Colorado 01 The Gamble (85 page)

I saw movement to my side and looked down at
the big, fluffy gray cat who had her bottom in the air, her chest
to the floor and her paws straight out in front of her, stretching
and yawning at the same time, as usual oblivious to her mother’s
irritation.

The cat was my idea, Max wanted a dog. He
only capitulated because when I really pushed him about the cat, it
was when I told him he was going to get Charlie.

So I got my cat.

“My husband is annoying,” I told the
feline.

She quit stretching and blinked at me
communicating complete unconcern.

I smiled at her, dropped the note, moved to
my cat and gave her bottom some scratches before I walked out of
the A-frame. I rounded it, saw the barn doors opened and rolled my
eyes. Then I climbed to the barn, unlocked the safe, grabbed the
keys and hopped on an ATV. I turned it in the barn and took off to
search for my husband and son on our mountain.

I knew Max and Charlie had several special
spots but whenever I needed to drag them back home (which was
often) I usually found them at the first spot I checked.

I rounded the trail at the top of the hill
that rose up from the back of Max’s bluff and I stopped the ATV
when I looked down and my eyes hit the scene in front of me.

Max was down there, in jeans and a t-shirt,
his skin tanner than normal because he worked outside a lot and it
was summer. He was sitting in the dirt (as he would since he didn’t
do the laundry), knees up, Charlie in his lap tucked between his
chest and thighs. Max’s head was turned away from me and toward the
view. I couldn’t really see my son’s dark-haired head but I could
see he probably wasn’t studying the view because he was, at that
moment, banging on his father’s knees with his little baby
fists.

I sighed my annoyance but even though I was
the only one who could hear it, I didn’t mean it.

Leave them be,
Charlie said in my
head.

“We need to get ready,” I whispered into the
wind.

Look at them, Neenee
Bean,
Charlie urged but
he didn’t have to, my eyes hadn’t left Max and our son.

The Charlie in Max’s lap twisted so he was
facing his father, his little baby legs pumping and his little baby
fists banging now on his Dad’s shoulders. Max didn’t try to control
Charlie’s fists; he just wrapped his son in his arms and bent his
neck so his face was in Charlie’s. Therefore Charlie took that as
his cue to grab Max’s ear and I heard the wind carry my husband’s
chuckle mingled with my son’s baby laughter back to me.

I felt my lips smile.

Leave them be,
Charlie repeated.

“Okay,” I whispered.

Love you, Neenee Bean,
Charlie said to me.

“Love you too, Charlie,” I replied.

Then I turned the ATV around and headed
home.

* * * * *

“When we get home, babe, we’ll be talkin’
about you goin’ out on the ATV,” Max growled into my ear and I
turned my head to him just as Charlie launched himself out of my
lap and at his father’s chest.

With practiced ease, Max caught the
ever-active Charlie and pulled him close.

“What?” I asked with feigned innocence.

“Went to lock up the barn and saw one of the
ATVs wasn’t where I left it. Since Charlie can’t sit astride one
yet that leaves you and, like I said, when we get home we’ll be
talkin’ about you goin’ out on an ATV.”

My eyes left Max’s to look over his shoulder
and they skidded through the church pews that were full to
bursting. I could see the entire church since we were beside Barb
and Brody in the front pew. As I did this, I was thinking that I
should have taken note of where the ATV was when I took it and I
should have put it back where I found it.

“Duchess, look at me,” Max called and I knew
he wouldn’t let up until I did as I was told so I did as I was
told. “No more ATV,” he finished.

“I got home and you guys were gone,” I
explained.

“I left a note,” Max told me.

“Yes, but we needed to start getting ready,”
I told him.

“We’re here, aren’t we?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“And we ain’t late.”

“
No, but we were close and you may have the
memory of an elephant but you lose track of time
especially
when you’re out on the mountain
with Charlie.”

“
Babe… we’re…
here,
” Max repeated. “And we’re not late so I didn’t
lose track of time. You know I wouldn’t miss this so you shouldn’t
have worried and in your condition you should not, under any
circumstances, be on an ATV.”

I waved my hand between us and stated,
“I’m good on an ATV and I should be, you taught me how to ride one
and, furthermore, I don’t have a
condition.
I’m only ten weeks and even if I wasn’t, I’m
perfectly
fine
.”

Max’s hand shot out and wrapped around mine
tight as he, taking Charlie with him, leaned in and returned,
“You’re pregnant with my child. I get that you’re still my Nina and
you think you can do as you please even with my baby inside you but
what you need to get is that you’re my Nina and you got my baby
inside you and I want you and our baby to be perfectly fine for the
next six and a half months and then some and I’m gonna make it so
and part of me makin’ that so is not lettin’ you put your ass on an
ATV.”

“He’s right,” my mother butted in on a
whisper, leaning toward us from the pew she was sitting in right
behind us.

“Nellie,” Steve, sitting beside her, growled
warningly.

Max ignored this and decreed, “No ATV.”

I stopped scowling at my mother, my gaze
passed through Steve then Linda then Kami, all of whom were in the
pew with Mom and all of whom were looking at Max and me with
amusement (except Kami who rolled her eyes and mouthed, “bossy” at
me) then I looked at my husband and started, “Max –”

His hand in mine pulled both to his chest so
they were tucked between him and Charlie and Charlie took that
opportunity to latch onto my hair.

But I only had eyes for Max mainly because
he was the only thing I could see.

“
Duchess, no…A… T…
V.
”

I glared at him and he didn’t even blink so
I knew Mr. Overprotective was going to get his way. I also knew Mr.
Overprotective was partly Mr. Overprotective because his first wife
heartbreakingly lost a number of children before they took their
first breath in this world and even though Charlie was a breeze,
Max had lost enough that my easy pregnancy wasn’t going to change
his perspective. He was also Mr. Overprotective because his first
wife had been killed in a car accident that was beyond his control.
And lastly, he was Mr. Overprotective because his second
(soon-to-be) wife had been kidnapped by a mountain man stalker and
then drugged and kidnapped by a mountain man gone bad and nearly
shot to death in the snow.

So I gave in.

“Oh, all right,” I forced out, grabbed my
son and pulled him from Max’s arms into mine.

Max’s answer to this gesture was to slide
his arm along the pew, curl it around my shoulders and pull me snug
and tight into his side.

The side door to the sanctuary opened and
Jeff, looking handsome in his tux, and Pete, his best man, walked
out to line up at the front of the church.

I felt my insides melt.

Then I felt Max’s lips at my ear. “That new
dress is sweet, baby,” he whispered, my lips started curling up but
they froze when he finished, “But we’ll also be talkin’ about that
when we get home.”

I turned my head and Max lifted his, our
eyes locked whereupon I informed him, “I’ll remind you that
you
were the one who wanted me to
move out here before you really knew me and
I
shop. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve always done.
I work hard. I shop hard. And furthermore, I’m not coming to this
event, of all events, in anything other than a fabulous new dress.
So, you win on the ATV but no, we are
not
talking about this new dress when we get
home.”

Though, we might be having a discussion
about the new duds I’d bought Charlie. I really didn’t need the
dress but Charlie really,
really
didn’t need any new clothes. I should never veer into the
baby store but my feet always took me there. There was no way to
fight it so I had long since stopped trying.

The good news was, Max didn’t know about
Charlie’s new clothes yet. The bad news was, I didn’t keep anything
from him so eventually I’d have to tell him.

I decided as I stared into his beautiful
gray eyes that I’d tell him tomorrow.

“All right, I get the win on the ATV, you
get the win on the dress,” Max allowed, I grinned then leaned in
and touched my mouth to his.

I didn’t move my lips away when I whispered,
“Thank you, darling.”

Then I watched as his eyes did what his eyes
always did for three years every time I called him darling. They
got heated and they got intense. Then his hand curled around the
back of my head, he tipped it down and kissed my forehead before he
let me go.

I pulled away, Charlie collapsed into my
chest and snuggled close in a rare but always treasured moment of
cuddly, baby affection. I wrapped my arms around my son and I took
that moment as I’d taken many moments to congratulate myself for
rolling the dice, taking a gamble on life and heading off for my
timeout adventure in the Colorado mountains where my gamble paid
off every second of every day and it did this in spades.

I looked back to the front of the church
then looked to Brody as his head turned toward me and I caught his
amused blue eyes to which I rolled mine to which his amusement
became audible.

Then the music struck up and we all
straightened and twisted in our seats to watch Becca walk down the
aisle.

Then we stood and I held my son tight to
me as Max’s arm around me, hand resting protective at my belly,
held us both tight to his body and me and my family watched a
beautiful, glowing, smiling, happy Mindy walk down the
aisle.

* * * * *

Holden Maxwell walked out of his sleeping
son’s bedroom carrying the spent bottle. He hit the great room
where he saw his wife tucked in the big armchair, her damn cat
curled in a ball in her lap.

After the wedding and after the after
wedding drinks with Steve and Nellie, his mother and Kami, Brody,
Cotton and Arlene, he’d driven his family home and Nina had changed
out of her pretty dress into a pair of loose fitting but clingy
drawstring pants and a tight camisole.

She wasn’t close to showing yet and, with
Charlie, hadn’t started really showing until early in her fifth
month. Even so, at the end she’d been very heavy with Charlie and
Charlie had made it into this world weighing nine pounds and three
ounces.

This had alarmed Max, this late development,
Nina’s body’s swift change and heavy burden, a fact he didn’t share
with anyone but Brody and his mother.

He didn’t know it but he had nothing to
worry about. Nina didn’t slow down throughout her entire pregnancy,
the labor had lasted three hours and the delivery went so smoothly
the doctor said he’d never had one that easy in ten years of
practice.

When he’d visited Bitsy at the detention
center to tell her about his new son and how he’d come into the
world, she’d told him that she reckoned life had given him enough
heartache, he should have it easy for awhile.

Bitsy had no idea that life with Nina was
far from easy.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t
beautiful.

She kept him on his toes, his Nina did. His
wife ate life, devoured it daily with a hunger and passion that had
not ceased to amaze him as their days together slid by.

It wasn’t lost on Max that life had handed
him great bounty at a young age and then had taken it away only to
give it back. He knew the bitter taste of loss and therefore he
understood Bitsy not liking the taste of it.

And therefore, he never failed to savor the
sweet taste of having Nina fill his life. He remembered the second
that bitterness was swept clean from his tongue, when his now wife
had informed him her sinuses hurt when she’d bravely and
hilariously squared off against him in a snowstorm minutes after
they met. He’d been so used to the sour taste, it came as a shock
when it disappeared as he fought against laughter at the same time
the sweetness invaded, so strong and foreign it made his jaws
ache.

He took the bottle to the kitchen and then
went to join his wife in their chair.

He’d started a fire because Nina liked fires
in the evening no matter if it was summer or winter. But he knew it
was a wasted effort. Just as with Charlie, in the early months of
her pregnancy she slept a lot. He knew she was probably out the
minute she rested her head against the high arm of the chair.

Gently, he moved her, her damn cat darting
away as he did. He slid in next to her and then pulled her into
him. She helped. In her sleep she curled deeply into his frame, her
arm snaking around his gut, her head burrowing into his neck.

Through this, as usual with his Nina, she
didn’t wake and she wouldn’t. He’d have to carry her to bed. She’d
had an active day, starting it with heading to the mall first thing
and ending with dancing like a madwoman at Mindy and Jeff’s
reception then laughing until she choked with her family and
friends at The Mark.

Max stared into the fire and held his wife
close and as he was doing this, a sweet, hushed voice he hadn’t
heard in thirteen years spoke in his brain.