Colorado 01 The Gamble (70 page)

He couldn’t even bear me knowing she
existed.

I couldn’t do this; I couldn’t participate
in this ending. I just had to get
out.

I turned and ran to the stairs but didn’t
get there. Max’s hand wrapped firm around my wrist, I came to a
jerking halt and then he yanked on my hand, twisting it around my
back, effectively twirling me so my front slammed into his. Then he
released my hand but his arms came around me like vices.

“Don’t run away from me, Nina,” he
clipped.

“Let me go,” I whispered.

“
Answer the
fucking
question.”

I shook my head but answered, “Arlene told
me at The Dog that night when Damon hit me.”

“Christ, you’ve known a week,” he bit this
off as if it infuriated him even further.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Please, let me go.”

“You’ve known a week,” he repeated.

“Yes, Max. Now please, let me go.”

“You didn’t say a word.”

I blinked and tried to focus through my fear
on his enraged face. “Sorry?”

“
You didn’t say a
fucking
word,” he repeated, squeezing me with his arms on
the word “fucking”.

He wasn’t making sense and I decided to
attempt to calm him down so I could get my head sorted, plan the
steps to leaving him, take them one at a time and then get out of
there, out of Colorado, go home and find some way to pick up the
tattered threads of my life.

“I know this upsets you,” I said softly.

“Yeah, you do?” he clipped back
sarcastically.

“I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“That I know.”

His brows knit over narrowed eyes. “You’re
sorry you know about Anna?”

“I know you didn’t want me to.”

His body jerked then he barked in my face,
“What the
fuck?
”

“I know you were very –”

His face was still in mine when he growled,
“You don’t know shit.”

I clamped my mouth shut and swallowed.
Calming him wasn’t working and his intense fury was scaring the
hell out of me. I could feel my heart beating in my neck, in my
wrists and even against his chest.

I finally pulled up the courage to whisper,
“Max, please let me go.”

“Explain,” he demanded instead of letting me
go.

I shook my head, short, confused shakes.
“Sorry?”

“Explain how you know I didn’t want you to
know about Anna,” he ordered.

“I –”

He cut me off. “When
I’ve
been wrackin’ my brain since you curled up to me
in order to get in Shauna’s face because you thought she’d
humiliated me and you wanted to get mine back for me and I knew, I
knew a woman who’d stand by me, especially one I barely knew who’d
do that for me, thinkin’ what you mighta been thinkin’ after Shauna
ran her fuckin’ mouth, I knew what that woman would mean to me, so,
once it came clear how your crazy, fucked up head works, I’ve been
wrackin’ my brain how I’d tell you about my dead wife.”

I blinked then breathed, “What?”

“You get a hangnail, Nina, you’d use it to
drive a wedge between us.”

“I –”

“Don’t deny it.”

“But –”

“And all this time, you knew.”

“Max –” he suddenly let me go and stepped
away, glaring at me and I stopped speaking.

“So, you knew the shit’s been goin’ on in my
head this past week.”

I shook my head again, those short, sharp,
confused shakes. “No.”

“You know how she died?”

“I… I know Curt killed her.”

“So you knew the shit’s been goin’ on in my
head this past week.”

“Max –”

“Curt killed her and the week he dies, the
week that shit comes back up after years of it stayin’ buried is
the week I fall in love with another woman.”

A jolt of electricity bolted through me and
all I could do was stare.

Max didn’t seem to notice. “When Mick came
to my door that night to tell me about the accident, to tell me
Bitsy had to be cut clear and would probably never walk again, to
tell me Curt walked away without even a fuckin’
scratch
, to tell me Anna was dead at the scene, I
knew never again, I’d never let it happen to me again. Then you
drove up to my house in a goddamned snowstorm.”

“Max –” I whispered, my breath coming fast,
almost in pants but he talked over me.

“
Then Curt gets murdered while I’m fallin’
for you and this week it’s been like lettin’ her go again but I
could deal with that, long’s I had you, your body in my bed, you
bein’ so cute all the time, you sparrin’ with me, all that
remindin’ me life could be good. And I had your shit to occupy my
mind, sort you out, get you to take a gamble on me and you
fuckin’
knew
and you let
me deal with your shit and you didn’t ask that first
fuckin’
question. You didn’t
think
once
what I
might be goin’ through.”

He was right, so right and I hated when he
was right.

Especially this time.

I didn’t think, I even figured it out but
I never thought of him. I was so wrapped up in my own drama, my
neuroses, I didn’t give it a single thought. Not once, not even
when Curt wrote whatever he wrote in his letter to the man whose
wife he killed obviously in a car wreck and Max went so strange.
Bitsy had even
told
me to take
care of Max but did I?

No. I just thought about me.

I took a step forward but this time Max
moved back and I stopped, actually feeling the blood draining from
my face.

“Max, darling –”

“
Nope, Nina, no way. Don’t give me that
fuckin’ ‘darling’ shit now.” He shook his head. “You were so busy
worryin’ about yourself, you didn’t think to worry about me. So
that shit with Shauna that first night at The Mark, you cuddlin’ up
to me, havin’ my back…
fuck.
”
He ended on a snarl, so overcome with fury and mountain man
betrayal he couldn’t go on.

“Max, let me –”

He cut me off again. “You know where I been
this morning, babe?”

“I…” I shook my head, “no, I… where have you
been?”

“
Talkin’ to Bitsy,” he replied, his voice
terse. “See yesterday, durin’ our conversation, I realized I was
askin’ you to give up everything for me, slot into
my
life. And I thought, you movin’
all the way out here only to have me be gone, seein’ you on
weekends or not for months, you make your sacrifice and what?
That’s what you get? So I told Bitsy I’d take the job, I’d take
over Curt’s business, I’d stay in town, I’d do that shit
for
you.
”

I felt my chest moving rapidly, the tears
welling in my eyes, I couldn’t believe it. Max didn’t want anything
to do with that job. He hated Curt’s business. He hated Curt. Curt
had killed his
wife
.

“Please, Max, let me explain.”

He shook his head and started to the door.
“Figure this’ll be good, babe, but too fuckin’ late.”

I followed him, calling, “Max.”

He turned to me with his hand on the handle
of the door and I stopped at the coldness I saw in his eyes, a
coldness I’d only seen once before. Coldness he’d aimed at
Shauna.

“Told you, somethin’s good, it’s worth
fightin’ for but not if you’re the only one fightin’.”

Then he opened the door, slamming it behind
him and stalked out.

My feet were bare so I ran up the stairs,
pulled on boots then ran down, threw open the door, jumped down the
steps but when I got to the drive I saw his Cherokee disappear
behind the green pine and white aspen of his mountain.

Norm and Gladys

It was starting to get dark, I was frozen
nearly stiff but I sat watching and listening to the rushing river
by my cabin.

After Max left that morning, his parting
shot so final, I knew I only had one choice and having only that
choice, in my head I broke down the problems facing me then I
tackled them one by one.

I called Thrifty’s and luckily got someone
other than Arlene who answered the phone. This person had clearly
not been informed of the ban on taxis to Max’s house therefore when
I ordered a taxi he told me they’d send one and it’d be there in
half an hour.

While I waited for the taxi, I made the bed
and packed. Then I went downstairs, booted up Max’s computer and
changed the password.

Then I wrote a note to Max. I wrote it
longhand on a sheet of paper I took from his printer. I didn’t edit
it or proofread it, just wrote it and left it on the kitchen
counter. There wasn’t much to it anyway.

All it said was:

Max,

You’re right. You deserve better.

Thank you for all you did and for being
you.

Nina

PS: Your computer password is
Beautifulbluff

Then I got in the taxi and paid a fortune
for him to take me to the closest rental car agency which was three
towns over. I rented a car asking the clerk where I could book a
few nights somewhere quiet, somewhere secluded. He told me he knew
just the place, made a call, wrote out the directions, I followed
them and I checked into my own little cabin amongst a bunch of
other little cabins in a little wood by the river.

Then I texted my Mom to tell her I was all
right, not to worry about me, I’d explain later, ignoring the fact
that I’d had twelve calls and not even looking to see who they were
from. Then I turned the ringer on my phone to silent and put it in
the nightstand.

Then I drove to the market I saw on my way
to the cabins and bought myself enough food to last a few days,
drove it back to my cabin and unpacked it.

I made myself lunch, ate it but didn’t taste
it.

Then I took the chair that was on the tiny
back porch of the cabin and moved it down to the river and sat
staring at the water rushing by, my mind weirdly blank, my body
totally numb.

What could have been minutes or hours later,
I heard, “Nice view.”

I looked to see an elderly man with a cane
making his way to me over the snow, intermittent exposed rocks and
dead tufts of grass.

I smothered the desire to get up and aid his
journey, biting my lip as I watched his cautious approach, wielding
his cane, thinking (what I didn’t know was correctly) from my
experience with Charlie, he probably didn’t want some strange woman
helping him and reminding him of a weakness he wasn’t likely to
forget.

Then I looked back at the river rushing
across its rocks, the snow shrouded banks, the green pine trees
dotting all around.

It was a nice view and I hadn’t even
noticed. I hadn’t really even seen it.

I looked back at the man and tried to smile
as I agreed, “It’s lovely.”

He made it to my side and stared at the
view.

After awhile, not looking at me, he asked,
“You all right, missy?”

“Sorry?” I asked back.

I started when he replied perceptively,
“Been on this earth awhile, know heartache when I see it. You been
sittin’ in the sun even though it’s bitter cold, starin’ at that
river for yonks. You all right?”

I pulled in a ragged breath then I lied,
“Yes, I’m fine.”

He nodded and continued his study of the
river. Again, he did this for awhile.

Then, after another while, he informed me,
“I’m Norm. I’m in cabin number three with my wife, Gladys. You want
company, she’s a good cook.”

Before I could say anything, he turned and
picked his way back over the snow, rock and dead grass. I went back
to my silent contemplation of the river and I stayed that way until
now.

I got up slowly, my body creaky with cold
and inactivity. I dragged my chair back to my porch and went
inside. Instead of going to the tiny kitchen to make dinner, I went
to the window, pulled the curtain back and looked out.

There were seven cabins along the river,
four across from them, dotted up an incline in the wood. There were
two cabins with cars in front. Mine, number seven, was at the far
end on the riverside, and Norm and Gladys’s, all the way down on
the riverside, number three.

I grabbed my cabin key, walked out the front
door, locked up behind me and headed to cabin number three.

* * * * *

“I’ll see you at breakfast,” I said to Norm
and Gladys as I stood on their tiny front porch, illuminated by
their blindingly strong porch light.

“We’ll see you at eight thirty, Nina, dear,”
Gladys smiled at me. “Cabin number seven?” she asked.

I looked into the drive area of the cabin
complex and saw not much as the porch light was the only thing
lighting the large, dark space. Then I looked back at Gladys and
Norm.

“Yes, number seven. The silver rental car in
front, can’t miss it,” I told her.

“’Night, Nina, thanks for the company,” Norm
smiled at me, his eyes searching but gentle.

I hadn’t shared and they hadn’t pried.
They’d just given me pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy and green
beans and finished it with homemade apple pie and ice cream, all of
which probably tasted good if I could taste anything. They’d also
told me about their three kids, seven grandkids and one
great-grandkid, all of whom where spread across the continental
United States, all of whom they loved dearly and all of whom I
could probably recognize on the street after they were done talking
about them. And this was even before they showed me pictures.

“’Night Norm, Gladys.”

“’Night dear, sleep tight,” Gladys
replied.

I turned on a small wave and headed back and
as the night enveloped me quickly in its bizarre, dense darkness,
the thoughts I’d kept at bay all day flooded my head. Thoughts
about how, this time, I’d been the one who made the good part of a
new relationship go bad. How, this time, I’d been the one who had a
good thing and didn’t take care of it. How, this time, I thought I
was guarding against something bad when someone should have guarded
Max against me.