The Gamble by Kristen Ashley
“All right,” I said on another sip of my coffee and then I took another bite of the delicious buttery, jellied toast.
Okay, so I was being an idiot. I could be an idiot for a few hours to see a bluff. Then after allowing myself to be an idiot, I could go back to being a smart, sane, rational person again. But being smart, sane and rational was boring, I’d been doing that for awhile and I could use a break, so I was going to give myself one.
“That was easy,” Max commented and I took another bite of toast and looked at him.
I chewed, swallowed and asked, “What?”
He shook his head slowly and muttered, “Nothin’ darlin’.”
Then he took a sip from his coffee and his eyes went over my shoulder, his brows drew together and I watched his body get tight.
It was a fascinating, even thrilling, but somewhat scary sight to see. He had a powerful body and seeing it come alert like that in an instant was remarkable.
“What the fuck?” he murmured and I dragged my eyes away from his body, turned on my stool, toast in hand, and looked out the window.
Parking by the Cherokee was an army green SUV, police lights at the top, big star insignia on the door.
At the sight, I, too, felt my body get tight.
“Is that the police?” I asked, even though it obviously was.
“Yeah,” Max said softly but I could hear he was on the move.
A man got out of the SUV, jeans, heavy flannel shirt, padded vest, cowboy boots, badge and gun on his belt. He was average height, salt in his pepper hair, a bit of a beer belly growing over his mammoth belt buckle but he still looked fit. He gazed up at the A-Frame and then headed up the stairs.
Max had the door open before he got there. I stayed frozen on my stool watching this play out.
“Mick,” Max greeted the man.
“Max,” the man greeted back, walking in through the open door.
“What’s up?” Max asked.
Mick’s eyes came to me and it was then too slowly I realized I was in a little, pale pink nightgown.
He looked back to Max apparently unsurprised Max had a woman in a little, pale pink nightgown sitting at a stool by his kitchen and he announced, “Something’s happened.”
Max shut the door on the cold air, straightened, planted his feet and crossed his arms on his chest before he asked, “What?”
Mick cleared his throat and his eyes came to me.
“That’s Nina Sheridan,” Max told him.
“Hey there, Miss Sheridan,” Mick said to me.
I decided not to correct him about the “Miss” and instead invited, “Please call me Nina.”
“All right, Nina,” Mick returned with an uncomfortable smile which made me, already ill at ease because of a morning visit from a police officer, more so.
“What’s up?” Max asked again and I wondered if I should run upstairs, put on a cardigan, my robe, maybe some jeans, a snowsuit (though, I didn’t have one of those).
Mick walked further into the house in my direction but turned back to Max.
“Gotta ask you a few questions,” he said and I decided not to go get dressed. The way he said that, I decided to stay right where I was.
“What questions?” Max asked, also walking in but he came direct to me, positioning himself behind my stool so close I could feel his warmth at my back.
Mick took this as an invitation to come in further and he did, stopping about three feet away.
“Gotta know where you were last night around two, three in the mornin’,” Mick said.
I felt myself still and I stared at Mick noting he was uncomfortable and not hiding it.
“What’s this about?” Max asked and I could tell by his voice he was not happy and also not hiding it.
“Just answer, Max,” Mick said softly.
“In bed,” Max said, his gravelly voice curt and Mick’s eyes darted to me then back to Max.
“Asleep?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Max answered.
“Sorry, Nina,” Mick’s gaze came back to me, his eyes dropping to my nightgown for the barest of seconds before coming back to my face and he continued. “Could you corroborate that?”
“What’s this about?” Max repeated.
But at the same time I said quickly, “Yes, I can.”
“You sure?” Mick asked me.
“Of course I’m sure,” I said firmly.
“Were you asleep too?” Mick pressed and my back straightened.
“Mick,” Max was obviously losing patience, “what the fuck’s this about?”
But again I spoke quickly. “No, I wasn’t asleep.” Mick opened his mouth to speak but I kept talking. “I’m here from England, I’ve got jetlag. I woke up around two in the morning, nine o’clock my time, and stayed awake until dawn. Max was with me the whole time.”
Mick’s face and body visibly relaxed, relief washing through him and he nodded.
“Now you wanna tell me what this is about?” Max’s patience was gone, he sounded angry.
Mick’s eyes moved to him. “Curtis Dodd was killed early this mornin’.”
I heard Max pull in breath and even though I didn’t know who Curtis Dodd was, I felt my eyes get wide.
“You’re shittin’ me,” Max said quietly.
“Wish I was,” Mick replied.
Then Max asked, “Murdered?”
“Yep,” Mick answered.
“And you come to visit me?” Max didn’t sound angry anymore, he just was. I heard it and felt it.
“Now Max, just procedure. Everyone knows you don’t get along with Dodd.” Mick’s tone was placating.
“Yeah, neither does most of the town,” Max returned.
“Yeah, that’s why I got deputies visiting a lotta folk. You’re my third this mornin’,” Mick explained.
Well, at least that was something.
“What happened?” I asked in order to turn the conversation and hopefully diffuse the situation.
“Dodd was shot,” Mick answered.
“Where?” Max asked.
“His house, guy broke in,” Mick answered.
Max came closer, his body touching my back and I could feel something strange coming from him.
“Where was Bitsy?” Max went on, his voice cautious or maybe concerned.
“Visitin’ her sister, she don’t like the spring break tourist season. Too many kids, teenagers gettin’ sloshed.” I felt something coming from Max, I didn’t know what it was but it was also coming from Mick. He was uncomfortable again for some reason that was different than before and he hurried on. “You know she goes down to Arizona for a coupla months every March and April.”
I felt Max relax before he asked, “Who found him then?”
Mick shifted on his feet and I knew he would have adjusted his collar if he didn’t think it would give him away.
“Dodd wasn’t exactly alone,” Mick muttered.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Max muttered back but his mutter was clipped and annoyed. “Shauna.”
Surprise hit me and I looked at Mick nodding then over my shoulder at Max’s hard, angry face.
“Shauna said he heard the break in and went to investigate then she heard the shots. Lucky for her, seems the killer didn’t know she was there, just did Dodd and then took off. Hearin’ the shots, she was scared shitless. Took her awhile to get her shit together to leave the bedroom, find Dodd then call it in. She was pretty shaken up. Still is.”
“Bet she is,” Max muttered like he did indeed bet she was and he didn’t give a damn.
“What about Harry? I thought she was with Harry,” I asked stupidly, looking over my shoulder at Max and his eyes came to me then his hand came to my waist and he gave me a squeeze. He didn’t have to answer, that was answer enough. Shauna was stepping out on goofy, sweet Harry. Then I whispered, “Poor Harry.”
“Yeah, poor Harry,” Max replied, his voice quiet.
I looked back at Mick and added, “And poor um… Curtis Dodd.”<
Mick examined me a second then his face split in a genuine, amused grin before his gaze shifted up to Max.
“Nina’s new around here, I’m guessin’,” he noted.
“Yeah,” Max answered.
“I’m sorry?” I asked and Mick looked at me.
“There’s about two people in a four county area that’d say, at learnin’ the news that Curtis Dodd was murdered, ‘Poor Curtis Dodd’. You and Shauna. You because you don’t know him, Shauna because she was sleepin’ with him.”
“Oh,” I mumbled and wondered about Curtis Dodd.
“You want coffee?” Max asked and Mick shook his head.
“Gonna be a busy day, gotta get on my way.”
“You have a travel mug in your truck?” I asked and Mick looked at me.
“Yeah,” he said.
“If you’ll go get it, we’ll give you a warm up.”
Mick’s face changed, his eyes cut to Max then back to me. He smiled and said softly, “Be kind of you.”
“Well, not really. Max made the coffee though I think he used coffee from my grocery stash. I’m finding Max isn’t good with grocery boundaries.”
A short, surprised laugh escaped Mick as his eyes shot to Max.
Max moved to my side and slung an arm around my shoulders, noting, “You’ll find, Mick, that Nina’s somethin’ else.”
My head tipped back and I looked at Max. “What does that mean?”
“Relax, Duchess,” Max grinned at me, “it was a compliment.”
“It didn’t sound like one,” I retorted.
He bent at the waist and his face got close. “Well, it was.”
Mick cleared his throat and I decided to let it go. It was rude, arguing in front of other people, especially people you didn’t know.
I looked at Mick and prompted, “Your travel mug, officer?”
“Call me Mick.”
I doubted I’d ever see him again but on a smile I said courteously, “All right, Mick.”
Mick went to get his mug, I went to the coffeepot, Max stood behind my stool and watched Mick.
“You okay?” I called.
“Shauna’s a fuckin’ bitch,” Max replied.
This was true therefore I had no comment.
Max turned to me. “Bitsy, Dodd’s wife, she’s disabled.”
I blinked then I asked, “What?”
“Disabled, car wreck, ten years ago. Paralyzed from the waist down.”
“Oh my,” I whispered and Mick came in, interrupting our conversation.
“Thanks for this, been up since way before dawn. Figure coffee’ll be my saving grace the next few days,” he remarked, coming to me.
I poured him coffee, trying to ignore the fact that I still hadn’t put on any clothes and was in a short, cotton nightgown.
Mick didn’t act like he noticed it and I guessed since he was a cop he pretty much saw it all. He told me he took two sugars and a “slug” of milk. I gave it to him then gave him my farewell. Max walked him to the door, said his good-byes, stood in it as Mick jogged to his SUV and only closed it when Mick started up the truck, gave a wave and started to reverse.
Max joined me in the kitchen, reached around me and grabbed his mug. Then he leaned a hip against the counter and looking up at him I did the same.
“Bitsy?” I prompted, curious. “And Shauna?”
“Bitsy’s sweet, I’ve known her since we were kids, she’s lived in town her whole life, everyone loves her. Shauna…” He didn’t finish, I nodded that I understood and Max went on. “Dodd’s loaded. Shauna likes that. Harry’s pretty loaded too but not like Dodd.”
“You’re loaded too,” I said to him and he looked down at me.
“That I ain’t, Duchess,” he said honestly.
“According to Shauna, you’re sitting on millions of dollars worth of land.”
I watched his face close down and he said, “Yeah, if I sell it.”
“And Shauna wanted you to do that,” I guessed.
“Yeah.”
“To Dodd,” I guessed again.
“Yeah.”
I was right, Shauna was a bitch. She might be more than a bitch but I wasn’t sure what that was.
“Tangled web,” I whispered.
“It was then I scraped her off, got myself untangled.”
I looked beyond him out the windows to the view.
There was nothing between him and that glorious view and I figured, for thirty acres all around, nothing beside him or behind him.
Like Harry said, God’s country, unspoiled.
I looked back at Max. “What did Dodd want to do with your land?”
“He had a coupla schemes he was considering. Hotel and guest villas or a small, exclusive housing development.”
I felt my lip curl. Max’s eyes dropped to my mouth and he did two things. He burst out laughing and wound an arm around my waist again bringing our lower bodies close together but this time not in closer proximity, now actually touching.
“Max –” I whispered, my hands going to his arms.
He stopped laughing but smiled down at me. “That’s what I thought, Duchess.”
“What?” I asked, losing track of the conversation what with his biceps under my fingers and his hips fitted to mine.
“Your face, Dodd’s plans, that’s what I thought.”
“Oh.”
He let me go, turned to the coffeepot and ordered, “Finish your toast, get ready, forget this shit, we’re goin’ to the bluff.”
It took me a second before I could get my feet to move but I finally did, went to my stool, finished my toast and then I went to the coffeepot, reaching around Max to give myself a warm up as Max finished his own toast, his eyes pointed out the window, his mind on other things.
Then I took my coffee, walked upstairs, made the bed, grabbed my stuff from the suitcase and locked myself in the bathroom, getting ready to be an idiot and go with Max to the bluff.
* * * * *
“I’m sorry?” I shouted over the noise from the snowmobile Max was sitting astride.
“Climb on!” he shouted back and I stared at the snowmobile.
“Can’t we walk?” I asked loudly.
“No.”
“Drive?”
“No.”
I took a step back. “Maybe –”
“Duchess, get… the fuck… on.”
My eyes went to his face and I snapped, “You’re very impatient!”
“Life’s short,” he yelled over the noise. “Don’t got a lot of it to sit and wait for you to climb the fuck on.”
“I’ve never ridden on a snowmobile,” I yelled back.
“Today’s your day.”
“I don’t know if I want to ride on a snowmobile,” I shared.
He muttered something I didn’t catch, tinkered with the snowmobile and the noise stopped. Then he climbed off.
I had found, through the backdoor leading from the utility room that Max shouted through the bathroom door was my way to find him when I finally “fuckin’ got ready”, that Max’s house butted up to a gradual incline covered in pine and aspen but, around the side and up, there was a barn buried in the trees. In this barn were a variety of things including an ATV attached to a snow plough, another ATV with no snow plough, what looked like a car under a tarp and what looked like a motorcycle under another tarp. There was also a snowmobile, though by the time I met Max out there the snowmobile was outside.
Max got close, I tipped my head back and he demanded, “Talk to me.”
“It doesn’t have seatbelts,” I told him and he pressed his lips together, I didn’t know why, maybe irritation, maybe quelling laughter.
“No,” he said when he stopped pressing his lips together, “it doesn’t have seatbelts.”
“Shouldn’t we wear helmets or something?”
He got closer and I would have stepped back but his hand came to the side of my neck, his long fingers sliding up and into my hair behind my ear. His fingers were
He dipped his face closer to mine and whispered, “What’re you worried about, baby?”
I took in a breath, let it out and for some reason whispered back honestly, “It’s just scary.”
“I won’t let you get hurt.”
“But –”
“Nina, I promise. I won’t let you get hurt.”
I looked into his eyes and saw they were serious. He wasn’t teasing, he wasn’t impatient, he wasn’t annoyed and he didn’t think I was a scaredy-cat. He was just… serious.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“You gonna climb on?”
I nodded my head under his hand and he smiled.
Then he let me go, I pulled my cream-colored, cable knit, close-fitting cap over my hair, making it bunch out at the sides. Then I pulled on my matching cream mittens. The sound came back when the snowmobile came to life and, reminding myself I was out here for adventure and snowmobiling was definitely adventurous, or at least it was to me, I climbed on.
Max sat up straight, reached back, grabbed my wrists and used them to yank me closer until my crotch was against his behind, my inner thighs running along his outer ones. Then he wrapped my arms around his waist and before I could pull away we were moving. I had no thoughts of pulling away, the minute the snowmobile started going, I held on tighter.
At first I was terrified, my heart lodging firmly in my throat.
Then it filtered through my fear that Max had taken this route before, he knew what he was doing, where he was going and I started to look around.
Then I felt the fear melt away as the trees slid by, the chill wind whipped at my cheeks, my body pressed to Max’s solid one entered my consciousness and I relaxed.
We hit a trail that ran the side of the mountain that had a river running the length of it and the views were unbelievable. So stunning, I didn’t notice the sharp decline that was close to the side of the trail we were gliding across. Instead, I dropped my chin to Max’s shoulder and drank in the view. All thoughts leaked out of my head; there was nothing but Max’s back against my front, my arms around his waist and that wondrous view.
Before I was ready for our ride to end, we hit the bluff by the river, the land seeming to fall away from the side, the vista it exposed heart stopping and Max halted the snowmobile, turning it off.