Cowboy Enchantment - By Pamela Browning Page 0,14

kinship with her. “You know, maybe I’ll reread Purple Sage.”

“It’s over there. Next to the big green one.”

When he went to pull the book off the shelf, he dropped one of the pinafore buttons. It rolled under a chair, and he thought he saw where it landed—on the side of the chair near the window.

She asked him what he’d dropped and he told her, then set the book on the table and bent to look for the button. “I know it’s under here,” he said, groping beneath the chair skirt.

“I think it went slightly to the left,” she told him.

“I don’t feel it.” He felt silly, groveling on the floor.

“Maybe it rolled out at the back of the chair.” She went around the chair and said, “Here it is.” She handed the button to him.

“It’s from my daughter’s pinafore.” Sheepishly he yanked the garment from his back pocket, realizing that the whole time he’d been talking to Erica Strong, the pink-checked fabric had been waving from his pocket like a flag.

“Oh, you have a daughter,” she said, but he couldn’t figure out from her tone whether she thought a child was a plus or a minus.

Not that it mattered. But something expanding in his chest, some kind of air forcing out the other negative feelings, made him want to please her. It was a strange urge, and he didn’t know what to make of it.

“Yes, her name is Kaylie. She’s seven months old. And I don’t know anything about sewing on buttons.” So help him, he felt his face flushing. Why this should happen, he didn’t know. He wasn’t embarrassed. Yet something about this woman was causing him to act like a bumbling idiot.

“Well,” Erica said briskly, “I can sew on the button for you.”

“I couldn’t ask you—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, I’ll teach you how to do it yourself. You know that old saying—‘Give a man a fish, and you feed one man. Teach a man to fish—’”

“‘—and you feed a hundred,”’ he finished. “Though I sure do hope I don’t have to sew buttons on a hundred pinafores.”

She looked up at him and smiled. That lit her eyes from within, but in a different way than laughter did.

“The only thing is, you’ll need to show me where Justine keeps a needle and thread.”

“That’s easy. Come with me.” He led her through the house to a utility room where there were a washer and dryer and a small closet where his sister stored her sewing machine and supplies.

He dug in a plastic box and produced white thread, a packet of needles and scissors. Then he pulled a small rocking chair closer to a floor lamp so that Erica could sit.

“Watch closely,” she said. She threaded the needle and showed him how to knot the thread.

“Then you bring the needle up from the bottom of the fabric,” she said, demonstrating. He leaned against the washing machine and watched with his arms folded across his chest as she began sewing on a button, her fingers moving deftly as she plied the needle. She made it look easy.

“Is sewing a hobby of yours?” he asked after a while.

The question seemed to surprise and amuse her. “No, I wouldn’t say that. My mother made sure that my sisters and I knew how to sew on buttons and turn up hems before we went away to college.”

“How many sisters?”

“Two,” she said. “Now watch how I make a knot when the button is secure.” She looped the thread and guided the needle through it before snipping off the thread.

“Justine said that Charmaine Strong is your sister,” he said.

She shot him a quick look. “Yes.”

He shook his head. “I’ve seen pictures of her. She’s beautiful.”

Erica tried not to let the admiration in his voice upset her. People had always said how beautiful Charmaine was, and it was true. But sometimes, implied in their comments was the secondary thought And you’re not.

Most of the time it didn’t bother her. She’d grown immune to people’s surprise that she could have such a beautiful sister. Long ago she had decided that those people didn’t count and didn’t deserve a place in her life. She knew she would never be as beautiful as Char or their older sister, Abby, a former Miss Rhode Island, and that was okay. She was intelligent, was known as the smart sister. She’d decided early on that if she couldn’t be gorgeous, she would collect academic degrees and hold a fantastic job that provided lots of