The Gamble (Colorado Mountain #1)(27)

He grabbed my hand and headed toward the kitchen. I pulled back but he was stronger than me and he was apparently on a coffee mission.

He yanked me into the kitchen close to the coffeepot which was filling, turned and tugged at my arm so I was close. His hand dropped mine but his arm went around my waist, pulling my lower body into close proximity with his.

I looked up at him, opened my mouth ready to let him have it but he got there first.

“Oatmeal with one sugar or satisfy your hankerin’ for some toast with grape jelly?”

I pulled in so much breath I felt my chest expand with it, filling me up, warm and sweet.

Men didn’t remember things like you saying you missed grape jelly. Not if you just muttered it in passing. Charlie would remember that but he wasn’t just any man. He was Charlie. There’d never been anyone like him.

Niles didn’t remember things like that. In fact, the incident that drove me to deciding to take this Colorado adventure timeout was when I had trouble sleeping one night, dragged myself exhausted to his kitchen the next morning and Niles, in an unusual mood, offered to pour me a cup of coffee. When I’d gratefully accepted, Niles asked me how I took it.

Since I’d known Niles for two years, had woken up in his house so often there was no way to count, been to breakfast with him, dinner, to his parents house for lunch and dinner and he didn’t know how I took my coffee, didn’t pay even that amount of attention to me, it hit me I needed to think about our situation and I needed to do it fast.

“Duchess?” Max called and I blinked at him, fighting back that warmth in my chest.

“Toast and jelly,” I whispered.

“Gotcha,” he said, letting me go but his hand came up, his fingers gliding along my jaw in a touch that was there then gone physically. But the feeling of it remained, it tingled and it tingled in a nice way.

He turned to the counter and slid the toaster from the wall along the counter. Then he opened a cupboard and took down the bread.

“Thought I’d show you the bluff this morning,” he said and I stood there, watching him put slices of bread in the toaster, my mind blank.

Well, my mind was blank except for the fact that he was wearing flannel pajama bottoms, drawstring, a checked pattern in navy blue and charcoal gray on a lighter gray background. With these he was also wearing a gray t-shirt, it fit snug across his chest and tight around his bulging biceps.

I didn’t think much of men’s pajamas, ever. Only Max could make pajamas, even every day, normal pajama bottoms and a t-shirt like the ones he was wearing, look so darned good.

Then my mind moved to my nightgown, which was another purchase I’d made for the trip. Cotton, pale pink, spaghetti straps, the bodice fit close to my br**sts, the back cut low, under my shoulder blades. The rest was empire waist, an A-line down to my upper thighs. The hem and the bodice were edged in a teeny-tiny line of cream lace.

Then my mind moved to wondering what Max thought of my nightgown and me in it.

Then I noticed he wasn’t paying a lot of attention, he was getting out the butter and jelly. This was disappointing since it came to me that I wanted him to like me in my new, cute, little, Colorado adventure nightgown. I didn’t normally wear nightgowns. I usually wore mostly what he was wearing except in girl style.

His eyes came to me and he called, “Hello? Nina?”

My body jolted and I asked, “What?”

He grinned and asked back, “Baby, you awake?”

“Um…”

“Sit down.”

“But –”

“Sit down.”

“All right,” I muttered, thinking that was a good idea and walked out of the kitchen and to a stool. Then I sat down.

The toast came up, Max pulled out a plate, put the toast on it, buttered it (with far more butter than necessary) and then put jelly on it (with a considerable amount of jelly, but I wasn’t complaining).

Then he turned and slid the plate in front of me and went back to the coffeepot.

“Nina, the bluff?” he asked.

“Sorry?”

He poured coffee in a mug, spooned in a sugar and went to the fridge, pulling out the milk then he said, “I want you to come with me to the bluff.”

“What bluff?” I asked, my eyes on what he was doing, the toast close to my mouth, I took a bite.

Grape jelly. Ambrosia.

“Edge of my land, I want you to see it,” he said, splashing milk into the mug, doing a swirl with a spoon and then turning to me and setting it in front of me.

I lost my concentration on the conversation and stared at the coffee Max set on the counter.

Once. He’d poured me coffee once. And he knew how I took it.

Niles had done it a hundred times and he never bothered to remember.

“Jesus, Nina,” Max said and it sounded like he was laughing through the words.

I shook my head and looked at him to see he was, indeed, laughing through the words.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

“You. You’re a zombie in the morning.”

I felt my brows draw together and I said, “No, I’m not.”

His response: “Babe,” and then a grin.

He turned to the coffeepot, poured another mug, black, no sugar, sipped it and slid some more bread in the toaster.

“Dress warm,” he said, turning back to me and leaning his h*ps against the counter, “and bring your camera if you got one.”