HASALYNX PRESS
Read Romance Ebooks Legally — Anytime, Online, With a Monthly Subscription

Chapter 1. The Jetty at Puerto Edén

The truck coughed twice before the engine caught, a familiar complaint that I'd learned to interpret as a question rather than a refusal. I patted the dashboard once, a habit I'd picked up from my grandfather, and eased the old Chevrolet onto the muddy track that wound away from the estancia buildings. The autumn sun hung low and pale behind a curtain of grey cloud, casting everything in that particular soft light that made the lenga trees along the ridgeline look like they were burning from the inside out. Gold and bronze and rust, the colours of decay and transition, of things letting go before the winter took hold.

I had the window down despite the cold, because the cab smelled of wet wool and the dried mud that had caked onto my boots from the morning's rounds. The wind came off the fjord in sharp gusts, carrying the iodine bite of low tide and the distant, earthy sweetness of the forest. I breathed it in and felt something in my chest loosen, the way it always did when I left the paperwork behind and put my hands on the wheel. The road was a ribbon of dark mud between walls of lenga and ñire, the leaves underfoot a sodden carpet that muffled the sound of the tyres. I passed the turnoff to the southern pastures, where the cattle were gathered for the winter rotation, and kept heading west toward the coast.

The veterinary supplies were supposed to have arrived on the weekly boat from Puerto Montt, a shipment of antibiotics and dewormers and the calcium supplement that old Martín's favourite milk cow needed if she was going to make it through another winter. The estancia's credit was stretched thin, and the vet in Coyhaique had made that clear in the clipped tone of his last letter. I'd called in a favour with the harbour master in Puerto Edén, a man who'd known my grandfather since before I was born, and he'd agreed to hold the shipment until I could collect it. That was the official reason for the drive, the practical one I'd given the cook and the foreman.

But the real reason, the one I didn't say aloud, was simpler. I needed to get out of the house, away from the quiet ticking of the clock in my grandfather's study, away from the stack of unpaid invoices that sat on my desk like a reproach. I needed to feel the wind on my face and remind myself why I'd come back to this place, this wild and indifferent coast that had shaped my blood and bones long before I'd ever understood what it meant to belong anywhere.

The road dropped steeply toward the village, and the fjord opened up before me, a vast expanse of grey-green water that stretched to the distant mountains. The sky was low and heavy, the clouds bruised with the threat of rain that never quite arrived, and the surface of the water was whipped into a hundred thousand whitecaps by the constant wind. Puerto Edén huddled against the shore like a creature seeking shelter, its wooden houses clustered together against the weather, their roofs steeply pitched and their walls weathered to a soft silver-grey. The jetty extended into the water like a finger pointing toward the open sea, and I could see the fishing boats bobbing at their moorings, their nets hung to dry on makeshift poles that swayed in the gusts.

I parked the truck at the edge of the village and walked the rest of the way, my boots squelching in the mud that had turned the main street into a slurry of damp earth and fallen leaves. The air was thick with the smell of woodsmoke, the sharp resin of cypress burning in the stoves, and the salt of the sea, and I felt myself slow down, my shoulders dropping from where they'd been hunched against the tension of the past weeks. The jetty was busier than I'd expected, a cluster of men and women gathered around the moored boats, their voices rising and falling in the rhythm of work. A woman in a heavy wool coat was bargaining with a fisherman over a crate of mussels, her hands gesturing emphatically, and two boys were wrestling with a tangle of rope that had snagged on one of the pilings.

I made my way toward the harbour master's shed, a small wooden structure that listed slightly to one side, and was halfway there when I saw him.

He was unloading bags of feed from the deck of a fishing boat, a lancha with peeling paint and a name I couldn't read from this distance. The bags were heavy, fifty-kilo sacks of grain that would have been a struggle for most men, but he lifted them with an easy grace that spoke of strength that came from a lifetime of hard work. He wore a poncho of deep burgundy and charcoal, the wool thick and heavy, its edges frayed from years of use, and when he turned to swing another bag onto his shoulder, the wind caught the fabric and pressed it against the lean planes of his body.

I stopped walking. I didn't mean to stop, didn't plan it, but my feet simply refused to move, and I stood there on the damp planks of the jetty like a fool, staring at a stranger who hadn't even noticed me.

His hair was the colour of copper, thick and unruly, falling into his eyes in deep waves that the wind lifted and tumbled. His skin was weathered tan, the kind of tan that came from days spent in the open, and there was a grace to his movements that I couldn't quite name. He was tall, lean but powerful, and when he turned to reach for another bag, I caught a glimpse of his face. High cheekbones, a sharp jaw, and eyes that were a pale, sharp amber, like the last light of sunset caught in a pool of water.

He looked up then, as if he'd felt my gaze, and our eyes met across the length of the jetty.

The world went very still. The wind continued to blow, the water continued to slap against the pilings, but I was aware of none of it. I was aware only of him, of the weight of his gaze, of the way his head tilted slightly as if he were trying to place me, to understand something about me that he couldn't quite name. His eyes were ancient and young at the same time, carrying a weight that didn't belong to a man his age, and I felt something shift in my chest, a recognition that made no sense.

Then he moved toward me. Not quickly, not with the urgency of someone who had business with me, but with the slow, deliberate pace of a man who had all the time in the world and was choosing to spend a moment of it on a stranger. The wind lifted the edges of his poncho as he walked, and I caught the scent of him even at a distance. Woodsmoke and wet wool and something else, something wild and untamed that made my pulse quicken and my breath catch in my throat.

"You're the Huilcaman girl," he said when he reached me, and his voice was low and gravelly, with a soft accent that I couldn't quite place. "The one who runs the estancia now."

I found my voice somewhere in the back of my throat. "I'm Roberta. Roberta Huilcaman. And you are?"

He didn't answer right away. He studied me with those amber eyes, and I had the uncomfortable sensation that he was seeing more than I wanted him to see, that he could read the exhaustion in my face and the worry in my shoulders and the loneliness I carried like a stone in my pocket. His gaze was an assessment, but not an unkind one, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost gentle.

"Mateo Mansilla. I work with the horses. Your foreman hired me last month."

"Ah." I nodded, though I didn't remember the foreman mentioning a new trainer. But then, I'd been so buried in paperwork and worry that I might not have noticed a horse walking through my office. "The stallion from the south. I heard he's difficult."

"He's afraid." He said it simply, without judgment. "He was beaten before they sent him here. He doesn't trust people. He needs to learn that not every hand that reaches for him means him harm."

I thought about that for a moment, about the weight of those words and the way they seemed to carry meaning beyond the simple facts of a difficult horse. "That's a lot of patience."

He looked at me then, really looked, and something flickered in his eyes. A recognition, perhaps, or an understanding. "Patience is what he needs. It's what most things need, if you want them to heal."

I didn't know what to say to that. The wind picked up, whipping my hair across my face, and I reached up to tuck it behind my ear. He watched the movement, his gaze following my hand, and I felt the weight of his attention like a physical thing.

"Your supplies," he said, and the words were so unexpected that I blinked. "You're here for the veterinary shipment. I saw the crate on the boat. It's heavy."

"How do you know that?"

He shrugged, a small, almost dismissive movement. "I was there when it was loaded. The harbour master asked me to help with the bags. There's a note from the vet in Coyhaique, something about the calcium supplement being back-ordered."

Of course there was. I sighed, a long, slow exhale that carried the weight of all the frustrations of the past weeks. "Of course it is. Because that's how this month has gone."

"Let me carry it for you."

I opened my mouth to refuse. I was a grown woman, capable of carrying my own supplies, and the last thing I wanted was to look like I needed help, like I was too weak or too soft or too much a city girl to handle the work of running an estancia. But he was already moving, his long strides carrying him back toward the boat, and I stood there on the jetty watching him hoist the crate onto his shoulder like it weighed nothing.

He returned to my side and gestured with his free hand toward the village. "Where's your truck?"

I led him through the muddy streets, past the wooden houses with their steep roofs and the children playing in the puddles, and I was acutely aware of him behind me, of the sound of his boots on the wet earth and the faint scent of woodsmoke that clung to his clothes. When we reached the truck, he set the crate down in the bed with a thud that shook the suspension, and I fumbled in my pocket for the keys.

"Thank you," I said, and I meant it. "That was kind of you."

He didn't answer. He stood there in the autumn light, his amber eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle, and I felt the weight of his presence like a hand on my shoulder. The wind lifted his hair, and I noticed the silver ring on his thumb, a simple band carved with a pattern I couldn't quite make out.

"Mateo," I said, the name feeling strange and right on my tongue. "Will you be at the estancia again soon?"

His expression flickered, a brief shadow passing behind his eyes. "I don't stay in one place for long. I work where I'm needed. When the stallion is trained, I'll move on."

"To where?"

He looked past me, toward the fjord, toward the distant mountains that rose and fell like the spine of a sleeping beast. "The land doesn't care about my plans. I go where the seasons take me. That's always been enough."

I wanted to ask more, to press him on what he meant, but he was already stepping back, already turning away, and the words died in my throat.

"Be careful, Roberta Huilcaman," he said over his shoulder, and his voice was low and soft, almost a whisper. "The autumn storms are coming. The road back to the estancia can be treacherous."

And then he was gone, disappearing into the shifting mist that had rolled in from the fjord, his burgundy and charcoal poncho a last flash of colour before the grey swallowed him whole. I stood there in the cold, the wind whipping my hair across my face, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd met him before. Not in this life, not in any way I could name, but somewhere deeper. In a dream, in another life, in the ancient memory of the land itself.

I drove back to the estancia in the gathering dark, the crate of supplies rattling in the bed of the truck, and I couldn't stop replaying the moment our eyes had met across the jetty. There had been something there, something electric and undeniable, and I knew, with a certainty that made no logical sense, that I would find a reason to see him again.