He wondered if, instead, her attacker had stalked her, and if Nina had crossed paths with him at one time, maybe rejected his advances? That would explain, though not justify, the rage – and it would give Maverick more to be concerned about.
The little he did know about stalkers indicated that they weren’t rational. They were obsessive and disillusioned, which typically equated to dangerous. A random attack wouldn’t have concerned him so much, but a stalker … If she had a stalker, there was no telling when he would try to find Nina Keller again. But it didn’t take a genius to figure that, statistically, he would.
Still, knowing that he had no right to ask, and that he was intruding, Mav leaned his weight back in the saddle and extended his legs slightly, silently telling Zephyr to back up.
The horse got five steps before snorting – loudly.
Chapter 6
Nina popped awake with a loud gasp.
Zephyr spooked and danced to the side. Mav kept his seat easily, issued a long, deep, ‘Whoa.’ Beneath him, the horse settled.
Nina, on the other hand, had one hand over her heart. She took deep breaths as if she was on the verge of a panic attack. Her eyes darted about like ping-pong balls.
‘Apologies,’ he said quietly. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’ And in lieu of telling her he had been checking up on her, added, ‘I was just rounding up the horses for the day.’
She managed to focus on him through the panic. Recognition dawned slowly. She closed her eyes, took one last audible breath, and said, ‘That’s okay.’ She turned her face away from him, clearly embarrassed. ‘I must have dozed off.’
Mav deliberately looked out over the pasture, giving her time to compose herself. ‘It’s as good a spot as any.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, it is.’
She got to her feet, which, he noted with some surprise, were bare, and padded across the deck to the porch rail. Gripping the blanket with both hands at her collar, she indicated to his horse, asked, ‘Is she yours? I saw her yesterday …’
‘Yeah.’ Mav sent Zephyr forward with the tiniest roll of his calf until the horse stood directly in front of Nina. She raised one slender hand and stroked the mare’s face. ‘She was born in a kill pen. One of their staff, an eighteen-year-old kid who was new to the job, stole her. He and a buddy accessed the property at night, put her in his truck, brought her here.’
Nina didn’t look at him, only watched the horse as she continued to stroke her. ‘That’s a good origin story.’
Maverick smiled when he remembered the rusty truck bumping down the Hunt Ranch drive and the shock of surprise he’d felt when José, just a kid himself, had hauled the tiny, sickly foal out of the back seat of his Ford. ‘Kid quit the next day. Came to work for me. That was about six years ago now.’
‘She’s only six?’ Nina asked. ‘She’s so grey.’
‘The black and grey is her natural coat colour. We call it “blue roan”.’
Nina stepped back. ‘Watching you up there makes me wish I had learned how to ride.’ She shook her head. A soft, sardonic smile teased her mouth. ‘Though I don’t suppose I’d look as natural as you do.’
Mav thought about that for a moment. ‘There’s not much opportunity for horseback riding in LA?’
‘Some. But it’s rare for inner-city kids, and my mother …’ She seemed to rethink what she was going to say, finished with: ‘She could never have afforded it.’
There was something in her tone, something sad and resigned. Bitter, maybe. He didn’t pry. Only said, ‘It’s never too late to learn. And the basics of horse riding are simpler than most things.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. Don’t fall off, for starters.’
Nina smiled. She looked at his saddle, almost mistrustfully. ‘Something tells me it’s a little more complicated than that.’
‘Not on Zephyr,’ he insisted.
She took a step back, but she looked straight at him for the first time when she replied. ‘Maybe, I’ll sign up for a riding lesson while I’m here. See how it goes …’
‘How about now?’
‘Excuse me?’
Mav told himself that the only reason he offered was because she looked so small and forlorn, so lonely, up there on the porch, and he didn’t want to leave her. But it was more than that. He hated suffering, tried his hardest to ease it wherever he could, be it in an abused horse or, as it were, a woman. He had always been like that. As a man who had been raised tending animals, his prime directive had always been to guard and nurture. He didn’t know any other way.
