“Look,” she said as she led him around to the back of the house. “Nice cool water for you and for me.”
She drank deeply from the tin cup, wondering how late it really was. She had lost track of time, knew only that the ride had helped purge her of the pain and sadness she’d felt earlier. She looped Sebastian’s reins over the hitching rail beside the trough and went into the hacienda through the back kitchen door.
Her flashlight illuminated the big kitchen table and then the front room, but its beam revealed no glimmer of gold, no necklace. She wasn’t eager to prolong her stay, so she moved on to the room where she’d photographed the jumble of antiques. Almost immediately she spotted the reflection of light on metal between two boxes. She pushed one aside and picked up the necklace, noting that the catch was broken. Not a problem; it could easily be mended.
Suddenly she heard the swift approach of hoofbeats and, alarmed, she switched off the flashlight and hurried to the front room. She clutched the broken chain in her hand in sudden apprehension, knowing she was vulnerable here.
At first she thought of hiding in the darkness, but that was pointless. Anyone who entered would spot Sebastian out the kitchen window in back and know that someone was in this deserted house.
She heard the thud of boots across the wide wooden floor of the veranda, and the door was flung open wide. A solid figure blocked the doorway, features indistinguishable. “Erica? What the hell are you doing here?”
It was Hank! Her heart pounding in her chest, she switched on the flashlight beam and focused it on the figure standing there.
Hank’s fists were clenched tightly at his sides, and his face was flushed with anger. “What do you think you’re doing, taking Sebastian out like this? Don’t you realize that he’s a lot of horse, too much horse for you? You have no business riding him, none at all.”
His tone infuriated her, but her annoyance was overlaid by relief that he wasn’t with Lizette. The thought gave her a jubilant feeling that far outweighed her chagrin at being caught in a lie about her experience as a rider.
“I, um, know how to ride pretty well,” she allowed, staring at him through the beam of light.
He stared back. He wore a down vest over the blue plaid shirt she recognized from the dance. When he pushed his hat back on his head, she saw that his hair was endearingly mussed, from the wind or from being with a woman, she couldn’t tell.
“You’re not a beginner rider,” he said heavily. “I should have known.”
“I’m sorry, Hank, if I upset you by taking Sebastian out. But it had been so long since I’d ridden and I was sure I could handle him and—”
“And you were feeling rebellious after I left you on the porch.”
She was surprised at the accuracy of Hank’s insight. “Yes,” she said softly. “Perhaps I was.”
“Don’t you realize the danger of what you did? It’s nighttime, and you don’t know the terrain.”
Her chin shot up. “There’s a full moon, and Sebastian knows the territory.”
“That horse can go along as calmly as you please, and then he’ll cut loose in a way you never expected. It’s not safe for you to ride him.”
“We understand each other, Sebastian and I.” She glared at Hank, daring him to challenge her.
He exhaled deeply, shaking his head in consternation. She stuffed the necklace into a pocket and flicked off the flashlight, leaving them standing in a pool of moonlight.
Erica decided to cut to the chase, Her problem was that she’d thought Hank was with another woman tonight, so perhaps she thought she might as well confront him head-on.
“You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend, Hank,” she said.
He stiffened and flushed. “Lizette isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Does she know that?”
“She should by now.” He spoke with quiet firmness, which under any other circumstances would probably have convinced her that he spoke the truth.
She felt herself relaxing slightly. “I want to believe you,” she said.
“Look, Erica, what happened back on that porch…I didn’t expect Lizette to show up. I didn’t like the way she spoke to you. I wanted her gone, so I did my best to hustle her away. I went by Desert Rose after I left her, but you weren’t there. If you had been, I would have explained. As it was—” he shrugged “—I saw you ride off on Sebastian. Here I am. I’m not with her, and I don’t want to be.”
All the anger drained out of her when she looked at him standing there, his face raw with emotion, his manner open and direct. She believed him.
She heaved a giant sigh. “We’d better get back to the stable.” It was well after midnight, and she felt drained.
“Not so fast. Let’s sit down and relax for a moment.”
“I don’t know, Hank. It’s late.”
To her surprise, he took her hand. “It’s not too late,” he said softly, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the time of night. He led her to the cot, and she sat down beside him, keeping a fair distance between them. Their faces and bodies were dappled by the moonlight sifting through the branches of the tamarisk windbreak outside, and all thoughts of Lizette evaporated from her head.
His tone changed to a cajoling one. “There’s no need to rush back now that I know you’re not in imminent danger of being thrown from a horse. Now that I’ve explained myself, why don’t you tell me how you happen to be able to ride Sebastian so well.”
She was grateful that he was keeping his tone light and had changed the subject. She sent a cautious edge-wise glance in his direction only to discover that he was staring curiously at her.
“Well?” he said.
“I took lots of riding lessons when I was a kid.”
He sighed. “All right. Why did you pretend you had little riding experience?”
Erica considered this. In business situations when her bluff was called, she’d learned that it was better to come clean than attempt to cover up. “I wanted…Oh, hell. I wanted to get to know you.”
She avoided his eyes by staring across the width of the room, but he raised a hand to cup her chin and turned her face toward him. His eyes were deep and lustrous, their expression one of extreme interest overlaid with a kind of wry amusement. “You wanted to get to know me? Would that be in the biblical sense or would you place the checkmark under ‘other’?”
She tried to wrest her head away, but he only brought his other hand up so that her face was captured between them. She was so close that if he leaned forward only slightly, their lips would touch. She swallowed. What would he think if she told him that in her fantasies, she had made love with him more than once? What if he knew that as far as she was concerned, he was the perfect cowboy, the subject of her daydreams ever since she was a kid?
“Erica, won’t you please answer me?”
“It seems as if no matter how I answer, I’ll sound like a nutcase. Let’s put it this way—I always wanted to know a real cowboy.”
He said nothing. She didn’t know why. He released her and drew away, bending forward so that his elbows rested on his thighs. “A real cowboy,” he repeated heavily after a few seconds. And then, under his breath, “Touché.”
He said the word so softly that she thought she might have been mistaken. Anyway, what did he mean?
“Erica,” he said, and he was going to tell her the truth until he glanced back over his shoulder and looked deep into her eyes. In their depths he detected a yearning, a longing for connection. He smelled honeysuckle, realized that her lips were moist and slightly parted, her eyes fringed with long dark lashes. In that moment he was overcome with a longing of his own, one more physical than emotional.
He straightened and without saying another word, he slid his arms around her and waited until her face tilted upward. It was a beautiful face, full of wonder and delight as she gazed tremulously at him. He saw her as if through a pure lucent light from far away, his perceptions trembling on the verge of something new and not unwelcome
.
“Erica,” he said in surprise, a bit more shakily this time, and then his embrace became fiercely possessive as he sought her lips. When he found them, when her mouth blossomed beneath his, he realized how glad he was to have followed her here. He felt himself leaning into the kiss, deepening it, making it last. The whole world was, in those moments, that kiss. He was sure he could go on kissing Erica Strong forever if the fates allowed it.
When he released her, she gasped softly and closed her eyes, resting her forehead lightly against his. “We should do this again sometime,” she said with a little laugh.
“Right about now,” he agreed, and kissed her again. His arms pressed her to his chest, and he could feel the soft roundness of her breasts, imagine the taut peaks of her nipples beneath his fingertips if he dared to be so bold.
He would have dared, but the fates decided not to allow it, after all. They heard the sound of something tearing loose out back, a thump, and other noises not as identifiable.
They broke apart. “What was that?” Erica yelped as they both leaped off the cot.
He made it across the floor in two strides. She followed, her heart in her mouth.
“I don’t know, Erica, but I’m sure it has something to do with that fool horse,” Hank said.
Chapter Eight
“Sebastian’s gone,” Hank said flatly when they reached the doorway.
“I wrapped the reins over the hitching rail.” She switched on the flashlight and looked around wildly for some sight of the horse.
“Look, the wood is rotten.” Hank bent and picked up the broken rail. She saw that it was full of termite holes.
“It seemed solid enough in the moonlight.”
Hank let out an exasperated sigh. “Justine won’t take it lightly if we’ve lost her horse.” He tossed the rail onto a nearby rubbish heap.
“I’m sorry.”
Hank wheeled and walked around to the front. His horse, Whip, stood silently, ears aimed in the direction of the road.
“Sebastian can’t have gone far. He’s probably right outside the windbreak.” Hank swung up into the saddle. “I’ll go have a look and be right back.”
Erica watched as Hank disappeared up the narrow track. The sounds of the night seemed to close in upon her—the rustling of creatures in the thick underbrush, the breeze whispering through the tamarisk leaves. She wrapped her arms around herself, thinking she deserved a prize for stupidity. She should have made sure that Sebastian was securely tethered.
But perhaps Hank was right. Maybe Sebastian hadn’t gone far, after all.
HANK TROTTED Whip toward the road, keeping a sharp eye out for a horse shape in the shadows of the tamarisks. Nothing. Sebastian would probably have headed back toward the ranch, and while this was a logical assumption, there was nothing logical about Sebastian.
Hank tried not to sound discouraged when he went back for Erica. She waited for him on the front porch, looking pale and concerned. “Any sign of him?”
He shook his head. “He might’ve gone back to the ranch, but we can’t count on that. If he didn’t, I suggest we take the truck and go looking for him. The headlights will pick him out a lot faster than the beam of a flashlight.”
“I wish I—”
He swung out of the saddle and placed a gentle finger across her lips to silence her. A lazy finger traced the line of her cheek. “I wish we hadn’t been interrupted by Sebastian’s escape.”
She couldn’t speak, mesmerized as she was by his deep voice and his touch. His finger paused on her chin, swept upward again to her lips. “Where did you learn to kiss like you mean it?” he murmured as if to himself.
Her lips parted under the weight of his finger, and she felt his fingernail graze her teeth. Every cell in her body seemed to be on alert; every nerve ending sparkled with energy. His hand went around to cup the back of her head, pulling her toward him. She went willingly and found herself crushed against him, her curves matching the hard-muscled contours of his body, her mouth opening to his. His lips devoured her, and she was more than willing to submit. Oh, she would have done anything he wanted, anything he liked, with his hands running down her back, pausing at the hollow of her waist, moving up to curve around her breasts, all the while kissing her masterfully and demandingly.
His mouth left hers, left her gasping, and he buried his face in her hair. “Damn you, Erica, for not being more careful with that horse. He’ll be fine, no doubt, but will I?”
It took her a moment to register that he was joking, albeit halfheartedly. “Come along, we’d better hotfoot it back to the ranch, and I hope to heaven Sebastian is there. If so, we can lock him in his stall and I can ravish you further.” He pulled away and straightened the collar of her blouse. Her heart was pounding so hard that she didn’t even move. All she could do was cling to him and marvel at the chemistry that had been unleashed between them.
He boosted her up on the saddle, then mounted Whip behind her. He clucked gently to the horse and turned him toward the ranch.
“Comfortable?” Hank asked as she nestled back against his warm, solid chest. The motion of the horse was soothing; she swayed against Hank with each step.
“Very” was all she said, and then she focused on the stars glittering across the black dome of the sky, a sky that seemed somehow less vast than it had only an hour ago.
THE CLUSTER OF ranch buildings loomed out of the dark, the shadowy shapes growing larger as they approached. Lights shone from windows here and there, and as they approached the stable, Erica craned her neck in hopes of seeing Sebastian waiting under the bright spotlight of the corral. But he wasn’t.
She waited while Hank went into his apartment to get the keys to the pickup. He left the apartment door open, and Erica peeked inside, wanting to know what his place looked like. From what she could see, the furnishings were sparse but neat and contained an abundance of baby gear—a high chair, a playpen, a wind-up swing.
He brought her a cup of coffee when he came out. “It’s instant. No time to brew the real thing, and I figured we might need it to stay alert.”
She took the cup from him, her fingers brushing his for one brief moment. He went around and climbed into the pickup on the driver’s side. She boosted herself in beside him and they set off in the direction of the mountains.
“How do you know where to look?” she asked as the truck rattled noisily over a cattle guard.
“Sebastian has done this before. He’ll head for a canyon or someplace else where he can’t be seen from far off.”
Erica settled back into the seat, impressed by the competent way Hank handled the shifting of gears and maneuvered the four-wheel-drive vehicle over the rough terrain. They rode in silence for a time, the pickup bumping over the uneven sage flats before it began the climb up the slope toward the mountains.
She kept a sharp eye peeled for Sebastian, but the landscape appeared deserted. Hank chose a likely place, stopped the pickup, opened his window and called Sebastian’s name. He aimed the pickup’s headlights toward the buttes, and Erica opened her door and jumped down onto the gravel scree. She scanned the desolate expanse illuminated by the headlights but saw nothing.
“It’s going to be hard to see him out here,” she said.
“Try these,” Hank said, handing her a pair of binoculars.
Erica climbed onto the bed of the pickup, but even with the binoculars, she saw no sign of a horse. Discouraged, she climbed back into the cab.
“There are so many rocks and boulders—he could be hiding behind any one of them. I wish there were some way to coax him out,” she said.
“You could make a noise like a sugar cube,” Hank said, and she glanced over at him, glad of the attempt at humor.
“Sebastian is playing with us,” Hank told her. “We’ll find him eventually.”
“Sooner rather than later,” she said. “I’m keeping you from—”
“You’re keeping me from continuing what we started at the hacienda,” he said q
uietly. “But you know what? I’m enjoying this.”
“You can’t mean that.”
He jammed the pickup into gear and turned into a gully that offered more traction than the dusty track. “I don’t like it that Sebastian is out here somewhere laughing his head off while we ride around looking for him. I hope we find him before he manages to tangle his foot in the reins or gets too friendly with a wildcat. But it’s fun being with you, Erica. I’ve missed this sort of thing. Companionship, sharing a moment—you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do.” She was touched by his words.
He shot a glance at her, then returned his attention to driving. The pickup lurched over a couple of rocky outcroppings, then settled into a bone-jarring rattle. “You must have had relationships. You must have friends.”
“Friends? They’re mostly colleagues from work. Relationships? Not lately.” Her last real relationship had been several years ago, and she’d broken it off. Compared to the men who populated her fantasy life, cowboys all, Mark had been downright dull.
“Never been married? Engaged?”
“No.”
“Why, Erica?” He sounded puzzled.
“I work a lot.”
“Yes, but you should take time for a personal life.”
“That’s why I’m here.” Spoken ruefully with a little chuckle.
“This visit to Rancho Encantado is your attempt at a personal life?”
Suddenly she couldn’t bear having him look at her. She bit her lip. “You could call it that.”
He didn’t reply. When she sneaked a glance at his profile, his lips were set in a grim line. She made herself look out the window, where the moonlight was beginning to fade as the moon slipped down below the mountain ridge.
Hank turned the pickup up a steep bank, and they dodged a stand of junipers to find themselves amid a forest of boulders. He slowed their speed as they entered a narrow canyon, its walls jagged and steep.
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