Chapter 9
SIENNA
The county work truck still smelled new.
Not new-new, exactly. More like government-issued vinyl, dust, and whatever industrial cleaner someone had used before handing me the keys.
It was white, boxy, practical, and blessedly not dying.
The air conditioner worked. The brakes didn’t shriek.
The temperature gauge stayed exactly where it was supposed to stay, which felt almost indecent after Dolores.
My new work phone sat in the cup holder, mounted badly because I had not yet emotionally bonded with county technology. It kept giving me directions in a calm female voice while I drove toward my first reservoir assignment.
Collect water samples.
Record air temperature.
Measure dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, conductivity.
Document shoreline conditions.
Take photos.
Upload report before end of day.
Normal science things. Solid things. Things with labels and procedures and forms.
My life had needed forms.
Two weeks ago, I had been feeding a stray cat turkey outside a sad apartment and applying for jobs at three in the morning because an ex-professor with a fiancée and a conscience problem had humiliated me in a dive bar.
Now I was in Santa Fe, driving a county truck through bright desert morning with a field kit strapped in the backseat and an ID badge clipped to my shirt.
It was fine.
Everything was fine.
I was absolutely not thinking about Mason.
That had become a daily exercise. Wake up. Feed Bandit. Drink coffee. Do not think about Mason. Shower. Do not think about Mason. Drive past any motorcycle. Do not think about Mason. Hear a low male voice at a gas station. Fail slightly, then recover.
We had sworn never to speak about what happened.
That was the agreement.
Technically, it had not been spoken in complete sentences, but the meaning had been clear. What happened between the desert Airbnb and my new apartment stayed there. Buried. Filed away. Redacted from the official record.
I tightened my hands on the steering wheel and focused on the road.
The reservoir was forty-three minutes out.
Plenty of time not to remember the way his hand had settled at my lower back when we reached my apartment stairs. Not possessive. Not soft. Just there. Steady. Like he expected the building to prove itself before he trusted it with me.
He had walked me all the way to the unit, carrying my backpack over one shoulder and my laptop bag in his hand because apparently “I can carry my own stuff” had meant nothing to him as a legal statement.
The landlord met us outside, a thin man named Jimmy with a patchy beard and a shirt that said Grill Sergeant.
He had looked at my chest before he looked at my face.
Mason noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He stepped half an inch closer to me and gave Jimmy the kind of silent stare that probably made men reconsider unpaid parking tickets.
Jimmy found my eyes fast after that.
The apartment was spare but clean. One bedroom. One tiny office. Scuffed floors. White walls. A kitchen with old cabinets and a window over the sink. But the sunlight was good. Really good. It filled the living room in the afternoon and made the whole place look less empty than it was.
Mason checked the lock.
Then the windows.
Then the bedroom closet, because apparently closets were suspicious.
I told him I wasn’t hiding a cartel assassin behind my winter coat.
He told me I didn’t own a winter coat.
Unfortunately, he was correct.
The first night, I slept on an air mattress with a rolled-up hoodie for a pillow and woke up twice because the quiet felt different.
Not bad. Just unfamiliar. No upstairs neighbor dragging furniture across the ceiling.
No sirens. No radiator banging like a haunted boiler.
Just the building settling, desert wind at the windows, and my own brain being dramatic.
By day three, I bought a mini cactus for the living room windowsill.
It was round, spiky, and came in a tiny blue pot from a shop near the plaza. I named it Judith because it looked judgmental. It was the first thing I bought that wasn’t necessary. Not food. Not gas. Not cat litter. Not cleaning supplies.
Just something alive.
That felt dangerous in a way I did not want to examine.
Regan returned Bandit two days after I moved in. She showed up in a dusty SUV with Savannah behind the wheel, Bandit’s crate in the back, and a bag of cat supplies so excessive it looked like the animal had won a divorce settlement.
“He has a rabies shot,” Regan announced. “And a flea treatment. And ear drops. And he only made the vet tech bleed once.”
Bandit hissed from the crate.
“Growth,” I said.
Regan handed me a paper bag. “Food. Toys. Brush. Treats. Collar.”
I pulled out a fancy green collar with a tiny bell on it.
Bandit stared through the crate bars like I had betrayed the revolution.
“Oh, he’s going to hate this,” I said.
“He already does,” Savannah said. “That’s how you know it fits.”
I gave him the spare bedroom because I had not lost all survival instincts.
He had a big windowsill, a litter box, food, water, and three toys he ignored in favor of shredding the cardboard corner of the scratching pad.
He was litter box trained, which seemed like a miracle considering he still looked at me like indoor plumbing was a personal insult.
Every morning, he sat on the windowsill and glared at the world he used to roam.
Every night, he hissed when I came in to feed him.
It was our routine.
I respected consistency.
The work phone dinged.
Turn right in two miles.
I changed lanes and glanced at the field kit in the backseat. Cooler. Sample bottles. Labels. Nitrile gloves. Portable meter. Chain-of-custody forms. Everything neat. Everything clean. Everything ready.
This was the part of my life I understood.
Santa Fe itself still felt like I had wandered into someone else’s story.
People knew people here. Not casually. Intensely.
Names carried weight. Coffee orders had gossip attached.
Half the town seemed to know Regan, and the other half knew someone who owed the Royal Bastards either a favor, a warning, or a casserole dish.
The coffee shop on Main became my first real problem.
Regan had told me to go there. I had planned to stop once, mostly out of obligation, and then never again because I was not trying to be absorbed into some turquoise-wearing, biker-adjacent ecosystem.
Unfortunately, the cappuccino was perfect.
Not good. Not cute-local-place good.
Perfect.
The foam was glossy. The espresso didn’t taste burned. The cinnamon danish had flaky edges, soft center, and enough butter to make me briefly believe in organized religion. By my second visit, Daisy behind the counter knew my name.
By my third, she had my order started before I reached the register.
By my fourth, she slid a cappuccino toward me and said, “Regan told me to keep an eye on you.”
I stared at her. “Of course she did,” I replied with an eye roll.
Daisy was small, blond, and deceptively sweet-looking, with a silver nose ring and the energy of a woman who knew everyone’s business but only used it for good or entertainment. Possibly both.
“She said you’re new,” Daisy added.
“I am.”
“And stubborn.”
“Rude.”
“And traveling with a violent cat.”
“Accurate.”
Daisy grinned and added a danish to my bag. “On the house.”
“I’m not a charity case.”
“Did I say you were?” She pushed the bag closer. “Regan prepaid.”
I closed my eyes. “That woman is a menace.”
“She’s married to Tank. Menace is kind of the family language.”
That was how I started learning the local mythology.
Over cappuccinos and danishes, Daisy gave me the edited civilian version of the Royal Bastards. Edited, because every time the story got close to something illegal, she took a sip of coffee and changed direction like I hadn’t noticed.
Tank was Regan’s husband. Big. Quiet. Enforcer energy, according to Daisy, although the word enforcer seemed like the kind of thing people should not say casually over croissants. Regan had somehow turned him domestic without making him less terrifying, which sounded like witchcraft.
Tarak had been president before. He was still around, still respected, still very much the kind of man people lowered their voices about. River was president now. Broody, Daisy said, but with the kind of loyalty that made people follow him into fires and then complain about smoke damage later.
I asked if the Royal Bastards were famous or just loud.
Daisy said, “In Santa Fe? They’re royalty.”
I thought she was joking.
She was not joking.
Apparently, the upcoming wedding was going to be the event of the year, or at least the event Daisy was most excited to discuss while steaming milk.
Tank’s bachelor party had already become legend, though Daisy refused to give me details beyond the phrase mechanical bull incident and one ominous mention of someone named Bullet wearing a veil.
“You should try to snag a date and an invite,” Daisy told me, sliding a cappuccino across the counter.
I laughed. “I have been here a week.”
“That’s plenty of time.”
“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.