Cowboy Enchantment

by Pamela Browning

  Erica smiled up at him and pulled on one of Justine’s jackets, following him out into the walled garden off the dining room. The air was faintly scented with the pungent fragrance of creosote, and Erica wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm.

  “Cold?” Hank asked.

  She nodded.

  “I can fix that,” he said, pulling her into his arms and resting his chin on the top of her head. She inhaled deeply of his scent, that outdoorsy smell mingled with the faint suggestion of leather. “Warmer now?”

  She nodded, dislodging his chin, and she wasn’t surprised when he tipped her face up toward his. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into extending your stay here,” he said, his eyes delving deep into hers.

  She bit her lip. “I’m supposed to be back at work on Thursday.”

  “We’ve barely begun to learn about each other.”

  “I know.”

  “If you could stay a while longer, we’d figure out where we’re going with this,” he said, and his face was so serious that she caught her breath. She suddenly felt as though she was on the verge of a major discovery, about to step through a mystical gate whose secrets would be hers to explore if only she said some magic word….

  Stay, a small voice commanded, and she broke her gaze to look around for the cat. But this was a walled garden, impossible for the cat to enter. But then, she hadn’t thought a kitten could enter her room, but he had.

  “Erica?”

  She told herself not to be distracted. “I’m sorry. For a moment I thought someone was here.”

  “No one is here but you and me, a fact for which I am profoundly thankful.” Hank’s lips grazed her temple, and her heart skipped several beats while she tried to center herself, to remember why she couldn’t stay. Oh, yes. The Gillooley deal.

  “Erica, please listen to what I say. Please take me seriously. I never thought I would be saying these words, least of all to someone I’ve only known for a short period of time, but…well, I don’t know how to say this other than to blurt it out. I’m falling in love with you.” He stared down at her, the world in the depths of his eyes.

  She felt dizzy. “Hank, I don’t know what to say.” It crossed her mind that this was supposed to be nothing more than a fling. “I’m not sure what you expect of me,” she managed, knowing it was too soon to tell him she was crazy about him, that he fit her notion of what the perfect cowboy should be.

  He raised her hand and pressed his lips to the palm. “It’s too early to expect you to return my feelings, I know. That’s why I was hoping you could stay here for a while.”

  Possible scenarios crashed through her head, crazy-making scenes of her living here at Rancho Encantado, cooking over the stove in the small apartment. Riding with Hank across the salt flats, her hair blowing in the wind. And in time, Kaylie on her own little pony, giggling as they showed her the peculiar rock formations at the Devil’s Picnic Ground, racing to catch up with them as they rode toward Bottle Canyon, calling Hank Daddy, calling her Mommy. It was this last one that really gave her pause. She’d never thought to hear herself called Mommy.

  “I know it’s sudden, but I’ve been hoping we could work something out.” This last statement was punctuated by the lights of a car swinging across the top of the wall and the car’s halt in the parking area beside the garage.

  “That’s Justine,” Hank said. “Let’s continue this discussion at my place as soon as possible.”

  He held her hand as they went back inside, only releasing it when they heard Justine turn the doorknob.

  Justine looked pale, but she seemed relieved. “Tony has agreed that he will never again attempt to drive all the way to Las Vegas on an empty stomach. Whew! He had me worried. I was up almost all last night, hardly slept. Which is why I’m going straight to bed.” She paused, giving them a keen look. “Is everything okay with you two?”

  “Um, yes,” Erica said, self-conscious under Justine’s scrutiny.

  “We’re going to collect Kaylie from her crib and be on our way,” Hank said.

  Justine insisted on looking in on Kaylie, and then she excused herself, yawning widely. “I’ll see everyone tomorrow,” she said.

  “I’ll come over in the morning and put the coffee on for you,” Hank said.

  Justine’s eyebrows flew upward. “Why on earth?”

  “I’d like to talk to you about something.”

  “Nothing’s wrong, is it?” Justine sounded alarmed.

  “No, something’s right.” Hank smiled at her.

  Justine, looking mystified, only said, “You’ve got me curious, but it’ll have to wait. I’m dead on my feet. Good night, all.” She walked down the hall to her room and closed the door.

  “What was that about?” Erica wanted to know.

  “I’m going to tell Justine not to feel guilty about what happened to Anne-Marie.”

  “Does that mean that you’re still feeling responsible for the accident?”

  “I’m getting over it. I’ve begun to see that blaming anyone—even Anne-Marie herself—isn’t helping matters. The accident happened. It changed our lives. It’s time to move on.” He looked so contemplative that Erica touched his arm in support.

  He rested his hand over hers for a moment. “Let’s get Kaylie. I’m ready for some alone time with you.”

  Kaylie scarcely made a fuss as Hank lifted her into his arms and Erica gathered her diaper bag and toys. Murphy tried to follow them, but Hank made him go back. “Tomorrow, old fellow,” he promised, after which Murphy went uncomplainingly to his bed in the kitchen.

  “Now,” Hank said, “I’d better take my mail along.” He went to the hall table, Erica close behind him. “Can you grab it? I’ll open it at my place.”

  Erica scooped up the mail with the Rowbotham-Quigley envelope on top. “About this letter,” she said, holding it up for him to see. “Do you have business with them? I deal with R-Q in my job at McNee, Levy and Ashe.”

  His eyes locked on hers for an overly long instant. “Yes,” he said slowly, seeming to gauge her reaction. “I work for them.”

  “You do?”

  “I’ll soon make partner if things stay on track.”

  Erica stared at him, her brain unable to wrap itself around his words. “You mean you’re not really a cowboy?”

  “No, Erica. I’m really an investment banker.” His eyes were steady and sincere.

  Her mind reeled with this new information, which she could not readily compute. She was overcome with a rush of disappointment, and she felt the color drain from her face. She could hardly believe his words. “You mean you’re an investment banker? With R-Q? And not a cowboy at all?”

  “That’s right,” he said evenly. “If you love me, it won’t make any difference. Or will it?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think you were a cowboy?” Erica was all but wringing her hands as she faced him over the kitchen table in his apartment. She was still numb at his startling revelation. “I thought you really were a cowboy. I saw all the trappings, saw that you knew horses—”

  “I never said I was a cowboy. I never said I was an investment banker, either. And neither,” he said pointedly, “did you. I assumed you were an administrative assistant at McNee, Levy and Ashe.”

  “You thought I was someone’s assistant?” She knew she sounded as indignant as she felt.

  “Why wouldn’t I? You never told me otherwise.”

  Erica didn’t know what to say.

  “If you’ll recall,” Hank went on, “I didn’t make a big deal out of the fact that you weren’t a neophyte rider. Face it, Erica. Appearances aren’t always what they seem.”

  “No, they aren’t,” she said tightly.

  “As it turns out, we both do the same thing for a living. What’s wrong with that? The way I see it, this gives us much more in common. It’s probably why I’ve felt so comfortable with you from the very beginning.”

  “You work f
or Rowbotham-Quigley. I work for McNee, Levy and Ashe. Am I the only one who sees a conflict of interest here?” She stood up and paced to the other side of the kitchen, running a hand through her hair in agitation.

  A panorama of expressions flickered over Hank’s face, bewilderment only one of them. “To me, it doesn’t matter what you do. It only matters who you are, Erica.”

  She let out a huge sigh of exasperation. “I wanted a fling with a cowboy, nothing more. I never thought I’d end up madly in love with you or that you would fall in love with me or that you’d have a child who would make things difficult.”

  His expression darkened. “Is that it? You can’t accept my daughter? That’s too bad, because Kaylie and I are a package deal, Erica. That’s the way it is.”

  She was horrified that he’d mistaken her meaning. “No, no,” she said, going to him and kneeling beside his chair. “Kaylie makes things difficult because what I feel for her gets all tangled up in what I feel for you. I can’t explain it. I don’t know how.”

  “I can,” he said gently. “Come with me into the bedroom and I’ll show you what it’s all about. It’s about love and commitment and caring. It’s about the physical expression of those emotions.”

  “I have to go back to New York,” she said unsteadily as he stood up and brought her up with him.

  “And I’m supposed to go back there, too. There’s a big push to acquire a major client, and your firm is the one we have to beat in order to get his business.”

  “The Gillooley deal?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I’m the leader of the presentation team on that one.”

  “They want me to come back to work on it. I don’t know yet if I can.”

  “Hank, you’re my competition on the Gillooley deal? You’re their numero uno team leader?” She pulled away from him.

  He dragged her back. “Looks that way. At this point, I don’t know if I can go back to R-Q at all, much less close the deal.”

  “What’s your alternative?”

  “Quit the job and stay at Rancho Encantado. I’ve been thinking more and more that it would be better for Kaylie to grow up here where she has a doting aunt and horses to ride when she’s ready and the whole outdoors as a playground. Erica, stay here with us. Don’t go back.”

  Even as his eyes pleaded with her, she knew she couldn’t give up her hard-earned position and the power and prestige that went with it.

  “You don’t understand,” she said softly. “My job is all I have. It’s what makes me me.”

  He shook his head. “You have me now. And you have Kaylie.”

  “You don’t understand. I couldn’t be beautiful like Charmaine and—”

  “You are beautiful, Erica. Who ever said you weren’t?”

  “I always knew it, that’s all. Char is the most beautiful sister, Abby’s not only a former beauty queen but a great wife and mother, and I was always Erica, the smart one. The loner. I had to excel at school and in my work because that was the only way I could excel.”

  “Please don’t put yourself down. You’ve always been beautiful to me. Oh, when I first saw you in the stable after my argument with Justine, I didn’t find anything special about you, but that night after you taught me how to sew on buttons, I saw how pretty you were.”

  “Pretty? Me?” She trembled on the verge of tears. No one had ever told her she was pretty, much less beautiful. “It’s the makeover, Hank. It’s what Tico and company did for me.”

  His hands came up to grip her shoulders. “No, it isn’t the makeover. You hadn’t even started your makeover that first night. I’m attracted to the person you are inside, the one who listens so carefully, who cares not only about me but about my child. It’s you, Erica. You. I love you, not your hair or your eyes or…Do you mind if I ask you something?”

  She looked at him blankly and nodded.

  “What color are your eyes?”

  “B-brown.”

  “They look lavender to me.”

  She shook her head to clear it. “It’s the contact lenses. I have a pair in every color. Blue, green, lavender, turquoise—”

  His arms went around her again, and he was chuckling. “Okay, I love you no matter what color eyes you happen to be wearing.”

  Her tears began in earnest as she absorbed his words, understood that he really meant them, and she couldn’t hold back the tears. They coursed, hot and salty, down her cheeks, soaking his shirtfront, dripping on the floor.

  “Shh, sweetheart,” he whispered soothingly in her ear. “Let’s go to bed, and in the morning we’ll talk about it.”

  She clung to him. “You think that will solve everything? That making love will fix what’s wrong?”

  He kissed away her tears one by one. “Well, I don’t know, but for lack of any better ideas, I’d say we might as well try it,” he said, and then she was laughing through her tears and allowing herself to be led to the bedroom.

  Later, after Hank was asleep, Erica nestled close to him, his heartbeat thrumming in her ear.

  She couldn’t think about all this if she had to see him every day. She couldn’t decide what to do if confronted with adorable Kaylie while she was trying to work things out in her mind.

  And so she would go back to New York. On schedule. Then maybe she’d be able to find some perspective.

  THE NEXT MORNING Hank, who had not slept much the night before, was true to his word. He had coffee ready for Justine when she emerged from her bedroom in the Big House ready to begin her workday.

  When she saw him at the coffeemaker, she tossed her braid behind her shoulder and regarded him with her hands resting on her hips. “I thought I was only imagining things when I heard you say you’d be here bright and early to make coffee. What gives, Hank?”

  He handed her a full cup. “I don’t know how you take your coffee,” he said sheepishly.

  “No reason you should,” Justine said. She went to the sugar bowl and scooped out a spoonful. “Black with sugar, in case you ever find yourself in this helpful mode again. By the way, you look mighty tired this morning. Is something going on with you I should know about?”

  He shook his head. “Not that you should know about. Well, maybe something is going on with me. I want to talk to you about Anne-Marie. About the night she died.”

  Justine slowly went to sit on one of the stools. “Is this a good idea, Hank?”

  He sat down beside her and studied her face. “I think so. I need to tell you something.” He drew a deep breath before continuing. “The night of her accident, Anne-Marie and I had a terrible argument over the phone. When we hung up, I knew everything wasn’t okay. I tried to call her back, but she didn’t answer. I think she’d already gone.”

  “Must you tell me this?” Justine was visibly upset.

  “Yes, because I’ve always thought that the argument was the cause of the accident. I’ve blamed myself all along.”

  Justine’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh, no, Hank! I didn’t realize that.”

  He nodded, swallowed, closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, Justine’s expression was one of understanding and sympathy.

  “Did you know that I blame myself, too?” she asked gently.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “But you found out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Erica?”

  “I hope you don’t mind. She didn’t think she was betraying a confidence, I’m sure.”

  Justine reached for his hand. “Of course I don’t mind. I’ve assumed that you must have heard me say somewhere along the line that I thought the accident was my fault. If I hadn’t taken Kaylie that night, Anne-Marie wouldn’t have had a baby-sitter and she wouldn’t have gone to see Mattie.”

  “But because of our argument, she would have gone, anyway, don’t you see? She was angry with me—she used to always fly out of the house when she got mad.”

  “Ah, Hank, perhaps neither of us was responsible for what happened. Th
ere’s a chance that Anne-Marie was no longer angry about your argument by the time she was driving home. Also, maybe if I hadn’t baby-sat Kaylie, Anne-Marie would have gone, anyway, and taken her along.”

  “That’s why I’m here, Justine. If you hadn’t kept Kaylie, I’m sure she would have been in the car with Anne-Marie. If you hadn’t baby-sat that night, I could have lost Kaylie, and that would have been the worst thing that could have happened to me.”

  The thought of losing Kaylie was still devastating. He blinked back tears, and before he knew it, Justine had enveloped him in a hug.

  When they separated, Justine had tears in her eyes, too. “Well, little brother, we’re going to have to communicate more often and on a deeper level, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Exactly.”

  “No more blame game?”

  “Not for you or for me.”

  Justine wiped away her tears, and they smiled at each other.

  “I noticed you’re not having coffee,” she said.

  “I have to get back to the stable. Maybe I could take a cup with me.”

  Justine got up and started to pour it, but then she turned back toward Hank. “You know, I don’t think I know how you take your coffee, either.”

  “Black, no sugar.”

  “I think maybe we’re finally getting to know each other better,” Justine said as she handed him the cup.

  “You know what, Justine? I think it’s time for me to rejoin the world of the living and get a life,” he said as he swung down off the stool.

  “Well, hallelujah,” Justine said. “What brings this on?”

  He only grinned and tugged at her braid on the way out, the way he used to when they were kids. But he didn’t enlighten her. He might be getting to be better friends with this sister of his, but he wasn’t yet ready to share the details of his love life.

  YOU’VE GOT MAIL!

  Erica,

  YOU’RE MAKING BABY FOOD? THIS IS WORSE THAN I THOUGHT! ANSWER YOUR PHONE! I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU A GOOD TALKING TO!

  Love,

  Charmaine

  Char,

  I’ll see you on Thursday. Have plenty of tissues handy, and a big box of chocolate. I’m going to need both.