Page 41 of Maverick
I might’ve been a virgin, but I know with certainty that my read on him is totally wrong. I suspect that… The reason he couldn’t resist me is that he hasn’t had sex since she died. Replaying the whole thing in my head, I get it all. So, of course, he was never going to sleep with me when he won the bet. In my head, he was just a western fuckboy, down for anything.
But I was wrong about him. He’s got this deep, relentless pain, and I never thought about him as a whole human being.
“It’s her horse, isn’t it?”
That hits me like a bolt of lightning, and I don’t even hold it in.
He turns to look at me, hands shoved into his sweatpants pockets. “Yes. It is.”
I put my hand on my chest. “Thank you for trusting me with him. I understand that… That can’t be an easy thing to do.”
He shakes his head. “Something has to be done with that horse. That was her dream. She knew that he was going to be a special one.”
“Did she ride dressage?”
He nods. “Yes. Though her goal wasn’t actually to ride in the Olympics. She just wanted the horse to make it. She didn’t think that she was talented enough. Or, I think more to the point, she didn’t want to invest all her time in that. And that’s fair enough. It takes an incredible amount of dedication. She wanted to start a family and–”
He breaks off.
In that simple sentence, he’s revealed an awful lot to me. And he’s changed the way that I see him again.
He was a husband. He wanted to be a father. He had planned to be one. This ranch existed because he was supposed to start a family on it.
He’s not this swaggering bad guy I told myself he was.
“It’s not a secret,” he says. “But I don’t really have friends on the circuit. And honestly, by the time I came back after taking a break, a lot of the guys I did know were gone, there was a new crop of assholes.”
“Me and my friends.”
He nods. “You and your friends.”
“So you never told anybody because people didn’t really know.”
“It’s nice to be able to go be something else for a while. Because around here, you know everyone knows.”
“Right. Of course.”
“It’s not a put on,” he says. “I’m unfriendly. Genuinely. I’m a loner. And before her I… I would’ve told you I was never going to get married.”
That hits me strangely. I’m jealous, I realize. Of a dead woman. Which is petty and ridiculous. Entirely unfair. But whoever he was before her, it was still sort of this thing, I guess. Then she changed him enough that he built this house and posed for those engagement pictures.
And that feels… Mysterious to me. Because I can’t fathom it.
He actually makes less sense to me now than he did ten minutes ago. Except that his leaving makes a lot of sense. And hurts my feelings less, I guess.
“Why don’t you come into the kitchen?” he says.
I go ahead and follow him away from the photos, and into a cozy little kitchen area, with a small table that sits right next to the window. It’s dark outside, but it has a cozy vibe, even without sun shining through it.
“Sit,” he says.
I don’t argue with him.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He laughs. And laughs and laughs. Even while he moves around the kitchen, filling a teakettle up with water and putting it on the burner. “Am I okay? I’m not the one who just lost my virginity and then had their partner have a whole freak out.”
“No,” I say. “But you are the one who had the whole freak out.”
