“Of course,” Erica murmured, watching Hank feed Kaylie. It was funny the way he made a game out of it, making the spoon fly up into the air like an airplane and down again into Kaylie’s mouth.
“A vendor will be calling today, and you’ll need to tell him that I’m not interested in serving any more processed foods. Also, Pavel says he wants a vacation, which would be disastrous for us. If you could convince him that he’s much appreciated, that might help. Oh, and there’s a message from a freelance reporter, Brooke something-or-other, who wants to write a series of articles about Rancho Encantado. It’s good free publicity, so I’m inclined to offer her a free makeover if she calls back. That’s all I can think of at the moment.”
Erica assured Justine that she didn’t mind helping out, and after she hung up, she rejoined Hank and Kaylie in the kitchen. “I think Justine suspects we’ve got something going,” she told him.
“I hope so. I’d hate for her to think that my main attraction is a baby who needs feeding.”
“Oh, you,” Erica said, pushing at his shoulder.
He caught her hand. “Oh, you. And me.”
He pulled her down and kissed her on the mouth, and when he did, Erica couldn’t have cared less what Justine thought. Or anyone else, for that matter.
BY NOON, Erica had rebuffed the vendor, soothed the chef and spoken with the reporter, who expressed interest in the makeover and agreed to call back when Justine was available. She was in the process of applying her considerable organizational skills to Justine’s desk when a nervous clerk rushed in from the main office.
“We have a problem, and I hope you can help,” said the woman, whose name tag identified her as Bridget.
“What is it?” Erica said, moving the tape dispenser to the top of a file cabinet and stashing a stack of receipts in a drawer.
“It is this woman, a guest here,” Bridget said, all but wringing her hands. “She is attacking me.”
Erica glanced up in alarm. “Attacking you?”
“Oh, not physically, but I told her there was no one to drive her to the airport. We sent out a notice that Tony was sick, and we asked everyone who needed a ride to the airport in Las Vegas to be at the main desk by nine o’clock this morning so that one of the ranch hands could drive them. A number of people showed up, but this Lizette, she did not. She says it’s not her fault. She says the staff is lax and unfeeling and—”
Erica interrupted. “Lizette? Are you sure?”
“Yes, and she says she will make trouble for me, for everyone, if she doesn’t make her flight in time, and it leaves this afternoon. She booked it this morning apparently, and now she expects us to stop everything and find her a ride. There is no one to take her, no one at all.”
“I see.” Erica, accustomed to handling more severe crises at MacNee, Levy and Ashe, was sure she could deal with this one. She only wished that it didn’t involve Hank’s ex-girlfriend.
“Would you come and talk to her? She’s very angry.”
As happy as she’d be to send Lizette on her way, Erica immediately nixed the idea of talking to her. She racked her brain for some way to get the woman to the airport without creating more problems than she solved.
“Is there a van available?”
“The only van has gone to the airport.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Bridget,” Erica told her nervous visitor after ushering her out of the office. Then, with the woman fidgeting outside the door, she tried to track Justine down in Las Vegas.
First she tried calling the hospital, which entailed a wait while the operator paged Justine.
“She doesn’t answer the page,” the operator told Erica. “Since she didn’t, I have no way of finding her.”
Erica asked that Justine be paged again before hanging up. Then she considered the situation.
Certainly she believed Bridget’s claim that there was no ranch employee available to drive Lizette anywhere. Erica could drive Lizette to the airport herself, but this wasn’t a good idea. She could only imagine how incensed Hank’s former girlfriend would be at being cooped up in a car with her for two hours. Perhaps Hank would drive Lizette, but that seemed like another recipe for disaster, and besides, she knew he was teaching all morning. What to do?
A glance at the desk clock told her that it was lunchtime, so she called Hank, hoping to catch him at home. He answered, much to her relief.
“Hank, here’s the situation,” she said, then launched into an explanation.
When she’d finished, Hank expelled a long breath. “I agree that neither you nor I should drive Lizette anywhere.” He paused, seeming to think things over. “Paloma could take her,” he said after a few moments. “I’ll ask her.”
“Hank, wait! Who would take care of Kaylie if Paloma is driving Lizette?”
“You,” he said without a moment’s hesitation. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
At one time Erica would have been discomfited by such a request. She didn’t do babies. But that wasn’t true anymore—she did do babies, and maybe she even had a knack for it. She felt pleased that Hank trusted her to look after his daughter.
“Of course,” she said warmly. “That’s the perfect solution.”
“I’ll ask Paloma to bring Kaylie over to the Big House.” He muffled the phone for a moment. When he spoke again, he was chuckling. “Paloma is nodding her head. She likes to go to Las Vegas. They have lots of wedding shops where she can look for her wedding finery.”
Erica heard Paloma laugh in the background, and then Hank hung up.
Bridget was overjoyed to learn that Erica had found a driver. “Thank goodness,” she said over and over. “I couldn’t face that woman if I went back and told her she would miss her plane.”
Which is the last thing any of us wants, considering that all she’s done is stir up trouble, Erica thought, but didn’t say.
Paloma, smiling as always, lost no time in bringing Kaylie to her. “She hasn’t yet had her bath, so she’ll need one some time today. She will also need an afternoon nap.”
“If she sleeps this afternoon, will she want a later bedtime?”
“No, she will go to bed at the usual time,” Paloma said, and Erica thought that sounded good. She wanted Kaylie to sleep well. She wanted to spend her remaining evenings at Rancho Encantado enjoying Hank’s undivided attention.
This reminded her that she would be leaving before long, leaving her perfect cowboy and everything he represented. The thought made her hold Kaylie even closer because the baby was a little bit of Hank.
Through the window, she saw Lizette climbing into Paloma’s sedan, and then the car set off slowly up the driveway to the highway. Erica felt melancholy at the thought that she would soon be the one getting into a car and being driven to the airport. Her return to real life was inevitable, and for the first time, she realized what a wrench it would be to go back to the city and all the city represented.
“Oh, Kaylie,” she said brokenly. “I’m going to hate to leave.”
“Babababa,” said Kaylie, sounding serious, but Erica knew that the baby’s attempt at consolation was really only a sign that she had spotted Murphy lying under Justine’s desk and wanted him to come out and play.
PUSHING KAYLIE in her stroller, with Murphy trotting along beside them on his leash, Erica walked over to Desert Rose in the early afternoon to get her camera. Kaylie and Murphy seemed to have a real affection for each other, and she thought she would never have a better chance to take pictures of them together. She thought it was cute the way Kaylie showed her feelings for the dog by squealing with glee whenever he walked into the room, and Murphy showed his for Kaylie by slurping her face with his tongue. Not that Erica approved of this means of showing affection, but Murphy could be persistent and usually struck when her back was turned.
She stopped off at the kitchen for a word with Pavel, who’d seemed to warm to her when she’d talked with him on the phone. He was a highly volatile Russian who considered himself to be a
food artiste, not a mere chef, and she found him supervising the creation of low-fat canapés for the evening’s wine-tasting party.
“Yes, yes, what do you want?” he demanded irritably when she appeared at the kitchen door.
“A word with you. I’m Erica Strong,” she said with some trepidation. Though he had been easily mollified earlier, he was indeed daunting.
He abandoned his truculent attitude and threw the door open with a courtly gesture. “Come in, come in, you and your baby.”
Erica felt herself flush with embarrassment. “Kaylie isn’t my baby. I’m taking care of her for Hank Milling.”
“Ah, Hank,” the chef murmured. “Justine’s brother.”
“Yes, and I’ve been thinking about making baby food for her. My sister did it for her son, and she said that it was much better for him than the stuff in little jars at the supermarket.”
“Oh, yes, that is true. A baby should eat only organically grown food, no preservatives!”
“I’m hoping you’ll let me have fresh vegetables from the kitchen,” Erica said hopefully as Kaylie beamed at Pavel most charmingly.
“For the baby, no problem. You come to me every day, I will give you the most fresh vegetables.” He chucked Kaylie under the chin.
Before they left, he heaped the stroller basket with bags of green beans and peas. “These are on today’s menu. Tomorrow, beets! Kale! Broccoli!”
Since Erica liked none of the above herself, she thought privately that she might make do with the beans and peas and skip tomorrow. Pavel told her exactly how to cook the vegetables before puréeing them in the blender.
After bidding Pavel goodbye, they headed toward Desert Rose, where Erica tied Murphy to the bench in the courtyard and instructed him to lie down while she and Kaylie went inside. Murphy obediently bedded down under the bench, his tongue lolling out.
While she checked her e-mail, Kaylie sat in her stroller and chewed on her teething toy, making Erica think that her second tooth might erupt in the not-too-distant future.
“You’ll look mighty grown-up with those two front teeth,” Erica told her, and Kaylie treated her to a sloppy grin.
It was then that the tiny black-and-white kitten scampered out from under the couch. Erica immediately recognized it as one of Mrs. Gray’s offspring and bent to scoop it up.
“How did you get in here?” she asked, charmed by its wide, bluish-gray eyes and air of innocence.
The kitten, not having Mrs. Gray’s gift of gab, said nothing, but it did start to purr.
“How sweet,” she murmured. “But you can’t stay here. You have to go back to the stable.”
The kitten went on purring, and reluctantly she set it down on the floor, where it spied a small length of thread and began to stalk it like a panther. While Kaylie chortled in amusement, Erica went to check for places where the kitten might have gained access. Sure enough, she had left the bathroom window open that morning, and there was a ledge where the cat could have climbed in.
“Well,” Erica said to the kitten, “since you’re so cute, I’ll let you hang around until I’ve checked my e-mail.” The kitten rolled over on its back and gave the piece of thread a swift rabbit kick with its back feet, which amused Kaylie even more.
Since the kitten was doing such a good job of entertaining the baby, Erica went and switched on her computer.
YOU’VE GOT MAIL!
Erica, okay, okay, so my last message was way out of line. I admit I was worried, but deep down I know your common sense won’t let you go overboard for a mere cowboy, so I apologize.
I guess you’re enjoying the oh, so exotic delights of Rancho Encantado? Getting to know Justine and having fun? I hope so.
Let me hear from you soon, unless you’re still angry. Again, I’m sorry.
Love,
Char
Hi Charmaine.
No, I’m not mad, just busy.
Today I’m taking care of Kaylie. Right now she’s sitting in her stroller and laughing at the kitten I found in my suite. Did you ever look, really look, at a baby when it laughs? It’s pure sunshine. It makes you feel good all over.
The chef is giving me fresh vegetables every day so I can make baby food for Kaylie. It’s time for me to get back to the Big House and figure out where Justine keeps her blender.
Love,
E.
As Erica logged off her Internet connection, Murphy started raising a ruckus in the courtyard. Mindful that some people in the other units at Desert Rose might be napping at this hour, she hurried outside to shush him.
“Murphy, quiet! What’s the matter with you?”
The dog kept on barking. He had unfurled his leash to its fullest extension and was straining at the end of it as he tried his best to charge into the cactus patch.
Erica tugged at the leash, trying to make him cease and desist. Murphy ignored her and began to growl at the cactus patch, his teeth bared.
“Good grief,” Erica muttered, wondering what Murphy could have seen that had incited him to such fury.
She untied the leash and gave it a couple of sharp yanks. After a few more barks, these less frenzied than the last, Murphy allowed himself to be distracted by a dog biscuit Erica found in her pocket.
After he’d eaten it, she bent to scratch him behind the ears. “What happened? Did you spot a rabbit?” Then, recalling that she’d thought she’d seen the faint figure of a man in the cactus garden one night, she narrowed her eyes and peered into it. All she saw was an attractive arrangement of cactus and a lizard sunning himself on one of the rocks.
“A lizard! He can’t hurt us, Murphy. I’m surprised at you for making such a fuss.” She noticed Mrs. Gray sitting in the shade provided by the roof on the other side of the building. “Or were you barking at the cat?”
Murphy declined to give her any clues. He only begged for another dog biscuit, which Erica couldn’t provide.
“We’ll go back to the Big House, and I’ll feed you as many biscuits as your heart desires. As for you, cat, one of your offspring has made himself welcome in my suite. Wait there, and I’ll go get him.”
When she came out juggling the kitten, her camera, the stroller with Kaylie in it and Murphy on the end of his leash, Mrs. Gray had disappeared. Murphy spared one more bark for the cactus patch, then turned his curious attention to the kitten.
Erica set the kitten on the ground. “Go find your mama,” she said as Murphy sniffed the tiny feline with interest. The kitten capered out of Murphy’s reach and gazed up at her so uncertainly that Erica almost relented. “Go on,” she said, and to her relief, the kitten finally began to bat a leaf around on the sidewalk.
She figured that the mother cat would return to retrieve her kitten, so she resolutely turned her back on it and started back toward the Big House.
“Babababa?” asked Kaylie.
“We can’t take the kitten with us,” she explained gently, although halfway to the Big House, Erica began asking herself, Why not?
But by that time, they’d gone too far to turn back, considering that Kaylie needed a diaper change and Murphy was begging for more biscuits.
HANK PHONED as she was spooning puréed peas out of the blender, having successfully completed the homemade baby-food venture.
“Good news, Erica. Tony’s going to be okay. Justine says they’ll be home this evening. Apparently he didn’t eat breakfast before he left on his run to the airport, and he started to feel weak.”
“Will they be back in time for dinner?”
“No, but what are we having?”
She warmed to his use of the word we. “Pavel said it’s his Rancho Encantado beef stew, whatever that means.”
“It’s stew with fresh artichoke hearts in it, and he puts parmesan cheese biscuits on top. It’s wonderful.” He paused. “How are you and Kaylie getting along?”
Erica glanced at Kaylie, who was lying on her back in the playpen cooing at a cloth book.
“We’re doing fine. She’s so mu
ch fun. Why, I even gave her a bath.”
“You did?” He sounded surprised.
“Yes, Paloma said she hadn’t had one yet today. It gave us a chance to play hide the rubber duckie and peekaboo, and I dried her off and dressed her in the cutest little polka-dot outfit, and then I played the piano for her and—”
“Hold on, hold on.” Hank was laughing. “You make the afternoon sound as much fun as an amusement park.”
“Your daughter is like an amusement park all crammed into one little person.”
His voice softened. “I’m glad you feel that way, Erica.”
“I’m enjoying her,” she said, amazed to realize it was true. She loved watching the light of understanding flare in Kaylie’s blue eyes when she learned something, and the way Kaylie gave her her total attention when she was feeding her or diapering her or giving her a bath. That was more than you could say for clients, even when you were making a fantastic presentation.
“I’ll be early for dinner, and maybe after we put Kaylie to bed, you’ll enjoy taking care of the baby’s daddy.” Hank’s meaning was unmistakable, and Erica laughed.
“Maybe I will,” she said, and when they hung up, they were both laughing.
She heard the clink of the mail slot in the front door and went to pick up the envelopes that were scattered on the floor. She was surprised to find one addressed to Hank and bearing the return address of Rowbotham-Quigley, the firm that was competing with her own firm for the important Gillooley account.
Wondering what business Hank might have with a major investment firm in New York, she set it on top of his other mail and left it on the table for him to pick up. Then she went to see if Kaylie found homemade baby food to her liking.
AFTER DINNER, Kaylie, sated with a large portion of puréed peas, fell asleep in her crib in her bedroom at Justine’s house. Hank lit a fire, and Erica played the piano for him. When she finished playing, he came up behind the piano bench and rested his hands on her shoulders. He massaged them gently and said, “Let’s step outside for a while. It’s such a beautiful night.”
Cowboy Enchantment Page 18