Cowboy Enchantment - By Pamela Browning Page 0,13
that, but Erica Strong might have heard every word of his argument with Justine, and the last thing he needed if he wanted to repair his relationship with his sister was for Erica to complain.
After Cord agreed to listen for the baby, Hank erased the answering-machine message tape without listening to it. The message was probably from his boss calling one more time for advice on how to snatch the Gillooley communications deal out from under the nose of MacNee, Levy and Ashe, a problem that would have consumed him at one time. But since he couldn’t care less about things at Rowbotham-Quigley these days, Hank set off at a fast lope with the two buttons clenched in his fist and the pinafore hanging from his back pocket for lack of any place more suitable to carry it. As usual, Hank walked in the heavy-timbered front door at the Big House without knocking.
But it wasn’t his sister who was there to greet him or even the dog. It was Erica Strong, who was leafing through a book from the gallery bookcase.
She blinked at him under the overhead light, her eyes wide and owlish behind her glasses. She seemed alarmed at his precipitous arrival, his bursting through the door without knocking, and he supposed he didn’t blame her.
“I’m looking for Justine,” he blurted, taken by surprise as he was.
Erica narrowed her eyes. “She’s out.”
“Out?”
“Justine was on her way out to walk the dog when she was called over to the kitchen. Something to do with someone named Pavel.” In that moment, for some reason he pictured her the way she’d been in the stable earlier, when he had confronted her and spoken so gruffly. She had triumphed over her initial uncertainty about his boorishness by drawing an attitude around her like a protective cloak, and despite his annoyance, he’d admired that. Well, since then he’d had time to begin to feel ashamed of the way he acted.
“Oh, Pavel is the chef. He’s probably threatening to quit again. And Murphy?”
“Went with Justine. I’ll be glad to give her a message if you like,” she said. She was a small woman, fine-boned, her eyebrows neatly arched as if she hung constantly on the brink of surprise. Her skin was clear, her eyes bright, and the top of her head came only to his jawline. He had the totally irrelevant thought that if he bent forward, he could kiss her forehead without any trouble at all.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll wait for her,” he said. “I need a book to read. And by the way, my name’s Hank Milling. We haven’t met properly.”
Her eyes behind the glasses were solemn. “No, I suppose we haven’t. But Mr. Milling—”
“Hank,” he said.
“Hank, if you really don’t want to teach me how to ride, you don’t have to.”
“I’ve already factored you into my schedule,” Hank said, trying to sound friendly. He was determined to make amends for the way he’d acted earlier.
“I see,” she said. She tipped her head slightly to one side, and he found something very arresting about the way she was looking at him. It reminded him of Kaylie, which was ridiculous because Erica was a grown woman and Kaylie was seven months old. Maybe it was that this woman was displaying an interest in him, or that, in her own way, she seemed to be hanging on every word he said. Whatever it was, it made him want to know her better.
He nodded toward the book in her hand. “I hope you found a good book.”
She seemed surprised that he had commented about it. “It’s a Zane Grey book, Woman of the Frontier.”
“I’ve read it. When I was a kid I owned a complete set of his work.”
“You did?” She started to smile, seemed to think better of it, and then, as if she was unable to stop it, the smile spread across her face, transforming her completely. He liked the way her eyes sparkled, the curve of her bottom lip, the way she lit up all over.
“My favorite Zane Grey book was Riders of the Purple Sage.”
“Mine is this one,” she said, tapping the book she held with a forefinger. “It’s not written to the Western formula like most of Zane Grey’s books. It’s more a woman’s story, and this is the latest edition, which restores pages cut from the original. It was Zane Grey’s books, all of them, that got me fascinated by the West.”
He grinned down at her, unexpectedly feeling a