“Moody ain’t the half of it. But she’s a good mare. Loyal. I don’t count that as a fault, just a minor inconvenience, but we’re working on it.”
The horse made her way slowly over to them and huffed once she reached Nash’s side. He reached out and ran a hand down the crest of her long, midnight hair then gave her shoulder an affectionate pat.
“What’s her name?”
Reaching for a bucket on the ground beside his feet that she hadn’t noticed, he plucked out a round, yellow and red apple and lifted it to the horse’s mouth. It took it all in one bite and began chomping it to bits right before their eyes.
“Maxine.”
The reason for that was obvious. In her history studies at university, she’d taken a special interest in Roman history. Maxine meant “great” or “bright” or “noble,” and from what Vivian had heard, she was all of those things. She was a magnificent horse up close. Of course, she didn’t have much to compare her to, unless one counted the magazines, books, and television programs she’d seen them in over the course of her twenty-eight years.
“After the accident, she had to learn to rely on me. I think I’ve done the same with her, to be honest,” Nash admitted as he stroked her muzzle. “We both got the most important thing to Carlene left: each other.”
If a heart could cry, Vivian’s was a sobbing mess. Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she said, “It’s good you found comfort in each other.”
Nash nodded, withholding further commentary as they both ruminated over the past and the present before them. If ghosts were real, Vivian swore she could feel Carlene there with them, and she hoped the woman wasn’t upset that they’d been spending time together.
Vivian’s intentions certainly weren’t pure, and they grew less so with each passing day and moment she and Nash spent together. But if Carlene was the amazing woman she was being given the impression of, then she would want Nash to be happy, and being stuck in the past wasn’t the path toward achieving that goal.
“Do you think you’ll ever remarry?” she found herself asking.
He didn’t flinch or start yelling, so she considered that a good sign. Placing both feet flat on the ground, Nash considered her question while feeding Maxine another apple.
“I haven’t gotten that far, to be honest. I’ve just been taking each day as it comes, and when all that consists of is work and more work…”
She got it. His head wasn’t in the future. He was just focused on getting through each day.
“Would you ever consider it?”
After a moment, his gaze found hers. “It’s not off the table. But it would take someone pretty special to make me walk that aisle again.”
It was Vivian’s turn to look away this time. “Same here.”
And in the silence that followed, she knew Nash understood where she was coming from, too. They were separated by different worlds and circumstances, but they connected on a basic human level that anyone who had experienced heartache could relate to.
“Do you wanna go for a ride?”
Vivian’s eyes widened in shock. “Depends. Do you mean in your truck or…?” She pointed a wary finger at Maxine, who was suddenly looking pretty damn scary in the failing light.
Nash chuckled. Kicking a foot over the fence, he climbed inside the pen. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little horse.”
“She’s not little!” Vivian protested. “And she doesn’t like people. You said so yourself.”
Taking Maxine by the reins, he steered the horse toward the locked gate. “She might not be a people person, but she does know how to follow orders. And she trusts me. It’s all about trust.”
When he reached her, Maxine towering over his shoulder, those big, black eyes shining as she stared down at Vivian, Nash asked softly but with a hint of challenge, “Doyoutrust me?”
Did she? Vivian hadn’t even reached the point that she felt she could truly trust herself, so how could she trust anyone else?
But even as she thought it, she knew that some part of herdidtrust him. Nash might still be a virtual stranger—they hadn’t yet overturned every stone and outed every skeleton in their closet to one another—but she knew in her bones that he was an honest and honorable man.
Putting a smile on her face and summoning her courage, Vivian said, “Show me what you’ve got, cowboy.”
EIGHTEEN
There was fun, and then there was fun.
Vivian had never had so much of it in her life, especially all concentrated in one place and time. Who knew riding a horse could be so exhilarating?