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 fuckin’ 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 hips 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 fuck… 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 fuck 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.

Max got close, I tipped my head back and he demanded, “Talk to me.”

“It doesn’t have seatbelts,” I told him and he pressed his lips together, I didn’t know why, maybe irritation, maybe quelling laughter.

“No,” he said when he stopped pressing his lips together, “it doesn’t have seatbelts.”

“Shouldn’t we wear helmets or something?”

He got closer and I would have stepped back but his hand came to the side of my neck, his long fingers sliding up and into my hair behind my ear. His fingers were covered in a leather glove but it still felt good, good enough to root me to the spot.

He dipped his face closer to mine and whispered, “What’re you worried about, baby?”

I took in a breath, let it out and for some reason whispered back honestly, “It’s just scary.”

“I won’t let you get hurt.”

“But –”

“Nina, I promise. I won’t let you get hurt.”

I looked into his eyes and saw they were serious. He wasn’t teasing, he wasn’t impatient, he wasn’t annoyed and he didn’t think I was a scaredy-cat. He was just… serious.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“You gonna climb on?”

I nodded my head under his hand and he smiled.

Then he let me go, I pulled my cream-colored, cable knit, close-fitting cap over my hair, making it bunch out at the sides. Then I pulled on my matching cream mittens. The sound came back when the snowmobile came to life and, reminding myself I was out here for adventure and snowmobiling was definitely adventurous, or at least it was to me, I climbed on.

Max sat up straight, reached back, grabbed my wrists and used them to yank me closer until my crotch was against his behind, my inner thighs running along his outer ones. Then he wrapped my arms around his waist and before I could pull away we were moving. I had no thoughts of pulling away, the minute the snowmobile started going, I held on tighter.

At first I was terrified, my heart lodging firmly in my throat.

Then it filtered through my fear that Max had taken this route before, he knew what he was doing, where he was going and I started to look around.

Then I felt the fear melt away as the trees slid by, the chill wind whipped at my cheeks, my body pressed to Max’s solid one entered my consciousness and I relaxed.

We hit a trail that ran the side of the mountain that had a river running the length of it and the views were unbelievable. So stunning, I didn’t notice the sharp decline that was close to the side of the trail we were gliding across. Instead, I dropped my chin to Max’s shoulder and drank in the view. All thoughts leaked out of my head; there was nothing but Max’s back against my front, my arms around his waist and that wondrous view.

Before I was ready for our ride to end, we hit the bluff by the river, the land seeming to fall away from the side, the vista it exposed heart stopping and Max halted the snowmobile, turning it off.

He sat back but I didn’t take my arms from around his waist mainly because Max was right. The view from here was incredible and I was frozen in wonder. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen but also the snow and the underlying quiet mixed with the landscape and the sound of the river rushing by it had to be the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, my chin still at his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he agreed, his rough, soft voice bringing me out of my daze and I lifted my head and pulled away, coming off the back of the snowmobile.

I walked close to the edge and stopped, drinking in the view for long moments before I pulled my little digital camera out of my pocket. I started snapping photos knowing the endeavor was useless. No photograph could capture this. This vista had to be experienced.

Max got close to my back and I couldn’t avoid him without going over the edge and, furthermore, his arm came around me at my chest. He pulled me into his front and before I could protest he spoke.

“Dad used to bring us here all the time,” he said quietly.

I stared at the landscape and something about his tone made me drop my camera.

“Us?” I asked though I told myself I was no longer being an idiot, it was worse. I shouldn’t ask, I shouldn’t care, I shouldn’t want to know.

But I did.

His arm tightened around my chest, bringing me closer. “Kami used to bitch constantly all the way. Said she wanted to be with Mom, which meant she wanted to be with her friends in town.”

Before I could bite back the word, I asked, “Kami?”

“My sister.”

“Your Mom didn’t come here with you?” I was looking at the landscape wondering who in their right mind wouldn’t want to go there and mentally kicking myself for my questions, not wanting him to share and really not wanting to be the one who urged him to do so. He was fascinating enough just being him, I didn’t need to hear his life stories.

“Mom and Dad were divorced.”

“Oh,” I said and forced myself to leave it at that.

Max felt like talking, however. “Happened when I was about six, Kami four. Dad and Mom both lived in town but we still only saw Dad every other weekend, unless we ran into him or somethin’ was happenin’ at school.”

“My parents were divorced too,” I told him and then clamped my mouth shut. I didn’t need to know about him and he certainly didn’t need to know about me.

“How old were you?” he asked.

“Young,” I evaded a direct answer.

His arm got tighter, his fingers curling around my shoulder, not happy I avoided a direct answer.

“How old, Duchess?”

I sighed then repeated, “Young,” and before he could prompt further, I went on, “very young. So young, I don’t remember them ever being together.”

“Rough, baby,” he whispered but I didn’t tell him it wasn’t. I didn’t tell him it was sheer luck my father walked out of my life because not far down it, he came right back in.

I decided to change the subject and remarked, “It’s lovely, your Dad being able to give you this.” I motioned to the panorama with my hand.

“Yeah, except it came to me because he died.”

My body jolted and I turned in the curve of his arm so I was facing him.

“Sorry?”

“I inherited the land when he died.”

His face was blank which gave away the depth of emotion he was hiding.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Long time ago, honey.”

“I’m still sorry.”

His arm around my shoulders gave me a squeeze and his other hand went to my waist.

I edged back a bit, he gave me some space but not much so I was forced to stop when he stopped giving me leeway.

“But, I meant,” I went on. “What’s lovely is that, when he was alive, he could give you this, bring you and your sister here.”

He nodded and looked over my head to the view. “This was Dad’s favorite place. He wanted to build a house on the land. All his life he wanted that. Couldn’t do it but he talked about it all the time. But he’d never touch this place. Told me never to do it either.”

There was something impressive and moving about Max building a house on the land where his father wanted to build, not to mention doing it with his own two hands.

“Your sister get land too?” I asked and his eyes came down to me for a second before they went back to the view.