The Gamble (Colorado Mountain #1)(83)

“Now you explained it,” he said, “I don’t like the idea of you runnin’ into your Dad in town without me havin’ your back. So I want you to stay here. Yeah?”

I decided it was probably better to give in because Max wouldn’t let it go and I needed distance immediately. What I did not need were more indications of all the reasons he could easily be the love of any woman’s life.

I decided this but I also decided not to give in gracefully.

So I did it on the release of a heavy, annoyed breath. “Oh, all right.”

His grin came back, his finger left my loop but his hand lifted and curled around my neck, giving me a squeeze then he turned around and walked away.

Not five minutes later, a lady who introduced herself as Jane brought me coffee and when I took a sip it was just how I took it.

Yes. Max was so annoying.

* * * * *

We were on our way back up to the A-Frame.

It was after Bitsy’s police interview; after Max took us to lunch, again at that little caf�� by the river but this time it was warm enough for us to sit outside close to the rushing, snow-melt swelled river; and, after lunch, we took Bitsy home where she insisted we stay for a thank you mug of her homemade lattes which she created in a fabulous kitchen that also had a load of extra counters that had been built so she could reach them and, incidentally, her lattes were delicious.

Bitsy had been quiet and reflective through lunch and twice I caught her eyes filling with tears while she studied the river, though she never allowed the tears to fall. Max and I kept quiet with her, me because I didn’t know what to say and I was deep in my own thoughts, Max because, I suspected, he was leaving her be. When she went home, she seemed to perk up but I guessed this was because she wanted to entice us not to leave and I didn’t blame her. Being alone with my thoughts in my current predicament was less than fun. Being alone with hers would be torture.

Now I was studying the beautiful landscape passing me by wondering, if the cosmos had shined down on me and given me Max free and clear, if I’d have ever gotten used to the beauty of it and thinking at the same time that Max thought that we’d be spending the afternoon further exploring our relationship.

I was also trying to form a plan on how I was going to avoid letting him do that and wondering, if he touched me and, God forbid, kissed me, even if I did form a plan, if I could manage to be successful in my endeavors.

“Duchess?” he called at the same time I felt his hand wrap, warm and strong, around mine.

“Yes?” I answered, looking from the side window to the front but not at him.

“What’s on your mind, honey?” His voice was soft and he’d pulled my hand to rest the back of it against his hard thigh.

I hadn’t felt his thigh until just then but of course it, too, was hard, inviting touch. I decided this was most irritating even though my brain registered the feel was totally amazing.

I also decided not to fight at that juncture and leave my hand in his while I somewhat lied, though I thought of it more as not telling the full truth, “Bitsy.”

His fingers gave me a squeeze as he said, “She’ll be okay.”

“She loved him.”

“Yeah.”

I bit my lip then pointed out the obvious because he more than anyone knew. “That means she won’t be okay.”

This was as good a time as any, in fact, better than most, for Max to share about his dead wife.

He didn’t.

He just repeated, “Yeah.”

Jerk!

“I’ll talk with her later, after the funeral, maybe in a few weeks,” he went on. “Get her to sell that house. Too many memories, too big for her, hell, it was too big for them when Curt was alive.”

“Mm hmm,” I mumbled.

He gave my hand a squeeze before he let it go to downshift in order to make a turn. He left it resting on his thigh and I moved it away, linking it with my other one in my lap, hoping he wouldn’t re-initiate the contact as he said, “We’ll look out for her. She’ll make it through.”

“Mm hmm,” I repeated, hoping he meant “we” as in Wonder Max and the Townsfolk of Gnaw Bone, not him and me, something which would never be.

This was another decision I’d come to and I’d come to it in the silence over lunch thus me knowing that being alone with my thoughts was not fun.

I couldn’t live a life like the one I led with Niles.

I also couldn’t live a life knowing the length of it, even if it was good, that I was second best.

No, there wouldn’t even be a length to it because eventually, like everything else I’d risked, it would end in disaster. I’d had enough disaster with jerks, thieves, cheaters and beaters. I didn’t need the heartbreaking disaster that was all Max.

I needed to be the love of someone’s life, like Mom was for Steve. They’d both waited a long time, Mom after a short marriage that ended in heartbreak, Steve after a long, loveless marriage that ended with his wife dying of a heart attack two years before he met Mom. I hoped I didn’t have to wait as long as Mom but I also knew down deep in my soul I needed to wait for that special person who felt that way for me, just me and only me so I could feel safe giving that feeling back to him.

Max was silent through my thoughts then, before he made the next turn, he asked, “You still thinkin’ about your Dad?”