Page 26 of Maverick
“Why are you offering me this?”
“Believe me,” he says, his jaw clenched tight. “It has more to do with what it means to me. And the fact that I can tell you’re amazing at it.”
“You’ve only ever seen me ride Western.”
“You’ve got a little bit of English in your form.”
My face gets hot. “Well. Probably.”
“It’s not an insult. Plus, I see it in the way that you walk.” This awakens a whole lot of curiosity in me. Why is he familiar with this? And really, how did he get the horse?
“This horse can’t go to waste,” he says. “And I’ve been trying to figure out a way to find the right rider for him. So, you kind of fell into my lap. Or, I fell into your bed.”
I clench my teeth together. “Yes. I guess that is what happened.”
“It seems like this is just the right thing. Anyway, if you hate it, you can leave.”
“Where’s your ranch?”
“Down near Yellowstone. Still in Idaho.”
“Oh. That sounds… That sounds good. I mean, beautiful.”
“It is. There are moose and bear, lots of elk on the property. It’s like being in a national park all the time.”
“That sounds great.”
“I like it.”
“And you live… by yourself?”
He hesitates for a moment, and I can’t read that. “Yes.”
“Well, I’ll go with you. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine. It doesn’t work out.”
“Yeah. No harm, no foul.”
Just then, he pulls into the lot, right by my trailer. He puts the truck in park, and I stick my hand out toward him. He looks down at it, and then he lifts his hand and grips mine, shaking it firmly. The heat shocks me. The way that I feel his touch everywhere, not just on my hand. Deeper than my skin.
“I’m going to leave tomorrow morning. I’ll text you. You can follow me.”
I nod. And just like that, I’ve impulsively changed something.
And I hope that maybe this is the restless ache that Maverick has unleashed inside of me. I hope that this is the reason I’m so fixated on him. That I sensed there was something important about him, but it was just horses, and not anything else.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah. See you then.”
Chapter Five
Maverick
The first thing I do in the morning is report Sean West to the rodeo commission. The second thing I do is get coffee and drive to Stella’s trailer.
My knuckles are bruised from where I laid him flat last night, and I don’t regret it. I would have killed that asshole if there hadn’t been a crowd. Men like that don’t deserve to draw breath. I don’t have patience for it.
If I’ve done one honorable thing in the past five years, it was maybe that.
