Cowboy Enchantment - By Pamela Browning Page 0,32

an attempted reconciliation between Anne-Marie and me. Neither one of us expected to make a baby, and…well, I can’t say I was happy to learn Anne-Marie was pregnant. But when I saw my daughter for the first time, I was out-and-out crazy about her.” He’d been overwhelmed with emotion the first time he’d seen Kaylie’s chubby little cheeks, her fuzz of pale hair. He considered his daughter the best thing that had ever happened to him, despite all the huge changes she’d brought to his life.

“She’s a darling baby.” Erica didn’t want to pry, but she hoped Hank would go on talking. His face lit up when he spoke of his daughter, and he looked younger, more carefree. She wondered how old he was. Thirty-four? Thirty-five?

He pushed an apple in her direction, and she caught it before it rolled off the rock. “I can’t imagine life without Kaylie,” he said truthfully. “She makes everything worthwhile.”

“Working so hard, you mean?” She was studying him, her eyes so deep and solemn he could hardly glance away.

His reminder to himself that the work he did now was not his normal job caught him up short. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to manage when he returned to his old life.

“That and other things,” he said.

“It must be lonely being a single father.”

It was, but he’d never admitted it to anyone except himself. He shrugged, embarrassed.

She looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s only that I’ve been questioning my own life since I’ve been here where things are so different from New York. When you’re caught up in a hectic whirlwind of activity, you don’t take time to think that there are options.” She bit into the apple, a pensive expression settling over her features.

He would have liked to pursue the topic further. There were few people in the world with whom he felt comfortable talking about private matters, but this woman had quickly put him at ease with her disarming and total interest, as well as her quiet acceptance. He wanted to know more about her.

“Do you like living in New York, Erica?”

“It’s okay. I grew up in Rhode Island.”

“The ranch is a real change for you then, isn’t it?” He could imagine her in the city somehow. She had a big-city polish, a big-city attitude.

“The change is a welcome one. I’m glad I came here.”

“How long are you staying?”

“A week,” she said.

“A week,” he repeated thoughtfully.

As he reached for another sandwich, he spotted a quick movement along the bank of the creek.

“Look,” he whispered, putting a hand on Erica’s arm to draw her attention to where he was pointing. A coyote stood at attention on the opposite bank. Something upstream seemed to have caught his attention, and he seemed oblivious to the two of them. He stood with his ears up, his tail down, in a posture of alertness.

“He’s come for water,” Hank said.

Erica fumbled for her camera, then focused on the coyote. She snapped a picture, hoping the beep of the camera wouldn’t startle him. The coyote’s ears still stood at attention, but he didn’t run. After a minute or so, he lowered his head and loped out of sight.

Erica sighed, “He was beautiful.” Hank’s hand still rested on her arm, and he didn’t want to move it. She wore a long-sleeved shirt, and her skin felt warm beneath it, warm and solid and real. He thought about how good it would feel to have her warmth pressed against him, enveloping him. He thought about the way her breasts swelled against the front of her shirt. He thought he would have liked to touch his finger to the shadow beneath the curve of her jaw, and he wondered if the skin there would be warm or cool, whether he’d be able to feel the throb of her pulse. He didn’t think he could bear it if he never found out.

“I’ve never seen a live coyote,” Erica said. “His coat, the amber and buff, is exactly the color I would have liked Tico to make my hair.”

He studied her hair, which was shiny and made him long to run his fingers through it. “Your color,” he said judiciously, “is not so far off.”

She laughed, and he laughed, too. He discovered that it felt good to be laughing with someone, to feel such camaraderie.

She hit the preview button on the camera, and the picture of the coyote popped up. She zoomed in on it so that the animal’s image filled the whole