I saw a cute little white house, not a log cabin, surprisingly, but a white bungalow that looked well taken care of. There were flowers filling the beds, a rocking chair on the cute little front porch that went with the cute little white house, and in the driveway of the cute little white house with the adorable garden was Max’s truck. In addition, the house was dark. As in not a light on in the place. My breath started coming in pants and I looked at my phone to see if I missed a text or call.

Nope, nada, nothing.

The knot in my chest started to strangle me as I pictured Max in the arms of Annie. I needed air, I needed to escape, I needed to go home, now, and never return.

“Take me to Maxine’s,” I choked out as I turned my eyes from his truck.

Joanne grumbled, “Men are all the same, even the hot ones,” as I closed my eyes to ward off the tears.

“Always the hot ones,” Suzy hissed in outrage and female solidarity of the “men suck” kind. Then she gunned her engine and took me home.

The whole way I kept telling myself “This is good, better to know now than after you uprooted your life, you barely knew him so no big loss.” So, by the time I’d walked in Maxine’s I couldn’t wait to pack my bags, leave all this behind as a lesson learned, and give Stetson what he wanted—me gone.

With no way to leave for another day, I went in search of Jess and her two-seater BMW.

“You ready to get back to Seattle?” I asked her as she lounged on the bed, laptop in hand.

“Ready, willing, and able she gushed as she looked at her screen.”

“No, I mean are you ready to go now.”

She stopped typing, looked up at me, and read me like someone who’d known me my whole life.

“What happened?’

“Max is still at Annie’s and he’s staying the night,” I told her like it was no big deal as I pulled out my bag.

“What?”

“Suzy drove past, his truck is in the driveway, and all the lights are out. He told Maxine he’d call me, but he didn’t,
you
do the math.”

“Mia, there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation—”

“Jess, I’ve known him a week, he’s known her for two years. Occam’s razor says that in any given set of explanations for an event occurring, it is most likely that the simplest one is the correct one. I am
not
the simplest answer, I’m the complicated one. He had feelings for Annie and didn’t realize it till tonight is the simplest answer.”

“Mia—”

“Jess, please, I can’t face them. Let’s just pack our stuff and leave.”

“Right now?”

“The sooner we leave, the sooner you can see Brian and I can put this whole nightmare of a week behind me.”

“But Maxine’s in bed, we can’t just run out on her like that.”

“I’ll write her a note explaining I had to get back sooner that something came up.”

“And Max?”

“I’ll send him a text message. He can read it in the morning while they have coffee together,” I bit out.

“Mia—”

“Jess, I wanted this, so much, more than I even knew till I saw his truck sitting in her driveway. But he chose her tonight and I can’t bear to see them together, so please, can we just leave?”

“Fine, but I’m going on record now that I think you’re wrong about Max and I intend to tell you, “I told you so” when he comes after you.”

“Fair enough, but tell me this if you think I’m wrong. If you had slept with a guy, made a decision to take a leap of faith to see where it went even though you knew very little about him. Then you watched him walk out of a bar with his drunken ex as she cried about how much she loved him, without even saying goodbye, I might add.
Then you go to her house and his truck is still there hours later and
every
light in the house is off, every stinkin’ one, what would you think?”

Jess stared at me, bit her lip in thought for a moment, then nodded, threw back the covers and replied, “Give me thirty minutes and we can hit the road!”

Sixteen

Who’s the Boss

“Ignore me for two days, I don’t think so Maximilian,” Maxine mumbled as she climbed out of her van and marched up the hill to his office. She’d been on Facebook for the past two days talking with Jess and she was going to put an end to this crap.

Mia had been smart, too smart when she sent that text. She knew exactly what to say to get him to back off, to cut him a little, to keep him from picking up the damn phone and calling. Fortunately, Maxine had the antidote to what ailed Max and if he wouldn’t pick up his phone so she could tell him, then she’d just leave him a present that would set him straight without opening her mouth.

He can avoid her all he likes, but he can’t avoid the truth, and the truth was he was just like her. All his life he’d heard how his father drove into Gunnison, Colorado, and swept her off her feet, but that was a lie. Tom Hunter drove into Gunnison and Maxine took one look at him and knew immediately he was the man for her. She just let Tom think it was his idea. Max was a Gunnison through and through, and when a Gunnison meets their soul mate, they feel it instantly. Same thing happened to her father, her brother, and her nephew Jack. Now it had happened to Max and she wasn’t about to let his pigheadedness get in the way of his destiny. So, she marched straight into Max’s office and laid the list on his desk. Then she tore off more paper and left her own note.

“
Max, don’t be an ass and go get your woman, Love Mom. P.S. I don’t need ten grandkids, but one before I die would be nice. PPS Tell Harry his edible lotion and performance enhancers arrived. PPPS Scratch that, I need more than one before I die so get crackin’ since I may only have a year or two left with the way you’re always stressing my damn nerves.

With that out of the way, Maxine headed back to her van. Now all she had to do was figure out who killed Curly and all would be right in her world. His funeral the day before had been a wakeup call to the whole town. Seeing Curly laid out, clean for once, his head patched so you couldn’t tell where the axe had nailed him, all of it reminded us that life was short, and there was a killer living among them. However, until Mia was back and settled in, she’d have to drag Martha with her door-to-door. Martha could complain about her diverticulitis to distract them. What man would say no to an old woman with bowel troubles walking through his house?

Max happened to pull in as she was climbing into her van so she waited as he made his way towards her, frowning of course. She plastered on a smile and ignored his mood. Maxine knew he was expecting her to tear into him for not answering his phone, and she should, but she’d let it slide—for now

“You need somethin’?” he asked cautiously.

“Nope, just droppin’ off a present is all. You can thank me later ‘cause I got errands to run and people to see.”

“All right, I’ll talk to you later then.”

“I suspect you will. Let me know when you need me to book your flight.”

“Pardon?”

“Gotta run, call me later and I’ll get it set up.”

“You on some new medication I need to know about?”

“I’m as healthy as a horse. Go look at your present and call me later with the details for God sakes. Yeesh, Gunnison men can be so obtuse,” she grumbled as she started her van and left Max standing in the lumberyard.

As Max watched his mother drive away, he wondered, not for the first time, why God had saddled him with such a headstrong mother, one who tested his patience daily. Turning to his office, he climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and made his way to his desk. When he saw two pieces of paper, both in his mother's handwriting, he picked the top one up and read. Then he read it again. Confused, and a little disturbed he’d have to tell Harry his order was in, he picked up the other paper and read a list of pros and cons titled “Mia’s reasons for leaving or staying.”

The pro’s outweighed the con’s two to one, but three things were glaringly obvious. A) Mia was a good liar. B) He’d fucked up royally when he left with Annie and C) Women were a pain in his ass. However, a pain like Mia he’d be willing to put up with for the next fifty years.