Page 45 of Hidden Memories

“Kat,” he says quietly, like a vow. “We’ll figure it out.”

I believe him. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t. But I do.

I connect with Theo’s big, blue eyes, the questions in them enough to make me fall to my knees.

Julia wraps an arm around Theo and turns him toward the backdoor. “Let’s go find that milkweed.”

I find the keys inside a console table by the front door. They feel heavier than they should. The agents move to take the car, and I follow them outside, grabbing the last remnants of my life from the console—a handful of Jolly Ranchers, a phone charger, and a pair of Gucci sunglasses I never liked. Too flashy. Too much like the life I don’t belong to anymore.

Then, I stand helplessly on the curb, watching as they drive away with yet another piece of me. Another thing Nicholas tainted. Another thing I have to let go of.

Santi stays beside me, his presence both a comfort and a painful reminder of everything that’s crumbling around me.

For a long time, we just stand there. Silent. The world is moving, but this moment? This moment lingers, stretching out between us like an old scar reopened.

I stare at the empty spot where my car used to be. But reality doesn’t wait for me to grieve.

Theo. I have to be a mom before I can be anything else.

I turn toward the side path that leads to Julia’s backyard but Santi steps in front of me.

Why does time bend when we stand this close?

“If you need anything…” he pauses as if he’s thinking better of not finishing his sentence, “…just call.”

His gaze lingers, searching mine for something—permission, forgiveness, an answer to thirteen years of unanswered questions.

I don’t give him one.

Because I don’t know what I have left to say.

Then, finally, he nods. And walks away, leaving me standing in the wreckage of a life I no longer recognize.

Chapter Eleven

PRESENT

My night was haunted moreby those questions in Santi’s eyes than by the loss of my car. Julia reassured me we can stay with her as long as we need, and living here, we are right next to Heritage, so I can walk to work and at a push, most places in town. Julia has horses she said she’ll lend us and reassured me there are hitches all over the town.

My life has become the Wild West.

This might have been fun when I was a teenager, but now? I have Theo to thinkabout.

So why do so many of my thoughts keep circling back to Santi, as if he were the real disruption in my life?

Why did he stare at me like that—like he wassearchingfor answers, not holding them?

I always assumed he’d just decided I wasn’t worth it, that he’d changed his mind about dragging some girl around from rodeo to rodeo. Maybe he concluded I wasn’t the type to eat gas station dinners and sleep in the back of his truck. Maybe Miss Reno Rodeo was just too tempting.

All I know is that I sat in my car, my entire apartment packed up, parked at the bottom of our hill, waiting until the sun bled into the sky, tears in my bloodshot eyes.

And he never came.

Never called. Never explained.

I could have hunted him down at his house. Demanded answers. But what would I have said? What would I have done if I’d seen him and he looked… happy?

It took me two years to move on. I visited our tree one last time before I let him go. Traced my fingers over the K&S we’d carved into the bark, feeling the imprint of our past, our promises, our ghosts.

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