The Gamble

by Kristen Ashley

  My eyes drifted to the side and that twisting pain subsided.

  Yes, it could be that easy.

  Then my eyes drifted back, I smiled and pressed deeper into him when I said, “Yes. I’ve got loads of holiday. I’ll call my assistant, get her to shift some things around. Then I’ll call David, he’s a partner and my boss. He’ll be okay with it, he likes me.”

  Max’s head went up slightly but his brows drew together sharply.

  “He likes you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much?”

  I was still smiling when I said, “A lot, seeing as I’m a good employee. His gay partner also likes me. No, his partner Nigel actually adores me but not because I’m a good employee, because I make fantastic martinis or at least that’s what Nigel says. They like me so much, they’ve asked me to be godmother to their new Russian orphan baby.”

  Max’s brows had unknit and his body was pressing me deeper into the truck when he smiled back and asked, “Did you say yes?”

  “Of course, she’s adorable and godmother duties include buying her ridiculously frilly dresses throughout childhood and then repeatedly explaining that men are idiots through her teen years and then she’s honor-bound to come visit me at the nursing home when I’m old and gray.”

  One of his arms came from around me so he could cup my jaw in his hand and he was still smiling but his eyes were soft when he said, “Only you.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Only you,” he repeated.

  “Only me what?”

  “Only you would have some senior citizen swipin’ at me with his cane. You knew him a day, he knew I could break him in two and still, he thought I laid a hand on you and he came at me. And only you would have a Russian orphan goddaughter you buy frilly dresses.”

  “It’s a godmother duty,” I reminded him.

  His hand at my jaw tightened and he whispered, “It’s Nina.”

  The way he said those two words made tears flood my eyes and my throat feel thick.

  Okay so, again, Max had proved my fears moot. He wasn’t going to figure out I wasn’t cute because the fact of the matter was, he thought I was cute. And apparently there was no shaking that.

  “Max,” I warned, my voice sounding as thick as my throat felt, “you’re being nice.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed then tipped my face up, touched his lips to mine and when he was done he pulled back a bit, dropped his hand to curl around my neck and changed the subject. “How would you feel I was on that plane with you?”

  I liked the lip touch and the heavy warmth of his hand at my neck and the fact that he was nice so much I was focused on those things and I wasn’t following.

  “Sorry?”

  “Could talk to Bitsy, Trev can keep things goin’ for awhile. I could go with you, see Charlie’s house, stay in England a couple of weeks.”

  “Are you serious?” I breathed, my eyes wide.

  He looked at my face a second then burst out laughing.

  When he was done laughing but he was still smiling, he instructed, “Don’t bother answerin’ the question, babe.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, too overcome with happiness that this meant another week with him in his A-Frame and two more with him in Charlie’s house.

  I could show him pictures of Charlie!

  “For once, I don’t know what you’re thinking,” he broke into my thoughts, his smile now a grin, “except it’s good.”

  “I’m thinking, if you come to England I can show you pictures of Charlie,” I shared happily and watched with no small amount of fascination as his face got soft but his eyes grew warm.

  “I’d like that,” he muttered.

  “Nina!” Niles’s voice snapped from my left.

  My head twisted to the side and Max’s hand moved from my neck as I stared in shock at Niles in tan, large whale corduroys, a navy pea coat with a navy turtleneck showing out of the collar, standing on the wooded sidewalk facing Max and I, his tan, leather glove-covered hands on the wooden railing. He was wearing this get up even though the weather had again turned and it had to be at least sixty degrees Fahrenheit.

  The minute I looked at him, his face paled and his eyes grew huge.

  Then, his voice almost shrill, he asked, “What happened to your face?”

  “What are you still doing here?” I asked back.

  “What happened to your face?” he shouted then his eyes went straight to Max and he demanded to know, “Did you do that to her?”

  “I’m gettin’ tired of that shit,” Max murmured as his body got tight in my arms.

  “No!” I answered Niles sharply, giving Max a squeeze. “I have a mountain man gone bad stalker.”

  “A what?” Niles asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I told him, reluctantly dropping one arm from Max and turning to face Niles and when I did, Max turned too, his arm going around my shoulders and my other arm dropped to his waist, my thumb hooking in his side belt loop as I went on, “I asked, what are you still doing here?”

  “I called you four times yesterday,” Niles told me, not answering my question.

  “And?”

  “You didn’t take any of my calls.”

  “And?”

  “I’d like to speak to you,” Niles clipped.

  I pointed out the obvious, “Niles, honestly, I think we’ve said all there is to say.”

  Niles’s face went hard and he informed me, “And I think the least you could do is allow me a moment to speak to you,” his eyes went to Max before he finished, “privately.”

  Unfortunately at this point, seeing as Niles had interrupted a nice moment between Max and me, and he was being kind of a jerk, I was starting to see red.

  “The least I could do?” I asked irately.

  “Duchess,” Max muttered at my side.

  “The least you could do,” Niles affirmed.

  “You’ve had two years of me talking with you privately and you never listened,” I reminded him.

  “But –” Niles started.

  I was moving forward taking Max with me, heading to the two step opening at the railing by the Police Station just down from Niles. I wasn’t going to get into this with him, not now, not ever. It wasn’t worth it, he wasn’t worth it.

  Therefore, as I headed that way, I told Niles, “I need to go press charges.”

  “Against who?” Niles asked.

  I stopped, glared at him and answered impatiently, “Who else? Against my mountain man gone bad stalker!”

  “Nina! Max!” I heard shouted and looked to the left to see Linda bearing down on our party, she got a good look at me, came to a juddering halt and kept shouting, “Oh my God! What on earth happened to you?”

  “Damon,” Max answered without hesitation and my head snapped back to look at him.

  “Max!” I hissed.

  “Everyone’s gonna know,” Max told me.

  “They will now,” I mumbled.

  “Damon!” Linda yelled very loudly, proving my mumbled point.

  “I’m fine,” I told Linda.

  “Nina, that word I’d like to have privately…” Niles butted in.

  “Babe, seriously, get rid of him,” Max’s voice was getting a little scary.

  “Niles, go home,” I said to Niles.

  “You don’t look fine,” Linda said to me, ignoring Niles.

  “I am,” I promised her. “Really, it just feels a little bit tight.”

  “That Damon Matthews,” Linda spat. “You know, take one letter out of his name and it spells ‘damn’ as in ‘damn, that kid’s a worthless sonovabitch’.”

  “Nina! Max! Hey!” I heard and looked to the right to see Becca approaching. Then she caught sight of me and skidded to a halt two feet from Niles. “Whoa! What happened to your face?”

  “Fuck me,” Max muttered.

  “Damon,” I told her, talking over Max cursing.

  “That dick!” Becca screeched.

  “Nina! For God’s sake!” N
iles bellowed and I looked at him.

  “Niles! Go! Away!” I shouted at him.

  Becca’s torso reared back, her eyes got wide and they were on Niles.

  “Dude,” she said low, “you’re Niles?”

  Niles just scowled at her so she looked at me.

  “Seriously, Neens, Max is way better,” Becca informed me. “Not only is he hotter, he’s taller, has great hair, that awesome rough voice and he dresses nearly as hot as he just plain is.”

  Becca was not wrong about that. Any of it. Therefore I had no response.

  “Who’s Niles?” Linda asked Becca, finally examining Niles.

  “I’m Nina’s fiancé,” Niles answered Linda, now scowling more irately at Becca.

  “Ex!” I shouted.

  “Jesus, enough!” Max cut in on a sharp, impatient bark and looked at Niles. “Man, it’s over. Deal with it but deal with it somewhere else.” He looked at his mother. “Mom, we gotta go in so Nina can swear out a statement. I’ll call you later.” He looked at Becca. “Babe, Nina’ll call you, yeah?”

  “Cool,” Becca said on a grin.

  “Is it pasta bake tonight?” Linda asked.

  “No,” Max answered instantly.

  “When am I gonna get pasta bake?” Linda pushed.

  “I don’t know, Mom,” Max replied and I could tell he was losing it.

  “Saturday,” I told her quickly. “That’s my parent’s last day here. We’ll have a little party.”

  “Duchess,” Max said to me, sounding exasperated, “when I’m in England, we gotta get your shit sorted so you can move here and people’ll get used to having you around so maybe they’ll back the fuck off so I can spend some fuckin’ time with you.”

  “You’re moving here?” Niles asked on a loud, horrified whisper.

  “Yes, Niles,” I answered him.

  “But you said you’d never leave Charlie’s house.”

  Now he was hearing what I said a million times over the last year.

  “I’m not leaving Charlie’s house, Max and I are going to…” I stopped speaking as it hit me, I looked at Max and whispered, “We can’t do that anymore, can we?”

  Max’s arm at my shoulders gave me a squeeze. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  I ignored him, remembering what he’d told me the morning before about taking the job in town and how wonderful it was that he’d make that sacrifice for me, taking over Curt’s business, but how he couldn’t do it, seeing as it was Curt’s business and Curt was a jerk, so I announced, “And you can’t take that job.”

  “Babe, we’ll talk about it later.”

  “What job?” Linda asked.

  “Fuck,” Max clipped.

  “Nothing, nothing,” I said quickly to Linda. “We need to go in.”

  “What job?” Linda repeated.

  “Mom, later,” Max bit out.

  Linda’s hands came up. “All right, all right. Yeesh. Later.” Then she looked around Niles to Becca and asked, “Do you wanna get a coffee? I’m meeting Barb and Mindy at the café.”

  “Awesome,” Becca answered.

  “Mindy?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Linda said to me then invited, “You guys finish, you can join us.”

  I smiled at her and said, “That would be lovely.”

  “Someone kill me,” Max muttered, I looked up at him to see he was looking up at the blue, cloudless sky.

  “Darling,” I called, putting my free hand to his stomach, “we need to go into the Station and get this done so I can see Mins and get a coffee.”

  Max’s head tilted down and his frustrated gray eyes locked on mine. “Babe, just gonna say, you’re lucky you’re so damned cute.”

  That was when I curled my body into his, got up on my toes, pressed close and smiled at him before I said softly, “I know.”

  And I did know. At that moment with Max looking irritated but still amazingly handsome and I was tucked firm in the curve of his arm, I knew.

  I knew I was possibly the luckiest woman in the world.

  And Max proved me correct when his eyes moved over my face, his expression cleared, his face warmed and his mouth came down on mine.

  * * * * *

  We were sitting in the little room that Mick questioned Kami in, Max at my side, his chair pushed slightly back but close to mine, his arm draped around the back of my chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, feet crossed at the ankles.

  This seemed like a pose of masculine relaxation but it wasn’t.

  I knew this when he clipped, “What’s takin’ so fuckin’ long?”

  I looked up from returning the texts my friends had been sending.

  Before texting I’d found that yesterday Niles had called four times, Mom three and I had five calls from three numbers I didn’t know. After interrogating Max I found that one call was from his home phone (so I programmed it in), three from his mobile (so I programmed that in too) and the last one was from Arlene (which I also programmed in). Mom had given Max my number, Max had given it to Arlene and her message was mostly about how next time we were at The Dog I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye and partly about her asking when I was making another fish casserole without any mention at all about my heartbroken getaway which, I suspected, she knew would be foiled.

  “They are investigating a murder, darling,” I attempted to soothe the wakening beast.

  His irritated eyes sliced from their impatient examination of the door to me and I decided just to let the beast wake and take my chances.

  Thankfully at that point the door opened and Jeff walked in carrying papers and a pen.

  “Fuck, sorry, I mean, um…” he looked at me and repeated, “sorry.”

  “Max curses all the time, Jeff, you don’t have to apologize for saying the f-word,” I assured, smiling at him, he smiled back, headed to the chair opposite us, dumped his papers and sat down.

  “Shit, Jeff, we been here twenty minutes,” Max put in, proving me right about the swearing.

  “Yeah, I know, things are crazy.” He looked at Max then he looked at me. “Sorry to say, Nina, we can’t find Damon.”

  This wasn’t exactly good news.

  Max straightened in his chair and glared at Jeff. “Jesus, we’re talkin’ Mathews here. He ain’t the brightest bulb.”

  Jeff nodded. “I know but he’s proving elusive. We been lookin’ for him since the spray paint incident, talkin’ to folks all over town. His boss says he hasn’t been to work since you and he had your thing and he wants him to come back real bad, mostly so he can fire his ass.”

  That wasn’t good news for Damon but I couldn’t find it in me to care since maybe it would mean he’d be forced to move away from Gnaw Bone, his self-appointed stalker duties and Mindy.

  Jeff kept talking. “And none of his friends admit to knowin’ where he is. His old landlord said he caught him last Friday tryin’ to put a bolt cutter to the lock on one of the storage units he’s got. The old guy aimed some buckshot at him, chased him off, didn’t know we were lookin’ for him. Other than that, we got nothin’. Mathews is in the wind.”

  “He doesn’t even know how to spell ‘wind’, he can’t be in it,” Max bit out and I pressed my lips together to stop from laughing.

  “We’ll find him,” Jeff promised. “But we’re low on resources, seein’ as we got every man we can spare here, at the county sheriff’s and even the frickin’ highway patrol tryin’ to track down Shauna and that Robert Winston guy.”

  Both Max and I stiffened but it was me who spoke. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Jeff answered, distracted and sorting through the papers he’d put on the table. “She’s vanished. Gone.” He looked up at me and said, “We got a warrant to search her house, nothin’ there, no furniture, no clothes, nada. Totally clean. Last person to see her was Kami and Mick said we can’t talk to Kami, ‘less we talk to you, so, by the way, Mick says I need to set that up while you’re here.”

  “Of course,” I told him.
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br />   “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.