Cowboy Enchantment - By Pamela Browning Page 0,22
be when he got that beer. Beer and then bed, and the next day he would start the whole routine over again. This was not the life he had lived until three months ago, that was for sure. Before Anne-Marie’s death he had been footloose and fancy-free in New York.
He saw Mrs. Gray standing on her hind legs and peering in through the screen door leading into the stable. Kaylie noticed her, too.
“Babababa?”
“No, Kaylie, that’s a cat. Kitty cat.” His words were punctuated by a meow from the cat.
“All right, all right. I know better than to deny two females what they want.” Carrying Kaylie, he got up and went to the kitchen door. Mrs. Gray zoomed inside when he opened the door a crack. There was no sign of her kittens, who, he supposed, were old enough to get around on their own these days.
Using the one hand that was free, he dumped a sizable portion of dry cat food into the dish beside the stove. Mrs. Gray didn’t even twitch her whiskers in that direction. Instead, she sat down and stared at him.
“Come on, Kaylie, let’s get those toys put back in the playpen,” he said just as the phone rang.
When he answered it, Lizette said brightly, “Hi, Henry. How’s my lovey bunny?”
Hank didn’t consider himself anyone’s lovey bunny, much less hers, but he managed to suppress his annoyance. “I’m fine, Lizette. I’m really busy right now. May I call you back?”
He crunched the phone between his shoulder and his neck and went into the living room, where he deposited Kaylie in the playpen.
“Why don’t you ever answer your e-mails?” Lizette wanted to know. “I’ve sent you a whole bunch.”
“Like I said, I’ve been busy.”
“I miss my lovey bunny. E-mail could make me feel so much more connected to you. When will you be back?”
“Not for a while.”
“You could bring the baby back to New York. Don’t you think it’s time?”
“Not yet,” he said. “She’s crazy about her baby-sitter. I can’t take her away from Paloma.”
“I know of a good day-care center right around the corner from my place.”
“Day care? Not yet. The situation here is ideal. Paloma is wonderful, and Justine likes to fill in when she can. Kaylie’s doing fine with the present circumstances, Lizette.”
“The trouble is, Henry, I’m not. I miss you. I want us to be together.”
He thought that he would like to know what color her eyes were, but this didn’t seem like the right time to inquire. He did remember her nose, for whatever it was worth. Or at least he remembered the nose she’d had when he’d left. Lizette was on her fourth nose and, in the spirit of treating others with total honesty, delighted in proclaiming this fact to everyone. She’d had her first nose job at age fourteen and two more since then.
Kaylie was trying to push a star through the round opening in her plastic ball, and distractedly he reached down and turned the ball so that the star-shaped opening was on top. She poked the star through it and gurgled with delight.
“Henry? Henry! Did you hear what I said?” Lizette was beginning to sound shrill.
“I heard.” He made himself consider ever so momentarily day care for Kaylie. He imagined rushing her there in the morning, rushing back to pick her up on the way home to his apartment. Or maybe to Lizette’s apartment. She was sounding perilously close to making the “Let’s live together” suggestion, and he couldn’t imagine living with Lizette while at the same time trying to be a father to Kaylie.
“I have a good mind to come down there and drag you back to New York,” Lizette said playfully.
He’d better do what he could to salvage this conversation, which had now gone from bad to worse. It occurred to him that there was probably no salvaging the relationship itself, and the thought didn’t make him unhappy.
“Well, Lizette, I know how you must feel, but I don’t think that your coming to Rancho Encantado is such a good idea, and I can’t leave now. I’ve got my work cut out for me here.”
“How can you say you know how I feel? You aren’t the one who was left behind.” Lizette sounded perilously near tears.
He raked a hand through his hair. For some reason Erica Strong’s face popped into his mind, looking the way it had this afternoon when he’d held her in his arms—flushed, eyes wide, lower lip tremulous. He swallowed and pushed the image