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 f**kin’ 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 h*ps 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 f**k… 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 f**k 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.