“I own one cactus and a cat who hates me.”
“Great. You’re settled.”
“I also swore off men.”
Daisy gave me a look. “Women always say that right before the plot starts.”
I did not appreciate being analyzed by a barista holding my danish hostage.
Especially because she was not wrong.
The county phone dinged again.
Arrive in one mile.
The paved road narrowed as I got closer to the reservoir. Desert opened on both sides, scrubby and pale under the morning sun. The work truck handled the gravel road without complaint. I could get used to that. A vehicle doing what it was supposed to do. A phone paid for by someone else. A clipboard with my name on the paperwork.
A new life, piece by piece.
I pulled into the small access lot near the reservoir and parked beside a weathered sign warning about algae blooms, fishing limits, and rattlesnakes. The water lay still beyond the scrub, reflecting the sky in dull blue sheets. Wind moved lightly across the surface.
I turned off the engine and sat for a second.
One week in Santa Fe.
A job.
An apartment.
A cactus.
A cat with a bell.
A coffee shop addiction.
A group of women who had decided I was their problem.
And Mason.
I shut that door fast.
Not literally. Mentally. Forcefully. With both hands and a chair wedged under the knob.
Whatever had happened between us had been heat, exhaustion, bad timing, and proximity. A desert fever. A stress response with excellent shoulders. It did not mean anything. It could not mean anything. Men like Mason came with history, scars, and women who looked like they belonged in country club photographs. I came with student loans, a feral cat, and exactly one cactus.
So I grabbed my field kit, locked the work truck, and walked toward the water.
The reservoir didn’t care who I was trying not to think about.
That made it my favorite thing in Santa Fe so far.
My phone buzzed.
Not the county phone. My actual phone.
I pulled it from my back pocket, expecting my mother, a spam text, or maybe another depressing notification from my bank pretending there were “insights” to be found in poverty.
Instead, Regan’s name lit up the screen.
