Colorado 01 The Gamble (12 page)

“Just answer, Max,” Mick said softly.

“In bed,” Max said, his gravelly voice curt
and Mick’s eyes darted to me then back to Max.

“Asleep?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Max answered.

“Sorry, Nina,” Mick’s gaze came back to me,
his eyes dropping to my nightgown for the barest of seconds before
coming back to my face and he continued. “Could you corroborate
that?”

“What’s this about?” Max repeated.

But at the same time I said quickly, “Yes, I
can.”

“You sure?” Mick asked me.

“Of course I’m sure,” I said firmly.

“Were you asleep too?” Mick pressed and my
back straightened.

“Mick,” Max was obviously losing patience,
“what the fuck’s this about?”

But again I spoke quickly. “No, I wasn’t
asleep.” Mick opened his mouth to speak but I kept talking. “I’m
here from England, I’ve got jetlag. I woke up around two in the
morning, nine o’clock my time, and stayed awake until dawn. Max was
with me the whole time.”

Mick’s face and body visibly relaxed, relief
washing through him and he nodded.

“Now you wanna tell me what this is about?”
Max’s patience was gone, he sounded angry.

Mick’s eyes moved to him. “Curtis Dodd was
killed early this mornin’.”

I heard Max pull in breath and even though I
didn’t know who Curtis Dodd was, I felt my eyes get wide.

“You’re shittin’ me,” Max said quietly.

“Wish I was,” Mick replied.

Then Max asked, “Murdered?”

“Yep,” Mick answered.

“
And you come to visit me?” Max didn’t
sound angry anymore, he just
was
. I
heard it and felt it.

“Now Max, just procedure. Everyone knows you
don’t get along with Dodd.” Mick’s tone was placating.

“Yeah, neither does most of the town,” Max
returned.

“Yeah, that’s why I got deputies visiting a
lotta folk. You’re my third this mornin’,” Mick explained.

Well, at least that was something.

“What happened?” I asked in order to turn
the conversation and hopefully diffuse the situation.

“Dodd was shot,” Mick answered.

“Where?” Max asked.

“His house, guy broke in,” Mick
answered.

Max came closer, his body touching my back
and I could feel something strange coming from him.

“Where was Bitsy?” Max went on, his voice
cautious or maybe concerned.

“Visitin’ her sister, she don’t like the
spring break tourist season. Too many kids, teenagers gettin’
sloshed.” I felt something coming from Max, I didn’t know what it
was but it was also coming from Mick. He was uncomfortable again
for some reason that was different than before and he hurried on.
“You know she goes down to Arizona for a coupla months every March
and April.”

I felt Max relax before he asked, “Who found
him then?”

Mick shifted on his feet and I knew he would
have adjusted his collar if he didn’t think it would give him
away.

“Dodd wasn’t exactly alone,” Mick
muttered.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Max muttered back but his
mutter was clipped and annoyed. “Shauna.”

Surprise hit me and I looked at Mick nodding
then over my shoulder at Max’s hard, angry face.

“Shauna said he heard the break in and went
to investigate then she heard the shots. Lucky for her, seems the
killer didn’t know she was there, just did Dodd and then took off.
Hearin’ the shots, she was scared shitless. Took her awhile to get
her shit together to leave the bedroom, find Dodd then call it in.
She was pretty shaken up. Still is.”

“Bet she is,” Max muttered like he did
indeed bet she was and he didn’t give a damn.

“What about Harry? I thought she was with
Harry,” I asked stupidly, looking over my shoulder at Max and his
eyes came to me then his hand came to my waist and he gave me a
squeeze. He didn’t have to answer, that was answer enough. Shauna
was stepping out on goofy, sweet Harry. Then I whispered, “Poor
Harry.”

“Yeah, poor Harry,” Max replied, his voice
quiet.

I looked back at Mick and added, “And poor
um… Curtis Dodd.”

Mick examined me a second then his face
split in a genuine, amused grin before his gaze shifted up to
Max.

“Nina’s new around here, I’m guessin’,” he
noted.

“Yeah,” Max answered.

“I’m sorry?” I asked and Mick looked at
me.

“There’s about two people in a four county
area that’d say, at learnin’ the news that Curtis Dodd was
murdered, ‘Poor Curtis Dodd’. You and Shauna. You because you don’t
know him, Shauna because she was sleepin’ with him.”

“Oh,” I mumbled and wondered about Curtis
Dodd.

“You want coffee?” Max asked and Mick shook
his head.

“Gonna be a busy day, gotta get on my
way.”

“You have a travel mug in your truck?” I
asked and Mick looked at me.

“Yeah,” he said.

“If you’ll go get it, we’ll give you a warm
up.”

Mick’s face changed, his eyes cut to Max
then back to me. He smiled and said softly, “Be kind of you.”

“Well, not really. Max made the coffee
though I think he used coffee from my grocery stash. I’m finding
Max isn’t good with grocery boundaries.”

A short, surprised laugh escaped Mick as his
eyes shot to Max.

Max moved to my side and slung an arm around
my shoulders, noting, “You’ll find, Mick, that Nina’s somethin’
else.”

My head tipped back and I looked at Max.
“What does that mean?”

“Relax, Duchess,” Max grinned at me, “it was
a compliment.”

“It didn’t sound like one,” I retorted.

He bent at the waist and his face got close.
“Well, it was.”

Mick cleared his throat and I decided to let
it go. It was rude, arguing in front of other people, especially
people you didn’t know.

I looked at Mick and prompted, “Your travel
mug, officer?”

“Call me Mick.”

I doubted I’d ever see him again but on a
smile I said courteously, “All right, Mick.”

Mick went to get his mug, I went to the
coffeepot, Max stood behind my stool and watched Mick.

“You okay?” I called.

“Shauna’s a fuckin’ bitch,” Max replied.

This was true therefore I had no
comment.

Max turned to me. “Bitsy, Dodd’s wife, she’s
disabled.”

I blinked then I asked, “What?”

“Disabled, car wreck, ten years ago.
Paralyzed from the waist down.”

“Oh my,” I whispered and Mick came in,
interrupting our conversation.

“Thanks for this, been up since way before
dawn. Figure coffee’ll be my saving grace the next few days,” he
remarked, coming to me.

I poured him coffee, trying to ignore the
fact that I
still
hadn’t put
on any clothes and was in a short, cotton nightgown.

Mick didn’t act like he noticed it and I
guessed since he was a cop he pretty much saw it all. He told me he
took two sugars and a “slug” of milk. I gave it to him then gave
him my farewell. Max walked him to the door, said his good-byes,
stood in it as Mick jogged to his SUV and only closed it when Mick
started up the truck, gave a wave and started to reverse.

Max joined me in the kitchen, reached around
me and grabbed his mug. Then he leaned a hip against the counter
and looking up at him I did the same.

“Bitsy?” I prompted, curious. “And
Shauna?”

“Bitsy’s sweet, I’ve known her since we were
kids, she’s lived in town her whole life, everyone loves her.
Shauna…” He didn’t finish, I nodded that I understood and Max went
on. “Dodd’s loaded. Shauna likes that. Harry’s pretty loaded too
but not like Dodd.”

“You’re loaded too,” I said to him and he
looked down at me.

“That I ain’t, Duchess,” he said
honestly.

“According to Shauna, you’re sitting on
millions of dollars worth of land.”

I watched his face close down and he said,
“Yeah, if I sell it.”

“And Shauna wanted you to do that,” I
guessed.

“Yeah.”

“To Dodd,” I guessed again.

“Yeah.”

I was right, Shauna was a bitch. She might
be
more
than a
bitch but I wasn’t sure what that was.

“Tangled web,” I whispered.

“It was then I scraped her off, got myself
untangled.”

I looked beyond him out the windows to the
view.

There was nothing between him and that
glorious view and I figured, for thirty acres all around, nothing
beside him or behind him.

Like Harry said, God’s country,
unspoiled.

I looked back at Max. “What did Dodd want to
do with your land?”

“He had a coupla schemes he was considering.
Hotel and guest villas or a small, exclusive housing
development.”

I felt my lip curl. Max’s eyes dropped to
my mouth and he did two things. He burst out laughing and wound an
arm around my waist again bringing our lower bodies close together
but this time not in closer
proximity
, now actually
touching
.

“Max –” I whispered, my hands going to his
arms.

He stopped laughing but smiled down at me.
“That’s what I thought, Duchess.”

“What?” I asked, losing track of the
conversation what with his biceps under my fingers and his hips
fitted to mine.

“Your face, Dodd’s plans, that’s what I
thought.”

“Oh.”

He let me go, turned to the coffeepot and
ordered, “Finish your toast, get ready, forget this shit, we’re
goin’ to the bluff.”

It took me a second before I could get my
feet to move but I finally did, went to my stool, finished my toast
and then I went to the coffeepot, reaching around Max to give
myself a warm up as Max finished his own toast, his eyes pointed
out the window, his mind on other things.

Then I took my coffee, walked upstairs, made
the bed, grabbed my stuff from the suitcase and locked myself in
the bathroom, getting ready to be an idiot and go with Max to the
bluff.

* * * * *

“I’m sorry?” I shouted over the noise from
the snowmobile Max was sitting astride.

“Climb on!” he shouted back and I stared at
the snowmobile.

“Can’t we walk?” I asked loudly.

“No.”

“Drive?”

“No.”

I took a step back. “Maybe –”

“Duchess, get… the fuck… on.”

My eyes went to his face and I snapped,
“You’re very impatient!”

“Life’s short,” he yelled over the noise.
“Don’t got a lot of it to sit and wait for you to climb the fuck
on.”

“I’ve never ridden on a snowmobile,” I
yelled back.

“Today’s your day.”

“
I don’t know if I
want
to ride on a snowmobile,” I shared.

He muttered something I didn’t catch,
tinkered with the snowmobile and the noise stopped. Then he climbed
off.

I had found, through the backdoor leading
from the utility room that Max shouted through the bathroom door
was my way to find him when I finally “fuckin’ got ready”, that
Max’s house butted up to a gradual incline covered in pine and
aspen but, around the side and up, there was a barn buried in the
trees. In this barn were a variety of things including an ATV
attached to a snow plough, another ATV with no snow plough, what
looked like a car under a tarp and what looked like a motorcycle
under another tarp. There was also a snowmobile, though by the time
I met Max out there the snowmobile was outside.

Max got close, I tipped my head back and he
demanded, “Talk to me.”

“It doesn’t have seatbelts,” I told him and
he pressed his lips together, I didn’t know why, maybe irritation,
maybe quelling laughter.

“No,” he said when he stopped pressing his
lips together, “it doesn’t have seatbelts.”

“Shouldn’t we wear helmets or
something?”

He got closer and I would have stepped back
but his hand came to the side of my neck, his long fingers sliding
up and into my hair behind my ear. His fingers were covered in a
leather glove but it still felt good, good enough to root me to the
spot.

He dipped his face closer to mine and
whispered, “What’re you worried about, baby?”

I took in a breath, let it out and for some
reason whispered back honestly, “It’s just scary.”

“I won’t let you get hurt.”

“But –”

“Nina, I promise. I won’t let you get
hurt.”

I looked into his eyes and saw they were
serious. He wasn’t teasing, he wasn’t impatient, he wasn’t annoyed
and he didn’t think I was a scaredy-cat. He was just… serious.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“You gonna climb on?”

I nodded my head under his hand and he
smiled.

Then he let me go, I pulled my
cream-colored, cable knit, close-fitting cap over my hair, making
it bunch out at the sides. Then I pulled on my matching cream
mittens. The sound came back when the snowmobile came to life and,
reminding myself I was out here for adventure and snowmobiling was
definitely adventurous, or at least it was to me, I climbed on.

Max sat up straight, reached back, grabbed
my wrists and used them to yank me closer until my crotch was
against his behind, my inner thighs running along his outer ones.
Then he wrapped my arms around his waist and before I could pull
away we were moving. I had no thoughts of pulling away, the minute
the snowmobile started going, I held on tighter.

At first I was terrified, my heart lodging
firmly in my throat.

Then it filtered through my fear that Max
had taken this route before, he knew what he was doing, where he
was going and I started to look around.

Then I felt the fear melt away as the trees
slid by, the chill wind whipped at my cheeks, my body pressed to
Max’s solid one entered my consciousness and I relaxed.

We hit a trail that ran the side of the
mountain that had a river running the length of it and the views
were unbelievable. So stunning, I didn’t notice the sharp decline
that was close to the side of the trail we were gliding across.
Instead, I dropped my chin to Max’s shoulder and drank in the view.
All thoughts leaked out of my head; there was nothing but Max’s
back against my front, my arms around his waist and that wondrous
view.