Maverick didn’t agree. He looked her right in the eye, replied, ‘Wanna bet?’
His assurance, his absolution, had a completely unprecedented effect on Nina, and the moment the words left his mouth, a half-sob left hers. She slapped a hand over her mouth, physically trying to stop the tears of embarrassment and guilt andrelief. ‘Oh, my God,’ she managed even as tears blurred her vision. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Mortified, she turned to go. She didn’t even know where. She just needed to get away from her own humiliation.
But Maverick caught her hand in his, holding her where she was, her back still to him, her arm outstretched behind her.
Nina instinctively braced against the restraint, twisting her wrist in his large hand even though he held her gently. ‘Please,’ she croaked, refusing to face him as hot tears streamed down her face.
But instead of letting her go, Maverick said, ‘Nina, look at me.’
His voice – the deep, gentle tone of it – soothed her. It broke through the panic in her brain, reminded her who she was talking to. But she still couldn’t turn around, couldn’t act her way out of the emotions she knew he’d read in her eyes. They were too real to smother, too raw to hide. She only shook her head.
From behind her, Maverick said, ‘I wouldneverhurt you.’
She shook her head, embarrassed all over again. ‘I know,’ she managed.
‘Do you?’
‘Yes,’ she said the single word firmly.
‘Good.’ Without another word, he turned her around, manipulating her weight as if she were a child. He tugged her forward and settled her against him before wrapping both of his arms around her.
Nina tensed for a single moment before relaxing into the embrace. Even as she told herself that she was making a fool of herself, she tucked her arms in and sank into his strength. She buried her tear-streaked face against him and inhaled his smell – deodorant and horses and male. She closed her eyes, giving way to her exhaustion, and she let her circling thoughts rest. Just for a moment.
Maverick’s heavy palm traced circles on her back.
He didn’t say anything. Not one word. He held her, providing comfort without expectations.
Nina, who had never been embraced quite like this before, wasn’t entirely sure how she was supposed to feel.
Her own mother had never been affectionate, choosing to go off with her latest boyfriend instead of staying in her dilapidated shoebox apartment with her only child, and while she had never physically harmed Nina, Lulu Keller had done much more damage with her words, and as Nina had grown up and started attracting looks from men, even looks she hadn’t wanted, Lulu had only become worse.
On the day her mother had found Nina’s acting headshots, taken by Luigi against the white wall in the restaurant kitchen, she had laughed herself to tears. She had torn the pictures up. And, worse, she had told Nina, ‘You think you’re so special. But just you wait. You’ll end up on your back, just like me.’
So, Nina wasn’t sure how she wassupposedto feel. But it was as if his big body could shelter her from anything. His warmth seeped into her numb, cold heart, making it beat again. And, shockingly, there was a kick of lust, low in her belly, and becausethatterrified her, she took a moment to rest her forehead against his chest and breathe him in one last time, and then she stepped back. ‘I’m sorry.’
He didn’t touch her again, only quietly studied her tear-streaked face. ‘Why?’
She laughed quietly, fully aware that most people would have been mortified by her breakdown. ‘I’m not in the habit of breaking down in a stranger’s arms.’
‘Are we strangers?’
Nina was slightly taken aback by the question.
Maverick didn’t give her much time to mull on it. ‘I don’t think we’re strangers. A stranger is someone you pass on the street, someone you don’t know at all. I know you.’
‘You do?’
He turned back to look out at the mountains, rested both arms over the top rung of the fence. ‘Maybe not all – but enough. I know you have a soft heart. I know you work hard, like animals, and have a stubborn streak wider’n any mule’s. I know that you attract good people because I met your best friend, and friends say more about a person than anything else. I know that you’re a beautiful woman who doesn’t think much about the way she looks. And I know that you’re scared, but that you’ve got thick skin protecting that soft heart.’ He shrugged. ‘So, not all – but enough.’
Nina wasn’t sure what to say. Nobody had ever summed her up quite so simply. Or accurately. And because he had thrown her off, she tried for nonchalance. ‘Stubborn streak wider than any mule’s?’
‘Oh yeah,’ he replied decidedly.
‘Because I slept in the locked bathroom?’
It was supposed to have been funny. Dark, but funny.
