Cowboy Enchantment

chapter Five


“Breathe in. Breathe out. And feel pe-e-e-eace.”

Erica, seated cross-legged on a mat underneath a spreading oak, breathed in. She breathed out. And she opened one eye so she could better observe the group that was at that moment riding out from the stable in the distance. It consisted of twelve riders and a leader, Hank. She almost wished she’d signed up for group riding lessons, instead of private ones. If she had, she would be with Hank right now, instead of merely breathing.

The instructor, a tiny dark-haired woman named Ananda, rang a small chime. The resulting notes fairly shimmered in the air. “That’s the end of our meditation session for today.”

Along with the other participants in the session, Erica returned her mat to the nearby wooden outbuilding and started walking back toward the cluster of buildings that made up the main part of the ranch. It was time for her appointment with her personal shopper.

The shopper’s name was Sue, and she was a red-haired bundle of energy. “You need to tell me what kind of clothes you like to wear,” she said, sitting down on a couch and patting the cushion beside her.

Erica described her collection of power suits in navy and charcoal, her numerous little black dresses that could go from cocktail parties to dinners with little or no modification, and her collection of expensive but sensible shoes that were as suitable for chasing taxis as they were for board meetings.

“Well,” said Sue, studying her carefully, “what would you like to change about your wardrobe?”

“Everything,” Erica declared. “I hate the way I look. I hate navy and charcoal and low-heeled shoes. I want to—” and here she swallowed audibly “—I want to look like someone a cowboy could fall in love with. I want to be cute and charming and curvy. I want—”

“We can take care of the cute and curvy. It’s up to you to be charming.”

“I will be, so help me,” Erica said.

“Stand up.”

Erica stood.

“Turn around.”

Erica turned.

“You have small bones, and that’s to the good. I see on your chart that you want to gain weight, not lose it. That’s excellent. Hips, fine. Bust, needs a bit of oomph, no problem there.”

“Pardon?”

“They have bras for that. To spiff up your usual wardrobe, I’ll order you some blouses in bright colors. I’ll find a jumpsuit to show off your petite figure, scarves to spark a bit of color in your face. And you’d look great in short dresses that emphasize your legs.”

Erica always wore her skirts long, but she had come here for a makeover, and made over she was determined to be. “All right,” she said.

Sue made notations on a color chart. “I can make a few phone calls and have some clothes delivered here today. In the meantime, let’s pay a visit to the ranch’s gift shop. You’ll want to look your best for the dance tonight.”

“No one told me anything about a dance!”

“Your invitation was in the packet of materials you received at registration.”

“Oops! Maybe I should have read all that stuff.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll fill you in as we walk over there.”

She and Erica started across the grounds toward the gift shop. “Justine hired a country-and-western band to come from Carson City every Friday night,” Sue told her. “All guests are invited, and all the employees are required to go.”

So Hank would be there!

When she and Sue arrived at the gift shop, Sue immediately led Erica to a rack of square-dance clothes. And after several trips to and from the fitting room, Erica had to admit that the new clothes did something for her. The puffy sleeves of the peasant blouse made her arms look plump and round, the bodice showed her breasts to be especially curvaceous, and as for her hips…well, the bandanna fabric of the skirt moved alluringly when she experimentally swung her hips from side to side. She pulled the elastic neckline low enough to reveal cleavage, and due to a bra that Sue had provided, there was cleavage.

Sue grinned. “Well? If you want to look cute and curvy, these are the clothes.”

“I’ll take all of them,” Erica decided in a fit of recklessness.

“Good,” Sue said with a nod of approval, and she went off to charge the outfits to Erica’s tab.

After promising to have Erica’s new clothes pressed and hung in her closet within hours after they arrived, Sue left her in front of the rec hall, and Erica walked back to Desert Rose pondering this makeover business. By now she knew she looked different. She thought she looked better. But she felt like the same Erica inside.

Two women from one of the other suites in Desert Rose hailed her as she opened her own door. “We’re going for a mud wrap. Want to come with us?”

She recognized both of them from yoga class. Natalie was tiny and pert, Shannon was tall and busty. Both wore big smiles and seemed eager for company.

As unappealing as a mud wrap sounded, Erica figured she might as well sample as many Rancho Encantado activities as possible and agreed to meet them in the courtyard in a few minutes.

After she changed into her robe, she hurried back outside. As she waited beneath the Joshua tree, she spotted the group of student riders as they headed back toward the stable. Hank rode at the front of the group, his red shirt making him easily distinguishable.

“I see you noticed Hunk,” Shannon said when she and Natalie joined her.

In response to Erica’s blank expression, Natalie laughed. “His name’s Hank, but we think Hunk suits him better.”

It was all Erica could do to suppress a smile. Finally she gave up and grinned. “The name fits,” she admitted “Do you know him?”

“Not very well,” Natalie said. “He’s very businesslike and hardly ever cracks a smile.”

“We tried to cheer him up. Lordy, how we tried.” The two exchanged a look and laughed.

Erica supposed she could have brought up the tragedy that had changed Hank’s life, but it didn’t seem appropriate to discuss it. Certainly she wasn’t surprised that Hank was attractive to other women; hadn’t Justine said that she fielded questions about him all the time?

The three of them learned when they arrived at the spa that the mud-wrap procedure would take two hours. A week ago Erica would have bemoaned a full two hours wasted on something she considered trivial, but now it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to be anywhere, do anything or be useful to anyone. Willingly she turned herself over to the receptionist, who conducted her into the depths of the Rancho Encantado spa where people went to be massaged, immersed, floated, rolfed and wrapped.

Erica found her skin being exfoliated with loofah mitts and sea salt to the accompaniment of soothing music. When her skin was burnished to a tingle, mud was applied to her entire body, although the stolid attendant was merciful enough to spare her face. Then Erica was wrapped in permeable plastic to “cocoon” for twenty minutes during which she was told to relax. Minutes later, beginning to succumb to the warm sensation of the mud and the wrap, Erica closed her eyes.

She was on the porch outside the recreation hall wearing her new low-necked white peasant blouse and the red bandanna skirt. Her breasts were full and partially exposed; they shone pale in the moonlight that spilled like molten silver over the scene.

Hank, standing on the step below her, glanced at her, his heavy-lidded eyes smoldering with desire. “Erica, let’s slip away together. Let’s find a place where we can be alone.”

From inside the hall came the lively music of a fiddle. Suddenly the music tempo changed, becoming a slow and dreamy waltz.

Erica slid a look back through the open door, where couples were gliding beneath crepe-paper streamers hung overhead. “We’ll be missed.”

Hank ran a bold hand up the inside of her leg. “We can be back before anyone notices. Let’s—”

“Your time is up,” said the white-garbed attendant as she yanked aside the curtain. Erica had to pull herself out of this pleasant daydream to the present time and place, where she was divested of her plastic wrapper, which she had begun to appreciate in the last few minutes.

Still covered in mud, she was led to a multijet Swiss shower and instructed how to position herself so that the attendant could spray her with a high-pressure hose. Then she was treated to a thorough massage. Finally, when she felt as limp as a noodle, she rejoined Natalie and Shannon in the lounge, where they collapsed into contoured chairs, guzzled fruity drinks and laughed together about the experience.

After lunch, Erica kept her appointment with an optometrist, hired by Justine to come to the ranch once a week to help with makeovers.

“I’ve never been able to wear contact lenses before,” Erica said doubtfully when the exam was over. “I’ve never been able to get a good correction.”

Dr. Levin looked up from her notes. “The ones I’ve prescribed shouldn’t pose a problem. You can start to wear them right away, and you should call me if you have any trouble. You’ll need to decide what color you want to order.”

“They come in colors? That’s amazing.”

“Sure. You can order hazel, dark brown, light brown, blue with violet centers, deep blue, green—”

“I get the idea,” Erica said hastily. “One pair in every color, please.”

The doctor raised her eyebrows in amusement but did not comment.

At least, Erica thought, she would have a pair of contact lenses to match every one of her new outfits. She couldn’t wait to tell Charmaine. Her sister would probably laugh her head off at Erica’s new look, but Erica didn’t care. She was having fun for once in her life, and she wasn’t about to quit now.

ERICA REPORTED to the stable early for her trail ride and found Hank saddling Melba, who swiveled her head and regarded Erica with mild interest. Erica blinked, astonished that her new contact lenses—the blue ones—didn’t blur her vision. If anything, she could see better, which, when looking at Hank, was a plus.

He still wore the long-sleeved red shirt, Western-style, from the morning. He also wore a big smile, aimed at her.

“How’s it going?” he said.

She adopted his laconic manner of speech. “Can’t complain.”

He tightened the saddle cinch, and Erica reacquainted herself with Melba. Now that her eyes were adjusting to being inside the cool shadowy stable, she could see some of the names of the other horses on their stalls. Tango, said one. Sebastian, said another, and right next to that, Dimity. There were also stalls for Stilts and Twiggy and Shawnee.

The horse named Sebastian was in his stall, and because she recalled Hank’s telling Justine that Sebastian was the bane of his existence, she moved closer for a better look. He was a handsome horse, square-jawed and maybe fifteen and a half hands high.

“What a gorgeous animal,” she murmured almost to herself. Sebastian had a glossy coat and a long black mane. His only marking was a diamond-shaped white patch that was almost covered by his forelock.

“He’s a four-year-old stallion and a lot to handle,” Hank said.

Taking note of the way Sebastian nosed over the top of his stall toward Hank, Erica said, “He seems to like you.”

“He was trained correctly early on, but for some reason, now he bites. He bucks and even tries to scrape me off under low-hanging tree branches. But we’re getting along pretty well.” Hank stroked Sebastian’s velvet nose.

“I’m glad someone gets along with that fool horse.”

Erica turned as a rangy dark-haired man strode into the stable. He was wearing dusty jeans and worn boots, and his hat was pushed back on his head.

“Erica, this is Cord McCall, the ranch manager. Cord, Erica is Justine’s friend.”

Steady eyes met hers. “Glad to meet you. I hope you’re enjoying your stay.”

“I’ve only been here a couple of days, but so far, it’s great.”

“Good. Hank, I’ll be away tonight. I’d appreciate it if you’d make sure to tell the hands to ride out and check on those broodmares tomorrow morning if I’m not back in time.”

“Sure thing.”

Cord afforded Hank an abrupt nod, said, “Glad to meet you, ma’am,” and hurried out of the stable toward the ranch pickup.

“Broodmares? You breed horses here?”

“Some. That’s why Justine keeps Sebastian around. She thinks he’s good breeding stock.” Hank shrugged.

“Cord doesn’t seem too friendly,” Erica said as they watched the pickup disappear down the road pulling a cloud of dust.

“He wasn’t hired to be friendly to guests. He was hired to run the working end of the ranch and has a lot on his mind. Come on, if we’re going for a ride, we’d better be on our way, since Justine may tire of babysitting Kaylie earlier than she thinks.”

She moved away from Sebastian’s stall and approached Melba. Hank cupped his hands for her foot, preparing to take her weight for as long as it took her to swing her other leg up and over the saddle. She inserted her foot in the place he had made for it, but before she could boost herself up into the saddle, Hank looked deep into her eyes. She had momentarily forgotten that she wore her new blue contact lenses, and she was unprepared for the expression of confusion that flitted across Hank’s strong features.

When she was mounted and looked back down at him, he was staring at her openmouthed.

“You look so…different,” he said.

She had carefully contoured her eyes with shadow and eyeliner the way Tico had shown her. The subtle use of blush emphasized her cheekbones and gave her chin a more rounded look. She smiled, trying to pass the comment off as lightheartedly as she could. “That,” she said, “is the idea of a makeover, isn’t it?”

He continued to look thoughtful. “I guess so,” he said, and then he went to tighten the girth on his own horse, a roan gelding that patiently waited near the opening to the corral. The horse shied a little when Hank started to mount him.

“Steady, Whip,” Hank said, reining the horse around so that he could see her. “Give Melba a little nudge with your heels and a slight slap with the reins. That’s right. Now remember all you learned yesterday, and let’s just amble along out of the corral.” Hank looked brutally handsome in that moment.

As he bent down to undo the gate latch, Erica admired the athletic precision of his movement, the sinewy hands, his concentration on his task. She was painfully aware that he had said she looked different. Not better. Only different.

She certainly felt different. She felt…noticeable. And this time, she felt noticeable for her looks, not her brains. And she liked not wearing glasses. It was good not to have to keep pushing them higher on her nose. Without glasses to hide behind, she felt right out there with other people. With Hank.

“The scenery around here is unexpected,” she said, taking in the purple hills, the snowcapped mountains beyond and the burnished blue sky overhead.

“Unexpected?”

“Remarkable.”

“I suppose that’s a good way to describe it.”

She wondered what he would have thought if he could read her mind, what his reaction would be if he knew she had set her sights on him from the time she’d first set eyes on him. She shot him a cautious look out of the corners of her eye, finding it odd that her vision was no longer partially obscured by the frames of her glasses.

“I thought we’d edge along the outside of the ranch property,” he said as they passed between the rock pillars marking the entrance to Rancho Encantado. Above the pillars stretched a sign: RANCHO ENCANTADO, WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE.

Do they? Erica wondered, then was distracted as they crossed a dirt road that led to an equipment barn, as well as employee quarters, holding pens and loading chutes necessary for a large working ranch. “That’s the original hacienda over there,” Hank said, angling his head in the direction of an old adobe structure in the distance. “We’ll stop by there on the way back so I can check on some things.”

“Great. Where will we go now?”

“We’ll be taking the path down to the wash, a little stream called Padre’s Creek. The priest lived near there when this was church land.”

Erica wished that Melba would hurry up a bit, instead of ambling along with so little spirit. It would be more fun to trot along with the wind blowing in her newly coiffed hair. Melba, however, was placid and calm, determined to give her an easy ride.

Hank continued to direct Erica with pointers about her riding, noting that she seemed to know instinctively how to handle the horse. Not, he admitted to himself, that Melba was that much of a horse. She was elderly and not inclined to be skittish even when ridden by the most nervous of new riders.

They passed a hill and the abandoned borax mine, the remnants of its buildings overgrown with mesquite. After they had traversed the hill, a wide trail led them through a grove of cottonwoods, the land sloping gently down to a creek. In the branches overhead, a bird chattered, sounding very loud in the silence.

“It’s been so long since I’ve paid any attention to nature,” Erica said in answer to Hank’s quizzical look. “In New York I never even go to the park.”

“I see that you brought your camera.”

“Yes, it’s a digital and I’m still learning how to use it. I used to be a pretty good nature photographer with my old camera, but this one’s so new I’m still in the experimental stages.”

“Maybe I can help you get some good shots” was all he said. Later he took care to point out a hawk to her as it circled lazily overhead. She snapped its picture, checked it in the preview lens and liked what she saw.

They heard the purling of the stream before they saw it. As they came around the two large boulders that hid it from view, Erica almost gasped. The little creek was beautiful and unspoiled, curving down from the golden hills and disappearing into a gorge in the distance. This stretch was shallow, with little pools in the rocks that lined the bank.

Hank dismounted and so did she. Erica immediately regretted her haste, considering how much more pleasant it would have been to feel his arms circling her as she had yesterday.

“I was going to help you down,” he said, a frown marring his features.

“No need,” she said, giving a little laugh that sounded so false she was sure it wouldn’t fool him. Before he could comment, she tossed Melba’s reins into his outstretched hands and brushed past him, heading for the water. Her precipitous flight was one way to hide her confusion, to find privacy in which she could curse her own stupidity and regain her equilibrium.

The path skirted the ruins of a building, its crumbled stone foundation overgrown with straggly weeds. Beside the path was a bronze plaque, and she stopped to read it.


ON THIS SITE LIVED PADRE LUIS REYES DE SANTIAGO, WHO BUILT A SCHOOL AND A HOSPITAL IN THIS VALLEY IN 1876. FRIEND TO ALL, BENEFACTOR OF MANY, SERVANT OF GOD.


“That’s all that’s left of his house,” Hank said as he came up behind her. “The timber from it was salvaged long ago.”

“How about the school and the hospital?”

“Gone. The hospital stood where the guest quarters are, probably very close to Desert Rose. The school was near the Big House.”

Erica ran a finger across the raised bronze letters of the plaque. “It’s sad to think that there’s nothing left of this man’s life work when he was apparently important to a lot of people.”

She heard a rustle of wind among the tree branches, and a shiver rippled up her spine. It was disconcerting, that shiver, because the sun was warm today. Perhaps Hank felt it, too, because he looked around as if he expected to see someone behind him. But no one was there.

If Hank thought anything was amiss, he gave no sign. “I know of a large flat rock where we can spread the food,” he said before continuing down the path.

Erica followed him as she massaged the gooseflesh on her arms, still wondering about that shiver. When she joined Hank at the edge of the creek, he was sitting on a boulder and pulling containers of food out of a saddlebag.

She sat down beside him on rocks warm with sunshine. As the gooseflesh faded, it seemed to her that the rocks throbbed with the beat of the earth—its heart perhaps? A silly notion, but she reminded herself that this place was supposed to be a vortex, a site where the earth’s energy was said to activate and energize.

“Hungry?” Hank asked.

“Sure.”

He set out a pile of sandwiches, fresh fruit and a plastic container labeled “dessert.” “This looks better than my usual fare. I usually make do with something from the freezer so I can spend more time with Kaylie.”

This was a safe topic, one Erica felt she could pursue without betraying her tendency to have an out-of-body experience when she was around him. “Kaylie—what does she eat?”

“Horrible-looking stuff out of a jar.” He laughed ruefully. “She laps it up, though.”

“Does she feed herself?”

He stared at her for a moment. His eyes were bracingly blue in the sunlight of late afternoon. “Well, no. She’s only seven months old. She can eat finger foods, like cookies, but she has to be fed.”

“As in spoonful by spoonful?” Erica asked with a wry smile.

“Exactly.”

“That must take a lot of time.”

“It does.” He handed her a sandwich. He could recall the days when he hadn’t realized how much work a baby was, but now that his days and nights were filled with baby this, baby that, he sometimes forgot that not everyone had this specialized knowledge. Even he, with his multiple college degrees in business and finance, had found the baby-care learning curve difficult.

“I guess you know that I don’t know much about babies,” she said, unwrapping her sandwich. As she did so, her hair fell slightly forward over her face, softening her features, and he saw for the first time that her nose turned up pertly at the end. He hadn’t noticed that when she wore glasses.

He leaned back against a rock. “There sure is a lot to learn,” he allowed before biting into a hearty ham-and-jalapeño cheese sandwich on sourdough bread.

“I heard about what happened to Kaylie’s mother,” Erica ventured. “I’m sorry.”

“How much do you know about the accident?” he asked abruptly.

Erica looked him straight in the eye. He liked that, too.

“That your ex-wife was coming home late and had an automobile accident. That she was on the way home from helping someone.”

“That’s true. She was.” He paused for a moment, not knowing whether to pursue the topic, not sure Erica would be interested. She was gazing at him with interest, so he plunged ahead.

“We’d been divorced for the better part of a year at the time. She worked here with Justine, who’d offered her a job when we split. Anne-Marie was a good person, but we couldn’t live together. I guess that was my fault.”

“Usually it’s the fault of both people if a relationship doesn’t work out,” Erica said carefully.

He grunted, knowing she was right. But it would be ungentlemanly, he thought, not to shoulder the blame for the failure of his marriage. The truth was, he and Anne-Marie never should have gotten married. It had taken only a matter of months for them to discover that they had little in common, and they’d both felt relief when they’d separated. And then, out of a misbegotten sense of obligation, they had decided to give the marriage one more try. It had been a fateful decision, but he didn’t regret it. For the first time he felt the need to explain his feelings to someone. To Erica, who was looking at him with a serious expression, one that encouraged him to open up.

He drew a deep breath. “Kaylie is the result of an attempted reconciliation between Anne-Marie and me. Neither one of us expected to make a baby, and…well, I can’t say I was happy to learn Anne-Marie was pregnant. But when I saw my daughter for the first time, I was out-and-out crazy about her.” He’d been overwhelmed with emotion the first time he’d seen Kaylie’s chubby little cheeks, her fuzz of pale hair. He considered his daughter the best thing that had ever happened to him, despite all the huge changes she’d brought to his life.

“She’s a darling baby.” Erica didn’t want to pry, but she hoped Hank would go on talking. His face lit up when he spoke of his daughter, and he looked younger, more carefree. She wondered how old he was. Thirty-four? Thirty-five?

He pushed an apple in her direction, and she caught it before it rolled off the rock. “I can’t imagine life without Kaylie,” he said truthfully. “She makes everything worthwhile.”

“Working so hard, you mean?” She was studying him, her eyes so deep and solemn he could hardly glance away.

His reminder to himself that the work he did now was not his normal job caught him up short. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to manage when he returned to his old life.

“That and other things,” he said.

“It must be lonely being a single father.”

It was, but he’d never admitted it to anyone except himself. He shrugged, embarrassed.

She looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s only that I’ve been questioning my own life since I’ve been here where things are so different from New York. When you’re caught up in a hectic whirlwind of activity, you don’t take time to think that there are options.” She bit into the apple, a pensive expression settling over her features.

He would have liked to pursue the topic further. There were few people in the world with whom he felt comfortable talking about private matters, but this woman had quickly put him at ease with her disarming and total interest, as well as her quiet acceptance. He wanted to know more about her.

“Do you like living in New York, Erica?”

“It’s okay. I grew up in Rhode Island.”

“The ranch is a real change for you then, isn’t it?” He could imagine her in the city somehow. She had a big-city polish, a big-city attitude.

“The change is a welcome one. I’m glad I came here.”

“How long are you staying?”

“A week,” she said.

“A week,” he repeated thoughtfully.

As he reached for another sandwich, he spotted a quick movement along the bank of the creek.

“Look,” he whispered, putting a hand on Erica’s arm to draw her attention to where he was pointing. A coyote stood at attention on the opposite bank. Something upstream seemed to have caught his attention, and he seemed oblivious to the two of them. He stood with his ears up, his tail down, in a posture of alertness.

“He’s come for water,” Hank said.

Erica fumbled for her camera, then focused on the coyote. She snapped a picture, hoping the beep of the camera wouldn’t startle him. The coyote’s ears still stood at attention, but he didn’t run. After a minute or so, he lowered his head and loped out of sight.

Erica sighed, “He was beautiful.” Hank’s hand still rested on her arm, and he didn’t want to move it. She wore a long-sleeved shirt, and her skin felt warm beneath it, warm and solid and real. He thought about how good it would feel to have her warmth pressed against him, enveloping him. He thought about the way her breasts swelled against the front of her shirt. He thought he would have liked to touch his finger to the shadow beneath the curve of her jaw, and he wondered if the skin there would be warm or cool, whether he’d be able to feel the throb of her pulse. He didn’t think he could bear it if he never found out.

“I’ve never seen a live coyote,” Erica said. “His coat, the amber and buff, is exactly the color I would have liked Tico to make my hair.”

He studied her hair, which was shiny and made him long to run his fingers through it. “Your color,” he said judiciously, “is not so far off.”

She laughed, and he laughed, too. He discovered that it felt good to be laughing with someone, to feel such camaraderie.

She hit the preview button on the camera, and the picture of the coyote popped up. She zoomed in on it so that the animal’s image filled the whole frame and held it toward Hank. “Take a look.”

In order to see the tiny screen, he had to slide closer to her and soon he was so close their thighs touched.

“Very nice,” he said, but he wasn’t talking about the coyote. As he studied the picture, in which the coyote was looking straight into the lens and appeared to be laughing at them, the coyote winked.

Winked? He couldn’t have. This was a digital camera, not a video camera. And coyotes didn’t wink at people.

Still, he could have sworn that the coyote had winked at him, and strangest of all, he had the idea that if the animal could have spoken, he would have made one of those comments guys sometimes made to each other when one of them was hot on the chase. Something like “Good luck, pardner.”

Which he didn’t really need. He was lucky already just to have met someone like Erica Strong.

Padre Luis Speaks…

MADRE DE DIOS! What is taking so long? Erica and Hank went to the site of my house, and I can still see it standing, though they cannot. It is a blessed place.

Perhaps that is why they are making progress. And although I can almost see the outline of Erica when she walks through our courtyard now, she is still hoping for the wrong thing. A “fling!” What is this “fling”? I am beside myself trying to understand these people.

Oh, if these two would only surrender themselves to the inner transformation that awaits them in this spiritual place! Instead, this Erica, she wants to change her hair, change her eyes, change the whole outside of her, which I cannot see, anyway. I can see her spirit, however. It is the color gray. That is not the color of a healthy spirit.

I am beside myself, I tell you! Beside myself!

I need my voice. I must speak to Erica. Where is that cat? When I see her, I will push her into the cactus. No, I won’t. God forgive me, I am not a cruel man. But I must make the cat understand that if I do not have my voice, I will have to reveal myself to Erica, and that might make her afraid.

God, I stand before You, Your humble servant. Tell me what to do. Show me what to do. Send me that cat. Help me get back my voice before these mortals do themselves serious harm.