Colorado 01 The Gamble (27 page)

“What’re you doin’ here?” was Max’s
greeting.

“Damon whaled on her, had to check, see
she’s all right,” Arlene explained to Max then turned to me.
“Woulda thought it would be worse, thought he really walloped you
one. Least it looked like that.”

Something unpleasant was emanating from Max
and I took a step closer to him. His response was to slide an arm
around my waist and yank me back so the side of my back was to the
side of his front.

“What’s this about?” Cotton asked and Arlene
turned to him, walking to the bar and putting her forearms on
it.

“Last night Damon Matthews backhanded Nina
at The Dog,” Arlene answered like she would say, “Last night, I
made a TV dinner and watched the News.”

“
What?
” Cotton exclaimed on a near shout, his eyes
moving to me and then narrowing on my cheek. “Is
that
was that is?”

“Yeah,” Arlene replied before I could speak
then she turned to Max and ordered, “Get me a beer, will you Max?”
Then without pause she turned back to Cotton and went on. “Damon
came into The Dog, manhandled Mindy, Nina here didn’t like that,
got in his face. He gave her a shove, she shoved him right back and
he backhanded her.”

Cotton was staring at me throughout
Arlene’s recitation and now
he
didn’t look happy. “You shoved Damon Matthews?”

I shifted against Max’s body and said, “He
was being, um… rude.”

“
Girl, that kid
is
rude, came outta his mother’s womb rude,” Cotton
told me. “But he’s also solid as a rock and mean besides. What’re
you thinkin’ gettin’ into his face?”

Max entered the conversation at this
juncture, saying in a dangerous voice, “He shouldn’t have touched
her.”

“No, agreed, he shouldn’t,” Cotton returned
instantly. “But he’s Damon Matthews. Half the acts that boy
perpetrates, he shouldn’t do.”

“Nina doesn’t know him and didn’t know
that,” Max replied.

“She could take one look at him and know not
to get in his face,” Cotton retorted.

“
Bottom line, Cotton, he shouldn’t
have
fuckin’
touched
her,”
Max stated and the way he did, the room fell silent.

Arlene eventually broke the silence by
sharing, “Max messed him up in the parking lot.”

Cotton looked at Max and asked, “How
bad?”

Cotton asked Max but it was Arlene who
answered. “Figure it ain’t a lesson he’ll forget anytime soon.
Whole town’s talkin’ about it. It’s like Christmas and your
birthday all rolled into one, what with Dodd dead and Max beatin’
the crap outta Damon.”

Cotton chuckled but I exclaimed,
“Arlene!”

She looked at me and raised her eyebrows.
“What? Not sayin’ anything anyone ain’t thinkin’.” Then she moved
to the other stool, slid on it and eyed the crescent roll dough on
the cookie sheet. “Fantastic!” she cried. “Crescent rolls! Got
enough for one more?”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Max muttered from
behind me.

“Sure,” I said to Arlene and she
grinned.

Cotton leaned toward Arlene and
stage-whispered, “We’re crampin’ Max’s style.”

“Whatever,” Arlene stage-whispered back,
turned to Max and called, “Max? Beer?” Then she turned back to
Cotton and said, “What’s up with the pictures?”

Cotton answered but it was Max who had my
attention.

“I’m thinkin’, Duchess,” Max murmured in my
ear, “that I’ll give you the keys to your car but we’re both
gettin’ in it, drivin’ down the damn mountain and checkin’ into the
hotel.”

I bit my lip and twisted my head to look at
him. Then I smiled. Then he let me go. Then I got Arlene a beer,
slid the crescent rolls into the oven, took the bowl of peas out of
the microwave and poured more in.

* * * * *

“I gotta carry you upstairs?” I heard Max
ask and I struggled with it but I opened my eyes.

“Sorry?” I whispered when I semi-focused on
him.

“
Never seen anything like it, honey, when
you’re out, you’re
out,
” Max said,
took my hand and pulled me out of the chair.

I blinked and looked around.

The last thing I knew, dinner consumed,
beers consumed, three glasses of wine consumed (all by me) to Max’s
displeasure, we moved to the living room with our uninvited guests
and a plate full of cookies. Max made a fire while Arlene and
Cotton ate my cookies and entertained me.

I didn’t want to admit it but I thought Max
put up with them and allowed them to stay because he knew that
Arlene and Cotton were entertaining me. Arlene simply because she
was entertaining. Cotton because he’d been a lot of places, done a
lot of things, met a lot of people and he was almost as good a
storyteller as he was a photographer. I hadn’t laughed that hard or
that much since…

Well, since the night before, with Arlene
and Mindy at The Dog.

But before that it had been years, before
Charlie died or, more to the point, before he’d been so badly
wounded.

Arlene and Cotton claimed the couch and I
sat in the armchair. When Max was done with the fire, I was shocked
when he sat in it with me, settling right down, forcing me to
scrunch to the side.

I was right when I first saw the chair. It
could fit two but it was cozy. Cozy, warm, snug and safe and with
three (working on the fourth) glasses of wine in me, I curled up in
it with Max. It was a little chair of heaven. He put his feet on
the ottoman, crossed at the ankles. I bent my knees and put my feet
in the chair, my thighs against his. His arm curled around my
shoulders and, for comfort’s sake (I told myself), my arm curled
around his belly. I rested my head on his shoulder and I listened,
laughed and sipped wine while the fire burned in the grate and Max
sat relaxed and close to me then, apparently, I fell asleep.

Which, even standing, I mostly was at that
moment.

I finished looking around, noting Arlene and
Cotton were gone, the only light was coming from the loft and my
eyes hit Max.

“Asleep,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, baby,” Max said on a grin and tugged
my hand, leading me up the stairs to the bedroom.

I did not argue with this. At that moment I
needed Max’s bed and I didn’t care if he was in it.

In fact, if I was honest, that made the
prospect even better.

I grabbed my nightgown from the suitcase,
shuffled to the bathroom, changed, did my washing face, brushing
teeth, moisturizing business, left my clothes in a pile on the
floor and then shuffled out.

Max was in bed by the time I finished these
onerous tasks.

His side of the bed was the side closest to
the bathroom.

I hadn’t had enough energy to wash my face,
brush my teeth and moisturize. I certainly didn’t have the energy
to walk around the bed.

So I didn’t.

I walked right to Max’s side and he watched
me do it. When I got close, he threw the covers back.

A wall of hard, muscled chest, cut abs and
pajamas bottoms were all I saw.

The chair wasn’t heaven, the bed was.

I crawled over him and flopped to my
side.

He tossed the covers over us, switched off
the bedside lamp and turned into me.

Like it was the most natural thing in the
world, his arms came around me, his knee went between my legs, my
thigh moved to hook over his hip and my arm slid around his waist
as I got closer to his warm, solid body.

“You have a good night, darlin’?” he asked
quietly into the hair at the top of my head.

Seeing as I was really mostly asleep, I
didn’t guard my words, I just said straight out, “Best night I’ve
had since Charlie got hurt.”

His arms got tighter. I nestled closer.

“What was he like?” Max asked, still talking
quietly.

“Charlie?” I asked back, still talking in my
sleep.

“Yeah.”

“Best brother ever,” I whispered and
snuggled closer.

“I’m gettin’ that,” Max muttered but I heard
a smile in his voice.

“You remind me of him,” I said sleepily, not
noticing Max’s body tense. “He said it like it was. Didn’t mince
words but that didn’t mean he wasn’t kind. He was smart. He took
care of his Mom, me, his fiancée. He was thoughtful. Something
meant something to him, he took care of it. Someone meant something
to him, he let them know it. Never had a doubt about that, knowing
how much Charlie loved me,” I sighed then concluded, “He was a good
man.”

“It’s good you had that,” Max whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Means maybe you’ll recognize it,
eventually.”

“Mm,” I murmured, not processing words
because I was just barely awake.

“Duchess?”

“Yes, darling?”

I didn’t notice his body getting tense again
then his hand slid up my back and into my hair and he said, “Go to
sleep, baby.”

I did as I was told.

The Love of His Life

“Nina, honey, wake up.”

My body was being shaken gently at the hip
and Max’s voice was coming at me.

I struggled up through the fog of sleep,
turned my head on the pillow and blinked at him. He was wearing
nothing but his pajama bottoms and, for some reason, he was sitting
on the side of the bed and had a carefully blank expression on his
face.

“What?” I asked, still sleepy but also
vaguely alarmed at his blank look. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Max
look blank.

“Baby,” he said quietly before he continued
with three words that made my drowsiness instantly disappear and my
head figuratively explode. “Your father’s here.”

I shot up to an elbow and repeated, a lot
louder this time, “
What?
”

Then I didn’t give him the chance to answer.
I threw back the covers and twisted my lower body around Max, got
to my feet and stomped (and obviously I could forgive myself for
stomping this time) toward the stairs.

“Nina,” Max called but I didn’t stop. I just
tramped irately down the winding stairs.

Niles had phoned my father. He didn’t talk
to
me
. He talked
to
my
father
.

Which was the
very definition
of Niles not listening to me. I told him
my father had no place in my life but my father kept his place in
it and he did this by keeping in touch with Niles. Niles had a
great relationship with his family and therefore he never
understood why I refused to talk to my father mainly because he
never
listened
during
any
of
the
vast
amounts of
times I explained it to him.

And my father was here.
Here.
He’d dropped everything and
flown halfway around the world to stick his nose into something
that was none his business. And I knew why he did it. Therefore,
not only the fact that he was here but
why
he was here was absolutely, one hundred
percent
infuriating
.

I hit the bottom of the stairs and rounded
the corner, seeing my father standing tall and erect wearing an
expensive suit, shiny shoes and a camelhair overcoat. His fair hair
was neatly trimmed with only a hint of gray, his cheeks were smooth
and his face was the face of a man ten years younger than him. And
even though I knew he’d recently made the journey I’d made not long
ago, he looked fresh as a daisy.

When I approached him, he didn’t look at me.
He was deep in the study of Cotton’s pictures.

“Dad,” I snapped.

“Are these Cottons?” he asked, still not
looking at me.

“Dad!” I snapped louder.

“That one was at the V&A, I remember the
frame. Unusual frame, perfect for that picture.”

“
Dad!
” I shouted and his head turned to me, his eyes
did a sweep of my body in my nightie then they moved over my
shoulder.

I looked over my shoulder too, to see Max
there, now wearing jeans and still pulling down a t-shirt but his
feet were bare.

Again my father didn’t greet me, didn’t
address me at all.

Instead he said to Max, “May I have a word
with my daughter in private?”

Max didn’t answer or I didn’t give him the
chance to mainly because I stomped to the door.

“
No, you may
not,
” I announced, opening the door and standing in the cool
air that rushed in looking at my father. “But you
can
leave.”

“Nina,” Dad said.

“Go,” I said back.

Dad walked toward me and stopped. “We need
to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“Niles telephoned.”

“Yes, I guessed that.”

“Therefore, we need to talk.”

“
No, we do
not,
” I reiterated.

Dad gave up on me and looked back to Max.
“Really, would you mind?”

Max’s eyes were on me but when my father
addressed him he looked at Dad, planted his feet, crossed his arms
on his chest and said, “Yeah, I’d mind.”

If I wasn’t so incensed, I would have rushed
across the floor and kissed Max hard. Unfortunately, I was
incensed.

“Dad, go,” I demanded.

“Nina, listen to me,” Dad said instead of
leaving. “You’re throwing your life away.”

I shook my head and said, “No, no I’m not.
I
was
but evidence is suggesting that
I’m not anymore.”

Dad looked to Max then glanced quickly
around the living room then back to me, his eyes settling on my
bruised cheekbone and his brows came up before he asked with only
partially veiled derision, “Honestly?”