Erica
ERICA AND HANK made the most of their remaining days together, riding up to Bottle Canyon the next afternoon after Hank’s last class and making slow, sweet love on a blanket beside the gully. They came home and cooked steaks on Hank’s grill, staying up late and talking about everything except Erica’s coming departure. The next morning they cooked breakfast and made love again before Hank left for the stable. Later Erica took Kaylie over to the Big House and let her play with Murphy while Justine worked, forgoing the sybaritic pleasures of the ranch for the bigger pleasure of watching Kaylie’s eyes light up when she was happy.
That night, the last night, was the hardest. Erica didn’t want Hank to remember her with red-rimmed eyes and stuffy nose, so she didn’t cry. But it was hard not to, especially when Kaylie woke up with teething pain in the middle of the night and Hank brought her into bed with them. Kaylie fell asleep in the curve of Hank’s body, and Erica spooned herself around Hank. It felt cozy and right to sleep that way, but the trouble was, she really didn’t sleep. Instead, she lay awake and stared into the darkness, wondering what it would be like to sleep with Hank every night for the rest of her life. She fell asleep, finally, just before dawn.
When it was time to go, Hank bundled Kaylie into her warm coat and silently walked Erica to the van for the ride to the airport. Erica was the only one with a plane to catch that day because she was leaving in midweek, which was not popular for either arrivals or departures.
Tony idled the engine, steadfastly looking straight ahead while she and Hank said their goodbyes in the pale morning light, and now that their time together was over, she thought of many more things she wanted to tell him. But she felt too constrained by Tony’s presence to say them now.
“It’s been wonderful,” she managed, hoping Hank understood that the words were inadequate to express her true feelings.
“I love you, Erica. I wish you wouldn’t go.”
At that point Kaylie started to cry and reached out her arms to Erica, but because Tony was now openly consulting his wristwatch, all she could do was give Kaylie’s tiny hand a warm squeeze.
Getting into the van was complicated by juggling the cat carrier containing the kitten that Justine had finally persuaded her to take home, the same one she’d found in her suite. The kitten mewed pitifully at being jostled about, and Tony said, “You got everything?” Erica knew she didn’t have everything she wanted, she didn’t have Hank and Kaylie, but this wasn’t something Tony could help.
“Yes,” she said, shoving the cat carrier in and preparing to climb in after it. “I’ve got everything I’m going to take.”
In the last moments Hank pulled her to him, and her arms went around his neck. Kaylie was between them, warm and smelling of milk and talcum powder. Erica clung desperately to the two of them, eyes squeezed shut to keep from crying.
“Time to go,” Tony called.
“Bye, Hank. Take care.”
“Bye, Erica.”
Then she was climbing into the van, settling the cat carrier beside her, and Tony was starting the engine. The last sight to fill her field of vision as the van bumped toward the highway was Hank’s devastated expression. The last thing she heard was Kaylie’s screaming. It was a nightmare scene, worse than she could have possibly anticipated.
They drove under the Rancho Encantado sign, the one that said WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE. Erica buried her face in her hands as they left the property. She had come here for a makeover, but she had never thought that the results would be so painful.
THE DAY AFTER Erica arrived back in New York, Charmaine came breezing through her apartment door. “Erica, you look great,” she said, adding quickly after a look at her red-rimmed eyes, “on second thought, no, you don’t. You look awful. You’d better tell me what happened right away.” She spotted the kitten peering out from behind the couch and halted in her tracks. “What’s that?”
“Justine talked me into bringing one of the stable cat’s kittens home with me. She said a pet would be good company.”
“Cool,” Charmaine said, looking surprised. She held out a box of chocolates and another of tissues and stared curiously at the cat, which disappeared behind an armoire.
Erica accepted Charmaine’s offerings and went to sit on the couch. The kitten, named Tux because his black-and-white fur resembled a tuxedo, ventured out from his hiding place and began to wash his face.
“All right, Erica, I can’t stand one more moment of suspense. What happened between you and, uh, Hank?”
Erica stared for a moment at the skyline of Manhattan outside the window and sniffed. “Hank’s not a cowboy at all,” she said.
Charmaine sank down on the chair across from her and, with an air of forbearance, propped her long legs on the ottoman. “Go on. I’m sure there’s more.”
Erica knew that her sister was refraining from saying how stupid she was for falling in love with Hank in the first place, but she already knew that. What she didn’t know was how to explain what had happened without putting either of them in a bad light.
She drew a deep bolstering breath. “My perfect cowboy turned out to be Henry Parrish Milling III. He works for Rowbotham-Quigley, my firm’s biggest competitor for the Gillooley account. Gillooley is going to revolutionize the communications industry, and I’m planning to make a presentation next week in hopes of getting their business. R-Q is pestering Hank to come back to work long enough to win Gillooley over, and I’m probably going to see him when I fly to Kansas City for the presentation, and if I do I’ll just die.”
Charmaine raised her eyebrows. “Yikes.” She paused and studied Erica critically. “I really like those streaks in your hair.”
Erica flung her hands out in exasperation. “Char, I open my heart to you, and all you can say is that you like my hair?”
“I thought you might like to know I think it looks great.”
Erica tucked the sides behind her ears. “It doesn’t look as good as it did at Rancho Encantado.”
“So there really is something to the place’s reputation? To the vortex and the ghost?”
“I don’t know about the vortex and Padre Luis, but if you mean did Rancho Encantado work miracles in my life, the answer is that it did for a while, but after you leave, you’re the same as ever. Except for knowing how to apply makeup.”
“Oh? You think you’re the same as ever after falling in love? No one is the same after falling in love, Erica.” Charmaine frowned and tore the wrapper off the chocolate box.
“You can’t change who you really are. I found that out.”
Charmaine raised her eyebrows. “Maybe you don’t want to when who you are is good enough.” She paused. “You were in love with Hank, right?”
“Am in love with him. Can’t ever have him. Wish I were dead,” Erica said glumly, reaching over and plucking a chocolate crème out of its nest. She wondered if it was possible to eat a whole box of chocolates in one sitting. Probably, if she wanted to, and she had Charmaine to help her. She took another one, a chocolate-covered cherry this time.
“Why can’t you have him?” Charmaine wanted to know. “You were compatible, you liked his kid.”
“Loved his kid,” Erica said.
“You loved the kid?”
“Kaylie is wonderful.” For a moment an image of Kaylie flashed across her memory, and she could almost smell the fresh baby-powder scent of her, could almost feel the weight of her cuddled against her breast. She felt her eyes well up and grabbed a clean tissue from the box.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Charmaine sounded aghast.
“Since the moment I left the ranch, anything makes me cry. I miss Hank and I miss Kaylie. He wants me to come back, but how can I? If I go, there’s no guarantee that he won’t decide to return to the city and work for R-Q.”
“That’s not so bad, is it?”
“Think about it, Char! If he comes back, we’re in direct competition with each other with our work, and i
t wouldn’t be the same. We’d be two people obsessed with making money and getting ahead. Also, what about Kaylie? She’d have to be in day care, and she’s so happy with Paloma, and raising a child in the city is a far cry from raising her on a ranch.”
“Obstacles, obstacles,” Charmaine agreed.
“Plus I have to have my job. I wouldn’t be anything without it.”
Charmaine stared at her. “Are you joking?”
“No joke. I mean it. Who would I be if I weren’t on the fast track to make partner at McNee, Levy and Ashe?”
“Listen to me, Erica. You’d still be the same person we all know and, yes, love.”
“But—”
“Don’t bore me with denials. Fill me in about why you can’t live at the ranch.”
“There are too many problems no matter how I look at it,” she said, feeling more woebegone by the second.
“How did you leave it with Hank, then?”
“He said he loved me,” she said in a whisper.
“Erica, do you love him? Really love him?”
As her eyes blurred with tears, she could only nod yes.
Charmaine’s eyes blazed for a moment, and then, barely controlling herself, she lit into her sister. “Erica, you may have multiple degrees from prestigious universities, but you are one stupid person if you don’t change your life to accommodate this new relationship. I can’t believe you walked away!”
“Well, I did.” Erica blew her nose forcefully. Tux looked up at her with a quizzical expression, then jumped on the couch and curled up beside her.
Charmaine stood up precipitously. “Look, Erica, I’d better run before I say something I’ll regret.”
“I could use some sympathy, Char,” Erica reminded her. “I could use some support.”
“Nope, no can do. I’ve given you tissues, chocolates and a willing ear. It’s up to you to fix this. I can’t support out-and-out idiocy, even though you are my dear sister.”
Erica suddenly remembered something. “I almost forgot,” she said as she handed Charmaine the silver-wrapped package from the Rancho Encantado gift shop.
Charmaine opened it quickly and lifted out the turquoise-and-silver necklace. “It’s lovely,” she said. “I can wear it tonight when I go out to dinner. Want to come with us, Erica? I’m going with some of the photographers and models I met in Aruba. You’d like them.”
“I don’t think so. Not tonight.”
They hugged goodbye. “If you want to discuss how to get back together with Hank, then call me,” Charmaine told her.
“Um, okay. Thanks, Char.” She trailed her sister to the door.
“You’re welcome.” Charmaine’s hand was on the doorknob.
“Hey, aren’t you going to wish me luck?”
“With what?”
“With the Gillooley account. I leave for Kansas City tomorrow.”
“Not a chance. The only thing I wish for you is that you’ll find your way back to that cowboy of yours.”
Erica closed the door after Charmaine and rested her forehead against it. “He wasn’t really a cowboy,” she said out loud, but there was no one there to hear but the cat.
ERICA WENT to Kansas City and discovered that Hank wasn’t part of the Rowbotham-Quigley presentation team, after all. It was a relief not to see him, or was it? She couldn’t help wondering why he hadn’t gone back to his job, and how he and Kaylie were getting along, and whether Kaylie missed her, and whether Hank had found someone else. A week went by, then two. She learned that McNee, Levy and Ashe had succeeded in obtaining Gillooley’s business, and she should have taken pride in her involvement. But she didn’t.
She took Tux to the vet for his shots, and soon he’d settled in at her apartment. She found a retired school-teacher on her floor who would look after him for her when she had to be away. It was nice to have a pet waiting for her when she arrived home after a long, hard day at work. Justine had been right about that.
She pored over the pictures she’d taken at the ranch. Some of Kaylie, some of Murphy, some of scenery. One of the coyote she and Hank had seen at the creek near Padre Luis’s house. There were none of Hank. She hadn’t taken any.
Sometimes, when she sat in her darkened apartment at night looking out over the lights of the city with Tux purring beside her, she tried to summon one of her fantasies to console her. She didn’t know why, but her rich fantasy world was gone. She would have liked to conjure up one of her favorite daydreams, picking up a cowboy at the Last Chance Saloon. Or the one that had actually taken place on the porch of the rec hall, so rudely interrupted by Lizette.
But it was as if those daydreams had never happened, as if she’d never entertained those lovely notions about the perfect cowboy. As the days flew by, she found herself unable to recall the way Hank looked. First she forgot the exact way his hair fell across his forehead, then she couldn’t remember exactly what it felt like to rest her head against his broad shoulder. Soon she could only remember his blue, blue eyes, and she thought despairingly that it was only a matter of time before she would no longer be able to remember them, either.
And then one cold rainy day she stepped into the elevator at work and noticed in the mirror there that she was disappearing, too, fading the same way as she had been on the day that she first agreed to go to Rancho Encantado. She blinked at her faint reflection. Suddenly there she was again, her hair lifeless and flattened by the humidity of another rainy day, her makeup inadequate under the fluorescent lights. Most of her lipstick had worn off. Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter. As soon as the elevator thumped to a stop, she hurried outside to hail a cab.
Getting a cab in this blustery weather wasn’t easy. Eventually the foggy mist parted long enough to reveal an available taxi down the street, and she summoned her flagging energy to wave at it until she caught the driver’s eye.
As she stepped back under the portico to get out of the rain, she noticed a tall, handsome cowboy climbing out of another cab a half a block away. He wore a blue shirt, faded jeans and a Stetson hat. For a moment, she thought it was Hank. But then the reality of the scene jerked her into the here and now, and she knew that it wasn’t her perfect cowboy at all. It was only another businessman who walked toward her, the edges of his raincoat flapping in the wind, his collar turned up against the chill.
She turned away, a lump in her throat. Despite the fact that she had been stuck in cruel reality ever since she’d come back from Rancho Encantado, this return of fantasy was not as welcome as she’d thought it would be. What if she started seeing Hank everywhere she looked? Tears suddenly stung her eyes and ran down her cheeks, warm but not welcome. She missed him. She missed him so much.
“Erica?”
No. She wouldn’t turn and look. She didn’t want to give in to the torment of unbidden fantasies. She wouldn’t. She’d think about the meeting she was supposed to attend tomorrow, a meeting that would result in millions of dollars of business for her firm.
“Erica.”
A hand touched her arm, and she reflexively jerked away. You had to be careful in the city. There were people who would do you harm. You had to defend yourself, you had to…
That voice. She had to look. It was Hank’s voice.
Slowly she turned her head and took in the face of the man who had touched her arm. Despite the tired lines around his eyes, despite his drawn expression, he looked like Hank. He sounded like Hank. Did she dare to trust that it actually was Hank and not a trick of her mind?
The pain in his eyes gave him away. Her own eyes widened in disbelief.
“It…it can’t be you,” she stammered.
“It’s me. Or the person I’m supposed to be,” he said, heavy on the irony. “And it looks as if you’re the person you’re supposed to be. Erica Strong, I believe? May I introduce myself? I’m Henry Parrish Milling III. I’m happy to make your acquaintance.”
“Hank,” she said faintly. “What are you doing here?” She blinked at him, still unsure that he wa
s not merely a fragment of memory come back to haunt her.
“I came back to see if I could fit in again in New York. To find a day-care center for Kaylie. To resume my real life.”
“Oh,” she said, unheeding of the rain streaming down her face. “How did you happen to be getting out of a cab only a half a block away?”
“I rode over here to pay a visit to you at McNee, Levy and Ashe, and here you are.”
“Yes.” Her eyes drank in the way he looked in a business suit. He was still perfect, still Hank.
“Do you think we could step out of the rain?” His eyes, so expressive and so bleak, pleaded with her.
The cab she had hailed braked to a stop in front of her. She ignored it. The driver rolled down the window on the passenger side.
“You want a taxi, lady, or not?”
She looked from the cab to Hank and back again. “Come with me,” she said urgently. “We can talk.”
“Gladly,” he said. He opened the cab door, and she got in.
She turned to him right away, unable to get enough of the rugged lines of his face, the strength of his jaw. He might not be wearing the clothes she was accustomed to seeing him wear, but his city garb couldn’t diminish his solid good looks.
“Where’s Kaylie?”
“With Justine until I can find a day-care center for her.” Judging by Hank’s avid study of her features, he liked the way she looked, even with her hair wet and straggling against her cheeks.
“Where you going?” the cabdriver demanded none too cheerfully.
“Just drive around,” Hank said before Erica could speak.
“Okay,” the driver said. He rammed the car into gear and slipped effortlessly into the stream of traffic. Behind them, another car’s horn registered an objection, setting off a cacophony of other horns. The windshield wipers went swish-swish, and they could hear the hiss of tires on rain-slick streets. Inside Erica could hear her heart pounding, and her palms grew sweaty. She wiped them on her raincoat so that they only became more damp. Dear God, she wished that Hank would look at her like this forever.
“Marry me, Erica,” he said, his eyes burning holes all the way to her soul. “Marry me.”
Cowboy Enchantment Page 20