Cowboy Enchantment

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 for 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. There’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.

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 it 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 was 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.”

She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Do what?”

“Let’s get married and live at Rancho Encantado. I love you, Erica. I can’t let you go.”

The cabbie let out a deep sigh and began to tap his fingers impatiently on the armrest, underscoring the absurdity of the situation.

Erica’s heart seemed to have leaped to her throat. “I love you, too,” she managed to say.

“Kaylie misses you. I can’t sing ‘America the Beautiful’ worth a damn.”

Laughter bubbled up in her throat. “I thought you came here to go back to work for Rowbotham-Quigley.”

“That was my original intent, but being with you, sitting here beside you, remembering all we had together at the ranch, I know I can’t do it. I thought I’d have a better chance with you if I lived in the city, if I could see you on a regular basis, but that’s not right for us. We’d be miserable here.”

She knew he was right. “Suppose I said yes. What about my job? How could the three of us live in your little apartment at the ranch?”

“First of all, if you say yes, I’ll be the happiest man on earth. You can quit your job at McNee, Levy and Ashe and manage Justine’s administrative matters. She really needs the help. Paloma can continue as baby-sitter, at least for a while. And we can live in the old hacienda, the three of us.”

“Four,” she said. “Counting Tux.”

“Fine. There’s room for more children in that house, Erica. Three or four or however many you want.”

“I don’t do babies,” she said faintly. “Everyone knows that.”

“Except Kaylie, who loves you. You’re great with her. I don’t know how you ever got the idea that you don’t do babies.”

“In my family,” she began slowly, “Charmaine was the beautiful one, Abby was—”

“I know. You were supposed to be the smart one. So if you’re so all-fired smart, why did you leave us? We belong together, Erica, you and Kaylie and me.”

“You must have been talking with Char. That’s something like what she said.”

“What,” Hank said interestedly, “exactly did she say?”

“I don’t know, I can’t recall,” Erica said. Then the air whooshed out of her lungs as Hank pinned her back against the seat.

“I have ways of finding out,” he said. “Like this.” He began to tickle her, and she squirmed in an unsuccessful attempt to get away.

“Char—stop it, Hank!—Char said that no one is the same after falling in love and that I was a fool for leaving someone who loves me.”

“Your sister is a woman of great good sense.” He gave her ribs one last tickle for good measure and backed off, his eyes twinkling with humor. “Would you mind telling me your reply?”

Erica made an attempt to straighten her suit jacket. One button had popped off her blouse, and she groped for it on the floor with the hand that Hank wasn’t holding.

“I said that you…Oh, here it is,” she said, holding the button up before dropping it in her purse. “I said that I’d found out that you can’t change who you really are. Coloring my hair, getting contact lenses, all of that was fun. In the end, though, I’m still me. Still Erica Strong.”

“Thank God for that,” Hank said fervently. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the palm. “Now that we’re straight about who you are, let’s talk about who you want to be.”

She looked at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses.

“Think of it this way. Who you want to be is a promise to yourself,” he prompted.

“I wanted to be a cowboy’s sweetheart,” she said in a low tone. “But you’re not a cowboy.” She was still having a hard time accepting this.

“You’re my sweetheart. Does it really matter so much what I do?”

His expression was so compelling she couldn’t look away. “Perhaps not,” she said faintly.

“Taking this one step further. If who you want to be is a promise to yourself, couldn’t who we are together be a promise to each other?”

“Maybe.”

“Hey,” the cabbie called over his shoulder. “You want me to keep driving around?”

“No, we’ll go to her place,” Hank said. “Where do you live, Erica?”

She reeled off the address, and the driver went back to driving. “I have a meeting,” she said. “It starts in ten minutes.”

“You can call and tell them you’ve been unavoidably delayed,” Hank said.

“I have?”

“Yes. First we’re going to bed, and then we’re ordering dinner in.”

“Aren’t you being a little overbearing here?”

“I think I’m downright restrained, considering that I haven’t seen you in a few weeks. I think I’m remarkably calm.” Regarding her with an expression of exasperated tenderness, he swept her into his arms and kissed her resoundingly.

She didn’t want him to stop. Ever. And she remembered what Charmaine had said: that when she met the right guy, she’d want to defer to him. She had certainly not been in the habit of deferring to guys or to anyone else, but if she was going to start, Hank might be as good a place as any.

“I think it’s your honeysuckle perfume that made me fall in love with you,” Hank said when he stopped kissing her.

This caught her off guard. “I never wear perfume.”

“But you do. It’s my favorite scent.”

Erica was about to say that he must be imagining things when she caught a glimpse of the driver’s curious expression in the rearview mirror.

“Do you two mind if I ask you a question?”

She and Hank exchanged glances. She shrugged.

“Buddy, how come you’re getting married if you don’t even know where she lives?”

Hank cleared his throat. “She lives in my heart,” he said. “She’s always been there, only I didn’t know it was her.”

“Oh,” said the cabdriver with an air of perplexity.

“Is that true?” Erica asked Hank.

“I had these fantasies about the perfect woman. I knew what she looked like, except for her face. That was always a blank. I would save her from runaway locomotives, shoot rattlesnakes so I could save her…Oh, you wouldn’t believe my daydreams.”

“I might,” Erica said softly.

“I didn’t know that you were the one until that night on the porch outside the rec hall. I had this enormous sense of déjà vu, as if I’d been there, done that before, but the only place I’d done it was in my fantasies. Suddenly the face of the woman I wanted was no longer blank. It was your face, Erica. And you were wearing the same clothes you’d worn in my fantasy. A white peasant blouse—”

“—and a red bandanna skirt,” Erica finished. “In my daydream, you would run your hand up my leg and you’d say—”

“Holy cannoli,” growled the cabdriver, “could you spare me the details?”

They both ignored him as realization dawned. “You mean we were having the same fantasies?” Erica gasped.

“It sounds like it. Could that happen?”

“I don’t know, but did you ever have the one about the Last Chance Saloon? Where you asked me if you could buy me a drink and I ordered a margarita and you asked me if I was up for a little fun?”

“Yes, and when we got to your place you weren’t wearing any underw—”

“Here we are,” said the driver, pulling over to the curb.

Hank dug money out of his pocket.

“You can skip the tip,” the cabbie said. “This was great entertainment.”

Hank gave him a tip anyway, and as they stepped out of the cab, the sky suddenly cleared and the sun came out.

“It’s like magic,” Erica said, awestruck at the suddenness of the rain’s disappearance.

“It is magic,” Hank said, and he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her in front of everyone. In that moment, it was as if they had never left the ranch, as if the air in their vicinity went perfectly still as it did in the desert in the hour before dawn, as if Hank was really a cowboy and she was really his girl.

“Marry me? Let’s make that promise to each other, Erica,” he said close to her ear.

“Yes,” she replied unsteadily, “I’ll marry you, Hank,” and in that moment she saw a cactus garden burgeon in front of the door to her apartment building. As she watched, flowers burst into bloom on the cactus plants, big and bright and beautiful. That wasn’t all; amid the spines and flowers of the cacti stood the rotund figure of a priest, who was smiling at them benignly.

Which was perfectly ridiculous, because everyone knew that there couldn’t be a cactus garden on a New York City street. And as for the ghost of Padre Luis, well, she wasn’t sure if there was a ghost, but she was certain that even a ghost wouldn’t give up the beauty of Rancho Encantado to hang out in front of her New York apartment building.

HER PERFECT COWBOY was waiting in the gallery of the Big House at Rancho Encantado as she approached on the arm of her uncle Steve, who had insisted on walking her down the aisle. Hank’s expression as they approached was one of expectance and joy, not to mention love.

Somewhere toward the front, Kaylie said, “Babababa!” and Justine hushed her gently. Charmaine and Abby, who were her maid of honor and bridesmaid, respectively, wore big smiles as they waited for Erica beside the flower-bedecked bower, and when Uncle Steve placed her hand in Hank’s, Hank whispered, “I love you, Erica.”

It all seemed like another fantasy. But this wasn’t a daydream; it wasn’t wishful thinking. The squeeze of Hank’s hand, his joy as he slipped the ring on her finger—these were real, as real as Hank himself. As real as their love for each other, as real as their future together, and as real as eternity.

Forever and ever, amen.

As they kissed, Erica could have sworn she heard someone say those words, yet she knew it wasn’t the priest who’d just married them. Nor was it Mrs. Gray, whose whereabouts had been unknown for the past few days.

“I love you, wife,” said Hank.

“I love you too, husband,” she replied softly.

“Mamamama?” said Kaylie.

Hank scooped her up from Justine’s arms. “Now you’re really talking,” he said approvingly, and everyone laughed as the three of them embraced, ready to begin their new lives together.

Padre Luis Speaks…

THANKS BE TO GOD! He is merciful and He is good.

Have my prayers not been answered? Have Erica and Hank not found true love? Has Erica’s soul not expanded to a rich, robust red, the exact color of fine wine from the cellars of my friends, the Franciscan brothers? Is Hank not happy to have found a woman capable of loving his child? I ask you further, have I not done an excellent job of the task set before me? I am but a humble priest, but if God chooses me His wonders to perform, I do not question His judgment.

Do you realize that I am speaking to you in my own voice? The cat has run away with a tom who lives up at the old borax mine. She does not need my voice for yowling her pleasure at the tom’s attentions. It is love, after all. I approve. The best thing is that before long, there will be more kittens. I am very fond of kittens.

I would have liked to officiate at the marriage of Erica and Hank, but she asked her own parish priest to come to this place and marry them, and that is good. I got in the final words, however. Forever and ever, amen. I think Erica might have heard me, too.

Now I am given another problem. A woman has occupied the rooms of Erica, and she is so transparent that I can barely see her. Her name is Brooke. She is troubled. Furthermore, she is with child.

Again I have my work cut out for me in this special place. Madre de Dios, is there no rest for a poor humble priest?