I hated who I was and what I’d done.

I thought, If I only had another chance, and then my head cracked against something hard, and when the darkness came, I welcomed it.

When I opened my eyes, an interesting man wearing a baseball cap was leaning over me and feeling the back of my head, and very interesting sensations were buzzing through me. The man was extremely cute, but I was feeling strangely woozy. “Excuse me,” I said, and tried to scoot away from him.

“You hit your head and blacked out.” His dark-lashed gray eyes peered into mine. “Your pupils look all right now.”

I felt as if I’d been suddenly awakened, and I couldn’t grasp exactly where I was and what I’d been doing. I looked up and saw trees and then turned my head and saw lush fields of grass and wildflowers, which was perplexing.

“Let’s get you up,” the man said, and took my arm.

The fun buzzy feeling returned at the contact, which made me wonder if I was high.

“Am I supposed to stand if I’ve had a concussion? What if all the blood rushes to my head and I die?”

“You haven’t yet and a bump to the head isn’t going to do it,” he said as he pulled me up.

Then I glanced down at myself and screamed. I jumped away from the man. “What kind of sick freak are you to dress me like this? Did you drop a roofie on me? Because I know people—”

“Milagro, calm down.”

He knew my name, but I stayed out of his reach. I glanced around at a vineyard with swaths of lupine, blue-eyed Susans, buttercups, and golden poppies growing between the rows of vines. There were California live oaks just beyond. I was in wine country.

Then I took another look at the man. He was just under six feet tall, lean and eminently boinkable, and so I tried to recall if I had boinked him. What else could I have done?

“It was a wild night, wasn’t it?” I said, trying not to sound as scared and bewildered as I felt. “Alas, a girl must get home to her very concerned and proactive friends. They’ve probably already filed a police report that I’m missing. Do you know where my purse is?”

“You didn’t bring one inside. Check your truck,” he said, pointing toward a humongous white vehicle.

“Ha, ha, and ha. I don’t have a truck and certainly not a gas-guzzler like this atrocity.” I put my hand in my pocket and felt a few bills.

“Milagro, this isn’t funny.”

“I’m well aware of its unfunnyness,” I said haughtily. “Very nice knowing you—not!—and I’ll, um, well, it’s been real and it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun.”