He shook his head frantically.
“Listen, listen. I have a plan,” she said pleadingly. “Like I said, I will get you a new lawyer. I can afford the best there is. If they can’t fix this right away—and I bet they can—then we will just keep trying, and I will take care of Max while we do. And even if worse comes to worst, five years or ten years isn’t forever. I will make sure he calls you every day, and I’ll bring him to visit every chance we’re given, and I promise that he will understand that, even though you did a not-so-great thing, you did it for good reasons. I will keep you guys close. I swear I won’t let that change.”
“Noni—” he said again.
“And once you’re back out,” she rushed on, “I’ll help you then, too. I can finance whatever you need to get your art career back on track. I can make this easier.”
His eyes darted around the room; he looked like he might bolt.
She took his hand again. Her voice was urgent. “Jake, listen to me—you can’t do this to Max. You can’t make him pay for your mistake. It’s not fair to him. Try to imagine what his life would be like with you guys always moving around, always on the run.” She tightened her hand on his. “I actually know exactly what that’s like, and it’s miserable. It’s no way for a kid to grow up. Please don’t do this to him.”
He stared at her, stricken. “But what about us?”
She glanced away. “Jake, I—”
“You and me. What about us?”
She looked back at him, tears in her eyes. “I’ve been over and over it and I just don’t think I can make myself feel that way any—”
He held up his hand, cutting her off. “Don’t,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything else. I get it.” He smiled sadly. “It was always a long shot anyway, right? Even before you knew I was a crook.”
She squeezed his hand. “But you’ll let me help you, right? You’ll let me do whatever needs to be done for Max?”
He took a deep breath and blew it out again. “Yes. Okay. I know you’re right. I was panicking. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
She smiled, relieved. “Don’t worry, okay? We’re going to take this one step at a time. We’re going to figure this all out, I promise.”
He smiled back at her, brought her hand to his mouth, and kissed it. “Thank you, Antonia,” he said. “I’m never going to forget this.”
“Okay,” she said, glancing at her watch. “Shit. I have to get back at the spa. They’re waiting for me. You’re still coming to the party, right?”
He nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Enzo stood nervously in front of Del Campo stables. He was decked out in a Team Stone jersey, white jeans, and riding boots. Lined up next to him were Raj, Lachlan, and David, all in their riding gear as well.
Alejandro, Sebastian, and Rory, their third player, were also in their La Victoria uniforms and standing next to the other team, waiting.
“She should be here any moment,” said Enzo. “I told Pilar to bring her down as soon as they got back.”
Alejandro glanced at Enzo and shook his head. “I am still not totally understanding what we are doing here. She wants to watch us play a game for her birthday? She has seen a million games.”
“I still don’t understand how we’re playing without a fourth guy,” said Sebastian.
David shook his head. “Mark’s going to kill us when he finds out we played a game without him.”
Enzo rolled his eyes. “Mark will be fine.” He looked at Sebastian. “You will understand soon, okay?” Then to Alejandro, “This is a special game. Just—Oh, here they come!”
Pilar, escorted by Lord Henderson, Benny, Georgia, Kat, and Noni, came walking down the driveway. The women made a pretty picture, all wearing their breezy summer clothes, laughing and chatting, not yet noticing the men standing in front of the stables.
Enzo knew the moment that Noni saw them. Her eyes met his and she froze. She seemed to understand his intentions immediately. Her cheeks flushed and the look in her eyes shifted between excited and alarmed.
As they walked up, Pilar looked at Enzo and winked. He smiled.
“What is all this?” said Benny, wrinkling her nose. “Polo? I didn’t know there’d be a game today.”
Enzo stepped toward Noni, keeping his hand hidden behind his back. “Happy birthday, Antonia,” he said, and offered her the vintage polo mallet he’d found in the antique store, all bound up with a red bow.
She reached for it, her eyes wide. Their hands met with a little shock of electricity.
He bent toward her. “You’ve got this,” he whispered.
He turned to the Del Campo team. “Gentlemen,” he said, “would you care to play a little stick and ball?”
* * *
After changing into her riding gear, Noni laughed nervously to herself as she mounted Sunny. She still couldn’t believe this was happening. It felt like a dream.
She wasn’t sure she was ready. She had been practicing as much as she could, but her time on the pitch had been short, and she hadn’t played with a team of any sort since she left Wellington.
Her brothers and Rory rode up on their mounts, flanking her.
“Apparently, I’m to be surrounded by Del Campos on all sides,” said Rory, grinning at her.
“I’m a Black,” she said automatically.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re looking awfully like a Del Campo to me right now, darling,” he said before he rode out to the pitch.
She looked at her brothers.
Seb shook his head. “None of us knew you played, niña,” he said. “Why didn’t you say something sooner? We could have been having so much fun.”
Noni bit her lip. “I…I didn’t think I was good enough.”
“I’m sure you will be fine. Don’t worry.” Seb wheeled his pony around and headed out to the pitch. “Jandro and I will protect you!” he yelled back over his shoulder. “We’ll take it very slow. We’ll play an easy game!”
Alejandro glanced at her, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I wonder if we’ll need to,” he murmured before he followed Sebastian out to the field.
Enzo came riding up then. She stared at him, suddenly shy. She had seen him ride a million times, but she’d never seen him in uniform. He looked beyond handsome.
He smiled at her beneath his riding helmet. That slow, dazzling smile that made her heart ache. “¿Estás bien, Noni?”
She looked at him. “I’m scared witless,” she admitted.
He laughed and shook his head. “Your brothers have no idea what you can do. They are going to be blown away.”
She bit her lip nervously. “I sincerely doubt that.”
He rode in a little closer. She fought the urge to reach out and touch him.
He leaned in and almost touched his cheek to hers. “You deserve to be out there,” he whispered. “This is in your blood, niña.”
* * *
Pilar acted as the referee at the throw-in. The players lined up parallel to one another.
Pilar stood stick straight, her skirt ruffling in the breeze. “Since we have a party to get to later,” she announced loudly, “this game will be abridged to four chukkas. All other usual rules apply.”
As soon as Pilar rolled in the ball, Raj burst through and sent it hurtling toward his goal. The players followed, thundering down the pitch.
Noni paused—just a split second—before she raced to follow, cursing herself as she fell behind.
David picked up Raj’s pass and changed the line of the ball, heading toward the goal. Sebastian charged forward, coming at David from an angle. He slammed his horse into David’s, bumping him out of the line.
“¡Lo siento, hombre!” he shouted with a grin as he passed the younger player by and took control of the ball.
But just as he turned and raised his arm to send the ball flying, Enzo came from behind and hooked Seb’s mallet with his own.
“¡Lo siento, homb
re!” echoed Enzo to Seb, giving his old employer a friendly mocking salute.
Raj cut in and picked the ball back up, and with one powerful stroke, sent it through the goal just as Pilar blew the whistle to signal the end of the first chukka.
Noni raised her mallet and gave a short cheer for the other team, but she felt humiliated. She’d hardly even made it into the fray. She hadn’t even touched the ball. She was trailing her team like a child. She was a disgrace.
* * *
It played out that way for two more chukkas. The teams were almost evenly matched, with the ball possession being equally shared on both sides.
Alejandro handed La Victoria two goals in the second chukka, thundering down the pitch so fast on his bay stallion that no one could keep up with him, and the Del Campos took the lead.
Then, in the third chukka, David paid Sebastian back in kind and bumped him, taking possession and making a point of his own, and Lachlan’s horse managed a pony goal when Rory accidentally drove the ball right under the horse’s feet and the pony kicked it right through.
Enzo watched Noni, worried. She wasn’t playing as badly as she had in the first chukka; she did manage to block a shot or two and to grab the ball once or twice, but she certainly wasn’t showing anyone what she was truly capable of, either.
Pilar blew the whistle for the end of the third chukka, and the teams went off the fields for fresh mounts.
Enzo knew that it was nerves, not a lack of skill, that hindered Noni. She was standing to the side, fiddling with her boot while she waited for a fresh mount, very obviously avoiding her brothers.
For a moment, Enzo wanted to go to her, comfort her, offer her words of advice.
But then the groom brought her Hex, and at the sight of the little black mare, Noni’s face lit up. She rubbed the horse’s nose and pressed her forehead against the pony’s neck.
The determined look in Antonia’s eyes as she swung up on the pony told Enzo to stay where he was.
He thought this chukka might be different.
* * *
Every polo player, even the very best, would say that their pony was at least 80 percent of their game. Bad pony, bad game. Great pony, and you were basically unstoppable.
Pretty much all of the Del Campo ponies were great ponies. They all had impeccable bloodlines; they had all been trained and groomed from the time they were tiny foals to be the top athletes they were today.
But for Noni, some were greater than others. And no pony was better than Hex.
Noni had fallen for Hex from the very first day she walked into the Del Campo stables. She remembered it like it was yesterday. The long, terrible flight from Berlin to Florida, sitting next to Alejandro, feigning sleep, afraid to talk to her big brother lest he find out just how much of a mess she truly was.
She had hoped to outrun the fresh pain of losing Max and Jacob. She had hoped for a place to hide and lick her wounds. She thought she would take the money that her father had left her and go somewhere far, far away. Maybe even back to New Mexico. She’d wondered if the little adobe house with the red clay roof and blue tiled floors was somehow still there and miraculously available.
When she followed Jandro into the barn, it became obvious to her almost immediately that everyone in that barn knew, if not all of her secrets, at least enough to judge her.
Every eye in the place had turned to her when she walked through those doors; the hush over the barn was palpable. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to leave. Flee. Get on that plane and go all the way back to her cold bed in Berlin. She didn’t think she could stand it. She turned away, blindly petting a horse through its stall door, trying to ignore all the attention on her.
A movement caught her eye and she shifted just in time to see a tall, dark man staring at her from across the barn, and the shiny black pony next to him as it snaked its head out and nipped him right on the neck.
He cussed, surprised, and Noni heard herself laugh before she could stop it. Her eyes met the man’s, and then she looked at his pony, and she somehow felt drawn to them both.
Antonia remembered her conversation with Enzo that day and knew that it was the beginning of both their friendship and their attraction. But something else she remembered from those first few moments in the barn—the way that little black pony’s eyes had seemed to mysteriously echo her own feelings.
That pony wanted out of the barn, just like Antonia. That pony wanted to escape. And maybe it was as simple as a high-spirited beast tired of being locked up and longing to run free in the fields, but for Noni, it seemed much more profound. For her, it as if Hex were the only living thing in the barn that truly understood her. As she had stood there and scratched the little horse’s ears and received an affectionate nibble in return, Noni fell just a little bit in love.
After Jandro had finished giving her a tour of the barn, Noni walked out back and spied Enzo and Hex galloping across the field in the distance. They were spectacularly beautiful. They moved so gracefully together that Noni imagined that they might sprout wings at any moment and take to the sky.
She stood, frozen in place, watching them canter from one end of the field to the other, the tall, dark, handsome man and the radiantly shining black horse. For the first time since Jacob had left, Noni felt something flutter through her that she had been certain she would never feel again. She felt something that she would almost call joy.
* * *
With Hex under her, nothing could stop her. She was flying down the pitch, her stick in hand, slamming into Raj, sending the big man and his horse off the line of the ball. Then she was hooking David’s mallet as he tried for an offside shot, allowing Sebastian to pick up the ball and send it hurtling toward the goal. Then she was sailing through the air again, feeling the little pony’s joy and ferocity and feverish enthusiasm for the game. She caught that ball as Enzo deflected it from the goal and sent it right back past him, scoring the winning point just as Pilar blew her whistle.
Her team cheered wildly as she and Hex spun around, triumphant.
Alejandro galloped up to her, beaming. “Well, I would say we found our fourth,” he said, laughing.
Noni gasped, disbelieving, almost dizzy with joy.
“Oh boy,” said Rory, shaking his head with a grin, “a whole team of Del Campos.”
“¡Hermana!” shouted Sebastian. “What a play! Who the hell knew you could do that?”
“I did,” said Enzo softly as he rode up next to her. His face was alight with pride.
She couldn’t help herself. She didn’t even think. She just leaned off her horse and threw her arms around the man she loved and kissed him with all the wild happiness in her soul.
They broke the kiss with a gasp, still touching forehead to forehead. “Thank you,” Noni breathed.
“It was all you, niña,” he said.
“And Hex.” She grinned, patting the little pony underneath her.
“And Hex,” he agreed.
“All right, all right, basta,” said Pilar as she walked onto the pitch. “All very impressive, but you all need to go home and change for the party. Get going.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Kat and Georgia had picked out something special for Noni to wear that night. They knew her dislike of skirts and dresses, so they found a simple pair of flowing black slacks and paired it with a scoop-neck black tank top, sparkling with silver threaded embroidery, and a pair of open-toed silver heels to match.
Noni looked in the mirror and sighed happily. Her hair was as lank and unmanageable as ever, and she couldn’t decide what color lipstick she should wear, but the glow of the game was still on her face, and for once she actually kind of liked what she saw reflected back at her.
She went to the window and peeked out at the garden in the backyard. It looked enchanted, all lit up with candles, gold and silver paper lanterns strung through the air, and sparkling fairy lights entwined in every tree and shrub. It had been a warm day, and the summer fireflies
were out, flitting from place to place, pulsing gold and green as they hovered in all the nooks and crevices of the yard.
There was a knock on her door and Pilar slipped in. The older woman was wearing a long white gown, spangled with curls of gold sequins that twisted in an undulating pattern down her dress. She wore enormous yellow diamonds in her ears and sparkling at her wrist. She sat down on Noni’s bed and looked her over from head to toe, nodding in approval.
“Que bonita,” she said. “And somehow not a dog hair to be seen.”
The dogs in question rushed over to her, wagging their tails. Pilar smiled begrudgingly and gave them each a pat. “I guess you are not so bad when you are not harassing mis perritos,” she said.
Noni laughed. “The garden looks spectacular, Pilar. Thank you so much.”
Pilar waved her off. “Pfft,” she said, “all smoke and mirrors. A few tea lights here, a few roses there. Anyone could do it.”
“No,” said Noni, and she approached the older woman and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Only you.”
Pilar’s cheeks flushed pink with pleasure and she gently shoved Noni away. “Ay, dios mio, what a fuss.”
Noni laughed and went back to her dressing table, holding up one lipstick and then the other. “You know,” she said, trying to sound casual but wanting Pilar to know just how much this all meant to her, “this is the first time anyone has ever actually thrown me a party.”
At those words, Pilar went very still, and an odd expression came over her face. “Well,” she said finally, “then I suppose it is about time that somebody did.”
Noni smiled and dug through her mess of a jewelry box, trying to find proper earrings for her outfit.
“So, Enzo after all, eh?” said Pilar, watching Noni in the mirror.
Noni blushed. “I don’t know. I…I hope so. There is still a lot that needs to be worked out.”
“And Max?”
“I think…I think he might stay with me. At least for a while.”
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