“Duchess, baby –”

“He offered you money,” I told Max.

“So did your father,” Mom put in informatively.

“Nellie,” Steve said low.

“I mean, who acts like that?” I screeched.

“It doesn’t matter, it’s over. You returned the ring. Done,” Max stated, no longer annoyed, apparently now in control-another-one-of-Nina’s-wild-hairs mode. He knew me enough by now to know, he didn’t control me, I’d march back to that restaurant and wring Niles’s neck and my father’s, for that matter.

But Nina was not to be controlled.

“Two years, two years I wasted on him. Oh. My. God.” I threw my hands out. “What a fool! I’ll never get that time back!”

Max looked over my shoulder then at me and said quietly, “Babe, calm down, let’s go in, get food –”

I interrupted him, still ranting, “All that time I kept thinking and thinking, was I doing the right thing? Would I hurt him? How could I hurt him? He’s a good man. Wondering, worried, my head filled with rubbish. I swear, I made myself sick with it. I did!” I shouted. “You were there! I actually made myself sick with it!”

Max caught my hips and pulled me closer to him. “Nina, it’s done.”

“I spent two hours writing an e-mail to him, Max, making certain it didn’t hurt too much and he didn’t even read it.”

Max’s hands gripped my hips harder and he said softly, “This isn’t anything to be angry about.”

My eyes grew wide and I yelled, “You didn’t waste two years of your life on him.”

“And you realized it was a mistake. You did the right thing, the smart thing. You made the right decision and now you’re free to move on with your life.”

I glared at Max because he was right and I wanted to be loud and angry for at least a little while longer.

I mean, my God, I nearly married my father. And I hated my father!

“You know what’s annoying?” I asked Max and his hands slid around my hips to the small of my back, pulling me closer.

“What’s annoying?” he asked back but I saw he was no longer in Control Nina Mode, now he looked amused.

“When you’re right and I want to be angry and you being right means I can’t be angry anymore,” I informed him.

“Baby,” he muttered through his grin.

Yes, amused. My eyes narrowed on his grin and my stomach growled. I decided I could be annoyed at Max while I ate.

Therefore I demanded, “Feed me.”

“I’m guessin’ about now if I told you that you’re cute, you’d get pissed.”

“Absolutely,” I snapped.

“Then I won’t tell you you’re cute.”

I put my hand on his chest, gave an ineffectual push and demanded again, “Feed me, Max. I need homemade granola and you better hope they have yogurt or all hell’s going to break loose.”

His grin turned into a smile, he bent his neck, kissed my forehead and his lips still there, he murmured, “Granola.”

Then he dropped his arms but caught my hand and, glancing at a now-smiling Mom and Steve, he led us into The Mark.

***

It was clearly past normal breakfast time for mountain people because the restaurant was only a quarter full.

There was no Sarah, it was Trudy who led us back to the corner booth we’d had that first night and she did it while chatting to us, especially me, like she’d known me my whole life.

We sat, Max and I with our backs to the wall, and barely got ourselves sorted before Arlene marched up to our table, introduced herself to my mother and Steve and then launched into a tirade about the proposed new plans for some strip mall. This tirade was directed mostly at me in a way that made it seem like Arlene and I had been in cahoots during a variety of shenanigans and therefore Arlene thought I’d agree wholeheartedly with her and together we’d start arranging meetings where we’d create signs and banners and organize townsfolk to picket the building site. Then she declared she needed to “get wrecked” and we were to meet her at The Dog at eight o’clock that night. Then without waiting for us to accept or decline this invitation she marched away.

Trudy came back, took our orders (lucky for Max, they had yogurt but no berries) and walked away but when she did a woman approached. I remembered her from the night of Max teaching Damon a lesson. She was the one who ran in to get Mindy and my bags. She was also, I discovered, the designer who made my earrings and ring and although we’d spoken less than a dozen words to each other she chatted animatedly to me and Mom, Max and Steve like we’d all been present when they’d taken the training wheels off her bike. Then a mountain man across the room called her name in much the same impatient tone as Max spoke to me before we left his house. She smiled at us, gave us a finger wave and told me, specifically, she’d see me at The Dog as if we met there frequently for Girl’s Night Out then she left.

Everyone but Max watched her go.

Then Steve turned to me and said, “How long you been here again? I thought it was a week.”

Max slid his arm along the back of the booth and burst out laughing.

I ignored Max’s laughter and explained, “People here are friendly.”

“I’ll say,” Mom muttered and I heard Max’s phone ring.

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

I did too, it said “Bitsy calling.”

“Sorry, gotta take this,” Max murmured and slid out of the booth, flipping it open.

I sat in the booth watching him walk to the entry as he put the phone to his ear and deciding I liked the way he walked. He was tall, big, his body muscular but his gait wasn’t lumbering. It was agile, fluid, almost graceful in a manly, macho way.

“Can I just say…” Mom started and I looked at her to see she was also watching Max, “that I don’t like him.” She looked back to me, leaned in, her eyes alight and she finished, “I love him.”

“Mom –”

“No, I adore him,” she amended.

“Mom –”

“No, I want to adopt him. But if I did that might make it weird, seeing as you’d be brother and sister, in a way, so I’ll just wait for him to become my son-in-law.”

“Nellie,” Steve said through a smile, “enough.”

“I’m moving to Colorado,” I blurted my announcement and both Steve and Mom stared at me.

“Come again?” Steve asked.

“I’m moving to Colorado.”

Mom clapped loudly and cried, “Yay!” even louder.

I leaned forward and hissed, “Mom, be quiet! Max has asked, kind of, in his Max way which means he told me I was moving here but I haven’t agreed, yet. He doesn’t know I’ve decided. I want to tell him, special if I can.”

Mom leaned forward too and whispered, “Yay.”

I smiled at her, shook my head at Steve and sat back.

“This is wonderful.” Mom was still whispering. “Marvelous, sweetie. Perfect timing. We haven’t had a chance to tell you, with all the things going on, but Steve and I have bought an RV.”

My heart skipped and I stared at her, knowing where this was going but I didn’t get a chance to say anything before Mom carried on.

“We don’t have it yet, we’re getting it customized so it’ll take some time but, you see, now we can come up here for the summers!” she cried.

“Nellie –” Steve started.

“Mom –” I said.

“I just hope Steve can get it up that mountain but if he can, we’ll hook it up to the side of Max’s house. It’ll be perfect.”

“Nellie –” Steve started again.

“Mom –” I repeated.

Mom waved her hand in front of her face and kept talking. “You’ll be close again. I just love this. It’s perfect.”

“Mom –” I said yet again.

“Nellie,” Steve said over me, “they’ll just be starting out.”

“Pish posh. Starting out. They act like they’ve been married for years and anyway, Max loves me,” she declared. “And he’s a man’s man, like you. You can help him chop wood for the winter and, I don’t know, other man stuff.”

Steve stared at Mom for several seconds then looked back to me. “Don’t worry, doll. I saw a brochure at that hotel for an RV park. We’ll haul the car up with us and hook up there.”

“No we won’t,” Mom told Steve.

“Yes, Nellie, we will,” Steve told Mom.

“No, darling, we won’t. I want to be close to my Neenee Bean,” Mom shot back.

Jesus, I forgot how much I like your Mom, Charlie said in my head, sounding amused, and I rolled my eyes.

“Mom –” I began but Steve again spoke over me.

“We’re not, love. We’ll come up, we’ll stay a few weeks but we’ll hook up at the park, give them privacy.”

“There’s enough privacy with us in the RV outside Max’s house,” Mom retorted then looked at me. “Though, we’ll probably use your bathroom and, maybe, your kitchen.”

I sighed.

Steve spoke. “Nellie, it’s not gonna happen.”

“It is.”

“No,” Steve said in a firm way that couldn’t be denied, even by my Mom, “it isn’t.”

Mom glared at Steve knowing, by Steve’s tone, there was no way she was going to get her way. Steve calmly accepted her glare. Trudy arrived with four coffees.

“Thank you,” I said to Trudy and tried not to smile at the realization that Mom had her Max. I’d been happy for her when she found Steve. Now, understanding, I was ecstatic.

Max came back and slid into the booth beside me while I poured milk in my coffee.

“Today’s plans have changed, babe,” he announced before taking a sip of his and I looked at him.

“Plans?” I asked, not knowing we actually had plans.

“Yeah, gotta be at George’s in an hour.”

“George’s?” I queried.

“Though, thinkin’ this is good, you can meet him, feel him out.”

“Meet him? Feel him out?” I parroted.

Max turned fully to me and put his arm on the back of the booth.

“Yeah, he’s the attorney I was tellin’ you about,” Max reminded me and I stared because the phone call hadn’t been from George, it had been from Bitsy.

“Why do you have to go there?”

Max’s easygoing nature vanished and his jaw got tight before he answered, “Curt’s will is bein’ read and, apparently, I’m mentioned.”

I leaned into him and put my hand on his thigh before I breathed, “Really?”

“Yep,” Max answered, not looking happy.

“What’s this?” Steve asked.

I looked at Steve then at Mom. “Curt is the man who was murdered.”

Mom’s eyes got wide, she leaned forward again and breathed, “Really?”

“Jesus, it’s uncanny, like two peas in a pod,” Max muttered, his eyes moving between Mom and me.

I decided to ignore that and told Max, “That’s bad form, Max, informing you that you need to be at the reading an hour before the actual reading.”

“Like I said,” Max told me, “George is busy. Bitsy said he’s covered. He set up the reading, told her when and called her awhile ago to get her help gathering everyone.”

I didn’t repeat it but this was bad form. Perhaps this George person did need help. That was good considering I needed a job.

“So, our plans?” I went back to the earlier topic.

“You and me go to the reading, before that we find out when the insurance people are gonna come to take a look at your car and then we go see Mindy.”

I hadn’t forgotten about Mindy but I also hadn’t quite figured out my Save Mindy from Herself Strategy. I had forgotten about the car.

“Can we go to the reading?” Mom asked. “I’ve never been to the reading of the will of a murdered man.” Her eyes searched the ceiling without her tilting her head up then she looked at us again and finished, “Or any man for that matter.”

Max and I looked at Mom but it was Steve who spoke. “Nellie, you can’t just sit in at one of those things like you’re goin’ to watch a play.”

“Why not?” Mom asked Steve. “I’ll be quiet.”

“Like that’ll happen,” Steve muttered and Mom gasped in affront.

Max chuckled.

“We’ll go out,” Steve said to Max. “Check out that RV park and we’ll make dinner reservations for that Rooster place you were tellin’ me about…” he paused and glanced at me, “for just Nellie and me, leave you two be for awhile.”

“RV park?” Max asked.

“I’ll explain later,” I told him quickly.

Mom spoke to me. “I want to know what happens at the reading the minute you know.”

“Mom, it’s not exactly your business,” I informed her.

“Sweetie, everything that has something to do with you is my business,” Mom informed me.