Colorado 01 The Gamble (25 page)

I felt my neck start to get tight. “Well,
sort of –”

She cut me off, looking around. “Is Max
here?”

“No, he’s in town,” Mindy offered, coming to
stand by me.

I tried to get things on the right track and
lifted my hand. “You’re Kami, Max’s sister.”

She stared at my hand then at me then she
sighed in a harassed way, took my hand, hers remained limp as a
dead fish and she replied, “Yeah,” she dropped my hand and looked
at Mindy. “When’s Max gonna be back?”

“Dunno,” Mindy answered.

“Well,” she began and walked to the dining
room table, opening her enormous, well-made, designer leather
purse. “Tell him I stopped by and brought the papers for him.” Then
she yanked out some papers and slapped them down on the table.

“Papers?” Mindy asked as Kami turned back to
us.

“Papers,” Kami repeated. “Curt might be dead
but that doesn’t mean work stopped and Trev’s still lookin’ for a
foreman and they still want Max. They’re offerin’ full benefits,
have added a week on his vacation and another five thousand
dollars. He’d be a fool not to take it and quit travellin’ around
like he’s twenty-two and got no sense.”

I wasn’t sure I liked Max’s sister and found
myself lamenting the fact I hadn’t thrown myself on the floor
beside the couch like Mindy.

“Kami, Max ain’t gonna work for Dodd,” Mindy
said softly and I looked at Mindy in surprise.

“Yeah? Well then it’s good he’s dead, Max
doesn’t have that excuse anymore,” Kami shot back.

Now I was sure I didn’t like Max’s
sister.

“Brody says he gets paid loads more on the
jobs he takes out of town,” Mindy told her.

“They sweetened the pot.”

“
I’m thinkin’ they’ll need to make it even
sweeter for him to work for Dodd, even seein’ as Dodd’s dead.
It’s
still
workin’
for Dodd,” Mindy pointed out.

Kami directed her gaze to the floor all the
while shaking her head, walking toward the door and muttering, “Why
am I having this conversation?”

“Would you…” I tried politeness again, “like
to stay for a cup of coffee? We were just thinking about pulling
together lunch.”

Kami stopped at the door and looked at me.
“Thanks but… no.” She appeared to be fighting back a curl in her
lip as her eyes travelled the length of me. “I’ll pass on having
coffee with another one of Max’s women. We’ll see how long
you
last then we’ll think about
coffee.”

“Kami!” Mindy snapped, her back up, her
courage slotting into place, her anger apparent.

“You should be warned, he’s a player,” Kami
said to me, ignoring Mindy.

“He is not!” Mindy defended.

Kami’s eyes went to her and she was
definitely having trouble with her lip curling now. “Like you’d
know.”

“Know him better than you.”

“Hardly,” Kami said derisively.

To her tone, Mindy decided to deliver a
twenty-four year old girl’s lethal blow and it was good. “Know you
better than you think too and I know you’re just jealous because
everyone likes him but everyone thinks you’re a bitch and he’s hot,
you’re not and you couldn’t get laid if you tried.”

Kami leaned forward and snapped, “Mindy
Smith, shut your mouth!”

“Make me!” Mindy snapped back.

“Ladies, please, this is –” I started.

“You can shut your mouth too, fancy pants,”
Kami said to me.

My back straightened as well and I asked,
“Did you just call me fancy pants?”

“Yeah, you got a problem with that?” Kami
voice was ugly and it was clear she was raring for a fight.

“No,” I answered calmly, deciding cat
fighting with Max’s sister in his house wasn’t on my agenda for the
day, “except it’s weak.” She opened her mouth to speak but I spoke
first and I did it with glacial politeness. “Please, don’t worry.
We’ll make certain that Max gets those papers. Enjoy the rest of
your day.”

Then I turned and walked toward the kitchen
and heard Mindy following me.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Kami called
to my back.

“Careful on your drive down, those roads are
tricky,” I called back and opened a cupboard that hid my face from
her but not one I needed anything out of. Mindy got close, I
twisted my neck and I bugged my eyes at her. Mindy giggled.

We heard the door close then I closed the
cupboard and Mindy and I watched Kami stomp down the steps, get in
her shiny SUV, execute a visibly annoyed three-point turn and then
drive, too fast, out of the lane.

I turned to Mindy and asked, “Did that just
happen?”

Mindy turned to me and replied, “I told
you.”

I looked back out the windows and murmured,
“How can she be related to Max?”

“Max’s Mom isn’t much better, then again
she’s mellowed with age.”

This wasn’t good news.

“You’re good,” she said, the huge smile
spreading on her face was also brightening her pretty blue
eyes.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“You went all Ice Queen on her, gave her no
opening, it was awesome,” Mindy complimented.

“Um…” I didn’t know what to say but was
strangely pleased with the praise then I finished, “thanks.”

“Anyway,” Mindy said, clearly over it and on
to better things, she turned to the fridge, opened it and asked its
shelves, “What’s for lunch?”

“I thought I’d make toasted sandwiches with
shaved chicken, Monterey Jack cheese and avocado,” I suggested, a
suggestion that was met with silence.

I turned to see Mindy staring at me then she
said, “Really?”

“Really,” I answered then asked, “Why?”

“’
Cause that sounds freaking
great
.”

I smiled and said, “It is.” Then reached
passed her into the fridge to get the cheese and chicken. “Fire up
the stove, darling, let’s make lunch.”

“Cool!” she cried and skip-danced to the
stove.

I looked from Mindy to the ceiling and
silently said,
Thank you.

Then I got out the cheese and chicken.

* * * * *

I was standing at the stove, stirring the
chopped veggies in olive oil in the skillet when the lights of a
vehicle flashed on the walls. I turned from the range and looked to
the drive.

The Cherokee. Max was home.

I felt a pleasant shiver slide up my spine
and looked to the waning light of a setting sun.

An hour ago, Becca had shown up with my
shopping and the news that Max had given the green light for Mindy
to go back down the mountain. We talked for awhile, me ascertaining
two things. One, Becca was still angry at Damon for “being such a
dick” and two, she was “next in line” to get a facial.

They left and I checked my e-mail. No e-mail
from Niles so I sent him one asking if he was all right.

Then I sorted my shopping, clipping off the
tags, putting things away then I grabbed the cream and sugar bowl
I’d found in town. They were handmade, fantastic pottery by a local
artisan, larger than normal creamers and sugar bowls, unusual squat
shapes with equally unusual twisting handles and they were glazed
cream at the top and inside, terra cotta at the bottom. Perfect. I
bought them for Max’s kitchen. A gift, a stupid one but my small
way of saying “thanks for taking care of me when I was sick”. He
didn’t need a creamer and sugar bowl, probably would never use
them, but they sure would look good in his kitchen.

Therefore I took them to his kitchen,
cleaned them, dried them and filled them, leaving the small milk
jug in the fridge and putting the sugar bowl by the coffeepot.

Then I sat at the dining room table and
wrote a couple of postcards to friends that I’d also bought the day
before.

Then I started dinner.

What I did not do, but should have done, was
sort out my messed up head.

The casserole dish had the cubed salmon,
king prawns and quartered hardboiled eggs in the bottom, the mashed
potatoes (flavored with a hint of English mustard), sitting in a
bowl with a dish towel over it, were ready to go on top. The
ingredients for the cheesy, mustardy, creamy sauce were by the
range, ready to go in when the veggies finished cooking.

I heard the door open and I pulled in a
silent breath. Then I looked over my shoulder.

“Hey babe,” Max called, shrugging off his
canvas jacket and heading my way.

“Hi,” I replied and turned back to the
veggies, stirring unnecessarily.

I heard the whispering sound of his jacket
being hooked on a chair, I felt him get close, my hair was swept
off my shoulder then I felt his lips at my neck.

This time that shiver went from my neck back
down spine.

“Smells good,” he murmured when his head
came up.

“Fish pie.”

“Mm.”

God, he could “mm”
great
in that gravelly way of his.

“Sorry I been gone so long,” he went on.

I picked up the cream and poured it into the
veggies while asking, “Mindy’s apartment sorted?”

“Couldn’t find Damon. Did find out that the
landlord has storage units at the complex, I got his shit out, put
it in a unit and the landlord changed the locks on Mindy’s
place.”

I didn’t like the idea of Mindy staying by
herself, even with changed locks, so I turned to him and noted,
“That doesn’t sound exactly sorted.”

“
Yeah, but Mindy’s stayin’ at Becca’s for
awhile, least until we know Damon’s permanently out of the picture
and after I stopped by Bitsy’s I went to the Station, talked to
Mick and Jeff and they’ll be keepin’ an eye on things. Not to
mention, Becca’s talked with the totality of her neighbors and told
them to keep an eye out for Damon and raise the alarm the minute
he’s spotted.”

“That sounds more sorted,” I muttered, he
smiled and I turned back to the skillet, swirling the cream with
the veg.

Then I felt his fingertips trailing across
the skin of my exposed back, sweeping my hair along with it.

The shiver came back, this time with goose
bumps. I turned back to him.

Before I could speak, his eyes went from my
shoulders to mine and he whispered, “Like this sweater, honey.”

Shyness hit me, sudden and nearly
paralyzing. “Um…” I forced out, “thanks.”

He grinned then moved away asking, “You
wanna beer?”

I turned back to the food and told myself to
get it together but I told Max, “I’m going to have wine.”

“I’ll get it.”

I stirred the cream one more time, saw it
begin to bubble and then turned off the stove, moving the skillet
off the burner and I added in the rest of the ingredients for the
sauce. Stirring it, I went to the casserole dish.

“You got three bottles of wine, which one
you want?” he asked, his head in the fridge.

“The Pinot Grigio.”

“Gotcha,” he said and I heard the noise of a
bottle sliding off a refrigerator shelf.

“How’s Bitsy?” I asked, still stirring,
waiting for all the cheese to melt.

“Pissed, scared, in shock,” he answered, I
heard him moving around then I heard kitchen noises then I saw a
wineglass hit the counter beside the dish and Max was at my side
with a bottle and bottle opener.

“Is she going to be okay?”

“Will be, it’ll take awhile. She isn’t
cooperating, won’t talk to the police.”

I looked at him, surprised. “She won’t?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“She’s pissed, scared, in shock,” he
repeated and I guessed if my husband was murdered by a contract
killer while I was on holiday in Arizona and he was in bed with the
town ice queen, I might not feel cooperative either.

“Is that why they need you?”

He looked at me and pulled the cork out of
the wine. “Yeah.”

“I don’t understand,” I told him, because I
didn’t.

“We’re close,” he said then said no more and
I decided not to ask about Max being close to Bitsy, the wife of
the dead man who sounded like his arch enemy.

It was strange, very strange, but I was
presently dealing with another strange and not unpleasant feeling
of moving around Max’s kitchen with Max like we’d done it every
night for the last ten years. I didn’t have it in me to interrogate
him about his relationship with the unknown Bitsy.

Instead I enquired, “Is she going to talk to
the police now?”

“I’m takin’ her in tomorrow.”

I nodded then poured the sauce over the
salmon and prawns before informing him, “Your sister came by.”

“Yeah, I hear, Mindy called. Said you tag
teamed her but you dealt the death blow.”

I went to the sink and dropped the skillet
in it saying, “I wouldn’t describe it like that.”

“How would you describe it?”

“Well, firstly, it wasn’t that
dramatic.”

“Kami is all about drama, so I’m guessin’
you’re downplayin’ the situation.” Max finished pouring my wine,
seemingly relaxed about the Kami situation, and set the bottle on
the counter as I moved to stand in the front of the casserole dish
and pulled the towel off the potatoes. He slid the wine close to me
and headed to the fridge asking, “She act as big a bitch as Mindy
said?”

I pulled in breath and scooped potatoes on
the top of the sauced-up fish, uncertain how to answer.

I decided on, “She wasn’t um… exactly
pleasant.”

Max sighed and I heard the top come off a
beer. “She gets in moods.”

He could say that again.

“She brought you papers,” I told him.

“You look at them?” he asked and my eyes
shot to his face.

“Of course not.”

He grinned and, coming close to me, he
leaned a hip on the counter. “Why not?”

My head shook once, it was quick and it was
short, then I repeated, “Why not?”

“Yeah, why not? I would. Anyway, you’re a
lawyer, might be good to have you look ‘em over,” he stated before
he took a drink of his beer.