Cowboy Enchantment - By Pamela Browning Page 0,23

to the far reaches of his consciousness.

“I suppose I can’t know exactly how you felt when I came to Rancho Encantado to look after Kaylie,” he allowed. “I know you must have been disappointed. You’ve been understanding, Lizette, but I’m not ready to take our relationship to a new level right now.”

Silence on the other end of the phone and what might have been a sniff.

“You’re a wonderful woman,” he added hastily. “We’ve had a great time. I hope that when I’m ready for something serious, you’ll still be available.” But did he? He’d met Lizette right after moving from Chicago to New York and was in the throes of his divorce. She’d been kind and understanding. But that was then. This was now.

An audible sniff this time. “I see,” she said.

“I’d better go now, Lizette. It’s almost time to put Kaylie to bed.”

“Kaylie, Kaylie, everything is Kaylie. You act like you’re married to that child.”

This angered him, but it would serve no purpose to show it. “I’m sorry, Lizette” was all he said, and he clicked off the phone.

“Babababa?”

“Yeah yeah yeah yeah.” He heaved a giant sigh and began to scoop toys up off the floor.

“Here’s your dolly and here’s your jingle ball and here’s…” He stopped talking in midsentence. Mrs. Gray was sitting beside the playpen, staring at him again in that uncanny—uncatty—way of hers.

“What do you want?” he said not unkindly. The cat only stared with eyes both knowing and luminous.

While he was paying attention to the cat, Kaylie started lobbing the toys out of the playpen again, one by one. Which made him impatient. He couldn’t be angry with her, though, because she did it so winsomely.

I don’t know why you don’t pop over to the Big House for a while and let Kaylie burn off some of her energy playing with Justine.

He whirled around, thinking that someone must be standing at the screen door and speaking to him, but there was no one. He could have sworn…

Cats did not talk. He knew this for a fact. People who thought that cats could talk were not right in the head.

Still, it wasn’t a bad idea to pay a visit to the Big House. Justine would play with Kaylie while he sat and drank his beer. Then he would bring Kaylie back here and they could both go to bed.

He swung Kaylie up out of the playpen and was rewarded by her happy chortle.

“What do you say we go over and see your aunt Justine for a while?” A visit might get the bad taste of the conversation with Lizette out of his mouth, too.

“Babababa!”

The cat did not say anything, Hank was relieved to note.

ERICA AND JUSTINE finished clearing the table, and while Justine was finishing up in the kitchen, Erica wandered into the living room and ran her fingers across the keys of the piano there.

“I didn’t know you played,” Justine called from the kitchen.

“I haven’t for a long time.” She sat down and experimented with a few chords.

A sheet of music was propped on the music stand, and after pushing her glasses higher on her nose, Erica played the first bar. She had taken lessons when she was a child and had actually enjoyed them, but she didn’t own a piano now and thought she’d forgotten almost everything she’d learned about playing. She hummed along with the music; she used to sing, too, in her high-school choir and in a college glee club.

The thud of boots on the porch interrupted her reverie, and the front door opened suddenly. She stopped humming abruptly and whirled around.

“Keep playing,” said Hank. “It sounded great.” He stood there in the same T-shirt and jeans he’d worn earlier, and he was carrying a baby that must be Kaylie.

Wishing she’d changed clothes after her riding lesson, she stood and clasped her hands behind her back in embarrassment. “I’m out of practice.”

“Hank?” Justine called from the kitchen. “I’ll be out in a minute. Right now I’m up to my elbows in dishwater.”

Erica’s mouth went dry at seeing Hank again after this afternoon when they’d almost…But maybe it had been her imagination that they’d almost kissed. Right now it seemed as if she’d never seen him before, and how could that be when she’d held an image of her ideal cowboy in her heart for as long as she could remember?

Aware of her pounding heart, she wiped damp palms on her thighs. “Um, won’t you sit down?” The baby was staring at her