Colorado 01 The Gamble (77 page)

“Of course,” I told him.

“Anyway,” he went on, all business, “right
now I’ll take your statement, get Jane to type it out and then you
can read it, make sure we got everything down right then you can
sign it. Cool?”

I smiled again and said, “Cool.”

“Then you can call Kami and we’ll set
something up,” he finished and I got an idea.

“Sure,” I replied then invited, “Maybe,
while Jane is typing out my statement and we’re calling Kami, you
can come and have a cup of coffee with us.”

“Babe,” Max said low, reading my intent.

“Thanks but we’re hammered. It’s all hands
on deck,” Jeff answered.

“
Yes, of course,” I agreed then pressed,
“but everyone needs a break and the coffee at the café is better
than Station coffee, I know, I’ve sampled them both. Anyway, it’ll
be my treat.”

“Babe,” Max repeated, still low.

“Really appreciate that, Nina, but, like I
say, we’re hammered,” Jeff said politely.

It was time to dangle my golden carrot so I
did. “We’re meeting Linda and Barb and Mindy will be there.”

Max sighed. Jeff stopped looking hurried and
distracted and focused fully on me.

Then he said firmly, “Tell her I said
hi.”

I blinked and Max got tense at my side.

“Okay, let’s start at the beginnin’,” Jeff
instructed, looking down at the papers and picking up the pen.

“Tell her you said hi?” Max asked, his voice
even more of a gravelly rumble than usual and his tone made me look
at him to see he was staring intently at Jeff.

I looked back at Jeff and his head was up,
his eyes on Max.

“Yeah, hi,” Jeff answered.

“That’s it?” Max asked, beginning for some
reason to sound angry.

“Max,” I whispered, putting a hand to his
thigh.

“That’s it,” Jeff affirmed.

I felt Max go even more tense, I felt this
both physically as well as his tenseness shimmering in the very
air.

Definitely sounding angry now, Max asked,
“Coupla days ago, you couldn’t keep your eyes off her ass, now all
you got to say is hi?”

My hand gave his thigh a squeeze and I again
whispered, “Max,” but this time I did it more urgently.

“
Yeah, Max, now all I got to say is hi,”
Jeff stated and I looked to him because now
he
sounded angry and when my eyes hit his face, I
noted he looked it too.

“Gents –” I started but Max spoke over
me.

“So you’re happy to check out her ass until
you find out she’s dealin’ with some serious shit then you’re not
interested anymore?” Max enquired, his eyes narrow.

“No,” Jeff bit off.

“Sounds like it to me,” Max told him.

“Yeah, then I guess you don’t know that I
been by Barb and Darren’s every day since that scene at the river,”
Jeff returned. “And Mindy’s made it clear she don’t wanna see me
and I figured that out since each time I went she said she don’t
wanna see me but she didn’t say it to me, she told her Mom to say
it to me and Mindy didn’t fuckin’ see me.”

“So?” Max asked and Jeff’s brows drew
together.

“So, she don’t wanna see me, that’s it. I
can take a hint.”

“You like her?” Max asked straight out.

“Max!” I hissed but Jeff answered.

“Not your concern.”

“You like Mindy, it’s my concern,” Max
countered.

“Better answer, it doesn’t matter,” Jeff
retorted.

“Do you like her?” Max repeated.

“Max, please –” I began but Jeff didn’t
answer and Max leaned forward, taking his arm from my chair.

“Jeff, man, I’m askin’ you a question.”

“She’s the prettiest girl in town,” Jeff
clipped, obviously not wanting to share but doing it anyway
probably knowing Max enough to know he wouldn’t let it go, a lesson
I too had learned and I’d known him a lot less time than Jeff.
“She’s also the sweetest by a long shot. So, yeah, I guess you
could say I like her.”

My stomach melted and I stared at Jeff,
seeing his anger at Max was covering a much deeper emotion. He
didn’t like Mindy, he
liked
her. And I liked that.

“Come with us to get coffee,” Max ordered,
obviously liking it too.

“I’m tellin’ you, Max, don’t have time,”
Jeff replied.

“Then get it to go.”

“Max –” Jeff started but Max leaned further
in and cut him off.

“
A few days ago Nina told me, when a woman
gets fucked over by a dickhead, or a bunch of dickheads, she needs
to learn there are good guys out there. You’re a good guy and you
like her. She’s got serious shit to deal with now. She needs all
the help she can get,
especially
from good guys who like her.” A muscle jumped in Jeff’s jaw
but he stayed silent so Max finished, “Nothin’ worth havin’, it
ain’t worth fightin’ for even if the thing you gotta fight is the
thing you want. She don’t wanna see you right now because she’s
embarrassed, thinks you think less of her because of what you saw
and, I’m guessin’, the guys she’s picked in the past, maybe she
thinks she’s not worthy. You want her, man, your job is to convince
her she’s wrong.”

I’d stopped breathing and was staring at
Max’s profile as he spoke to Jeff.

Every word he said about Mindy slid through
me like an invisible blade shrouded in velvet, cutting me to the
quick but doing it a way that felt like he was surgically removing
a malignant tumor that I’d been carrying around for years. A tumor
that had been eating away at my insides. A tumor that, with his
words, suddenly was gone.

You love him,
Charlie said in my
head.

Yes,
I replied to Charlie, scared at this sudden
knowledge but, along with that fear, far stronger, I also felt
joy.

There was no response from Charlie.

Do you think I’m crazy?
I asked my dead
brother.

Sweetheart,
Charlie answered,
not anymore
.

“I’ll come with,” Jeff said and I forced my
mind off my brief conversation with Charlie and my eyes away from
Max to Jeff as he finished. “Get it to go.”

Max didn’t reply, just nodded and sat back
in his chair and I leaned sideways until my shoulder hit his chest.
His arm went over my head to curl around me, my head dropped to his
shoulder and I gave his thigh another squeeze of my hand.

Then Jeff brought the matter back to hand
and, looking at me and lifting his pen to the paper, he stated,
“All right, let’s get this done.”

* * * * *

Seeing as it was sunny and warm, the snow
again melting, Max and I, with Jeff trailing, walked through the
café out to the back seating area and Linda saw us immediately.

She indicated us to Barb, Becca and Mindy
with a nod of her head, all of them twisted in their chairs to look
at us. Barb and Mindy’s eyes got wide when they saw my face but
neither of them said a word when Max and I hit the table. I
suspected this was because Linda and/or Becca had already told them
about Damon and I hoped they’d done it sensitively for Mindy’s
sake.

“Hey again,” Becca said to us and I smiled
at her and looked between Mindy and Barb.

“Hi Mindy, Barb,” I greeted.

“Hi guys,” Barb greeted back.

“Hey Neens,” Mindy started then her eyes
slid sideways, she caught sight of Jeff, pink hit her cheeks and
she bit her lip before saying, “Max.”

Then she dropped her chin to look at her
lap, ignoring Jeff completely. I looked at Barb who was studying
her daughter and also biting her lip.

“Mindy,” Jeff rounded her chair and looked
down at her.

“Jeff,” she said quietly to her lap.

Jeff looked at me and requested, “Could you
order me a to go Americano?”

“Sure,” I replied.

Jeff looked back at Mindy. “Can I have a
word?”

There was silence for several moments before
Max stated softly, “Mins, babe, Jeff’s talkin’ to you.”

Mindy glanced at Max then her head swung to
Jeff then she looked down and told the table as she started to
rise. “I think I gotta –”

Jeff cut her off by grabbing her hand,
pulling her fully to her feet, her head jerked to look at him and
he said, “Five minutes.”

“But –” Mindy began and didn’t finish.

Jeff pulled her chair from behind her and
walked toward the river, his hand firm in Mindy’s dragging her
behind him.

I watched as he took her to the stairs that
led off the back seating porch and they walked down a cleared
footpath until he stopped them out of earshot and close to the
river.

“What’s that all about?” Barb asked, her
eyes on the couple by the river, as Max pulled a chair from an
empty table and flipped it around behind me.

I sat in it, throwing a smile over my
shoulder at Max and answered, “Jeff just needs to get a few things
straight with Mindy.”

Max sat beside me as Barb, her gaze still on
Jeff and Mindy, her expression uncertain, went on. “He’s come
around every day but I don’t… is that…” She looked at me. “Do you
think that’s a good idea?”

I looked from Barb to Mindy and Jeff and I
watched them. Jeff was standing close and doing all the talking.
Mindy had her head tipped back, holding her body stiff and she
looked scared as a jackrabbit.

“Um…” I started to mumble my answer then
watched Mindy’s head shake, Jeff got closer, Mindy prepared to
retreat and Jeff’s hand came up to the side of her neck, halting
her retreat and his face dipped close to hers. He was mostly in
profile but I could see he was still doing the talking. Mindy stood
frozen, staring up at him, then suddenly her eyes closed and her
head bent. This placed Jeff’s lips close to her forehead but,
instead of moving back, he leaned in and kept talking.

I knew what it felt like when a mountain man
did that and I hoped Mindy felt it too.

Then I watched Mindy’s hand come up to curl
around his wrist at her neck. At first I thought it was to pull
away but then, as I watched, I saw it was to hold on and I knew she
felt it, the same as me.

When she touched him, Jeff stopped talking,
his hand at her neck slid into the back of her hair and he tipped
her head down further in order to kiss the top of her head. When he
pulled away and allowed Mindy to look at him again, she was no
longer stiff, her face no longer scared. It was unsure but it was
also soft and she’d leaned into him, just a bit but enough to tell
the tale.

My stomach melted again and I turned to Barb
and finished my answer.

“Yes.”

Barb’s eyes caught mine and her smile was
tremulous but it was a smile all the same.

When I looked away, I caught Becca’s eyes
and her smile wasn’t tremulous, it was wide and shining.

“
Kami?” I heard Max say and looked at him
to see he had his mobile to his ear and his eyes on the couple by
the river. “We just got back from the Police Station, Jeff says
they need to talk to you again.” He looked from the river to me, he
gave me a Wonder Max wink and a small grin and kept talking.
“Nina’s with me and she’ll be with you when you talk to Mick. It
isn’t a big deal, nothin’ to worry about but they need you to drop
in and talk about the last time you saw Shauna. Can you swing by
for a break or do you have to do it after work?”

“Why do they have to talk to Kami?” Linda
asked me.

“Right, yeah, I’ll tell Jeff. Later,” Max
said into the phone and flipped it shut.

“Max is right, it isn’t a big deal,” I
answered Linda. “They can’t find Shauna and Kami’s the last person
to see her.”

“
Damn tootin’ they can’t find her!” I heard
from behind me and turned to see Arlene bearing down on us. “Get
this!” she announced when she had everyone’s attention, her arm
snaking out to snag a chair from a table with two people sitting at
it and she did this without asking them if it was okay which made
them look at her with a mix of shock and irritation even though
they weren’t using it. Then she announced grandly, “Shauna Fontaine
has disappeared and they got an APB out on her.” Her eyes rounded
in the middle of making a circle of the table to gauge our
reactions, they caught on me and she yelled, “Holy
shit!
What happened to your
face?”

“
Damon,” Max, Linda, Becca
and
Barb answered in unison and
without hesitation.

“What?” Arlene asked.

“Last night, Damon got retribution,” Max
told her and Arlene’s eyes narrowed.

“Where were you?” Arlene returned.

“Not with Nina,” Max’s answer wasn’t
evasive, it was a firm indication of where he wasn’t and that the
reason why he wasn’t with me was none of Arlene’s business.

“Right,” Arlene muttered then noted, “Must
be why the call went out on him on the police band late last
night.”

“
Yeah, Arlene, that’d be why,” Max
confirmed and his eyes came to mine, I gave him a placating grin,
he shook his head and didn’t appear very placated but instead
mildly irritated.

Suddenly Arlene’s neck twisted and she
shouted across the porch, “Fran, get me a cappuccino, heavy on the
sprinkles!”

“Gotcha!” Fran, a waitress standing at a
table several feet away, shouted back and Arlene’s head swung back
to us and her eyes took in the table.

Then they took in me and Max. “What’s your
problem? You ain’t drinkin’?”

“We just arrived,” I told her.

“Watcha want?” she asked, I answered for
myself and Jeff, Max placed his order with Arlene and Arlene
twisted her neck and shouted again.

“Fran, Nina needs a skinny latte, Max wants
an Americano, black, and Jeff needs a to go Americano, cream and
one sugar. Got that?”

“
Yeah, up in a minute,” Fran shouted back
and then turned to the table that had twice been interrupted in
placing their own orders.