Chapter 15
The first half of the week passed in a blur as Nina and Maverick settled into a new routine that involved long days at the stables and around the ranch, followed by dinners at the ranch house, and then long, secret nights wrapped in each other’s arms.
After that first night, Nina, not wanting to overstep, had been too self-conscious to go to him, but once the house had settled, Mav had knocked on her door, and when she had opened it for him, he hadn’t said a single word, only swung her over his shoulder, carried her back to his bedroom, and gently thrown her on his bed.
Though they kept each other awake long into the night, now, when Nina slept, she slept deeply, the knowledge that she was safe in Mav’s arms following her into sleep, so that on Wednesday morning, she woke up in her own bed, disoriented.
She looked around and frowned once she realized that she was back in her own room.
She didn’t even remember leaving Maverick’s bedroom the night before.
She rolled over, yawning as she stretched, and sighed when she saw that it was still dark outside. She reached for her phone on the nightstand, habitually bypassed the missed calls from Alex, and read the single message Markus had sent at midnight the night before.
I wanted to be the first person to wish you happy birthday! Can’t wait to celebrate with you tomorrow! X
Nina replied and then flopped onto her back.
Another year gone, she thought. She knew she wasn’t ‘old’ by any means, but at thirty-four she was starting to feel it.
Throughout her twenties, it had seemed like she’d had all the time in the world.
Time to work more, time to win an Academy Award, time to get that next big role.
But now, with her career on the brink of implosion, it was the strangest thing to realize that she didn’t have much else to show for her thirty-four years.
Worse, had she never been assaulted, she might never had realized it.
Relationships had never been part of her plan.
She had Markus, and God knew she would always be grateful for him. He had stuck with her through everything. She had Luigi and a few others from the restaurant, but Nina was ashamed to admit that she hadn’t been good about staying in touch with them through the rigours of her work.
It was humbling to realize that she had spent her entire life frantically striving for something to judge her worth by – something, she knew, to prove her mother’s prophecy wrong.
It was embarrassing to realize that in that frantic search, she had somehow managed to avoid forming relationships at all.
From the moment she had stepped onto the red carpet for the Camelot première and felt the warmth of those camera flashes like a thousand brilliant suns, Nina had thrown her entire self into becoming someone.
And for what? For whom?
Because it was only now, with everything she’d worked for at risk, that she realized she’d somehow missed the big picture.
She’d never been in a romantic relationship.
Until Maverick, she’d never been held by a lover until she fell asleep in his arms, and that feeling of being cocooned in safety was so beautiful it made her think she’d probably missed out on quite a bit.
She’d never even had a girls’ night – though Markus would disagree with that – because she’d never had a female friend she’d been close enough to suggest it to.
Because it bothered her immensely, Nina promised herself that she would make more time for people going forward, no matter what happened with her career.
She was so busy mulling over her interpersonal shortcomings that she didn’t hear the faint scuffling and hushed giggles coming from outside her bedroom. But when Poppy knocked and called her name, Nina sat up in bed and turned on her side lamp.
‘Come in, Poppy,’ she said, knowing that Maverick was probably out with the horses already.
The door opened, but it wasn’t just Poppy standing outside. It was Poppy, Mav, and Sierra.
It took Nina a second to register what was happening. She stared at the brightly wrapped gifts Maverick and Poppy held and the birthday cake in Sierra’s hands, and when they started singing ‘Happy Birthday’, she wasn’t entirely sure what to do.
They came into her room as a unit, their singing loud and a little off-key. Nina found Mav’s gaze, laughingly said, ‘This doesn’t count as you singing to me,’ to try and downplay the immensity of her own emotion.
Mav just smiled. And when Poppy scrambled onto the bed, threw her arms around Nina’s neck, and whispered, ‘We made you a cake,’ Nina’s heart melted completely.
She wrapped both her arms around the five-year-old and returned the ferocious hug. ‘Thank you, Poppy.’
‘And I made you a present!’
‘You did?’ Nina said brightly, though her eyes burned with tears.
‘Yeah.’
‘Poppy, let Nina blow out her candles first,’ Sierra instructed and held the cake closer.
‘Don’t forget to make a wish,’ Poppy said solemnly. ‘And don’t tell anyone.’ She stood on the bed and wagged a small finger in Nina’s direction. ‘If you do, it won’t come true.’
Nina’s laugh was slightly watery, but she tugged Poppy onto her lap and wrapped her arms around her again. ‘Want to help me blow them out?’
Poppy seemed unsure. She looked across the room to where Mav stood, a little out the way, two huge presents in his arms. ‘Can I?’ she asked.
Nina followed her gaze, but when she saw the slightly stricken expression on Mav’s face, her own smile dimmed.
He cleared his throat. ‘Yeah, baby. If Nina says that’s okay.’
Nina tried not to worry too much about his look. She looked back at Poppy and smiled. ‘On three, okay?’
Poppy nodded.
‘One, two, three!’
Together, they blew out the candles, and even though she knew that hard work far surpassed the power of a wish, Nina closed her eyes and made one.
It was spontaneous, the words flowing through her overwhelmed heart and into her thoughts so quickly that she had no time to reconsider or think of something more realistic.
The moment it had been made she opened her eyes again, slightly panicked by what she’d asked for in an unguarded moment. She looked straight into Maverick’s eyes, then quickly away again.
Her heart lurched.
Her panic reared.
But before it could grip her and pull her under, Poppy jumped off the bed and retrieved the haphazardly wrapped gift she’d dropped on the floor. She passed it to Nina with a megawatt smile.
‘You made this?’ Nina remembered.
Poppy nodded, said, ‘At school,’ and then climbed back on the bed to sit beside her.
Nina turned over the gift and started on the mess of tape. ‘Did you wrap this all by yourself?’ she asked.
‘No, Daddy did.’
‘Oh.’ Nina tried her damnedest not to smile.
But when Poppy added, ‘He didn’t do a very good job,’ the smallest giggle escaped from between her lips.
Maverick caught it, and this time when Nina met his eyes, he was grinning. ‘It’s hard,’ he insisted. ‘The paper never stays put. And the tape always gets stuck everywhere.’
‘Get a gift bag,’ Sierra said.
‘Wrapping paper shows that you put more time and thought into it,’ Mav argued.
Nina kept unwrapping the gift and listened as they continued their back-and-forth.
It was the strangest thing, to listen to grown siblings bicker like children, over something as small as gift wrapping.
Nina loved it. They were so comfortable with one another, so themselves.
She’d never really had a family, and loved experiencing all those little nuances that made one now.
She tore off the last bit of paper and opened the recycled box Mav had put the gift in. It took her about five seconds to figure out what it was, but when she did, Nina gushed, ‘A flower!’
It was a craft project, one of Poppy’s little hands stencilled, cut out and coloured, and then glued upright onto a painted kebab stick like the head of a flower. Leaves, coloured in bright green crayon, had been glued onto the stem.
She took it out of the box and held it up for everyone to see.
Poppy beamed. ‘It’s for your garden. You stick it in flowers.’
‘I love it,’ Nina said, but she knew she’d never put it outside for the sun and rain to destroy. Maybe she’d frame it. Or put it in an indoor potted plant. But not outside. She gave the five-year-old one last hug, whispered, ‘Thank you, Poppy. This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten.’
‘Welcome,’ she chirped.
‘You’re welcome,’ Mav corrected.
‘You’re welcome,’ Poppy parroted.
Maverick didn’t give Nina time to get emotional. He handed her the next one, a huge, flat, rectangular gift wrapped in gorgeous linen cloth with a white silk bow. ‘Sierra?’
‘I wish,’ she said. ‘Mav and I split our gift – unfortunately, he wrapped it.’
‘You—’ he pointed at Sierra ‘—need to go and get your coffee.’ But he turned back to Nina, explained, ‘Markus left that with me over the weekend. He didn’t want you to wake up without it on your birthday.’
‘He’s thoughtful like that,’ Nina commented as she undid the bow. The linen cloth fell away easily, revealing the back of a photo frame. ‘Oh, a photo!’ She used both hands to hurriedly flip it over.
And then simply stared.
She wasn’t sure how Markus was so easily able to capture the essence of a single moment, but the photo did just that.
It was of her and Maverick on that first day, standing in the stall with Barbie.
He had somehow managed to pick a second in time when they had been looking at each other, Mav smiling softly, Nina trapped by his gaze.
The photograph was in contrast, with her and Maverick in a patch of filtered sunlight, the horse and the dark stall behind them.
‘That’s Daddy!’ Poppy said and touched Maverick’s face in the photograph.
‘Wow.’ This came from Sierra, who had come around the bed to look, the cake still in her hands. ‘That’s legitimately incredible.’
‘It is.’ Nina ran her fingers lightly over the frame.