Colorado 01 The Gamble (71 page)

With some effort (and not entirely
successfully), I shoved these thoughts aside as I carefully made
way through the darkness, found my cabin by what could only be
considered a small miracle and then another miracle occurred when I
found the lock in which to insert the key.

When I opened the door I was making a mental
note to turn on the porch light next time if Norm and Gladys
invited me over again when I was suddenly shoved through it. I
emitted a small, surprised cry but had no time for any other
reaction when I was jerked away from the door, slammed against the
wall, my head cracking painfully against it then I had a strong,
man’s forearm tight against my throat.

“Ain’t no Maxwell here to have your back, is
there?” Damon snarled in my face, I couldn’t see him, not really,
but I knew it was him.

I made no retort because I couldn’t. I was
choking.

This went on for awhile as I scratched at
his arm and kicked out as his legs, the whole time desperately
fighting for breath. But he was stronger than me and the only time
I connected with his shin, he pushed his arm deeper into my throat
and the pain was excruciating.

“Been waitin’ awhile, English, to get mine
back,” he whispered then stepped back and released me.

My hands went to my throat as I started to
bend double, my lungs on fire. I was drawing in a deep breath but
he wasn’t done.

As I bent, his hand came up and he clocked
me backhanded on my cheekbone exactly where he’d connected before.
This time, still breathless and nowhere near recovered from his
choking me, I fell to my hands and knees.

I barely landed when he kicked me in the
ribs and my body jerked with the blow as the pain, such pain I’d
never experienced, not even at the hands of Brent, knifed through
my middle like a wide, hot blade.

Focused on the pain, I didn’t have it in me
to evade or even struggle when his hands went under my armpits to
pull me up to my feet. As I was favoring my ribs, my arm wrapped
protectively around them still trying to catch my breath, I
couldn’t even lift a hand to defend myself as his fist connected
with my nose and I felt the pain followed by an instant flooding of
fluid in my nose. He righted me for a better target and then his
fist came back for the second round. The pain blew out in an array
from my eye and I went back down to my knees and one hand, the
other one still cradling my ribs, blinking away stars and sucking
in breath.

Damon leaned over me. “Teach you, English.
Yeah?”

Then, as quick as he came on me, the door
closed and he was gone.

I pulled in breath, the ache in my ribs
stabbing as I did it, but even so, I drew in another then another.
Then I crawled to the door, locked it and then, using the handle, I
pulled myself up to my feet.

I stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the
light, seeing the blood running from my nose, down my mouth, off my
chin onto my sweater. I grabbed a towel, pressed it to my nose,
peered into the mirror and saw the swelling around my eye and
cheekbone had already started.

Tears slid up my ravaged throat but I
swallowed them down and tasted blood.

Sweetheart, put ice on your
eye, now, sit still, get your head together then go to Max,
Charlie said into my
head.

I did what he said, though not all of it. I
got ice and I lay on the bed holding the pack on my eye and cheek
with one hand, the towel to my nose with the other and I knew if I
fell asleep without taking the ice to the sink there was no one to
take it gently out of my hand. Instead, tomorrow, I’d wake up with
a puddle in the bed.

But I fell asleep all the same. This was
because, while I was lying there, I cried horrendous, body-wracking
sobs that really,
really
hurt my
ribs.

And crying always exhausted me.

* * * * *

My body jolted awake when the pounding came
at the door and I blinked into the darkness as fear shafted through
my system.

He was back.

God, what was I thinking? I should have
left. Driven to Denver. Gone anywhere. Why did I stay where he knew
I was?

My mind blanked of thought and I jerked
agonizingly upright in bed as I heard the door open.

Oh my God.

I was now
really
in a horror movie with a crazed, mountain man gone bad
stalker after me, in a
cabin
in the
woods
all
alone
. Everyone
knew you steered clear of cabins in woods! They even had some crazy
psycho serial killer who
owned
cabins in woods and tortured couples in one on an episode
of
Criminal
Minds
.

What was I thinking?

I rolled across the bed, ignoring the
burning in my ribs and gained my feet with the bed between me and
the door when I saw the shadowed form in the doorframe.

“
Get out!
” I screeched as loud as I could, knowing
Norm wouldn’t hear me, he wore hearing aids and asked “pardon” a
lot, but hoping Gladys would.

The overhead light went on and Max stood in
the doorframe. The instant I saw him, I stopped breathing.

What was he doing there?

His face at first was searching but when his
eyes took me in, his expression turned instantly ravaged.

“
What… the…
fuck?
” he whispered, his gravelly voice so low, it slithered
across the room at me like a snake.

I realized then that I was holding the
sodden, now iceless towel in one hand, the bloody one in the other
and I could just imagine what my face looked like. Not to mention
my sweater for I’d gone to sleep in my clothes, not even taking off
my boots.

I ignored these things, stared at Max then
asked the first thing that had come to my mind.

“What are you doing here?”

“What the fuck?” Max repeated.

“Max, what are you doing here?”

One second he was across the room, a bed
between us, the next he was standing right in front of me,
toe-to-toe. His hands were cupping my jaws and his eyes were moving
over my face or, more precisely, my nose, cheek and eye.

Then his gaze locked on mine.

“Duchess, what happened to you?” he asked
softly.

“Max –”

“Baby, answer me.”

“I don’t –”

His hands tightened, not painfully but I
knew he was done verbalizing his commands. He just simply wanted me
to obey.

“Damon,” I whispered and watched Max’s eyes
close slowly.

Then he opened them and asked, “What
happened?”

I shook my head but answered, “I don’t know.
I was here for awhile, sitting by the river then I went to Norm and
Gladys’s for dinner –”

Max blinked and asked, “Norm and
Gladys?”

“My neighbors.”

“Your neighbors?”

“Yes, cabin number three. We had pork chops
and apple pie, um… not together, of course, apple pie was dessert.
We had mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans with the pork chops
and, um… ice cream with the pie.”

Why was I babbling?

Max pressed his lips together and I wasn’t
sure but he looked like maybe he was considering laughing or,
alternately, yelling before he stopped pressing them together and
suggested, “Let’s get to the Damon part.”

“Okay.” I nodded, happy to be back on target
and not making a prat of myself. “Anyway, I was walking back to my
cabin from dinner and I opened my door, Damon was there, he pushed
me through and… well…” I threw out a hand for the rest was
obvious.

“When did this happen?”

“I’m not sure but I’m guessing awhile
ago.”

“You haven’t been to the doctor.”

This was a statement, not a question but I
shrugged my answer before I stupidly said, “No need, if my ribs are
broken then they can’t do much of –”

I stopped talking when Max’s eyes
narrowed.

“Your ribs?”

I saw my mistake instantly but I had the
distinct feeling Max wasn’t going to let it go and I had this
feeling because his eyes were narrowed but also since he pretty
much never let anything go.

Therefore, cautiously I explained, “He
kind of…” I paused. “Um… when I was on the floor he kind of…” I
hesitated then whispered, “Kicked me.”

Max just stood there, stock-still, his hands
still at my jaws, his eyes looking in mine but his were dark,
unfocused and they were angry, angrier than I’d ever seen them and
that morning I thought he couldn’t get angrier but there it
was.

Which brought my mind to that morning.

“Max,” I ventured when he seemed to be
unable to move, “what are you doing here?”

He blinked again, his eyes focused on me and
he answered, “Bringin’ you home.”

This time I blinked then I started, “But
–”

“Now, I’m takin’ you to the hospital.”

“Max –”

I didn’t finish because Max was pulling the
towels out of my hands, tossing them on the dresser behind me and
speaking. “I’ll call Mick on the way, get him to round up
Damon.”

“I think –”

I didn’t finish that time because Max’s hand
wrapped around mine and he was dragging me across the room as he
said, “After the hospital, we’ll go home.”

“I can’t go home,” I told his back as he
kept walking us across the room and he stopped and turned to
me.

“What?”

“I’m making breakfast for Norm and Gladys.
They’re going to be here at eight thirty. Norm’s worried about me,
I think so is Gladys. If I disappear in the night, I mean, they’re
not young, as in, they’ve got a great grandchild not young. It’ll
give them a fright.”

Max looked at me silently for several
moments, his eyes gentle and warm but even so they were very
active. Then he turned fully to me, moved into me, his hand
dropping mine but coming up to wrap around the back of my neck.
Then I watched, in fascinated shock, as his head dipped. Then I
felt the sweet, swift touch of his lips against mine.

He pulled away barely an inch before he said
quietly, “Duchess, you’re the only person I know who could be in a
goddamned cabin in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere all of eight hours
and be on a first name basis, sharin’ meals and makin’ breakfast
dates with your neighbors.”

I was not hearing his words, I still felt
his lips against mine and it was occurring to me, belatedly, that
he was acting like what happened between us that morning hadn’t
happened at all.

“Are you still mad at me?” I blurted on a
whisper and I felt my eyes go wide in fear that the question came
out rather than me just asking it in my head where it should have
stayed even if that meant it would go unanswered.

I pulled away but his hand only tightened on
my neck.

“We’ll talk about that later.”

That meant yes. And he’d already been mad
enough at me that morning to last a lifetime, rightfully so, but I
couldn’t go through it again. Not then, not ever.

I shook my head and pulled at my neck but
his hand only got tighter.

“I…” I swallowed then went on, “Max, you
don’t have to take care of me anymore.”

“Shut it, Duchess.”

“No, Max, you don’t –”

His head dipped again and his mouth on mine
stopped mine from forming words.

Not taking his lips from mine, when the kiss
was over, he repeated, “Honey, like I said, we’ll talk about it
later. Yeah?”

“Okay,” I whispered, because, really, what
else could I do?

He lifted his mouth but only to kiss my
forehead then say there, “Let’s go.”

It was good he took my hand because from the
minute his lips touched my forehead I closed my eyes therefore,
blind and still feeling his sweet kiss, thus not processing
anything else, I needed him to guide me out the door.

* * * * *

When Max brought me back to the cabin after
our visit to the small, local hospital, he had no trouble finding
the lock to open the door for he’d cleverly flipped on the porch
light before we left.

Once he used his hand in mine to guide me
through the front door, he hit the light switch and a lamp came on
by the couch in the small living room. He closed and locked the
door, still keeping hold of my hand then his mobile rang.

He pulled it out of his back pocket and
looked at the display.

Then he squeezed my hand and murmured, “You
get ready for bed, darlin’, I’ll be there in a minute.”

I stared at him. What did he mean, he’d be
there in a minute?

He let my hand go, flipped open his phone
and put it to his ear before I could ask my question (which I
probably wasn’t going to do anyway) and said, “Yeah?”

Beyond exhausted from fear, adrenalin,
heartbreak and a bout of crying unlike any I’d ever experienced in
my history of bouts of crying, and I’d had a long history of bouts
of crying, I realized I didn’t have it in me to argue or even
discuss what was going on. In fact, I barely had energy even to
stand there. So I wandered to the bedroom, flicking on the overhead
lights, heading to my bag, zipping it open and I dug out my
pajamas.

I’d kind of thought he was just bringing me
back in order that I could make breakfast for Norm and Gladys and
then he would be leaving. After what happened that morning, even if
he had told me he’d shown up in the middle of the night to take me
“home”, I didn’t exactly understand what that meant. Though my
guess was that he was on an errand for my mother who had his number
and, Max being Max, regardless of what happened between him and me,
he would run that errand for my mother because he liked her and
that’s just the kind of thing he did.

He’d kissed me, of course, three times in
two places, and I
really
had no
understanding of that