His dog, Shadow – a faithful mutt of indiscriminate lineage that Mav had found on the side of the road six years earlier – lay at his feet and rested her head on the toe of his boot before closing her eyes and promptly going to sleep.
At this time on a Sunday, the Weekenders – guests who typically came from around California to stay at Hunt Ranch for a quick three-day getaway – had checked out already. Those few guests on an extended stay – a couple on a ‘babymoon’ from Oregon, a twenty-year-old socialite from New York, and an elderly couple from London celebrating their joint retirement by exploring the ‘Wild West’ – had come in for the night and were washing up from their trail rides or relaxing before the summer barbecue started in a couple of hours.
But it didn’t matter that it was Sunday, or that it was five o’clock in the evening; there were two industries that never rested: ranching and hospitality, and the Hunts were buried up to the neck in both.
Mav surveyed his sister’s domain as he waited for the weekly staff meeting to start. Sierra’s office was pristine. As she’d undoubtedly intended, the room, with its oversized desk, heavy leather chairs, and contrastingly sleek Apple computer, looked like it had been staged for the centrefold of some fancy home catalogue. The selection of neatly framed, black-and-white photographs on the wall showed snippets from the 124 years of Hunt Ranch family history and added that touch of personality to an otherwise business-like room.
Maverick studied the photos as he mentally ran through the list of things he still needed to get done that day.
He could trust Benji, his best friend and Hunt Ranch’s head wrangler, to see to the resort’s seventy trail horses, but the forty or so rescue horses on the ranch were Mav’s responsibility – for no other reason than he was the one who couldn’t turn them away.
He would check in on a new rescue that had come in two days prior. The horse, a little palomino Quarter Horse mare, had been starved, abused, and then abandoned on a major thoroughfare in the middle of the night. Though Mav had technically promised his sister he wouldn’t take in any more horses, not even Sierra had been able to turn away the downhearted mare when the sheriff had brought her by.
Mav figured by the time he was done with the staff meeting and the horses, it would be pushing six-thirty. He’d run home and take over from his nanny, make sure his five-year-old daughter, Poppy, was bathed, fed, and put to bed.
Once Poppy was down, he was technically on call. So that while he could shower and eat and go to bed, his phone would be on his nightstand, and any ranch calls were his to deal with, the same way that any resort calls the night staff and concierge couldn’t handle would be his sister’s.
After a – hopefully uninterrupted – night’s rest, his day would begin again at four-thirty the next morning.
His schedule was gruelling. He routinely clocked fourteen-hour days before going home to try and sneak in some quality time with Poppy. He never stopped, most days even skipping lunch in the hope that he could save thirty minutes somewhere else. He worked physically all day, and at night he sat down with a single beer and the spreadsheets and accounts his sister insisted he keep for the ranch horses. When he wasn’t working, he was a single dad, which was to say he clocked another three or four hours of work once his nanny left for the day.
It was hard.
It was thankless.
Mav wouldn’t have changed a single thing … Well, except maybe the spreadsheets. He hated spreadsheets.
As he waited for the meeting to start, he covertly watched his sister, looking for signs of how she was holding up. Every time he asked her outright, she snapped at him and told him to mind his own business.
Today, she had twisted her long hair into some fancy knot at the back of her head. She wore a sleek black jumpsuit and a pair of break-neck heels. Her makeup, though immaculate, couldn’t hide the dark shadows beneath her eyes.
Behind him, various management staff began filtering into the office. Mav nodded to Benji as he came in and leaned against the wall, keeping as far away as physically possible from Sierra.
Sierra didn’t look up or otherwise acknowledge Benji, but the way her entire body tensed told Mav that she knew he was there.
Jordyn, their restaurant manager, took the seat next to Mav’s. Without batting an eye, she kicked her feet, clad in bright pink Crocs, up and rested them on his knees. ‘Please,’ she said dramatically, and raised a hand to her brow, ‘pleasetell me we’re done with bachelorette parties for the year.’
Exhausted nods of agreement came from just about everyone except Mav and Benji. They’d had a relatively quiet weekend despite the bachelorette party. The women had either been too intoxicated or too hungover to ride for most of the weekend. And though they had wandered down to the stables in small groups to pet the horses and ogle Benji, only two of the women had wanted to go out on horseback, which had given his staff some extra time to catch up on their ranch work.
‘One more. But it isn’t until early December, so we have some time to regroup.’ Sierra looked up from her notebook. She did a quick head count, and then passed out the neatly printed notes she made before every staff meeting.
Mav took one and passed the stack to Jordyn.
Sierra didn’t waste any time. ‘We have sixteen guests checking in tomorrow morning. Two families taking advantage of our twenty per cent off “Weekday Summer Stay” discount – one family of four and one of six. Two couples, one on their honeymoon, one on vacation from Germany. A single woman who is “celebrating her divorce settlement” – that’s what she wrote in the notes section of the online booking.’
Jordyn laughed.
Paul, the resort manager, sighed. ‘The new divorcées are always so much work.’
‘The last one tried to seduce Mav,’ Benji added. ‘Stripped to her lingerie and waited in the stables for him. What was her name, Mav? Margie or Meggie …’
A round of laughter followed.
Maverick only shook his head, refusing to comment.
‘Her name wasMarcie,’ Sierra sighed. ‘Now can we please—’
‘I heard about that. José was one who found her?’ Jordyn asked.
