Cowboy Enchantment

chapter Seven


As she watched Hank and Lizette disappear into the palm grove, it was all Erica could do not to burst into tears. In her daydreams, the cowboy never walked off with someone else.

“Hey, little lady, what are you doing out here all by yourself?”

Erica whirled around in time to see Chuck through the screen door behind her. He opened it and stepped outside, affording her an easy grin.

“Just getting some fresh air.”

“Looked like you might be frettin’.”

“No.” She could no longer see Hank and Lizette, and she wondered if they had taken the path to the right, which led to the oasis hot pool, or to the left, which would bring them to the guest quarters. Lizette had said she was a guest at the ranch.

Chuck was assessing Erica with interest. His eyes lingered first on her breasts, then on her lips. At one time she might have responded to him, but now that she’d met the perfect cowboy, she couldn’t muster the effort to encourage the not-so-perfect cowboy. Not that Chuck was unattractive, far from it. But his pale hair, blue eyes and ruddy complexion weren’t nearly as exciting to her as Hank’s dark good looks.

Nevertheless, he was smiling expectantly. “Want to dance?”

With Hank’s swift apology and retreat still ringing in her ears, she was too numb to think of a way to turn Chuck down without hurting his feelings. And before she knew it, she was being led into a large circle of people and the caller was explaining the dance. She was so distracted that she had trouble focusing, but Chuck was kind and forgiving of her missteps.

She wished she had known that Hank had a girlfriend, but would it have made a difference in how she felt about him? Probably not. She would never have dreamed that Hank would be interested in someone so hard-edged. Someone so much like herself.

But she was different now. She was beginning to feel embarrassed about her former attitude, her brusqueness, her lack of interest in anything but her job. There was a whole world out here, one she had only dreamed about, and she was fitting into it so well that she could hardly recall what she had found so compelling about her way of life.

Chuck held Erica close for a moment after the last dance was over, and she knew that the hug was the prelude to an advance. She immediately pulled away. He accepted her rejection with good humor and moved on to the bar, where he sat down next to someone who seemed to welcome his attentions.

“Come with us,” called Shannon, who was on the arm of a cowboy that Erica didn’t recognize. Natalie was with Sal, batting adoring eyes up at him.

“Sorry, but I’m going back to my suite.”

“Aw, c’mon, we’re going to party for a while longer,” said Sal.

“I’m not in the mood. See you tomorrow.”

Hiding her misery as well as she could, Erica slipped out of the rec hall. From the banter of the people who were leaving the building at the same time, she gathered that some of them were driving over the Nevada border into Sonoco. It was not a jaunt that appealed to her, especially in her present frame of mind.

She pulled her sweater closer around her shoulders and started out alone for Desert Rose, mindful that things could have been so different. On her way through the palm grove, she heard the murmurings of an amorous couple near the oasis hot pool. The woman laughed, a provocative sound, and then there was only silence. Erica veered away, choosing another path toward her quarters. What if that was Hank with Lizette? If that was who it was, she didn’t want to know.

As she approached Desert Rose, she realized she couldn’t face the empty rooms yet. Earlier she’d been anticipating meeting Hank there, and now that he was out of the picture, she didn’t want to be alone. Was she angry with him? Oh, yes. He’d led her on. Still, she had come on strong. Perhaps she’d misread his signals, though she was sure he’d never given her so much as a hint that he had a girlfriend. To his credit, when Lizette showed up, he’d first looked astonished, then annoyed. In the end, however, he had introduced them rapidly and hustled Lizette away with hardly a backward glance.

As she looked toward the Big House and saw no lights in the windows, she thought how good it would be to indulge in a session of girl talk with Justine. But it was too late to go visiting, and since she was mindful of the tension between Justine and Hank, it wouldn’t be right to take Justine into her confidence.

Yet she was too restless, too upset to call it a night. There didn’t seem to be anyone else who wasn’t otherwise occupied on this night when she wanted—no, needed—some company so she wouldn’t get more depressed than she already was.

Her thoughts turned to the horses—Melba, Whip, Sebastian and those she didn’t know yet. Visiting them would give her something to do. Horses accepted people for who they were. They didn’t judge or gossip. And they didn’t run off with girlfriends you didn’t know they had.

She let herself into her suite, exchanged the red skirt for a pair of jeans and threw a warm jacket over her blouse to ward off the chill. Then she headed for the stable, bringing herself to an abrupt halt when she remembered that Hank’s apartment was located at one end of the building. She had no desire to run into him so soon after he’d ditched her.

After she’d thought about it for a few seconds, she shrugged and made herself move forward. Considering the fact that he had walked off with Lizette, Hank probably wouldn’t be in his own apartment tonight, anyway.

“I’VE BEEN HOPPING on and off planes all day long to get to this godforsaken place,” Lizette said to Hank as she tossed her Gucci bag onto the couch in her suite in Sagebrush, the building right next to Desert Rose. Hank thought longingly of Erica back on the porch and how her eyes had widened in dismay at the sight of Lizette, who’d arrived wearing a black wool turtleneck sweater, a long black skirt and black high-heeled boots—all very New York. Once upon a time in a different life he had considered such a getup sexy. Now Lizette merely looked overheated and uncomfortable.

“I was lucky to get this suite—the previous guest had to rush home to take care of her daughter, who came down with the flu. There’s a lot of flu going around these days. Two people in my Life Strategy class were out with it this week.” She yawned and tucked the front strands of her sleek, squared-off black bob behind her ears. “Do me a favor, Henry. Pour me a drink from that flask in my tote while I change into something more comfortable.”

After Lizette went into the bedroom, Hank found the scotch, opened a bottle of soda from the minibar and mixed Lizette’s drink. He also mixed one for himself—a very stiff one.

Hank had already downed most of his drink before Lizette appeared in the doorway.

“Lovey bunny, aren’t you glad to see me?”

“I wasn’t expecting you,” he said more than a tad ungraciously.

She glided over to him in high-heeled mules trimmed with maribou. The negligee she wore was almost transparent.

She accepted her drink from his outstretched hand. “Let’s lie down on the bed for a while, shall we? I’m really tired.”

Unwillingly he followed her into the bedroom and watched Lizette drape herself dramatically across the bed pillows and pat the comforter beside her. “Right here, Henry. Close enough to kiss.” She smiled invitingly, and he realized that he had not kissed her hello. Nor did he want to.

He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, preparing to extricate himself from this situation. The dance was over, and Erica would be walking home through the palm grove, perhaps alone. He hoped she was alone, though he felt guilty for wishing that. He’d noticed Chuck giving her the eye while they were dancing. Of course, Erica wasn’t his woman. She could have been his woman for the night, though. He was fairly confident of that.

“Henry? Aren’t you listening?”

He stood. “No, I’m not. Lizette, I’m really tired. Perhaps we should both get some rest and deal with this tomorrow.”

She sat straight up. “Deal with what tomorrow?”

“With…everything,” he said.

Her eyes were a sort of amber color. They would have been pretty if they hadn’t been shooting yellow sparks. Lizette was hopping mad.

“I came all the way here to see you and you aren’t going to spend the night with me?”

“Lizette—”

She let out a sigh of exasperation. “All right, Henry. I’m tired, too. I’ll feel better after I get my beauty sleep.”

Feeling a wash of relief, he turned to make tracks for the door.

“Oh, by the way, I’ll see you on your trail ride tomorrow afternoon. I signed up when I checked in.”

He’d almost forgotten he was supposed to lead that ride tomorrow. He didn’t want Lizette on it, not by a long shot. There wasn’t much he could do about it, though, if she had already signed up.

“Good night, Lizette.” Before she could say anything more, he set his glass firmly on the minibar and let himself out the door. The air outside was fresh and cool, and he inhaled deeply of it. It made him feel hopeful.

He heard her say something from behind the door, but he didn’t care what it was. Right now he was thinking about Erica, and the scotch gave him the courage to stop off at Desert Rose. He went directly to Erica’s door and knocked.

No answer. He knocked again.

Erica came to the door wearing nothing but a robe.

No, he could come up with a better fantasy than that.

Erica came to the door wearing nothing but a skimpy bath towel. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, her voice low and sweet as honey.

“You knew I’d be here.”

“Yes.” She lowered her eyelids and opened the door wider. “Come in. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

In real life, however, Erica didn’t answer his knock, and he had no idea what the surprise might have been if the scene was real. Which, standing out here like a lovelorn fool, he wished it was. “Erica?” he said urgently, keeping his voice low. He heard the sound of distant laughter, of a group chatting among themselves as they headed back to their quarters. He listened for the sound of Erica’s voice but didn’t hear it.

She still didn’t respond to his knock. Perhaps she had already gone to bed. He glanced at his watch, realizing that the dance had been over for only fifteen minutes or so. She couldn’t possibly be asleep unless she had left early, and perhaps she had. It wouldn’t be easy to forget the disappointment on her face when he’d stammered something inadequate and walked away with Lizette.

He shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong and stupid and at the time all he’d wanted was to get Lizette away from her. He’d been embarrassed by the condescending way in which Lizette had smiled when he introduced her to Erica, the proprietary air with which she had grabbed his arm. His interchange with Erica had seemed soiled and profaned by Lizette’s intrusion, and the realization that he thought more of Erica than he did Lizette had hit him hard in the gut. Which was why he was standing so forlornly outside Erica’s closed door, wishing she’d open it. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to make things right. He wanted…

He wanted Erica, pure and simple. But there was nothing simple about this wanting, nothing at all.

As he walked away from her door, Hank thought briefly of climbing into the ranch pickup and barreling off toward town, where he could get royally drunk. He’d like to forget about the problem posed by Lizette’s sudden appearance at Rancho Encantado, not to mention the absence of Erica from her room. Getting drunk was probably what a real cowboy would do.

Yet his encounter with Lizette had reminded him all too painfully that he was still masquerading as someone he wasn’t. He was Henry Parrish Milling III of the Wall Street investment-banking firm of Rowbotham-Quigley, and it looked as if Lizette was not about to let him forget it.

ERICA GREETED Melba and Whip and quickly made the acquaintance of Tango, a bay mare, and Stilts, a chestnut gelding whose long legs lived up to his name. Sebastian was not in his stall, but she found him in the enclosure adjacent to the corral where someone had left him, perhaps to stretch his legs a bit. He regarded her warily as she approached.

“I wish Hank had let me ride you today,” she told him. “I would have loved the excitement, and you probably could use the exercise.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the stable cat slink past as if surreptitiously observing the scene. It was Mrs. Gray, the same cat that had seemed to talk to her.

“Cats don’t talk,” she said to Sebastian, almost as if trying to convince herself. The cat didn’t reappear, much to her relief.

Sebastian let her move closer and stroke him gently on the nose. “You know,” Erica said conversationally, “I could take you out for a ride tonight while everyone else is busy, and perhaps no one would ever know. We could have fun together, the two of us.”

Sebastian tossed his head and rolled his eyes to show he was game. She wondered if it might really be possible to ride Sebastian without anyone’s finding out. A glance toward the end of the barn told her that the two apartments where Hank and Cord McCall lived were closed and dark, so probably no one was home. This gave her a stab of pain in the region of her heart, but she tried not to think about Hank and Lizette together, their bodies entwined, their passion unfettered.

She shook away the thought. All she knew right then was that she wanted to ride Sebastian, ride until he was exhausted and so was she, ride until dawn if that was what it took to erase the unwanted image of Hank and Lizette from her mind.

She knew how to saddle a horse. She was a good horsewoman. There was nothing to stop her from striking out on her own, nothing but her own inhibitions, and she was prepared to toss them to the wind.

She marched back into the stable and yanked a bridle off a hook. She spotted a flashlight on a nearby ledge and tucked it into her pocket. “Come on, big boy,” she said as she emerged into the corral. “I’m going to give you the ride of your life.”

Those were words that she had always wanted to say, only to a cowboy, not to a horse. Well, sometimes you had to take what you could get in this life, and right now that was Sebastian.

AS SOON AS Hank ambled into the stable, his thoughts intent on grabbing a carrot from the refrigerator in his apartment and spending a few minutes of quality time with Whip, he spotted Erica mounting Sebastian outside the stable door.

“Steady, boy,” she said softly as Sebastian pranced toward the open gate. Then, to Hank’s openmouthed and horrified amazement, the horse treated her to a couple of jarring bucks, but she sat her saddle well.

Erica hung in there as Sebastian skittered sideways, showing his mettle. The horse’s ears were pricked forward, but even so, he was flicking them backward as if he expected to hear encouraging words from his rider. And despite his head-shaking and rolling eyes, Erica was speaking to him in a low tone, a soothing tone, as Sebastian, the horse that he and Cord had almost given up on, the horse that none of the ranch hands trusted, suddenly spun about and began to circle the ring in a smoothly controlled trot. Hank watched spellbound as Erica rode him out through the open gate of the corral with an air of calm authority, spurring him on with her knees as they reached open ground. Hank shouted once after he regained his voice, but they were too far away by that time to hear.

“I’ll be damned.”

As Sebastian’s hoofbeats died away in the distance, Hank couldn’t believe the formidable display of horsemanship he’d just observed. At first, he couldn’t even quite believe that the rider was Erica. At the same time, there was no denying that artfully streaked blond hair and pert derriere, that delicacy of bone and supreme self-possession. She sat the saddle as if she had ridden all her life, and at first he thought that this scenario, improbable as it was, must be another daydream of his own making. But he would never have dreamed that Erica would be on a horse riding away from him.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered to himself. What did Erica, supposedly a neophyte in the saddle, think she was doing? It was clear to him now that Erica was no rank beginner. But Sebastian was a handful, and as impossible as he thought it might be for Erica to have saddled him by herself, he knew she must have. But for God’s sake, why?

One thing Hank knew for sure was that no matter how experienced a rider she might be, Erica Strong must be crazy to take a horse like Sebastian out at night all alone.

AS HE BORE HER away into the night, Sebastian was all that Erica hoped he would be. She thought that his reputation as a difficult horse must be a misunderstanding. After that nonsense when she first mounted, which she recognized as a test of her determination, he had accepted her authority. Best of all, with his long loose stride and his exuberance at going on a late-night ride, he was fun to ride, unlike Melba, whose spirit had been ridden out of her long ago.

With the saddle leather creaking in the chill night air, she turned Sebastian toward the path she had traveled earlier today with Hank. The horse had a sensitive mouth and seemed wary of the bit. He needed only the slightest pressure from her knees to guide him.

The night was silent, quiet and peaceful, fragrant with the scent of sage and the night smell of sun-baked rock cooled to air temperature. Erica loved the silence, loved the peace of it. Being out in the open under a great star-filled sky made her at one with nature and helped to blunt the hurt of watching Hank walk away with another woman.

She gave Sebastian his head after they passed the stream where she and Hank had eaten lunch, and as he moved from a trot to a gallop, her sadness and disappointment at Hank’s defection evaporated, giving way to elation and a sense of power and freedom, which she was sure Sebastian felt, as well. The steady pounding of his hooves on rock and sand soothed her ruffled emotions.

Before long, Sebastian slowed his pace and trotted along a curving path that ascended a long easy grade toward the mountains. The snowy caps of the mountain peaks gleamed in moonlight that slivered the tips of the leaves on the native sage and creosote bushes.

This ride would be much more romantic if she was with Hank. She could picture the two of them, their low laughter ringing out over the landscape, perhaps dismounting to kiss and touch, then riding on to the inevitable conclusion of the evening. Which would include a lot more than touching, she was sure.

Once they’d reached the road that connected with the highway, she walked Sebastian briefly so that he could blow for a few minutes, then patted his neck. “Okay, fellow, it’s back to the stable for you and to bed for me. Take us home.”

What she didn’t anticipate was that Sebastian preferred the long way home, not going back the way they’d come. The long way meant passing the adobe hacienda where she and Hank had stopped today.

This gave her a good opportunity to stop off and look for the necklace she thought she’d lost earlier. She pulled Sebastian around near the stand of tamarisk. He didn’t seem to understand her purpose and kept trying to head toward the ranch, but she insisted they stop. He blew out an impatient huff, taking her to the edge of the veranda and eyeing her distrustfully after she dismounted.

“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.