Cowboy Enchantment

chapter Two


The cowboy, this perfect cowboy, was dark-haired and powerfully built. His hair hung slightly too long at the nape, and his jeans were streaked with dust. He wore a white T-shirt that showed off his tanned, sinewy arms, and his torso tapered into muscular legs that looked as if they’d be equally at home straddling a horse or a woman. The jeans were tucked into boots, tooled leather ones. Dusty boots, which he planted firmly in the dirt as he led the horse toward the stable.

This cowboy was no daydream. He was real. As this realization dawned on her, the air seemed to wrinkle, and Erica felt herself tilt toward him as if pulled by gravity. She gripped the edge of the Rancho Encantado check-in desk, feeling weak in the knees. Well, she had flown into Las Vegas more than two hours ago and had eaten no food on the plane, so no wonder she was shaky on her feet.

Her eyes were still on the cowboy. “Who is that?” Erica said, her voice a mere murmur.

Justine, standing beneath a sign that read NO CELL PHONES PLEASE, glanced up from Erica’s registration card. “Oh, that’s Hank. My brother. He’ll be your riding instructor if you choose to take lessons.” She tossed her one thick silver-blond braid behind a shoulder and returned to her task.

Erica’s mouth had gone as dry as dust; her mind skittered over the possibilities. She had arrived at Rancho Encantado only minutes ago, and already she’d seen the man of her dreams. It would be counterproductive, she figured, to mention that she’d known how to ride since she was ten.

“You might as well sign me up for those riding lessons,” she said as nonchalantly as possible, considering the fact that her entire body was vibrating at a new and higher frequency.

“Group lessons or private?”

“Private, please.”

Justine checked a box on the card and dropped it into a folder.

Erica cleared her throat. “I suppose a handsome guy like Hank is already taken, right?”

“Women ask me about him all the time,” Justine said, her mouth twitching with amusement. “As it happens, no, he’s not.”

“I see,” Erica said.

“But he’s not interested in getting to know people in a more personal way, either,” Justine added.

“Mmm,” Erica murmured, but Justine’s caution didn’t worry her. She didn’t have to get to know him well; all she wanted was a fling.

Justine handed her a printed schedule. “Okay, Erica,” she said. “You’re all set. Your wardrobe consultant, that’s Sue. Hairdresser and makeup artist, Tico. Yoga with Ananda, riding with Hank and…oops, our physical fitness instructor is all booked.”

“That’s okay. There’s enough going on to keep me busy. Say, I hope I haven’t created a problem for you by arriving in the middle of the week. I had some things I had to clear up at work before I could leave.”

“Most guests arrive over the weekend, but sometimes we have people like you whose job responsibilities make it impossible for them to arrive until midweek. We always accommodate.” Justine slid a room key across the counter. “I’ll let you get settled in your room, and then you can join me for dinner.”

“Oh, I don’t want to be a bother. Shouldn’t I be eating in the communal dining hall with the other guests?”

“I thought it would be fun for me to have company at the Big House for dinner and for us to get better acquainted. Plus, I’m being selfish. I’m hoping you can distract me from the many trials and tribulations of running a place like this.”

“It’s a deal! I’ll look forward to letting you fill me in on the lost legend of Rancho Encantado.”

“If only. The thing is, the legend is lost. What’s left of it has been handed down by word of mouth through the years, and I know only enough to say that it has something to do with unexpected transformations. Since we specialize in makeovers, the legend fits in with what we do. That’s all we need to know.”

“I suppose there’s no ghost, either?” Erica couldn’t help asking.

Justine smiled. “Some people claim to have seen him, but he’s certainly never shown himself to me. If he had, I would have put him to work.”

“It’s a man?”

“They say it’s Padre Luis, a priest who was instrumental in building a school and hospital here. I understand he was much revered by the miners and their families. I’d like to see Padre Luis, but oh, well. I have my fill of personnel problems without adding a priestly ghost to my list.” She called toward the employee lounge, “Tony, will you please show Erica to her suite? Unless Padre Luis wants to do it, that is.”

“Sure thing, and as for that priest, I’ve never seen him either. It’s a rare person who has, I think.” Tony, the withered little old man who had picked her up at the airport earlier, emerged from the lounge looking as if a strong wind could blow him away. Nevertheless, he insisted on hefting Erica’s bag and transporting it to her quarters.

“This tiny bag? It’s not a problem for an old cowhand like me,” he claimed with a ready grin.

During their ride from Las Vegas, Tony had treated her to a discourse on their surroundings. Now he was eager to fill her in on the geology of the desert, knowledge of which was, according to him, necessary information if she was to enjoy her stay.

“First you got your mountains,” Tony said, jerking his head toward the tawny snowcapped peaks as they left the reception building. “Then you got your valleys, like this one. You may notice that it’s green here. That’s because there are seven springs in the area, some in the mountains, some right here. The water keeps everything well irrigated.”

“You’d almost think we weren’t surrounded by desert,” Erica observed. She’d been surprised to see cattle grazing peacefully as they’d driven through the gates.

“Yeah, I know. That’s the beauty of this place. Well, in the desert, after your valleys, there’s your basins—they’re low places with no outlets, as opposed to a valley, which is a low place with outlets. Basins collect white mineral deposits and become salt flats like the ones dotted with pools of brackish water that we passed after we turned off the interstate. At the edges of some of your basins, there’s rolling dunes, some of ’em right pretty.”

“Like at the beach,” she supplied.

“Except there’s no ocean. Now, apart from all the things I’ve mentioned, scattered around the desert you’ll happen upon such oddities as cinder cones and black lava flows from the days of volcano activity. Oh, and not to forget the strange shapes of the eroded rocks. It’s not always a welcoming place, this desert.”

“I guess that’s why there aren’t many towns. People didn’t want to settle here.” Erica recalled vaguely from history lessons that the nearby Cedrella Pass had been one of the main southern routes to California during the gold rush.

“Oh, people settled here. We’ve got the ghost towns to prove it.” Tony cackled with laughter. “Miners came, found gold, silver, minerals. We’ve got an old abandoned borax mine over on the hill. Shipped a lot of borax out of here in its day.” He pointed toward the north, and she saw bits of equipment strewn over a distant hillside.

She lost sight of the hill when they entered a grove of stately date palms surrounding a series of rock-lined pools. OASIS HOT POOL, said a sign near the biggest one, and several people were soaking in it, almost obscured by rising steam. “These are some of the seven springs right here,” Tony said. “That big pool stays at a constant temperature of 107 degrees, winter and summer.”

Erica took in the rustic benches placed here and there among the palms and a flock of guests drifting down the path toward the recreation hall wearing blue robes bearing the Rancho Encantado crest. “The weather is pleasant at this time of year,” she said. “I don’t think I needed to wear wool.” She’d traveled in a business suit.

“Oh, the temperature in the desert sometimes gets up to 120 degrees in the summer,” Tony told her, “but at this time of year you don’t have to worry about heat stroke. Could have some spring storms with rain, of course, later on.”

When they emerged from the palm grove, she was immediately struck with the grandeur of the scenery. The snowcapped blue mountains in the west loomed beyond a series of golden hills undulating in gentle folds. On the east side of the valley, jagged peaks rose abruptly to a height of eleven thousand feet, their parched flanks eroded into canyons from which boulders and rocks had emerged over the ages to form huge alluvial grades.

“So what do you think of Rancho Encantado so far?” Tony asked with a grin.

“It’s a little overwhelming,” she said honestly, at a loss to explain the infusion of energy she’d felt as soon as she stepped out of the van. She could not imagine how this down-to-earth old cowhand would react if she told him that the earth here seemed to throb with a certain energy, that the mountains seemed to be bending toward her in a gesture of inclusion. Amazingly her hair was infused with curve and body from the dry desert air so that it bounced around her ears and rose around her cheeks to frame her face. For the first time, despite her aversion to New Age anything, she began to wonder if there really was anything to that vortex stuff Charmaine had mentioned.

She knew from Rancho Encantado’s lavish brochure that the guest quarters were located in a series of low adobe buildings with names like Tumbleweed, Cactus Flower, Sagebrush. Erica’s suite was in Desert Rose. As in the other fourplexes, all the suites opened onto a central courtyard, which in the case of Desert Rose was occupied by a rock garden planted with giant cacti.

In one corner, Erica noted, a gnarled Joshua tree shaded a gray cat, which sat washing itself in the waning sunlight. When the cat spotted her, it stared at her for a moment before quickly slipping away toward the line of eucalyptus trees that separated Desert Rose from the stable. Seeing the cat disappear so readily gave Erica an eerie feeling, which she told herself was ridiculous. She was suffering from jet lag, no doubt, and could attribute the strange sensations and thoughts she was experiencing to that.

“Here we are,” Tony said cheerfully as he held open the door to her suite.

Erica was pleased to see that her quarters were small but luxurious. A sitting area opened into a bedroom with a large bed, handcrafted in classic Southwestern style. The bathroom was elegant and had a huge tub. Tony pointed out that the minibar was stocked with several varieties of what Charmaine called designer juice—mango-kiwi, strawberry-passion fruit, guava-coconut.

“You’ll plug in your computer at the desk. The phone blinks with a blue light instead of ringing, so as not to disturb your peace. If you change your mind about those slot machines, my phone number’s next to the phone. I’ll be driving a vanload of guests to the Lucky Buck Saloon this evening.” Tony winked at her as he went out and closed the door behind him.

Erica’s one suitcase had already been delivered to her room, and the clothes hung in the closet. Thus she wasted no time before shucking her wool suit and digging out one of the only two pairs of jeans she owned. They were relics from her years in graduate school, but Charmaine had encouraged her to bring them.

“You can’t go to a ranch without jeans,” her sister had argued. Erica had bowed to Charmaine’s fashion sense, which was usually infallible. What difference did it make what she wore? She was going to get a makeover, wasn’t she? But if she wanted to be a cowboy’s sweetheart, she’d have to start somewhere. Blue denim seemed as good a place as any.

HANK MILLING swung down from the saddle and whipped out his trusty Bowie knife. The woman was tied to the railroad tracks, a huge locomotive barreling toward her. In two strides he’d reached her. She held out her arms and—

No. Definitely not. Hank settled back in his chair and tried again.

Hank galloped across an arroyo and reined in his horse near an enormous mesquite thicket. He pushed his Stetson hat off his forehead and studied the gal who was backed against a boulder, terror lighting her big blue eyes.

He saw immediately why she was frightened. A huge rattlesnake was coiled in the thicket, its rattle sounding a warning.

“Don’t worry,” he said, yanking his six-shooter out of the holster at his hip. He fired at the rattlesnake and neatly decapitated it in one shot. He twirled the pistol, showing off.

“I guess you need a ride back to town,” he said to the gal, who was buxom and wore scanty shorts. Her hair was long and blond, her hands and feet tiny. He was close enough to detect that she smelled like honeysuckle, his favorite scent ever since the summers he’d spent in Virginia visiting his grandparents’ horse farm. She looked like someone he’d like to cuddle up to in his lonesome desert camp out under the stars while coyotes howled in the hills all around.

“Well, I—”

The gal had barely begun to speak, no doubt planning to tell him how grateful she was for his help, when his reverie was interrupted by a baby’s fussing. Damn. He’d just reached the best part of his daydream, the part where he scooped the gal up onto the back of his saddle and rode off toward camp.

The baby’s fussing turned to crying. Hank sighed and went into the little kitchen off his quarters adjoining the Rancho Encantado stable. Mrs. Gray, the stable cat, had followed him in earlier, which had surprised him, because she had three kittens to tend, but maybe she was looking for a handout.

“I’ll take care of you later,” he told her, but she only stared at him, unblinking.

He twisted the top off a can of chicken-and-rice baby food and emptied it into a dish. How his daughter could eat such pap was beyond him, but then, babies had been a complete mystery to him before he’d taken over her care, and he freely admitted that he didn’t always understand this one. Now Kaylie was seven months old, full of spunk, brimming with energy, and it was all he could do to keep up with her. Working full-time didn’t help, but he was lucky that Justine had allowed him to stay on here, which meant he was provided with a home, a job and a baby-sitter. In turn, he tried to do as much as he could around the ranch to help her out.

He approached the alcove off the bedroom. Kaylie stopped crying when she saw him and began to pedal her legs energetically. When he grinned at her, she grinned back, and Hank’s heart went soft and warm with love for her.

He picked Kaylie up, straightening her playsuit as she settled into his arms next to his heart. She gazed up at his face with expectant round eyes.

“How’s my girl, huh? Ready for your dinner? And then I’ve got to get back to work. I’ve got to go out and teach another city slicker how to ride.”

Kaylie snuggled her face into his neck, and he inhaled the sweet talcum-powder smell of her. He hadn’t known that it was possible to love a child so much, that was the truth of it. And maybe, if his ex-wife hadn’t died so tragically, he never would have. He had certainly never wished for anything bad to happen to Anne-Marie, but his relationship with Kaylie would never have come about while Anne-Marie was alive. She had not only moved here from Chicago, where they had lived when they were married, but had been adamant that she didn’t want Hank in their lives. It had been an awkward situation, considering that his sister Justine was Anne-Marie’s best friend.

He inserted Kaylie into her high chair and pulled a kitchen chair up in front of her.

“Okay, cutie, open up. Over the teeth, past the gums, look out, tummy, here it comes,” he said, spooning up a bit of food. Kaylie opened her mouth wide to accept the spoon, looking like a hungry little bird.

His feelings for Kaylie made all the rest of it worthwhile—his displacement from home, the heavy workload, the lack of someone special in his life.

Oops, correction.

“You’re someone special in my life,” he told Kaylie, speaking past the lump that knotted in his throat whenever he thought about how lonely he was. “You sure are.”

At that, Kaylie blew bubbles. The drollness of her action lifted his spirits considerably.

He finished feeding Kaylie and handed her over to Paloma, her baby-sitter, who’d just returned from using the washer and dryer at the Big House. Then he headed back to the riding ring to give his next lesson. He might be down, but he certainly wasn’t out. Not by a long shot, and not as long as he could create fantasies in his mind to help ride him over the rough spots.

KEEPING IN MIND that she was going to meet Justine for dinner, Erica added a beige linen blouse to her jeans, which were dismayingly too big. She grasped a clump of the extra fabric around her waist, trying to figure out how many pounds she’d lost since she’d worn them last. Ten? Fifteen? Chalk it up to her hectic lifestyle. Sighing, she released the fabric so that the jeans hung loosely on her hips.

She marveled at the improvement of her hair, which felt not at all like her own now that it sprang upward and outward from her scalp. Still, her reflection in the mirror didn’t offer a whole lot of reassurance. She wore no makeup.

Even though she already felt more relaxed, she looked tense and weary, even exhausted. She ditched her clip earrings, which hurt her ears, but decided not to remove the gold disc bearing her initials that she wore on a chain around her neck. It had been a present from Charmaine, who loved jewelry and had brought it back from a job in Italy. She decided that she would take a piece of turquoise-and-silver jewelry back to Charmaine when she returned to New York. Charmaine loved native-made Indian pieces.

Tomorrow she would begin her makeover. Was she expecting a miracle? To look like Charmaine, for instance? No. Definitely not. Anyway, she was aiming for a more voluptuous look than Charmaine’s, however that might be accomplished.

Defiantly she shoved her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose and headed for the stable to check out the horses, which would give her something to do before she showed up for dinner. Perhaps she would even run into the cowboy. Her cowboy.

Consulting the map of the property that was printed in the back of her schedule, Erica walked along the lane between the two rows of eucalyptus trees until she reached the stable. She’d barely entered the shadowy interior, redolent with the distinctive familiar odors of hay, saddle leather, feed and horse when she heard a curse from one of the stalls at the other end.

“Damn,” said a husky male voice. “Don’t I have enough to do with Kaylie and a full load of students and refurbishing the buildings, not to mention working with that rapscallion horse of yours?”

“Erica is Char’s sister,” replied a voice that Erica immediately identified as Justine’s. “You can fit her in. And Sebastian is not a rapscallion horse, as you so delicately put it. He’s misunderstood, that’s all.”

Erica shrank into the shadows beside the door to the tack room, unwilling to move for fear her presence would be detected. A gray cat, the same one she’d noticed beneath the Joshua tree outside her suite, materialized from behind a half-filled feed sack and sat staring up at her without blinking. She willed it to go away, but it didn’t.

“Sebastian is a handful and the bane of my existence. Even Cord McCall, who knows a lot about horses, has given up on him.”

“You have no intention of giving up on Sebastian, Hank. Those years of college vacations spent working on a Texas ranch have served you well. Anyway, let’s keep this conversation on point. We were talking about Erica Strong.”

“I can fit her into a group lesson, but I told you I couldn’t take any more private students,” the man said. Erica peeked around a post and saw that the speaker was none other than Hank.

“I consider Erica a personal friend, and she signed up for private lessons. Listen, Hank, you’d better behave yourself. I won’t have you being rude to my guests.”

“I’m not rude.”

“That Ferguson woman from Michigan insisted on leaving because of something you said.”

“She came on to me. I told her to back off.”

“That’s not her story.”

“Look, Justine, there are two types of women who come to Rancho Encantado looking to improve their lives. One type hauls in a complete wardrobe in matched Louis Vuitton suitcases. The other kind arrives with a cell phone clamped to her ear and a cigarette in her mouth. Deenie Ferguson was the former, and this Erica person sounds like the latter. It’s the type I like the least.”

“I happen to know that Erica doesn’t smoke, and there wasn’t a cell phone in sight. Not that she’d be allowed to use it, anyway. Not that she’d be able to use it in the valley, either. You’re being pigheaded and unreasonable.”

“And you’re not?”

Justine sounded extremely exasperated. “You know, Hank, I sympathize with what you’ve been through. It wasn’t easy, that whole business about Anne-Marie and now having Kaylie to look after. But I need your cooperation, and besides, it wouldn’t hurt you to socialize more. It would be good for you, good for business.”

He let out an explosive sigh. “All right, Justine. You win. You call the shots around here.” His words held a bitter edge.

“That’s right,” Justine said levelly.

“I can fit this Strong woman in at five every day. That’s the best I can do. Even then the lessons will be cut short because I have to get back to Kaylie before Paloma leaves at suppertime.”

“Fine. That works for me.”

Erica heard the slam of a stall door. When she peered around the post that screened her from view, she saw Justine’s tall figure striding toward the Big House, her braid swinging behind her.

Erica meant to tiptoe out of the stable unnoticed, but her shoulder caught a bridle strap where it was suspended from a hook on the post, and the bridle fell to the floor. Immediately the cowboy swiveled around and peered through the gloom toward the noise. He spotted Erica right away, frozen as she was in embarrassment at being caught eavesdropping.

“What was that noise? And who the hell are you?” he growled, staring at her across the length of the stable floor.

In one of the stalls a horse nickered, and a couple of others nosed their faces over the tops of their doors. The gray cat said, Now you’ve done it. Before Erica could register her utter incredulity at the phenomenon of a talking cat, it turned and slinked into the tack room.

Never mind the cat’s talking; Erica was even more unnerved by the man’s anger. “A…a bridle fell off the hook.” She jerked her head toward the post where it had hung.

“So why don’t you pick it up?”

“I’m going to.” She bent and scooped the bridle up from the floor, dropping it again in her haste. The man started toward her, looming tall in the slanting light that fell across his features. As he drew closer, Erica saw that she had been right: he was an incredibly handsome man. His hair was a rich brown, the color of mahogany, and his eyes were a deep cerulean blue, the blue of the deep part of the ocean, the blue of the sky in the hours before dawn. Abs like a washboard, even as seen through his T-shirt. Thighs muscular and outlined perfectly by snug, faded jeans. He radiated a rugged masculinity that put her in mind of Clint Eastwood in his younger days. She drew in her breath sharply as a slow heat radiated through her in recognition of the man’s appeal. It was overwhelmingly sexual, that appeal, sexual and vibrating with a kind of slow-simmering energy beneath the surface.

His eyes held hers as he bent with a ripple of toned muscles to pick up the bridle. “You didn’t answer the second part of my question. Who are you?”

She must have inhaled some of the dust stirred up by the falling bridle, because when she tried to speak, the words caught in her throat. “Er—Erica. Erica Strong,” she stammered, feeling foolish and out of place. She, who could chair a meeting of financial wizards with aplomb, who could field three phone calls at once and take notes simultaneously on all of them, was totally unhinged by the stern gaze of this handsome cowboy. She wiped damp palms on her jeans, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

But he did. His gaze moved upward, taking in the loose jeans, the wrinkled blouse, his expression intense and slightly mocking. “Oh. My new student,” he said with barely concealed distaste.

“I…well, I did sign up for lessons.” She knew how stupid she must sound, how gauche and unsophisticated.

He continued to look her over, not bothering to hide his disdain. She knew she appeared mousy and unappealing, and worst of all, he was the cowboy she had marked for her own, and his first and perhaps lasting impression of her was of an unremarkable woman who shrank into the shadows and appeared less than confident in herself.

She almost turned and ran, but something made her hold her ground. Maybe it was because she had never run from a confrontation in her career, and maybe it was because she refused to show this man, her ideal man, that he intimidated her.

“You’re on line for a private lesson tomorrow at five in the afternoon,” he said none too cheerfully.

Her head tilted upward a notch even as her heart began pounding. “Yes. I’ll see you then,” she said coolly before pivoting and walking smartly out of the stable.

She thought she felt his gaze on her inconsiderable backside as she retreated toward the Big House, but then she decided it must be her imagination.

This cowboy, this Hank who was Justine’s brother, clearly found nothing to catch his interest in either her looks or comportment. He didn’t welcome the addition of her lesson to what he considered a too-busy schedule. She was an annoyance, a responsibility, a bother. And he had made it clear that he found her downright unattractive.

Disappointment prickled behind her eyes like unshed tears; the man was not what she’d expected in a cowboy, her cowboy. The realization was almost, but not enough, to send her skedaddling back to New York without a makeover. Without her dignity. And without a man.

But that would not do. She was going to live out her fantasy at Rancho Encantado. She was going to have a fling with her cowboy if it was the last thing she did. And there was no doubt in her mind that it would be this cowboy and no other, if only because she was not in the habit of giving in to defeat.

AFTER HER RETREAT, Hank ran a hand across the back of his neck as he was prone to do in exasperating times. “Doesn’t look to me like this Erica Strong is going to be a whole lot of fun,” he said to his favorite mount, Whip, who nuzzled his chest in hopes of finding a sugar cube.

Hank produced the sugar from the pocket of his jeans and stood stroking Whip’s neck for a moment. It amused him that his new riding student had been so nervous in his presence. She’d looked as if she were about to jump out of her skin when he first spoke to her, and although she’d recovered in the end, she’d put distance between them as soon as she could. He didn’t need another riding student, and he didn’t think they were going to get along, but he quickly reminded himself that if it wasn’t for people like her, he wouldn’t have a job here.

Well, he had another job. That is, if he wanted to return to it. But he and Justine had decided that losing her mother had been upheaval enough in Kaylie’s life and that having to part so soon from her familiar surroundings would only cause problems. It would be better, they’d reasoned, for Paloma, her caregiver, to remain a constant in his small daughter’s routine until Hank had time to bond with Kaylie, the daughter he’d met only after the tragedy that took his ex-wife’s life.

Never mind that Hank’s girlfriend kept asking when he planned to return to her and to his real job. Never mind that he and Justine often argued in the perverse way of siblings about things that probably weren’t, in the long run, all that important.

Besides, he was enjoying his new life as a cowboy. He liked living in the tradition of his childhood heroes—John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Roy Rogers—all of whom he’d seen over and over again in reruns on TV. It made him laugh to think about how stuffy and insufferable he must have been when he wore a suit to work every day. And to tell the truth, he could hardly recall what Lizette, his girlfriend, looked like. You’d think he would. You’d think that after seven or eight months with her, everything about Lizette would be engraved on his mind. Hair color, eye color—the works.

Were her eyes blue? He couldn’t remember. If he worked up the nerve, maybe he’d ask her the next time he phoned her. Which should be soon, but lately he found that his heart wasn’t in those awkward phone calls during which he had to make himself listen to Lizette’s prattling on about rebirthing sessions and her job as a life coach and lunches with her friends. He longed to tell her how cute Kaylie was when she laughed and about the way the sunset turned the distant hills to molten gold, and once he had tried to describe how difficult it was to find the right kind of disposable diapers at the local grocery store. Lizette had evinced only scant interest of his frustration over the situation and then had continued talking about whatever it was that she’d been talking about before he’d changed the subject.

“I guess I’m losing my touch with women, huh, old man?” he said to Whip, who eyed him hopefully as if another sugar cube might be forthcoming.

“Well, there’s one female who’s always glad to have me around,” he said, and then he closed the stall door and went to relieve Paloma of her duties. Kaylie, it seemed, was his only love right now, and now that he thought about it, that was okay, too.

AS SHE WALKED slowly toward the Big House, Erica reflected that Charmaine hadn’t thought much of her longing to look like a cowboy’s sweetheart.

“Forget the cowboy,” Charmaine had said, chucking shorts and halter tops into her suitcase as she packed for her trip to Aruba. “You need someone as intelligent as you are.”

Erica, who had been chugging cold medicine and was feeling woozy as a result, had been sprawled across her sister’s bed reading the Rancho Encantado brochure. “How am I going to find an intelligent man when there aren’t any?” she asked, looking up from pictures of tanned blondes reclining around a swimming pool. “All the ones my age are chasing nineteen-year-old table dancers, and how intelligent is that?”

“I told you that you should stop being so opinionated. It’s okay to run the show at McNee, Levy and Ashe, but in your personal relationships, you need to let the men call the shots once in a while.”

“Aargh! Like I’d want to. Give me a break, Charmaine.”

“You haven’t met the right guy yet, obviously. When you do, you’ll want to nurture. You’ll want to defer.”

Erica ignored this unlikely pronouncement. “You know, I think I’ll take my new digital camera. I used to be a pretty good photographer, and maybe there’ll be some good photo ops in the desert. Animals and such. And maybe they don’t have table dancers in country-and-western roadhouses. What do you think?”

What Charmaine thought was indicated by the meaningful arch of her eyebrows, which had ended the discussion.

Regarding the question of finding a man, any man, intelligent or otherwise, Erica had long ago given up. When she was younger, of course, she’d always expected that something and someone wonderful and exciting was about to happen any minute. All she’d have to do was go along doing everything right and suddenly the perfect man would appear. Or maybe it was the perfect job, or the perfect pair of panty hose…

These days Erica was older and wiser. She realized that nothing special ever happened in her life, that day after day offered only more irritating sameness, and that was why she’d come to Rancho Encantado.

So what if she’d gotten off on the wrong foot with the right cowboy? There was time to fix it, starting tomorrow after her consultation with a hairstylist and makeup artist. She and Justine could talk about her makeover over dinner, and maybe she’d forget the fact that her cowboy seemed less than enamored of her after their first meeting.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t come around eventually. After all, wasn’t this Rancho Encantado, where dreams came true? Uh-huh.

Justine answered her knock at the door of the Big House right away, smiling and holding the door open wide. She wore a simple gray dress that hugged her slim figure, showing off her wide shoulders and narrow hips, and she was accompanied by a scruffy tail-wagging yellow dog.

“I hope I’m not too early,” Erica said. She indicated the dog. “Who’s your friend?”

“That’s Murphy. And you’re not early,” Justine said, giving one last nudge to the vase of hosta daisies standing on the foyer console.

Erica bent to scratch Murphy behind the ears. “The flowers are beautiful.”

“I have them shipped in from Mexico every week,” Justine said.

“What a sweet dog,” Erica murmured as Murphy repositioned himself, the better to be scratched. She liked dogs, and this one had big brown eyes and a wide comical smile.

“Murphy’s way too old to chase cattle anymore, so I took him in,” Justine replied. “He’s a bothersome old cur, but we suit each other.”

“He’s a charmer. Would you mind if I took pictures of him sometime?”

“Of Murphy? Of course not. He’d be flattered. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

Justine hooked an arm through Erica’s and led her into the living room, which was faced by a gallery holding shelves of books on two walls. The walls were painted in cooling colors—sage-green, melon, taupe. Above the living room, a skylight framed the clear desert sky. Large Mexican tile gleamed underfoot, and a rock fireplace dominated one wall. A long hall led to three bedrooms, one of which contained a child’s crib.

“That’s for my niece when she visits,” Justine explained, but she didn’t elaborate.

After they were seated with Murphy curled at their feet, Justine wanted to know about Charmaine—what she was doing, where she was working, the buzz in the industry. Justine had left the modeling agency after she’d bought Rancho Encantado with money she’d saved from her own modeling career, and she still kept up with the business.

Erica filled Justine in about Charmaine’s career, and then she asked what she could expect as a guest during the next week.

Justine ticked the activities off on her fingers. “Mud baths, facials, aromatherapy, yoga, swimming, riding. Also sunbathing and socializing, if you want. And feel free to sleep as late as you like.”

“I’ve always been an early riser.”

Justine smiled. “At Rancho Encantado, people who ordinarily wake up early, sleep later. Those who eat a lot go on a diet, and those who don’t, stuff themselves with food.”

“What about food?”

“You’re on the same diet as I am,” Justine told Erica with a twinkle. “I’m always trying to gain weight. Don’t worry, you won’t gain too much,” she added hastily.

“I wasn’t worried about that. It’s been all I can do to keep some meat on my bones, considering my schedule,” Erica admitted.

“Lucky us,” Justine said, laughing. “You and I will pig out on the best food our chef has to offer. We’ll be the envy of everyone who is trying to lose a few pounds. And we’ll have a great time doing it.

“Now,” Justine went on sympathetically, “tell me all about yourself. Charmaine has filled me in a lot, but I have a feeling she left out most of the details.”

Erica found herself talking to Justine as if they were old friends. She asked about the riding lessons, the horses and even the stable cat. Justine said blankly, “You’ve met the cat?”

Keeping in mind her perception that the gray cat had spoken to her, Erica said, “Mmm-hmm. I strolled through the stable on the way over for dinner.”

“Oh, well, Mrs. Gray—that’s the cat’s name—has three kittens that I need to find homes for. I don’t suppose you could take one back to New York with you?”

“I’d like that,” Erica said, surprising herself. “It would be fun to come home to a pet after being away on business. But I’ll have to decline, Justine. I’m too busy to take on the responsibility. And,” she said, pausing to study Justine’s reaction, “Mrs. Gray doesn’t seem exactly, well, normal.”

“Oh, I know. Those eyes and the way she stares. It’s a little uncanny, almost as if she can tell what humans are thinking.” Justine didn’t expand on this, but Erica now suspected what really bothered her about the stable cat. It was her eyes, as Justine said, wide and yellow and unblinking.

Their conversation went on to more conventional topics, such as Erica’s makeover, with Justine making a few suggestions about hair and makeup. They soon moved to the dining room, Murphy following, and dinner progressed smoothly with both of them talking and laughing and eating heartily of roast pork, sweet-potato casserole, salad containing hearts of palm, and creamed spinach. And even though she knew her fellow guests were probably partaking of a few shrimp cunningly arranged on a lettuce leaf, Erica did not feel one bit guilty about eating so much rich food. At least not yet.

Because she was going to have the voluptuous figure she’d always wanted. It was a means to an end. A rear end that would be softly rounded, maybe even jiggling slightly as she strolled into a roadhouse wearing tight-fitting jeans. And then…then Hank, who had looked as if he could barely stand to look at her, would change his tune.

Holding that very pleasant thought, Erica helped herself to another large spoonful of sweet potatoes.

Padre Luis Speaks…

I AM ONLY a humble priest. But por Dios! I do my best.

Forgive me if my English is not so good. It is not my native tongue. When I built my school and hospital in this valley, the miners and their families rejoiced. Now they are gone. In the place where my hospital stood, there is a building. It has the inconsequential name of Desert Rose.

I live in my hospital office, or where it once was. Unfortunately this space is in the courtyard of this Desert Rose place. My office is in the midst of a cactus patch. A gardener comes to groom the cactus every week. Whoever heard of grooming a cactus patch? But I cannot feel the spines of the cacti, though I pace among them, to and fro, to and fro.

A woman arrived here today. Her name is Erica. She cannot see me, as I am not as I was. I can only barely see her. She is like a faded picture, indicating an incompleteness of the spirit. Perhaps there is hope for her, if she learns to be real. I will pray for her.

I wanted to speak to her, but no one can hear me. I do not know why. It is my belief that, as I have heard the Anglo settlers say, the cat has got my tongue.

But if the cat has my tongue, why does she not say what I would say? Por Dios, there are many things I do not understand.

I am only a humble priest, not worldly and only wishing to be wise. I must pray.