Chapter 9
‘Neens?’ She heard the frown in Markus’s voice. ‘I didn’t quite get that.’
How could he not have heard her when her voice had been so loud? ‘Someone is in my house,’ she whispered again, becoming frantic now.
‘What?’
She caught the faintest sound, coming from her lounge maybe. Or the attached conservatory. Wherever it was coming from, it was all the confirmation she needed.
She gripped her phone to her ear, trying to hold it in place as her hand began to shake uncontrollably.
‘Nina, hang up.’ On the phone, Markus began to panic. ‘Call 911. Go wait outside. I’m on my way.’
His fear drove hers. ‘Don’t hang up,’ she begged hoarsely.
But she took one step away from the glass window, one step toward the front door.
It was a straight shot. Fifty feet to the door, maybe eighty to the narrow, winding street that passed through the hills.
She heard Markus’s car start over the line. ‘Shit.’ He was panting for breath. ‘I think I should hang up. I have to call 911.’
‘Please don’t leave me,’ she begged so quietly as she crept to the kitchen island. ‘Please.’
‘Fuck. Okay.’ A horn blared. ‘Stop talking. Is there a weapon you can grab? Somewhere you can hide?’
A weapon? Stupid. She should have thought of that.
She looked around her kitchen, saw the knife block to her left by the stove and hurried to it.
She chose the smallest knife, something she could wield easily, and lifted it from its resting place.
Though she wasn’t aware of it, she kept the phone in her right hand, choosing the person who made her feel safest over the option of violence.
Footsteps sounded in the next room.
Nina stopped moving.
She didn’t dare breathe.
Her heart pounded in her ears, screaming for her to inhale. But she couldn’t.
Her legs shook, but she locked her knees, refusing to curl up into a ball and hide behind the cabinets until help arrived.
‘Just get outside.’ On the phone, Markus sounded as if he was on the verge of tears. ‘Wave someone down. Nina, make them wait with you until I get there. Okay?’ There was a pause on the line, and when Markus’s voice sounded again it was distant. ‘You! Call 911!’
She passed the kitchen sink as she listened to Markus rattle off her address to a stranger.
She took one step into the foyer with its beautiful hardwood floors and the cherry blossom wallpaper she’d laboriously hung herself, wondered, in the back of her mind, how she had never noticed that the bright pink flowers made the little entryway seem so small.
Nina stopped before passing the spot where the foyer opened up. On the right, the stairs led to the bedrooms. On the left was the lounge. Behind her now, the kitchen.
She heard breathing, tight and restrained, and vaguely wondered if it was her or Markus making so much noise. She wanted to tell him to keep quiet but couldn’t summon the courage to open her mouth.
Her palms were slicked with sweat, loosening her hold on both of her lifelines.
Her vision narrowed on the door handle, only fifteen feet away.
On three she would run. There was no time to get to her car or wait for her garage to open. But Nina promised herself she would not look back, that she would not stop running until she had flagged someone down.
One.
She exhaled a quiet but deep breath, trying to slow her racing pulse.
Two.
She took a single step forward, preparing to run.
Her muscles shortened.
Her breathing stopped altogether.
Three.
In a burst of fear, with adrenaline coursing through her veins, Nina ran. She reached the door, gripped the handle in the same hand as the knife, and yanked it downward.
The door opened.
She had one perfect moment where she saw the ‘Welcome’ sign on her open door before somebody lifted her off her feet from behind …
Hunt Ranch, Santa Barbara County – Present Day
Nina only had to go back to her cabin at the end of the day and see her little bathroom set-up again to realize how ridiculous she was being in the face of Maverick’s offer.
The man had offered her a bed in an environment that would make her feel safe, and here she was choosing the cold, porcelain bathtub.
Stubborn, he’d called her. And he had been right, but that wasn’t all of it either. It was instinct.
She had learned to be self-sufficient from a young age. And, now, it wasn’t that she didn’t ever need help or rely on other people, but, rather, that it wasn’t in her nature to ask for help until it was offered. And, even then, she never accepted it unless she was in dire need of it.
So, she didn’t call concierge or the stables or try and otherwise track Maverick down. She simply packed her bag and wheeled the bright pink suitcase down the dirt road to the barn.
When he saw her coming, Maverick stopped what he was doing – lunging a horse in the round pen – immediately.
He stepped wide, moving in the direction of the cantering horse, and raised one hand.
The mare came to a halt and turned to face him, and Maverick rewarded her by bringing her in and rubbing her face before he stepped away and passed the long lunging whip to Benji, who had been leaning on the rails, watching the session.
He said something to Benji as he climbed through the side of the pen, and the other man turned to glance in her direction.
Benji waved.
Nina returned the wave, but she stopped about fifty yards away and waited for Maverick to come to her because she didn’t want to answer any questions just then.
She didn’t want to tell people that she was being moved to the owner’s house because she’d been caught sleeping in the bathtub; that would only prompt more questions.
She watched Maverick’s face as he approached, looked into those kind, blue eyes and tried to decipher his reaction. He didn’t seem inconvenienced or resigned. He looked relieved.
He didn’t ask her any questions, only reached down, lifted her suitcase, and headed in the direction of a Hunt Ranch Jeep, leaving her and Shadow to follow.
Nina stayed out of the way as he put her suitcase in the back seat, but when she moved to open her door, Maverick beat her to it.
‘Thank you.’
He nodded and waited for her to climb in before gently closing the door and walking around the hood.
He opened the back passenger door for Shadow, who jumped in and settled on the back seat, her tongue lolling. Nina reached back to pet the dog as Maverick slid into the driver’s seat.
‘I won’t get in your way. Or your sister’s.’
He started the Jeep, put it in reverse. ‘I can’t promise the same for us. Sierra is a devil in the morning. She snaps and growls, and God forbid you approach her before she’s caffeinated. And Poppy … Poppy has no concept of personal space.’
That had a little kick of anxiety kindling in her stomach. ‘I have no experience with young kids,’ she warned him. ‘The only time I’ve ever interacted with one was in a diaper ad in my twenties. And all I had to do was hold out my arms and “laugh lovingly” until the toddler walked to me.’
‘You’re an actress.’ He took his baseball cap off and threw it on the dash before running the same hand through his thick, dark hair. ‘Just pretend to be sufficiently enthused over everything she says and does, and you’ll have a new best friend.’
‘That’s it?’ she asked doubtfully.
‘Yup.’
‘It’s that simple?’
Maverick turned those lake blue eyes, glinting with humour, on her. ‘Simple? You only say that because you’ve never had to pretend to be excited for mud pie.’
‘Mud pie? What is that?’ she asked. ‘Chocolate?’
‘Nope. It’s mud, made from garden soil and hose water and garnished with one of Sierra’s prized roses.’
‘Mud?’ Nina frowned. ‘You let your kid eat mud?’
Maverick laughed and turned the Jeep down a short, shaded drive. ‘No. She only had to put it in her mouth once to realize that real food was better. But she still likes to bake mud pies – and she still tries to convince me to eat them.’
‘Huh.’ Nina wondered what she had walked into. She was a good actress – she knew that. But how exactly did one pretend to be enthused about mud pie? ‘Do you sling it over your shoulder when she’s not looking?’ she asked, because she genuinely wanted to know what the protocol was.
‘Sometimes. But she’s typically happy if you just pretend to eat it. You’re a city girl, so think tea party – but outside and with mud.’
Nina smiled grimly at that. Tea parties had been about as foreign a concept during her childhood as mud pies, and the only tea her mother ever drank was the Long Island variety.
He pulled the Jeep into a shaded spot beneath a huge oak tree and parked. He turned off the engine. But he didn’t get out right away. He asked, ‘Why does this worry you?’
When he only waited in silence, giving her the space to continue, she said, ‘I … I suppose I don’t really have any family experience. I’ve never even lived with anyone else, really. And after everything you’ve done for me, I don’t want to be a burden.’
‘Only child?’
‘Only child,’ she confirmed. ‘No father. And my mother wasn’t exactly winning any awards in the parenting department.
’ She raised her thumbnail to her teeth in an anxious habit she’d thought she’d kicked but had recently fallen back into.
Then, lowered her hand again as soon as she realized what she’d done.
‘You’re overthinking this,’ he said gently.
‘Poppy’s five. She’s young, but also precocious and self-sufficient.
If she gets in your space, just gently redirect her.
Ask her to find me. Or if I’m not there for some reason, put the TV on for her.
It’ll keep her occupied until I get there.
’ He shrugged. ‘The only time she’s ever alone is for a few minutes or so when she’s sleeping in the morning and Sierra is heading to work as I’m heading home.
I’m not saying she won’t get in your way – she’s five.
But she’s not your responsibility. She’s mine. ’