After I moved into the corporate apartment I met a woman at the pool and we became friends. Mostly we would lie in the sun together and chitchat. In June of that year she introduced me to a gentleman by the name of Steve. All she had told me about this person was that they were friends and he was staying with her until he found a place of his own.
Often I would see Steve in the common parking area, dumping trash, or walking by the pool. On several occasions I would see him walk by my apartment, which faced a lake. The walkway ran in front of my apartment so I never thought anything about it. Steve was always friendly and said hello. One day when I was dumping trash he started a conversation by asking me how I liked Arizona. I told him I loved it here and had no regrets leaving California. He then told me that he had lived in California for a number of years. I noticed that he always wore western attire so I ask him about his belt buckle. He said that he had won it calf roping. I went on to tell him that I was born and raised on a quarter horse ranch in Oregon and that I had won a state championship barrel racing. It seemed we had a number of things in common. I found Steve to be warm, charming, friendly, and he looked like he was right out of GQ Magazine.
One Sunday afternoon in June I came home and found a lovely card on my door from Steve. Inside was a note asking me to page him. It also went on to say that he would like to take me out to dinner. Since I didn’t have any plans that evening I paged him and agreed to go out to dinner.
We went to a lovely restaurant up on a hill that over looked Phoenix. The dinner and conversation was truly wonderful and I found myself intrigued by the person. Our backgrounds were discussed and it did appear that we had a lot in common. In hindsight I had pretty much told Steve my entire life history. This was mistake number one. He told me that he had graduated from ASU with a degree in constructual engineering, owned his own land and cattle company, that he was currently building his new home on 5 acres, and that he had a ranch in the White Mountains and a condo in Mexico. I came from a very prominent family in California so I wasn’t impressed with what he had. I was only looking at the person and what he had inside. Two years later I would find out that everything he told me were lies.
Go To Page: 1 2
