Mav figured he didn’t have to have seen any of her movies to know that those eyes had made Nina Keller a movie star. Everything she felt was amplified for the world to see, and Mav had front-row seats to witness the raw joy in her as she experienced a new first.
He ambled at their side and deliberately pushed all thought of the work he still had to get done to the back of his mind. When Zephyr whinnied upon seeing Spud, a little pony who was often stalled next to her, grazing, Nina laughed, and Mav decided right then that showing this beautiful woman how to ride a horse first thing in the morning might have been even better than his usual routine of watching the sun rise with his first cup of coffee.
Chapter 7
Nina felt her muscles slowly slacken as her body adjusted to the odd rocking motion of the horse beneath her. Her hands gradually loosened on the reins, and for the first time since the attack, she felt truly relaxed.
Maverick walked at her side, close enough to intercede if he needed to.
She had been so embarrassed when she’d startled awake, and then again when she’d been overcome with the pain from her injured ribs, but there was something so kind and non-judgemental about Maverick Hunt, and it had quelled her humiliation almost as soon as it had arisen. He didn’t hover, or give her pretty, empty sentiments. He just trusted her to make her own decisions and silently helped when she needed it. She liked that.
He wasn’t hard to look at either.
Nina peeked down at him, taking in his broad shoulders and tapered waist, and while she wouldn’t ever admit it to Markus, he had been right about the stretch in those blue jeans. Overall, the hulking frame was a beautiful contradiction to the quiet, gentle temperament.
When he’d stroked her calf earlier, trying – she knew – to soothe, Nina had been taken aback by the contact. Because she’d been acutely aware of his big palm running over her leg, and she hadn’t wanted him to stop.
She might not have considered herself a prude, but she wasn’t exactly experienced either. Living with her mother had made her mistrustful of men, so that when she’d been younger, she’d avoided them completely. Then she’d been so busy working that she’d only had time for occasional dates, and though she’d had sex, she’d only really done it to see if it would make her feel something more for the men she’d been dating. And it hadn’t. Instead, it had only left her feeling more disappointed and alone than before.
And then once she’d started to become better known, time had been the least of her concerns, because then she had also had to sort through men who were interested inherand those who were only interested in the perks of dating Nina Keller.
The last date she’d been on had been over a year ago. She had met Alexander Cane, a well-known and respected producer, while auditioning forShadowlands, the movie she was currently working on. Nina had liked him well enough, but not enough for anything serious, so she’d balked when he’d started to press for sex.
The memory left a bitter taste in her mouth now.
But not even an inexperienced woman could have missed that zap of awareness she’d felt when Maverick had touched her. It had shocked her, that little zing. But not more than the sense of calm that had quickly followed.
She wondered why that was, wondered what it was about this particular man that was so grounding.
As they walked, Maverick didn’t ask her about acting like most people did. In fact, he didn’t seem to feel the need to make small talk at all. It was Nina who opened the conversation, and not, she realized with some surprise, because the silence was awkward – it wasn’t. She was genuinely curious. ‘Do you ever get tired of this?’ she asked. ‘Teaching city slickers how to ride horses day in and day out?’
He didn’t reply right away; rather he seemed to think about it for a long moment. ‘It depends on the city slicker,’ he said finally, making her smile. His blue eyes, made more intense beneath the blue Dodgers cap, glinted with humour. ‘But no. Watching peoples’ faces the moment they take those first steps on a horse is magical. Especially the kids – they don’t regulate their joy like adults do. They just feel it.’
‘You said you have kids?’ she remembered and glanced down at his ring finger. No ring. Though she wondered what the story was there, she didn’t ask.
‘Just one. A little girl – Poppy.’
‘I bet she’s the happiest kid in the world.’
Maverick laughed at that. ‘Kids don’t tend to notice how lucky they are. They’re just in the moment, but Poppy … I really hope she looks back one day and realizes how extraordinary her childhood was.’
Nina noted the unashamed love in his voice, told herself that, regardless of how young his daughter was, Poppy already knew she was lucky. As someone who was raised – if you could call it that – by someone so uninterested, Nina could barely fathom what it was like to have a parent who was so shamelessly attached to her.
‘She will,’ Nina said with vindication. She looked out over the pasture, towards the resort. ‘How could she not?’
‘Yeah.’ Maverick followed her gaze. ‘It took a lot out of us – opening the resort when we did. We had to sell some land to cover the start-up costs,’ he explained. ‘It hurt some, selling our legacy to guarantee that we could keep the rest of it afloat.’
‘You didn’t always do this – the resort?’
‘No. We started construction on the resort about a decade ago but have only been fully operational for about eight years now.’ He laughed. ‘Turning a profit for less, maybe six years.’
‘What was it before? A farm?’
‘Ranch,’ he corrected. ‘Cattle.’
‘That’s a big change.’ But she could see it, could envision the rolling hills dotted with fat cows, could easily picture Maverick on the back of a horse, rounding them up.
‘It was.’
