A storyline from the past. Who remembers?

The sun was just rising over the distant hills...Paloma stood on the balcony outside her bedroom...She had just bathed and her dark hair was still damp... Flowing down her back and over her hips in an undulating ebony tide. The fragrance of mimosa clung to her, sweet and beguiling, it confused the honey bees just getting about their daily chores of collecting pollen.

Her dark brown gaze swept over the land...This was her home, this place of rolling fertile hills, olive groves and small vineyards full of lucious grapes just ready for harvest. She could almost taste the wine that those grapes would eventually be made into.

Turning her eyes turned toward the stable. She could hear the blooded Andalusian horses pawing at their stall floors restlessly. Nickering impatiently as grooms and stable boys hurried toward their morning tasks. For a moment a smile flickered across her full lips. And in that smile, was a happiness that only the horses could bring her. She loved them as she loved nothing else on this earth...Well, almost nothing else.But she hurridly pushed that thought away before it could make her gasp with desire and a longing that sometimes threatend to rip her assunder.

For a moment her lashes shuttered down to block out her arresting obsidian gaze...Dark cresents against the blush perfection of her cheeks, translucent lids hiding from the world her nethermost thoughts. A deep breath made her breast rise and fall as she fought to regain her composure. And in that moment, her stillness against the morning air gave away that she was not a statue carved by an over indulgent, loving hand. But woman, flesh and bone, sinew and muscle.

Once again her lashes rose and she continued to look across the acres of Aguas Bravas. There, just a short distance from the horse barn, stood the paddock of the bulls. She watched the activity there, black bulls snorting and pawing the earth. Their hot blood and impatience almost palpable on the subtle morning breeze. Their fury was barely contained....black hides glistening in the ever increasing dawn...Muscles twitching and jumping, eyes, though deep and abyssmal black, took on a red tint as your gazed at them. As if, in their rage, their blood boiled and left it's trace within their corneas. These bulls were the pride of the Spanish bull ring. Much in demand and commanding a fantastic price. Angus Bravas bulls promised a good fight and brought in huge crowds. And over seeing these mighty beasts...One who's wit and will and temper matched their own. El Torro himself, Sebastian.

One slender, olive tinted hand strayed out toward the iron rail of the balcony...Curling delicate fingers around it's cold unyeilding surface. The knuckles turned white, showing that her calm and almost placid demeanor did not tell all. There was turmoil in this woman, turmoil, hurt, love unrequited, passion unspent. There was strength of will and stubborness, a temper as hot and firey as molten lava spilling down the side of Mount Vesuvius. She was fire and she was ice.....And finally she was home.

And so continues her story...