The Gamble

I didn’t want to admit it but I thought Max put up with them and allowed them to stay because he knew that Arlene and Cotton were entertaining me. Arlene simply because she was entertaining. Cotton because he’d been a lot of places, done a lot of things, met a lot of people and he was almost as good a storyteller as he was a photographer. I hadn’t laughed that hard or that much since…

Well, since the night before, with Arlene and Mindy at The Dog.

But before that it had been years, before Charlie died or, more to the point, before he’d been so badly wounded.

Arlene and Cotton claimed the couch and I sat in the armchair. When Max was done with the fire, I was shocked when he sat in it with me, settling right down, forcing me to scrunch to the side.

I was right when I first saw the chair. It could fit two but it was cozy. Cozy, warm, snug and safe and with three (working on the fourth) glasses of wine in me, I curled up in it with Max. It was a little chair of heaven. He put his feet on the ottoman, crossed at the ankles. I bent my knees and put my feet in the chair, my thighs against his. His arm curled around my shoulders and, for comfort’s sake (I told myself), my arm curled around his belly. I rested my head on his shoulder and I listened, laughed and sipped wine while the fire burned in the grate and Max sat relaxed and close to me then, apparently, I fell asleep.

Which, even standing, I mostly was at that moment.

I finished looking around, noting Arlene and Cotton were gone, the only light was coming from the loft and my eyes hit Max.

“Asleep,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, baby,” Max said on a grin and tugged my hand, leading me up the stairs to the bedroom.

I did not argue with this. At that moment I needed Max’s bed and I didn’t care if he was in it.

In fact, if I was honest, that made the prospect even better.

I grabbed my nightgown from the suitcase, shuffled to the bathroom, changed, did my washing face, brushing teeth, moisturizing business, left my clothes in a pile on the floor and then shuffled out.

Max was in bed by the time I finished these onerous tasks.

His side of the bed was the side closest to the bathroom.

I hadn’t had enough energy to wash my face, brush my teeth and moisturize. I certainly didn’t have the energy to walk around the bed.

So I didn’t.

I walked right to Max’s side and he watched me do it. When I got close, he threw the covers back.

A wall of hard, muscled chest, cut abs and pajamas bottoms were all I saw.

The chair wasn’t heaven, the bed was.

I crawled over him and flopped to my side.

He tossed the covers over us, switched off the bedside lamp and turned into me.

Like it was the most natural thing in the world, his arms came around me, his knee went between my legs, my thigh moved to hook over his hip and my arm slid around his waist as I got closer to his warm, solid body.

“You have a good night, darlin’?” he asked quietly into the hair at the top of my head.

Seeing as I was really mostly asleep, I didn’t guard my words, I just said straight out, “Best night I’ve had since Charlie got hurt.”

His arms got tighter. I nestled closer.

“What was he like?” Max asked, still talking quietly.

“Charlie?” I asked back, still talking in my sleep.

“Yeah.”

“Best brother ever,” I whispered and snuggled closer.

“I’m gettin’ that,” Max muttered but I heard a smile in his voice.

“You remind me of him,” I said sleepily, not noticing Max’s body tense. “He said it like it was. Didn’t mince words but that didn’t mean he wasn’t kind. He was smart. He took care of his Mom, me, his fiancée. He was thoughtful. Something meant something to him, he took care of it. Someone meant something to him, he let them know it. Never had a doubt about that, knowing how much Charlie loved me,” I sighed then concluded, “He was a good man.”

“It’s good you had that,” Max whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Means maybe you’ll recognize it, eventually.”

“Mm,” I murmured, not processing words because I was just barely awake.

“Duchess?”

“Yes, darling?”

I didn’t notice his body getting tense again then his hand slid up my back and into my hair and he said, “Go to sleep, baby.”

I did as I was told.

Chapter Seven

The Love of His Life

“Nina, honey, wake up.”

My body was being shaken gently at the hip and Max’s voice was coming at me.

I struggled up through the fog of sleep, turned my head on the pillow and blinked at him. He was wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms and, for some reason, he was sitting on the side of the bed and had a carefully blank expression on his face.

“What?” I asked, still sleepy but also vaguely alarmed at his blank look. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Max look blank.

“Baby,” he said quietly before he continued with three words that made my drowsiness instantly disappear and my head figuratively explode. “Your father’s here.”

I shot up to an elbow and repeated, a lot louder this time, “What?”

Then I didn’t give him the chance to answer. I threw back the covers and twisted my lower body around Max, got to my feet and stomped (and obviously I could forgive myself for stomping this time) toward the stairs.

“Nina,” Max called but I didn’t stop. I just tramped irately down the winding stairs.

Niles had phoned my father. He didn’t talk to me. He talked to my father.

Which was the very definition of Niles not listening to me. I told him my father had no place in my life but my father kept his place in it and he did this by keeping in touch with Niles. Niles had a great relationship with his family and therefore he never understood why I refused to talk to my father mainly because he never listened during any of the vast amounts of times I explained it to him.

And my father was here. Here. He’d dropped everything and flown halfway around the world to stick his nose into something that was none his business. And I knew why he did it. Therefore, not only the fact that he was here but why he was here was absolutely, one hundred percent infuriating.

I hit the bottom of the stairs and rounded the corner, seeing my father standing tall and erect wearing an expensive suit, shiny shoes and a camelhair overcoat. His fair hair was neatly trimmed with only a hint of gray, his cheeks were smooth and his face was the face of a man ten years younger than him. And even though I knew he’d recently made the journey I’d made not long ago, he looked fresh as a daisy.