The Gamble (Colorado Mountain #1)(95)

“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 f**ked 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 f**k’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 f**ked 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 f**k 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.”