Baby Enchantment

by Pamela Browning

  The file bulged with information, and at last Brooke began to feel positive about this assignment. The folder’s contents would certainly help provide background information about Rancho Encantado, and there might even be something about the Tyson Trail and the Cedrella Pass incident.

  As she cut through the stable on her way back to her apartment, deep in thought about her work, she almost ran into Cord McCall, who was emerging from the tack room. He seemed to be in a different mood from the one he’d been in that morning. In fact, he actually had a cheerful expression on his face.

  “Whoa!” he said, reaching out and steadying her. His hands lingered a bit longer than necessary on her shoulders, or was it her imagination?

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I should have been looking where I was going.”

  “No apology necessary. About this morning, Brooke—”

  “No apology necessary there, either,” she said tersely.

  “Okay, be that way.” She detected an unexpected mote of humor in his eyes.

  She cleared her throat. “Cord,” she began, but she suddenly forgot what she had been going to say. In her confusion, she felt herself beginning to blush.

  “Yes?”

  You were going to offer the use of your refrigerator, said a voice. It was a Spanish-accented voice, and she thought of the priest in the dining hall. She looked around wildly, expecting to see him peeking out from behind a bale of hay or hiding behind the tack-room door, but there was no one present other than Cord. Unless you could count the gray stable cat, which sat in a shaft of sunlight and stared at her with unblinking yellow eyes.

  The refrigerator! prompted the voice.

  Brooke drew a deep breath. “I—well, if you’d like to use the refrigerator in my place, I wouldn’t mind. I can close the door between the kitchen and living room if I want privacy.” Her eyes followed the cat, which got up and waddled over to a pile of empty feed sacks, her sides rounded with her pregnancy. The cat sat down on the feed sacks and began to wash her paws.

  “Sure you won’t mind if I use the fridge?” Cord asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Maybe it’s not such a good idea,” he said.

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She hadn’t expected him to back away from the offer.

  “I don’t mind.”

  Cord moved closer, his eyes dark in the dim stable light. His tone was low, almost intimate. “You know, Brooke, you shouldn’t have anything to do with me. I don’t always behave the way I ought to, and I’m not the kind of guy most women want to get involved with.”

  “I only asked if you wanted to use my refrigerator,” she pointed out testily. “I don’t have any hidden agenda.”

  He studied her face for a long time. “But how do you know that I don’t?” he said. He brushed past her and strode toward his apartment. He opened the door and went inside, slamming it behind him.

  Brooke stood where he had left her, her heart beating wildly. One of the horses poked its nose over the top of the stall door and looked at her with interest. In Cord’s apartment, the lights flicked on, and she pictured him inside, cooking something for supper.

  He’d never said for sure that he was going to take her up on her offer about the refrigerator. Should she leave the door between their apartments unlocked tonight in case he wanted to use the fridge?

  Maybe she ought to have left things as they were. For a moment, she waited to hear the now-familiar Spanish-accented voice say, You did the right thing, but when she really needed reassurance, she heard nothing.

  Except for the meowing of the cat, which, finished with her ablutions, trotted over and rubbed against her legs.

  “When are you going to have those kittens, hmm?” Brooke asked as she bent to pet her, but the cat only purred loudly. “Looks like it’ll be pretty soon.”

  Well, the cat didn’t seem to mind being pregnant. Maybe, Brooke thought hopefully, she’d eventually get to that point, too.

  Padre Luís Thinks

  Foolishness, foolishness, nothing but foolishness! This woman, Brooke, she is afraid to be a mother. Can she not see that motherhood is a woman’s most exalted position?

  Cord wants to apologize for his thoughts. He was thinking that her problems were unimportant, and now he sees otherwise. At least Cord understands that a baby is precious, a baby is special, and each one must be treasured.

  This Brooke, she comes to Rancho Encantado to learn. Perhaps I, a humble priest, will be able to help her not just to learn but to know. That is my mission, but I must do as God directs. The place now known as Desert Rose is built on the land where my hospital once stood, the hospital where I cared for the broken bodies of the people who lived here. Miners, laborers, farmers, ranchers and so many children—all were helped in my day. Now the hospital no longer exists, nor does my church or my school. But still I am directed to heal those who come to this valley, and so I shall. Perhaps it is more important to heal spirits than bodies, and that I can do. If the people will listen, and that is the difficulty. Most people do not listen, will not listen! I do not know if Brooke hears me or not.

  Brooke does not listen yet, but she is a writer. This, I believe, means that she will heed the written word. So where can I write? On the wind? In the sky? In the dirt at my feet?

  God will provide in due time. Time, after all, is all I have. Time, time, endless time…time to reflect, time to heal and help.

  But Brooke does not have so much time. I must pray that I find a way to help her before she leaves this blessed place.

  Chapter Four

  Brooke did leave the door unlocked between the apartments that night, pointedly shooting the bolt back so it made a loud noise that Cord couldn’t help but hear if he was awake. Then she went to bed, where she slept fitfully, waking every now and then with uneasy thoughts dancing through her head of her baby-to-be. Would it be a boy? Would it look like Leo? Or maybe it would be a girl.

  It will be a beautiful baby girl. Brooke immediately startled awake and sat up in bed, looking around to see if someone had entered her bedroom. Her first thought was that the intruder must be Cord, but she had closed and locked the bedroom door, and the window was locked, also. Still, it was almost as if the voice spoke right beside her ear. The priest again? She was too tired to think about it.

  Uneasily, she fell asleep, and awoke later than she had intended. She skipped breakfast due to her unsettled stomach, and as soon as she was dressed, she headed for the Big House. There, Justine, who was talking on the phone, waved her toward the long gallery at one end of the living room. After picking her way through such leftover wedding paraphernalia as a garland-entwined arch and several tall candle stands, which were being carried out one by one by a noisy crew of cleanup folks, Brooke was pleasantly surprised when she discovered the wide array of books. She began to browse for titles that would give her a handle on this part of the California desert.

  She found a couple of large volumes about the geology of the area. There seemed to be nothing, however, about the lost legend of Rancho Encantado or Padre Luís. Nor were there any books on the Tyson party or the Cedrella Pass incident.

  Soon, Justine bustled out of her office, followed by a scruffy yellow dog.

  “Who’s your friend?” Brooke asked her.

  Justine snapped a leash on the dog’s collar. “This is Murphy, former cattle dog turned house pet.”

  Brooke bent to scratch him behind his ears, which he seemed to appreciate, judging from his wide smile and lolling tongue. “He’s adorable,” she said.

  Justine laughed. “I don’t know about that, but he’s good company. Are you finding everything you need?”

  “The books look helpful, but do you have any information about the legend, the ghost or the Cedrella Pass incident?”

  Justine wrinkled her forehead. “As for the ghost, I’ve never seen him, and the legend seems to be truly lost. No one around here remembers what it was, though lots of people recall that there
actually was one. It had something to do with a curse and all those people who died at the pass.”

  “And the Tyson party? Are there any books about them?”

  “Not that I know about. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

  “That’s all right,” Brooke told her. She paused. “I don’t suppose there’s anyone available to show me around the Seven Springs area, someone who is an old-timer here and knows a bit about history. I’d be happy to pay for a guide.”

  “I don’t mind your having a look. Let me think about who, okay? I’d better take Murphy for his walk.”

  “Have fun,” Brooke told them.

  After a few more minutes of browsing, Brooke departed with the two books she had found. She liked Justine, and she liked the place. She didn’t think there was anything special about the ranch, unless you could count mountains that shaded from buff to lavender to deep blue over the course of the day, or sunsets that fairly took your breath away, or—well, it was an attractive bit of scenery. That was all, she reminded herself. Nothing special. Maybe that was the slant she would give the lead of her article for Fling.

  Later, after marking some chapters in the books she’d found that morning, she had herself checked out on Stilts. The gelding was spirited, but she handled him well. After Sal gave her the go-ahead, she turned the horse toward the outbuildings in the distance near the old adobe hacienda.

  Stilts proceeded at a trot along a narrow road, sandy and rutted. Horseback was the easy way to travel in this part of the country, and she thought about the Forty-niners on their way to finding their fortunes in the goldfields. They’d had horses, mules and oxen, but even so the terrain and the climate had been inhospitable in the extreme.

  The hacienda was now a private residence for the newlyweds, Hank and Erica, but there were several other outbuildings that she could explore. One seemed to be an equipment shed. When she got there, she dismounted and looped the reins over Stilts’s head so he could graze on the dusty grass nearby. She approached the shed cautiously, unwilling to disturb any desert wildlife that might be camping there. The door squeaked as she opened it, and the light inside was dim.

  The only inhabitants seemed to be a few spiders. After she rubbed a hole in the grime on the window with the edge of her shirt, she saw that the shed contained several old humpbacked trunks.

  The locks were stiff, but she figured out how to wedge a handy crowbar under a trunk lid, and soon she had pried it open. The trunk held papers and photographs, and she sat down happily, eager to sift through them and find out what they were.

  BECAUSE OF VARIOUS and sundry matters that required his attention during the day, Cord was exhausted by the time he got in that night. At the moment, the only thing that appealed to him was a large can of stew he could empty into a bowl and heat in the microwave.

  He ate as much of the stew as he could, then listened for a moment at the connecting door to Brooke’s apartment. He didn’t hear her moving around in there. Maybe she had gone over to the rec hall, where some of the guests liked to hang out in the evening. Which meant that he could slip into her place, stash the remaining stew in the refrigerator and be gone. He was too frugal after a lifetime of hard knocks to toss out perfectly good food.

  He turned the knob quietly and opened the door. The kitchen was illuminated only by the range light, and the door to the living room was closed. He didn’t think anything of it, and since Brooke wasn’t there, he didn’t try to be quiet.

  He had set the bowl of stew inside the refrigerator and was considering taking some ice cubes back to his place, when he heard Brooke’s voice.

  “Cord? Is that you?”

  He froze, then said. “It’s me, all right.”

  The living-room door swung open. Brooke was wearing a lightweight sweater that accentuated the blue of her eyes, and behind her he saw that the couch was scattered with papers and photographs.

  “I’m working but could use a break,” she said.

  “Looks like you’re busy,” he said. He was sorry for being abrupt with her earlier, and he wanted to make amends.

  “Justine said I could look through the outbuildings, where she stored a lot of old things, and I found a treasure trove.” He liked the way her enthusiasm sparkled in her eyes when she talked about her work.

  “How will that stuff come in handy for your article for Fling?” He couldn’t imagine that any of the items stored in the old outbuildings would be pertinent to the trivial articles usually published in Fling.

  “I’m working on other projects, as well. Not for Fling,” she added hastily when he registered a dubious expression.

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “I can’t really say, since I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with all this. I don’t suppose you’d like to see some of it.”

  “I, well, I wouldn’t mind.” He hadn’t intended to visit with her. But now that he was actually in her presence, he wasn’t eager to take himself out of it.

  She indicated that he should follow her into the living room. “I’m piecing together who the people in some of the photographs are. Check this one.” She shoved the picture across the table as he sat down on a chair.

  He knew the subjects of the photo right away. “These people are Dan and Betsy Iverson,” Cord said. “They were the original homesteaders here back in 1910.”

  “You seem to know something about this place.”

  “Not much.”

  “How about the ghost priest? What do you know about him?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person,” he told her.

  “You’ve never seen his ghost?”

  “I sure haven’t. Some people claim to have seen something, but I suspect they merely have good imaginations. His full name was Padre Luís Reyes de Santiago, by the way. There’s a plaque honoring him near the place his house once stood.”

  “I’d like to go see it.”

  “It’s not much.”

  “Could I ride there?”

  “No reason why not. It’s on the riding-trail map.” He had an idea from the way she was looking at him that she expected him to offer to take her, but no way. He had too much to do around the ranch before he went on vacation. His vacation would be busier yet, what with trying to finish all the work at Jornada Ranch so that he wouldn’t have to turn away any more boys like Brandon. He was still smarting over his conversation with Judge Ted Petty.

  Brooke got up and went to the desk in the alcove. She came back with a map. “Would you mind showing me how to get to Padre Luís’s place?”

  He opened the map and traced the trail with a forefinger. “The bronze marker is right here,” he said, pointing to where the creek divided the ranch property from the area of the desert known as the Devil’s Picnic Ground. Brooke looked over his shoulder, and he could feel her warm breath on the back of his neck. He wished she wouldn’t stand so close; not that he minded, but it was hard to concentrate on the business of the map with her standing so close and while he was breathing the faint scent of her soap or shampoo or perfume. Whatever it was, it smelled wonderful, like wildflowers in springtime, and it messed with his head.

  In order to distract himself, he glanced away. His gaze fell on the scarred leather pouch.

  She noticed that he was looking and went around to the other side of the table, thank goodness. She opened the pouch and removed two parchment scrolls. “I can’t read these, can you?” she asked, passing them over to him.

  He took them from her with relief, since this afforded him something to do. He understood some Spanish, but the writing on the scrolls was fancy and the vocabulary beyond him.

  “What are you going to do with these?” he asked her. The scrolls seemed quite old.

  “Think about them for a while, I guess. Study them. There’s also an old diary.”

  “Would you be interested in the natural history of the desert?” He didn’t know he was going to say this until the words were out of his mouth.

  “I would. A
re you an authority on the subject?”

  “Me? No, but I have some books.”

  “May I see them?” She looked eager.

  “If you like,” he said. “Would you like to take a look through my bookcase?”

  He stood up and handed the scrolls back to her. “I’ll go poke around the apartment and see what else I can turn up. Come over when you’re ready.”

  “I’ll only be a minute.”

  Sheesh, he thought. I was going to turn in early in preparation for the things I need to do tomorrow, but now that won’t be possible.

  For a moment he regretted being so helpful, but then he decided that he didn’t mind all that much. Brooke was a distraction, and not an unwelcome one. He only wished he didn’t have the idea that she liked him way too much for her own good.

  BROOKE DIDN’T RUSH to get ready to go over to Cord’s, mostly because she wanted to give him time to neaten things up if that was what he wanted to do. After she smoothed her hair and put on a fresh coat of lipstick, she went through the open door to his place.

  His kitchen was neat, but she saw no personal touches. Cord hailed her from the living room, which seemed sparsely furnished. There was a tall bookcase beside the couch, and an enormous chair that had seen better days. He had a small television set, and no curtains hung at the window. Still, the place seemed to suit him—no nonsense and no frills, very much like Cord McCall himself.

  After browsing through the bookcase, she chose some titles about the plants and animals of the desert, and Cord brought her another about mining operations. “Do you mind if I take them over to my place?”

  “No, of course not.”

  She noticed that his name was neatly written in the front of each book. Clearly, this was a man who prized his books and took good care of them.