Colorado 01 The Gamble (16 page)

He hit the range, his hand hit Mindy’s waist
and my eyes narrowed on his touch.

“I got it now, babe,” he said softly and I
felt that punch in my gut again when he called her “babe”.

Mindy moved away on another skip then she
rounded the counter and planted herself on
my
stool.

“Duchess,” Max called and my eyes cut to
him, “get Mindy some coffee, will you?”

He wanted
me
to get
Mindy
a
coffee?

I was back to wanting to throw my coffee mug
at him.

Max was oblivious, I knew this because he
turned to Mindy and asked, “You take cream or sugar?”

“Lotsa milk, two sugars,” Mindy ordered and
I moved to make her coffee mainly because this would give me
something to do, something that had nothing to do with me
inflicting bodily harm.

As I was filling her order, Mindy called out
to me, “Hey Nina, you ever wanna move home?”

“Home?” I asked, pouring coffee.

“America.”

“No,” I lied because I did, all the time, I
missed home constantly. The trouble was I was also home in England
and I knew if I came back to The States I’d miss my other home so I
couldn’t win either way.

Which was, I realized at that dire moment,
the story of my
bloody
life.

“Really?” she asked.

“Really,” I answered when I poured in “lotsa
milk”.

“She misses grape jelly,” Max muttered and I
ignored him and the memory he invoked and gave Mindy her mug of
coffee.

“Hey, thanks!” she cried, like it was a
surprise I made it for her when she’d watched me the whole time
then she continued, “Why do you miss grape jelly?”

“They don’t have it in England,” I replied
and went to the fridge.

“What else don’t they have?” Mindy asked
with open curiosity.

“Quite a bit,” I answered, not inviting
further discourse.

I pulled out my yogurt and berries. Then I
grabbed the bunch of bananas on the counter and I yanked one off.
Then I pulled a knife out of the block by the range. I was going to
eat my breakfast and if Max didn’t give me my keys I was going to
throw such a fit that Mick, the nice police officer, would be
called to the scene and
then
I’d damn well get my
bloody
keys.

“You all right?” Max asked quietly when I
got close and I could feel his eyes on me.

“Perfectly fine,” I answered, not looking at
him and I reached into a cupboard to pull out a bowl.

There was silence a second then, ever game,
Mindy called, “Why’d you move there? To England.”

Not thinking clearly and it didn’t matter
anyway, I’d be out of there very,
very
soon, I answered, “I’ve sort of lived there on and off most
of my life.”

“But…” Mindy said to my back as I started to
slice bananas into the bowl, “Max said you were American.”

“I was born here,” I told the banana. “My
mother is American, my father is English. They got divorced when I
was a baby and my father moved back.” I finished with the banana,
threw the peel in the bin under the sink and started to rinse the
berries.

“So, you’d go back to see your father,”
Mindy guessed.

“No, my father forgot I existed until he got
remarried and his second wife had a baby, my half-brother.” I
turned off the tap and shook the berries in their plastic
container, the water leaking out. “She wanted her son to know his
sister.”

“So, that’s when you started going?” Mindy
surmised.

“Yes, when I was around seven.”

“Cool that you have a brother,” Mindy
announced happily from behind me and my eyes closed automatically
as I felt that punch in my gut again, this one different but
familiar, it had come at me a lot over the last three years but it
never hurt any less.

“Yes, cool,” I said and opened my eyes then
turned to my bowl, dumping some berries in and setting the rest in
the container aside.

I looked at Max who was watching me closely,
his face carefully blank but his eyes alert and asked, “Where’s my
granola?”

“Cupboard with the oatmeal,” he answered and
I turned there.

“
I’ve got a brother,” Mindy shared. “We’re
close but he lives in Seattle now, which is a bummer sometimes and
not a bummer others ‘cause he can be kinda,
in my life
. YouknowhatImean?”

Yes, I knew what she meant. I knew if her
brother knew that she was carrying on with a mountain man Lothario
who was old enough to be her
much
older brother, then her real, Seattle dwelling brother
would be
in
her life
.

I didn’t say this, instead I said, “Of
course.”

“You close with your brother?” she
asked.

I poured granola on my berries then set the
box down and answered, “I moved to England permanently because of
him.”

“Yeah?” Mindy prompted.

“
Yes,” I said, spooning out my yogurt and
not measuring my words, not even knowing why I was speaking at all.
“He was in the Army, sent to Afghanistan. When he was there, a bomb
blew his legs off.” I heard Mindy gasp and I felt something coming
from Max but I was impervious, like I was in a different world. “My
father, who is not a nice man, turned his back on his golden boy
when he felt he was no longer…” I hesitated then said,
“
Golden.
” I shook
my head at the still painful memory and put the top on the yogurt.
“His fiancée broke things off with him and he was having trouble
adjusting. So I moved to England to help.”

There was silence as I mixed my fruit,
granola and yogurt and I turned to face the kitchen. When I did I
saw they were both staring at me. Well, Mindy was, it was more like
Max was watching me,
closely
.

Mindy broke the silence, saying quietly,
“Jeez, Nina, I’m sorry. He okay now?”

“No,” I told her bluntly, looking right at
her. “Charlie never adjusted. He committed suicide three years
ago.”

“Holy crap,” Mindy breathed and I watched
the color drain out of her face.

“That pretty much sums it up,” I told
her.

“Mins, do me a favor. Go upstairs, get
yourself one of my t-shirts to wear into town, yeah?” Max said and
Mindy’s eyes moved to him.

She also saw him watching me, how he was
watching me, her body jolted and she hopped off the stool.

“Yeah, right, um… a shirt…” she hesitated,
her eyes going back and forth between Max and me.

“Just lose yourself for awhile, okay?” Max
ordered, not taking his eyes off me.

She didn’t answer or maybe her answer was
her skip-dancing away.

I looked at Max and took a bite of my
breakfast.

“What was that about?” Max asked, not moving
toward me.

“What?” I asked back, my mouth full, well
beyond thinking it rude to speak with my mouth full.

“
Closed up tight for two days, you share a
tragedy and you do it like that?” Max asked and it dawned on me
that
he
looked angry.
“What’s that about?” he demanded to know.

“Mindy was asking,” I explained after I
swallowed.

“You didn’t have to tell her like that,” Max
returned.

“Oh, sorry, Max,” I said, my voice tinged
with sarcasm. “Does she have a delicate disposition? Should I have
shielded her from that?”

“Yeah, considerin’ she was raped three weeks
ago and her boyfriend’s bein’ a fuckin’ dickhead that would have
been good.”

I felt every cell in my body cease moving
and I stared at him.

Then I whispered, “What?”

“
Mindy was raped three weeks ago. She was
in Denver with Becca. They were out clubbin’ or whatever the fuck
they do these days and got separated. Mindy was raped. She went
through that, they haven’t found the guy, she gets home, her
boyfriend who she lives with starts actin’ like an asshole.
Then
more
of an
asshole. Brody, her brother and my best friend who lives in
Seattle, asked me to come home and look out for her seein’ as he
can’t.”

Oh my
God.

Mindy and her baby blue socks with darker
blue hearts, skip-dancing, jumping up and down when she met me
was
raped
.

“
So, Nina,” Max cut into my thoughts, “I’ll
ask again, what the fuck
was
that?”

“
I thought…” I shook my head and looked
away, closing my eyes, feeling like a bitch because I’d
been
a bitch then I looked back and
whispered, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, yeah, it does, considerin’ she’s like
my sister too and she and Brody talk and you didn’t make a very
good impression. This’ll be all over town and to Seattle and
people’ll think I got another Shauna in my bed.”

“I –”

He cut me off. “I don’t care what people
think but I do care what Mindy thinks and I care what Brody
thinks.”

“I –”

“Jesus,” he muttered, looking away and I
noticed he’d taken the bacon off the burner and it was sitting in
its grease then he went on as if talking to himself, “was I wrong
about you?”

There it was. My opening.

“Yes,” I told him and he looked back at me.
“I’m a screaming bitch.” He stared at me and I went on, “It was
jetlag, I think, making you think I was cute… or… whatever. Really,
I’m like this. I act like this all the time.” He didn’t speak just
kept staring at me so unwisely I went on. “I’m over my jetlag. I’ll
probably be bitchy willy nilly to just about everyone.”

His head cocked to the side and his face got
dark in that scary way before he repeated, “Willy nilly?”

“Yes,” I replied instantly, “to
everyone.”

“So, what you’re sayin’ is, you’re actin’
like a bitch to me and to Mindy in an effort to bullshit me into
givin’ you your car keys back so you can run away because you’re
scared as shit of what’s happenin’ with us?”

No, that wasn’t what I was saying. At least,
it didn’t start that way.

I looked at him in an effort to assess my
next move and he looked really mad so I found it difficult to
assess my next move.

Then I said carefully, “No.”

He moved toward me, I retreated and hit
counter. He didn’t stop until he was super close, he pulled the
bowl out of my hand, set it to the side and then he put a hand on
the counter on either side of me and leaned in.

“
Duchess, let me explain somethin’,” he
said in a low, quiet,
angry
voice. “Bitches, real ones, don’t say the words, ‘willy
nilly’.”

“Oh,” was all I could think to reply.

“You talk to him?” he asked and I got
confused because I was thinking he was changing the subject.

“Talk to him?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“
Him,
” Max clipped and I realized he
was
changing the subject and I
tensed, didn’t answer and Max said in a low, warning voice,
“Nina.”

“Kind of,” I whispered quickly.

“How kind of?”

“I sent an e-mail.”

“You sent an e-mail,” Max repeated, his face
disbelieving of the fact I’d send a breakup e-mail to my fiancé and
even in my state, I had to admit it did sound bad.

“
I’m…” I hesitated, “better at saying
things when I write them down. I can edit. Make sure that it says
what I need it to say and I don’t…” I licked my lips, “that I can
make it so it doesn’t…” This was hard but for some reason I kept
going. “I had to do it so it didn’t…
hurt
too much.”

Some of the anger slid from his features and
he muttered, “Baby.”

“Can you move away?” I asked quietly.

“No.”

“Max, please.”

He ignored me and asked, “That really
happen?”

My head jerked and I asked back, “The
e-mail?”

“Your brother.”

My whole body jerked and I looked away.

“Nina, look at me.” When I didn’t, his hand
wrapped around my jaw and he made me look at him or he made it so
he could study me which he did a long time before murmuring, “What
else is behind that fuckin’ shield?”

He really didn’t want to know, if he did
he’d know why I jumped to conclusions about him with Mindy with
Becca and he’d know just how messed up my head was. I wanted to be
gone but I didn’t want him to think I was messed up and just that
was messed up.

I didn’t answer and his hand at my jaw
became fingers sliding into my hair.

“I’m sorry about your brother, honey.”

I pressed my lips together, felt the tears
hit my eyes and then whispered, “Me too.”

“You were close,” he stated, I nodded and
when he opened his mouth to speak, I beat him to it.

“Please, don’t. Please don’t, Max. You can’t
be nice to me, not about Charlie. You can’t be nice. Anyone who’s
nice… when people are nice…” I stopped talking and tilted my chin
down to hide my face.

His fingers were in my hair, cupped against
my head and he pulled me into him so my forehead was against his
chest.

“All right, Duchess, I won’t be nice.”

My hands went to his stomach and I pushed at
it as the tears clogged my throat and I choked, “You’re being
nice!”

“Honey –”

My fingers curled into his t-shirt and I
demanded, “Stop it!”

His hand at my head twisted it so my cheek
was against his chest, his other arm went around me and he pulled
me to his body which was shaking. “Baby,” his voice had laughter in
it, “I’m not doing anything.”