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Standing, I reached for his arm to stop him.
Yep, just as I had thought. Hard as rock muscle laid underneath that suit. I’d, of course, seen him in T-shirts and I could only imagine what the rest of him looked like.
“Wait. I’d love to dance with you, Maverick.”
His eyes lit up and I couldn’t help but grin wide to see the look of happiness on his face.
The song ended and he extended his arm for me to take it. I wrapped my hand around it and started toward the dance floor. When I glanced over my shoulder, Renee gave me a thumbs up as Ben scowled and shook his head.
What is his problem?
The next song started and it was a slow song, one I hadn’t ever heard before. Maverick placed his hand on my lower back and kept a respectable distance between us.
“Be honest,” I said with a grin. “Did Grams tell you to come over and ask me to dance?”
He laughed. “Truthfully?”
“Yes, please.”
“No, she didn’t. I wanted to dance with you.”
My stomach did a little flip. “Oh. Well, you’re a very good dancer if no one has ever told you before.”
“I took dancing lessons when I was seven.”
“Really?” I asked, instantly intrigued. “You never talk much about your childhood. Why is that?”
He did a slow spin of our bodies and then moved us across the dance floor with seamless motion. He hadn’t answered my question, and I thought for sure he wasn’t going to.
“I lived in foster homes growing up. When I was seven this younger couple took me in. They had been trying to have a baby and couldn’t get pregnant. They decided to do foster care. I was their first child they took in.” he smiled as if remembering something. “They were dancers, both of them. I lived with them for over a year. It was the longest I’d ever spent in a foster home.”
My chest tightened as his words settled in. “What happened?” I asked.
He tried to smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. “They decided to adopt me. The day they told me I was so happy. I don’t honestly ever remember being that happy.”
I swallowed hard as I tried to hold back the tears that wanted to build up in my eyes.
“Up until then, all the places I had stayed were pretty much hell. The people only wanted me because they got money for fostering me. I was never treated like one of the family until Mindy and Justin. They treated me like I was their son. Made me feel deserving of their love. It had been a new experience for me.”
“If they adopted you, why did you only live with them for a year or so?” I asked as he turned us once more.
“The day the adoption was to take place, there was a car accident. Mindy and Justin both died, and I was in the hospital for a few weeks.”
I gasped and lost the battle to hold back the tears. One slipped free. I quickly reached up and wiped it away. “How terrible. Oh, Maverick, that must have been so devastating for you.”
He gave me a weak smile. “I was almost nine by that point. After I got out of the hospital I went to an orphanage for a bit before I was tossed back into the foster care system.”
“And you didn’t find another forever family?”
With a shake of his head, he looked past me. “This is a beautiful wedding.”
And that was the sign he was finished telling that story. I wonder if my parents had known that about Maverick? I made a mental note to ask my mother.
“What made you start working with horses?” I asked.
When he looked back down at me, his eyes were full of life again. “I ran away from the foster home I was at when I was sixteen. Got a job at a horse ranch and started out mucking the stalls. Then moved on to grooming the horses. I followed the ranch owner around as much as I could so I could learn everything it took to raise and train horses. He was a great guy. Never asked me why I showed up on his doorstep, practically skin and bones from not eating very much and no proof of who in the hell I was. The only thing I really knew was my name. It was the only thing my birth mother ever gave me, besides my life,” he said with a nonchalant, one-shoulder shrug.
“Maverick Prescott,” I whispered.
He winked and oh my, did it send a jolt through my body. I clearly needed a visit with BOB and soon. I wasn’t even sure when I had last had sex. Not that I had a very active sex life. I dated a few different guys. I had been stupidly waiting for one particular guy to come to his senses and see that we were made for one another. He was currently dating Abby, though, and showing a side of him I wasn’t a fan of.
