A/N: This is a story I have been working on since May, and the more I write it the more I realized I did not want it to be just a one-shot. So, after consulting tumblr, I decided to post it as a series of min-chapters. Because I have so much already written, I plan to update on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I hope you guys enjoy!

This is a Maya moves to Texas AU. I know the lovely lucaya is in the middle of archer city, texas and tiramisuspice just began The Art of Seduction. Both writers are fabulous, so go check out their work!

Lucas first met her on the third Sunday of September, surrounded by spring flowers and tendrils of summer blonde hair.

It was almost sunset, the sky taking on the orange hue that indicated the end of a perfectly good weekend. He had been out riding, ignoring his father's warning that if he did not finish his chores by nightfall Lucas would have more things to worry about then winning Friday's football game. He had just been about to turn back to the stables when he saw her lying with her back resting on one of the only trees with a trunk wide enough to lean on and a sketchbook in hand.

Her hair matched the gold of the sky as it fell down her back in spiral waves, and her hands moved with choreographed fluidity, like liquid and solid fighting for dominance at the tip of the pen. It might have been sunset, but this girl opened up a new horizon

Of course, at the time Lucas had no way of knowing that.

With a cocky grin quirking at the edge of his lips, the country boy trotted over with all the swagger a high school sophomore could muster, his pride only slightly wounded when the girl did not immediately look up from her drawing.

"I believe this is private property you're trespassing on, m'am," Lucas said, still smirking.

The girl still did not look up, her pencil still dancing across the sketch, but spoke in a voice lower than he would have thought, "I didn't see a sign."

"That's because everyone around here knows this is my land," the tanned-teen said. "And something tells me that you, darling, aren't from here."

Even if it wasn't for the fact that Lucas had spent his whole life in the small, rural town of Buda just outside of Austin, Texas, it would not take a genius to know this girl did not belong amongst the boot-leg jeans and belt-buckles. One look at her leopard-print ankle boots, better designed to ride the subway than a horse, and the shiny leather jacket covering her arms despite the heat was enough to tell that wherever this girl was from, it was not the south.

She finally looked up from her sketch, meeting Lucas' gaze with a pair of startling blue eyes. There were a lot of blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls in Texas, but none of the ones Lucas knew had ever had such a sharp stare or wildly curled hair. She raised a thick, well-groomed eyebrow at him.

"Oh? Ya going to kick me off then, cowboy?" she asked, voice neither flirtatious nor annoyed. "Because I was told there was something called hospitality in the south."

Lucas raised his hands in the air from his place on top his horse, still studying her face. He couldn't place her slight accent, but he assumed it was from somewhere in the northeast-his momma had told him about their sharp tongues.

"By all means, stay as long as you want," He knew his dad would not be happy if he knew that Lucas wasn't going to kick her off their land, but that made letting her stay all the more appealing. "But I should warn you not to stay too late after dark. That's when the coyotes come out."

"You're joking." the girl deadpanned. When Lucas did not answer her, she gave a rueful laugh and shook her head. "This place just keeps getting better and better."

Lucas stepped down from his horse, holding the reins in his hands as he gave a casual shrug. "I mean, I could stay around here and protect you-you could doodle in your little diary all night long if you wanted- but it is going to cost you."

The blonde girl let out a disgusted noise as she promptly got up. She was shorter than Lucas would have thought, no taller than 5'1 despite the heels of her boots, and before he could tell what was happening she kicked him so hard in the knee that he had to let go of the reigns as his leg gave out.

Lucas cried out in pain as she walked away with her sketchbook in hand, with a swing of her hips no girl in Texas would ever be able to mimic, and it took Lucas a moment to realize why he had been assaulted in the first place.

"Your name!" he cried out as he got up, trying to cool his heated cheeks. "I meant your name!"

The girl did not answer him. Instead she made her way to the nearby barbed wire fence, and climbed over it as if she had been doing so her entire life, turning back one last time to wave her middle finger high in the air before walking off.