Colorado 01 The Gamble (37 page)

“Don’t give me any ideas,” I muttered.

“Thought you weren’t speakin’ to me.”

I clamped my mouth shut, tried once more to
yank my hand from his, failed, gave up and continued fuming while
Max chuckled thinking all this was hilarious.

So.

Annoying.

* * * * *

The Rooster was an enormous, beautiful
building set high on the side of a mountain, a twisting, windy road
leading to it. It’s inside lights ablaze, it had so many windows
you could see
through
it.

I had, during the journey, managed to stay
true to my vow and didn’t speak to Max. For his part, he proved a
new way he could be annoying for this didn’t appear to bother him
in the slightest. In fact, after five minutes of silence, he let my
hand go and turned on his MP3 player, filling the cab with
seventies rock music. Good seventies rock music and I noted irately
that Max even had good taste in music something else I decided to
find annoying.

I had, of course, taken this opportunity to
pull my hand away.

To that, Max had, of course, grabbed my
elbow, yanked my arm to him, trailed his hand down it until he
caught mine and pulled it right back.

I didn’t fight this. Max was stronger than
me and it would just be humiliating when I lost.

Now he had no choice but to let me go in
order to park and once the ignition was switched off I unbuckled my
seatbelt, opened the door and jumped down. I then started marching
toward the front door of the restaurant as fast as my high-heeled
sandals would carry me.

My swift progress was hindered when Max’s
arm came around my shoulders and he hauled me into his side with
such force I slammed against his hard body, my arm automatically
wrapped around his waist and, for comfort’s sake (I told myself),
stayed there. I made no protest and Max said no words. Thus we
walked the rest of the way together.

He opened the door for me and I saw the
inside was not just windows but also gleaming, light wood; super
high ceilings; some well-chosen Cotton prints; some antlers; a lot
of comfortable looking booths both big and small; and not a lot of
tables but the chairs weren’t restaurant chairs, they were cozy,
high-backed armchairs, inviting you to stay awhile.

I decided I liked this place when I spied
Mindy and Brody and started to smile but Max stopped us, his arm
curled me toward his front and his mouth went to my ear.

“Somethin’ you should know, Duchess.”

I yanked my head back, Max lifted his and I
glared at him silently.

He scanned my face, looked into my eyes and
grinned then continued, “When I met you, my first thought was you
were very pretty, great fuckin’ eyes, but not my type, high class
which means high maintenance. Then you got pissed and that was it.
Even if you hadn’t been in that ditch, now you’d still be in my
bed. So if you think this attitude is a turn off, baby, you’re
wrong.”

I didn’t know what to do with that as it
gave me nothing to go on but I didn’t have a chance to do anything
because Max curled me back to his side and led us to Mindy and
Brody.

When we stopped and Max’s hands moved to
take my coat, I announced boldly, “You should know, Max and I are
fighting and I won’t be speaking to him throughout dinner. I hope
that won’t ruin anyone’s night.”

Mindy’s eyes got huge and Brody stared at me
a second before he burst out laughing. Max, the jerk, could be
heard chuckling behind me. Then he put a hand in the small of my
back and pushed me into our booth.

I watched him hand our coats off to a white
shirt, black pants, long black tie, long white apron wearing
waitress and then he sat beside me, not delaying in sliding his arm
along the booth behind my back. I unwound the scarf from around my
neck and tucked it next to me with my clutch when Brody spoke.

“Well,” Brody started, still smiling,
“this’ll make an already rocky evening even more interesting.”

“What?” Max asked and Mindy, sitting on the
inside of the booth across from me, leaned forward.

“Kami’s here,” she whispered.

I leaned forward too and whispered back, “Oh
my God.”

“It’s worse,” Brody declared. “Shauna’s here
too.”

Mindy nodded to me and I repeated, far
more appalled this time, “Oh my
God
.”

“And… get this!” Mindy said. “Harry!”

“Shit,” Max muttered and it took all my
control not to look around the room.

“Where?” I asked Mindy.

“We’re the center,” Mindy explained. “Kami’s
at one o’clock, Shauna’s at five and Harry’s at nine.”

“We’re surrounded,” I murmured, my voice
horrified.

“Yep,” Mindy agreed and sat back.

Max’s arm curled around my shoulders, his
other hand coming to my jaw and he turned my body and face to
him.

Then he suggested bizarrely, “Feel like
makin’ out?”

“I’m sorry?” I replied snottily, forgetting
from his strange suggestion that I wasn’t talking to him.

“It’ll piss Shauna off,” Max answered. “Kami
too, I figure.”

This idea had merit and therefore I
considered it.

This was a mistake because Max knew I was
considering it, he found this amusing therefore he burst out
laughing, pulled me even closer and kissed me hard but not long,
doing so even while he was mostly laughing.

His mouth broke from mine and he was spared
the edge of my tongue as the waitress returned and asked, “Get you
some drinks?”

“Vodka martini, up with an olive and lose
the vermouth, please,” I ordered, she nodded, bent her head and
scribbled and Max gave me a squeeze, gaining my attention.

“Duchess, you’re in altitude.”

“And?”

“And you had a glass of wine at home. You
gotta be careful with booze when you’re not used to altitude.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You weren’t fine when you had a bottle of
wine last night. You were out like a light.”

“I was tired. It was late. Now, it’s six
thirty.”

“It wasn’t late, it was nine at night.”

My brows drew together and I asked, “It
was?”

“Yeah, honey, it was.”

That was news; it seemed a whole lot
later.

“Oh,” I muttered.

“Take it easy, all I’m askin’,” Max said on
a squeeze of my shoulder.

“All right,” I agreed and Max turned to the
waitress.

“Coors,” he ordered, she nodded and wandered
away.

“Lucky man, Max, seein’ as Nina’s silent
treatment lasts about two seconds. Most women I know can hold onto
it for days,” Brody told Max but his eyes were on me and I could
tell he was teasing.

“Not quite, she was silent most of the drive
here,” Max shared.

“I could never do the silent treatment, I
get too wound up,” Mindy added.

“What are you two fightin’ about anyway?”
Brody asked nosily.

“Nothing,” I replied immediately.

“Nina movin’ here,” Max said over my
word.

“Max!” I snapped, twisting my neck to look
at him.

“
You’re moving here!
Awesome!
” Mindy
screeched very,
very
loudly and
many of the other patrons turned to look.

In fact, when I swept my eyes
self-consciously across the restaurant, I spotted Shauna who, from
the look in her eyes which were glaring ice daggers at me, heard
every word.

As embarrassed as I was, since she was with
another man thus rubbing Harry’s nose into her betrayal further, I
forced an expression of surprised delight on my face, lifted my
hand and gave her a happy, “Hey, I know you!” wave.

She turned away.

“Christ, you’re cute,” Max muttered and I
looked at him then caught Brody and Mindy both turning back from
checking out Shauna, Mindy giggling, Brody grinning.

Our menus, at that point, arrived. Our
drinks came not long after.

Kami came after we’d placed our food order
and were enjoying a basket of fresh, warm, delicious bread.

She stood at the end of our table, her eyes
were locked on Brody and she said not a word of greeting to her
brother, Mindy or me.

“Brody, you’re home,” she announced as if
Brody brought the black cloud of plague and death to Gnaw Bone upon
his dastardly arrival.

“Yep,” Brody answered the obvious but shared
no greeting either.

Her eyes came to me and she said, “Nina,
congratulations, I see you’ve made it a week.”

I opened my mouth but Max got there before
me.

On a sigh, he ordered, “Kami, tone it
down.”

Kami’s eyes went to her brother and she
asked in a way that stated she thought I shredded them then doused
them with gasoline and set them afire, “Did Nina give you the
papers?”

“Yep.”

“You talk to Trev?”

“Nope.”

“
Max,” she hissed and in doing so got his
full attention. Or I could say his full,
scary
attention. So scary I couldn’t help myself and
partially shrunk away from him.

“Not gonna tell you again, Kami, that ain’t
happenin’.”

“So, it’s up to me to take care of Mom all
the time.”

“She’s not invalid.”

“She’s a pain in the ass.”

“So don’t give into her shit.”

“
Easy for you to say, and
do
, not bein’
here hardly ever.”

“Maybe we can talk about this later when I’m
not spendin’ time with Brody, who I rarely see.”

Kami didn’t feel like being generous and
therefore asked, “You rarely see Mom and me either, Brody more
important than family?”

“Yeah, Kami, if Brody walked up to my table
at a nice restaurant, said shit to my woman and got in my face, he
wouldn’t be too important. Seein’ as he don’t treat me like dirt
then he is.”

Kami’s face got red, I took a hasty sip of
my martini thinking I’d need it and my eyes slid to Mindy who
looked pale, her eyes were wide but she still appeared to be trying
hard not to laugh.

Kami appeared to have found a new direction
for her ugliness because her eyes came to me and I was glad I took
that sip of martini.

Then she looked back to Max and asked, “You
gonna jerk her around like you did Shauna?”

Mindy gasped. Brody sucked in an audible
breath and straightened. Max just straightened.

“Kami, careful, now you’re pissin’ me off,”
Max stated in a tone that underlined his words unmistakably.

“She know?” Kami asked, either not
processing or ignoring Max’s threat. “She know what you did to
Shauna?”

“She knows we were together, she knows now
we’re not,” Max returned. “You wanna carry on this conversation,
we’ll do it outside.”

“You don’t want her to know,” Kami shot back
and Max slid out of the booth but Kami’s eyes came to me. “Led her
on, took her ring shoppin’ then scraped her off, givin’ her no
reason whatsoever. Just ended it,” and she lifted up her hand and
gave a loud snap with her fingers.

“Where’d you hear that shit?” Brody asked,
his tone scathing.

“Shauna told me,” Kami answered.

“Shauna lied,” Max stated, his hand on
Kami’s arm. “We’re finishin’ this elsewhere.”

She pulled her arm out of his hold and took
a step back, accusing, “Shauna and I have been friends since
forever and you treat her like that?”

Well that explained the attitude about Max
and his supposed player status. Shauna had fed Kami lies and Kami,
being what I knew of Kami, lapped it up.

My eyes went to Mindy and she bugged hers
out at me in a “See!” look.

“Kami –” Max began but she kept talking.

“That’d be like me messin’ with Brody’s
head.”

“Like that’d happen,” Brody muttered,
visibly shivering in revulsion at the thought and it was my turn to
fight back a laugh and I did so by taking another healthy sip of my
martini.

Kami gave him a glare then turned to Max and
dealt her death blow. “Or like when you fucked things up with me
and Curt.”

My head snapped around at this interesting
news and I stared at Kami.

“Uh-oh,” Mindy muttered.

“Kami, for fuck’s sake,” Max bit out.

“Christ, Kami, that was twenty years ago,”
Brody put in.

“Not quite,” Kami snapped.

“You wanna do this here, great,” Max stated
and crossed his arms on his chest. “Curt fucked things up with you
and him, not me. He always wanted Bitsy, Kami, even when he was
with you. He got his chance, he took it. Truth hurts but there it
is. Curt’s dead, Bitsy’s broken and it’s time for you to get the
fuck over it.”

“Bitsy’s not broken, she may be stuck in
that chair but she’ll be rollin’ in Curtis’s money for the rest of
her life.”

This utterly nasty comment was when I felt
it necessary to intervene, why, I didn’t know, it was insane. But I
did it.

“You’re a cow,” I declared and her eyes
narrowed on me.

“What’d you call me?”

“A cow. We use that expression in England
when we’re talking about a bitter, whinging woman.”

“What’s ‘whinging’?” Mindy asked on a
whisper and I didn’t take my eyes off Kami as I answered.

“
Moaning, complaining, nagging,
bitching
.
That’s
whinging
.”

Kami leaned forward and hissed, “The
nerve.”

“
No, nerve is described in England as
‘cheek’, otherwise known as audacity or impudence, demonstrated by
you walking up to our table and being a
cow
.”

“Nina,” Max muttered but he didn’t sound
angry anymore, he sounded the opposite.

It was Max’s sister and if he didn’t want me
to have a verbal altercation with her that was his call. I’d said
my piece anyway.

So I sat back, drained my glass and
declared, “I need another martini.”