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My stomach did a little flip. “Oh. Well, you’re a very good dancer, if no one has ever told you before.”
“I actually 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 moved us across the dance floor with seamless grace. He hadn’t answered my question, and I thought for sure he wasn’t going to. But he surprised me.
“I lived in foster homes growing up. When I was seven, this younger couple took me in. They’d been trying to have a baby and couldn’t get pregnant. They decided to do foster care. I was their first kid.” He smiled as if thinking of them. “They were dancers, both of them. I lived with them for over a year. It was the longest I ever spent in a foster home.”
My chest tightened as his words settled in. “What happened?” I asked.
He tried to smile again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “They decided to adopt me. The day they told me, I was so happy. I honestly don’t ever remember being happier.”
I swallowed hard as I tried to hold back the tears that wanted to build in my eyes at his emotional tone.
“Up until them, all the places I’d stayed were pretty much hell. The people only wanted me because they got money forfostering. I never felt like one of the family until Mindy and Justin. They treated me like I was there son. Made me feel deserving of their love. It had been a new experience for me.”
“Did they adopt you?” 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 his story. I wondered if my parents knew his history. 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 in 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 to learn everything it took to raise and train horses. He wouldn’t let me do any of the training myself, but he was still a great guy. Never asked me why I showed up on his doorstep, practically skin and bones from not eating much and with no proof of who in the hell I was. The only thing I really knew was my name, anyway. It wasthe 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’d last had sex. Not that I had a very active sex life. I’d 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 for the first time, showing a side of himself I wasn’t a fan of.
“Why are you frowning?” Maverick asked, one brow arched.
“Was I?”
“You don’t like my name?”
“I do! I love your name. Keep telling me about the horses.”
The song changed, and it was another slow number, so we kept dancing.
“Well, it took me a few years and moving my way up the ranks on the ranch, but Dustin finally let me start training. He said I had a way with them, especially the cranky ones, and the ones that had emotional issues.”
“You do,” I said with a smile. “Have a way with the horses. My father calls you a horse whisperer. Said you can take any horse and make them trust you.”
His cheeks turned pink, and it was the sexiest thing ever to see. Not many rough-and-tough cowboys blushed, but when they did, it made a girl’s insides warm. Or maybe it was justthiscowboy who had that effect on me.
I chewed my lower lip and jumped in his arms when he spoke again.
