Page 83 of Chris

Maria glanced up from the kitten in her lap. “You have Butter.”

He smiled at the girl and passed a glance at the horse he brought along. Butter, that was. “Butter is a great horse.”

“My favorite.”

Oh?

“You can take him back for me,” Chris said, knowing it would be a five-mile walk back to the ranch, “as long as you promise to keep this a secret.”

Maria stood up from the ground, packing her kitten away in the rucksack hanging across her small body. “Deal.”

He helped Valeria to get the horses ready for the ride back, but before she left him behind at the cliffs, he grabbed her wrist. Her gaze met his, and he tugged to make her lean down. One more kiss between them, and he held her gaze.

“I always keep my promises, Val.”

That fire was back in her stare.

He liked it better, now.

“You better,” she said.

He would.

Chris watched the girls and the horses fade in the distance. Pulling that flower Maria had given him from his breast pocket, he fished out his wallet, too. He flipped the wallet open to a spot in the back, and laid the flower on the leather before closing it up, pressing firmly to keep it in place. Once he had the chance, he would take it out and press it safely between the pages of a book he kept on his desk at home.

Someday, he wanted to show Maria that he kept it, and her mother, too. Because this day? It felt like it changed everything.

The sky had blackened by the time Chris walked those five miles back to the ranch. Not that he minded—walking hurt nobody, and he used the time to clear his head. The weather had stayed decent during his stay in Mexico, so he wouldn’t say anything bad about that, either.

He wasn’t at all surprised to find the ranch quiet when he returned. The one guard walking the pathways between the houses gave him a nod as he passed, but the man didn’t even realize Chris wasn’t out for one of his normal strolls. That had become normal to them, and so they didn’t even question it, now.

A blessing, really.

Chris intended on heading to the house he was using on the ranch, having a quick shower, and then making his way to Jorge’s home to sign off on the deal for his father, even if was still a ruse. A throat clearing to his left stopped his walk up short.

Sitting on the porch of the small bungalow she and her brother used, Abril Lòpez raised an eyebrow when Chris’s gaze landed on her.

“Good walk?” she asked.

Chris nodded, careful with his words because he wasn’t sure what to make of this woman. She went along with her brothers, and their plans more often than she didn’t. After watching her for a while, he found that she followed the rules, even if she seemed to enjoy pushing the boundaries around her.

A complex.

Nothing like Valeria.

She had been easy to figure out.

Abril … not so much.

“It was nice,” he said.

Abril leaned forward on the steps, a sly smile curving her lips as a glint twinkled in her russet gaze. “I thought you took out a horse earlier? I was in the stables, remember? Butter.”

Shit.

Chris forgot about that.

A mistake he couldn’t afford.