Page 13 of Hidden Memories

“Tell my dad that,” he scoffs.

I laugh.

We sit in silence. Ares is being better behaved than ever for once. Maybe he’s extra hungry. Maybe he likes Hector. Maybe he knows there’s an alpha male around. No matter what, I’m more grateful than he could know for grazing peacefully. I only just met this guy but I don’t want to leave.

“Do you have a lot more drawings to do, Kat?”

I nod. “I have to have a collection of ten by the end of semester.”

“So, you’re at college?”

“Yeah. Near Santa Cruz.”

“Impressive.” He lifts his beer bottle that was next to him even though it’s empty now. “Congratulations.”

A bright, involuntary smile pops up on my face. In my world, going to college is a given. In fact, my prep school gazette publishes where everyone goes and what their major will be. My dad, unimpressed with my choice of degree, instructed me to report “undecided” despite knowing I’d been accepted into an art history program.

Needless to say, Santi is the first person to tell me congratulations, and I didn’t realize until now how much I wanted that.

“So, Santi… do you live around here?”

He points to my drawing. “The way you do the shading is amazing.”

I’m giddy with the compliments, but I manage to play it cool. “Thank you.”

How is it that I’m both melting in his presence and molding into an actual flirt at the same time? Some men steal your confidence and some give it. He’s the latter. It’s not that I feel confident exactly, but his approval does something to me. It fills me with a sort of power I’ve never felt before. Is it power? Or do I just want to be someone’s “good girl”? Shit. My dad has royally fucked me up.

However messed up I might be, his praise sizzles through me and settles heavy between my thighs.

He puts his hat down on the grass next to him, settling in. His hair is long on top and wavy. He runs his fingers through it and, as if trained, it falls into a perfect hairstyle.

“I moved with my brothers to Echo Valley because they need to work in San Francisco.”

“Echo Valley? That’s kind of far from San Francisco.”

“It’s kind of cheaper, too. You pay for the city or you pay for the commute.” He spins his beer bottle into the grass until it balances upright. “My older twin brothers are starting a business there. None of us have the cash, but anyway, we’re not city types, so when I saw a plot for sale in Echo Valley… we made it work.”

He glances behind him and points over yonder. “Over that hill a couple miles east. It’s just scrubland for now, but I like the idea of building things from scratch.”

“You’re not from around here then?” I want to keep the conversation going. I want to know everything about him. “Where are you from?”

“New Mexico.”

“I grew up on the coast. Near Monterey.” I turn my gaze back to the landscape, trying hard to remember where I left off, but truthfully, I don’t care much for mydrawing anymore. I put my oil pastel down. “What are you going to build on your land?”

Santi settles in against our tree, and he tells me all about his dream of having a big ranch with houses for all his family to live together. I’m in awe of a person who has brothers and a sister and parents he wants to live with forever. I would love a big supportive family. I hate being an only child, though maybe I wouldn’t be with different parents.

Santi says he’s going to breed prize racehorses and one day have a Kentucky Derby winner. He tells me how he has rodeos all over the West booked to keep pouring earnings into his endeavor. Of course, he’s a bull rider, of course, he earns his keep by taming beasts. That’s the exact kind of man he looks like. Santi is an adventurous dreamer, but he clearly knows how to roll up his sleeves and get those sexy veined forearms and tattooed hands working.

It’s impressive. And so much sexier than watching rich boys dip a silver spoon into yet another bowl of caviar.

We talk until the sun dips halfway beneath the hill line and Ares has a full belly. He comes over to nudge my side, and I regret having to leave.

I put away my supplies, including an unfinished landscape.

We both set to getting our horses’ bridles on. Santi pops that empty beer bottle into a saddlebag. We’ll be going our separate ways. Him over the hill to the left, me to the right.

I wish we didn’t have to split our custody of the tree. There’s something authentic about this man. Something warm and approving. Simple yet exciting. He’s special… I just know it and now I’m about to never see him again.

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