Baby Enchantment

by Pamela Browning

  “Now,” he said when he had finished. “Let’s see if this works.” He reached for the belt’s clasp and pulled the belt taut across her abdomen. Her first concern was of the new life that she harbored there, but her second was that having his hands near that part of her anatomy was much too intimate, too threatening. And yet she didn’t feel threatened, not at all. Overshadowing those thoughts was another one: that she would soon be adjusting seat belts to accommodate her increased girth. Or maybe pregnant women didn’t wear seat belts. Did they? She couldn’t remember what any of her pregnant friends had done, but surely they wore their belts to protect both them and the baby. Well, she realized with a start, she certainly had a lot to learn about pregnancy, motherhood and babies.

  “All right,” Cord said, jamming the truck into gear and pulling back onto the tarmac. “Off we go to town. Have you been through Sonoco yet?”

  She refocused her thoughts. “No, I drove here from L.A.”

  “Of course. That means you’d be coming from the other direction. Well, Sonoco isn’t much of a place. It’s way down on the list of fashionable spots.”

  “It’s a former mining town, right?”

  “They once hauled a lot of copper out of the hills near there. Now it’s not exactly a ghost town, but the miners have gone. It’s on a highway, so there’s a lot of through traffic.”

  They had pulled onto that highway only a few minutes ago, and looming on her side of the road was a large billboard. Miss Kitti-Kat’s Teahouse, it said. A well-endowed cartoon cat winked and blinked alluringly at passersby.

  She edged a glance over at Cord. He didn’t seem to notice the sign. He drove at a speed well over the limit, and though Brooke was aware that many drivers sped on these long, straight desert roads, there was a hint of recklessness in the cant of his strong jaw, the careless way in which he gripped the wheel. She had the feeling that he would welcome the truck’s spinning out of control so that he could wrest the vehicle from danger, that he would take great satisfaction in doing so.

  As they left the valley, the desert stretched in all directions, pushing the mountains toward the horizon. It was a sere landscape yet eerily beautiful, and Brooke shivered when she thought about how forbidding it must have appeared to the people who were destined to cross it by wagon train in the days of the California gold rush.

  In the distance, a whirl of dust was kicked into motion by the wind, and she leaned forward in her seat to see it better.

  Cord noticed. “Dust devil,” he said succinctly.

  “A dust devil? What’s that?”

  “Some of the Indians around here think that their ancestors’ spirits live on in the dust devils.” The dust looked as ephemeral as smoke as it took on a life of its own above the desert floor.

  “Nice story, but what are they really?” The dust devil resembled a midget tornado.

  Cord shifted in his seat and narrowed his eyes briefly at the dust devil before returning his gaze to the road. “When the wind hits an obstacle, like a rock, it can start the air spinning. As the air carries the dust upward, a vacuum forms in the center and more air rushes in to fill the vacuum. That’s how a dust devil fuels itself.”

  This particular dust devil seemed to grow in velocity as they watched, merrily wending its way through clumps of creosote and sagebrush.

  “What’s the speed of the wind in one of those things?”

  Cord shrugged. “They say it reaches up to fifty miles an hour within the cone.”

  “I’d like to see one up close,” she said.

  “We can do that,” he said, and before she knew it, he had swerved the pickup off the road and onto the desert floor and they were bumping and lurching over rocks and ruts.

  Brooke laughed in amazement. She gripped the armrests and held on for dear life, since Cord didn’t seem in mind to slow down anytime soon. He gunned the pickup across a dry wash, laughing right along with her.

  “I didn’t think you’d actually chase this thing,” she shouted.

  He slanted her a reckless look. “You said you wanted to see one up close. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it!” he shouted back, and then they were almost level with the dust devil, and then they were in it, in a maelstrom of dust and leaves and debris that sizzled grittily on metal and windshield.

  Brooke felt a peculiar light-headedness, a dizziness. For a moment she thought she was being caught up in the dust devil, but the notion was so absurd, sitting as she was in a perfectly sturdy pickup with all four of its wheels touching the ground, that she dismissed the idea immediately. But as she watched, the whirling leaves and dust formed themselves into— Her name? The letters B R O O K E? It was impossible. She was seeing things. She blinked once and whatever she’d seen was gone, was again nothing but a bunch of wind-driven debris.

  And then they were out of it, leaving the swirling wind behind with their exhaust. She twisted around in her seat to stare at the dust devil, half expecting to see the letters of her name in its midst. But no, she didn’t.

  Cord slowed the truck and grinned at her. She stopped hanging on for dear life and, the strange mirage momentarily forgotten, she grinned back.

  “Did you enjoy that?” he asked.

  “Yes! But…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t think Cord had seen what she had. Nor had she seen it, probably. It must have been an optical illusion or something.

  “But?” He was looking at her questioningly.

  She decided not to mention the letters of her name. He’d get the idea that she was bonkers or worse. “Um, our little adventure certainly made me forget my queasy stomach,” she said, settling back in her seat.

  A contrite expression washed over Cord’s features. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.” He slowed the truck to a sedate speed and picked a way clear of stones, ruts and boulders to get them back on the highway.

  “No, I’m fine,” she reassured him. “I liked it.”

  “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a lady with a sense of adventure.”

  “You would have been wrong,” she said.

  “I see that.”

  She grinned at him, wishing she felt comfortable telling him about the repeated sightings of Padre Luís and now the illusion in the middle of the dust devil. She didn’t understand what was going on, and she was reluctant to discuss any of it with Cord.

  She was quiet as Cord drove the rest of the way to Sonoco, and he didn’t speak, either. As they approached the huddle of buildings that soon appeared on the horizon she sat forward in her seat.

  Even though she knew that Sonoco was a small town, she was still surprised that the main street was only two blocks long. The only businesses were a gas station, a small grocery and the Lucky Buck Saloon. A few streets wandered off the main drag into the hills and were lined with mobile homes. The more prosperous-looking of these had dusty trucks hunkered alongside.

  The building housing Miss Kitti-Kat’s was the town’s largest structure and was situated at the end of one of the streets. Painted mustard yellow and identified by a large roof sign bearing the same picture of a winking bejeweled cartoon cat that Brooke had seen on the billboard earlier, it would be hard to miss if you happened to be driving through.

  Brooke ignored the place, and although she watched Cord curiously for some reaction, he seemed oblivious. They drove past the gas station and pulled into a parking lot beside the Lucky Buck, a small brick building with a false front. It was surrounded by cars, many of them with out-of-state license tags.

  Inside, the sound of slot machines provided the only music. Cord led her to a booth along the back wall and grinned apologetically. “Sorry about the ambience or lack of it. That’s the way it is.”

  A stocky man with a mustache stuck his head out of the kitchen as they sat down in a booth. “Hey, Bucky,” he said. “Be with you in a minute.”

  “Take your time, Joe.”

  “What did he call you?” she asked curiously.

  “An old childhood nickname.” Cord’s face had go
ne still, and he picked up a menu and began to study it.

  “You don’t seem to like it much.”

  He spared her a quick look. “Bucky, shortened from Buckaroo. I don’t like to be called that.”

  “Oh, okay. Lots of people don’t like their nicknames.”

  The proprietor came over with an order pad. Cord introduced her to Joe, who asked, “What can I get for you?”

  “A chicken sandwich for me.”

  “I’ll have pizza.”

  “It’ll be right out.” Joe hurried back into the kitchen.

  In the booth behind Cord, a young couple with a child who appeared to be about eighteen months old were finishing their pizza. They had released the little girl from her booster chair, and she stood on the seat, peering over the back of the booth. Her eyes were wide and brown, and she had soft reddish curls falling across her forehead. Brooke thought she would like it if her baby looked like this one, then chided herself. Babies came in several different models and sizes, no one better than the other.

  “Careful, Lindsay,” the mother said, but she and the father were figuring the bill and didn’t make the baby sit down. Lindsay, the baby, reached out and touched one finger to Cord’s cheek.

  He turned around. “Hey there,” he said softly. “Who are you?”

  “Me me me,” said the little girl.

  “Well, you you you, you’re mighty cute.”

  The child’s mother smiled. “This is Lindsay,” she said. “Is she bothering you?”

  “Not at all,” Cord answered firmly, and Lindsay beamed.

  The father and mother resumed counting out money to pay their check, and Cord swiveled slightly so he could see Lindsay better. “You want to see my mouse?” he asked her.

  Lindsay nodded solemnly, and only then did Brooke notice that Cord’s hands had been hard at work. Slowly, he raised the paper napkin that he had ingeniously wrapped around two fingers and fashioned into a mouse shape, complete with a twisted paper tail.

  “You have to be careful about mice,” he told Lindsay as he wiggled the napkin across the seat and up the back. Spellbound, she didn’t take her eyes off the mouse. It reached the top of the seat back and twitched there for a few moments.

  “My mouse just woke up,” Cord said. “My mouse is looking for a little girl named Lindsay.”

  The girl’s gaze went from the mouse to Cord’s face and back again. “My mouse wants to find Lindsay,” Cord said, moving the napkin mouse closer to Lindsay with every word. “And he has!” With that, he slid the mouse up Lindsay’s arm to the side of her neck. Lindsay giggled wildly, and her mother and father joined in the laughter.

  “Come on, Lindsay. It’s time to go.” Her father slid out of the booth and lifted her in his arms.

  Lindsay wrinkled her forehead and held her hands out toward Cord. “Mouf? Mouf?”

  Cord slid the play mouse off his fingers. “Here, you’d better take the mouse with you,” he said to the parents. They thanked him and set off toward the front of the restaurant, disappearing down a row of shiny slot machines.

  After they had left, Cord turned back around. Brooke had been surprised by his enthusiastic entertainment of the little girl; she would not have expected Cord McCall to like children.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he demanded.

  “I was surprised that you were so good with that baby.”

  “Kids like me,” he said.

  “I see that. I wouldn’t have expected it.”

  “Am I that bad? That forbidding?”

  “I didn’t say forbidding.”

  “Kids—they’re special. They come into this world through no wish of their own, and they’re totally innocent and unmarked. They deserve adults in their lives who care about them.”

  These words were delivered with such vehemence that Brooke, who had been toying with the paper wrapper from her straw, looked up sharply. Before she thought of a reply, Joe brought their food, and she busied herself with salting her sandwich. When she bit into it, she was surprised at how good it tasted; either that, or she was unusually hungry after not eating much all day. This train of thought reminded her why she wasn’t often hungry these days: the baby. Her baby. Who might resemble little Lindsay but more likely would not. She honestly didn’t care what the baby looked like. Imagining it was hard, that was all and maybe she was clutching at whatever she could to personalize the new little life inside her. If she could picture it, if she could imagine it, perhaps she could begin to have welcoming feelings for it.

  Cord cleared his throat. “I hope you didn’t take all that stuff I said personally.”

  She didn’t know what he meant. “What stuff?”

  “About kids. You’ve been so quiet that I thought maybe I’ve offended you. When I said that they come into this world through no wish of their own, maybe you thought I meant your baby. I didn’t.”

  “I suspected that you were generalizing.”

  “I was, sort of.” He shifted in his seat. “We’re not here to talk about personal things, Brooke. Suppose you help me out and tell me what you need to know about Rancho Encantado.”

  The light in his eyes was sincere enough. She took heart from this and plunged ahead. “As of now, I’d like to know about the lost legend. Why the place is supposed to be so special. What the deal is with the vortex.” She ticked them off one by one on her fingers.

  “You want a lot,” he said.

  “Maybe, so let’s focus on the lost legend for now.”

  “There’s no way to focus. It’s lost.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Very little.”

  “You’re not going to tell me.”

  “What’s to tell? There is a legend. No one remembers it. It was probably a lot of hooey, anyway.” He forked a giant piece of pizza into his mouth.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure by now that you’re not the Rancho Encantado publicity flack,” she said despairingly.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Do I detect a bit of dissatisfaction here?”

  “I thought,” she said with as much patience as she could muster, “that you were appointed to help me.”

  “I get it,” he said. “You’re going to report me to Justine.”

  “Did I say that?” She thought maybe he was joking.

  “You don’t need to.”

  “Look, I don’t rat on anyone. Got that?”

  “Right.” He said it as if he didn’t believe it.

  “Okay, so you can’t tell me anything about the legend. How about the vortex?”

  He started to chuckle. “Like I know anything about that. Oh, I’ve heard the word bandied about among the guests here, but all I know is that it’s some New Age blather.”

  “I heard some guests talking about energy centers and negative ions,” she said. “They said Rancho Encantado’s a special place.”

  “It’s a special place only because it’s in a green valley located in the middle of a big desert,” Cord said. “All the other stuff is just—stuff.”

  “Oh, Cord,” she said, “how can you say that when so many people obviously believe?”

  “People believe in the tooth fairy, too, but do you?”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “Yes, I do. My father was quite a generous tooth fairy in his day.”

  “That was lucky.” He was back to that stiff manner that he always displayed when conversation veered in certain directions—namely, family, childhood or home.

  “You didn’t have a good tooth fairy at your house?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She waited to see if he would elaborate, and the silence stretched long between them.

  “I didn’t have any tooth fairy in my whole life,” he said finally.

  “I’m sorry, Cord,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah, well, you and a lot of other people.”

  He had a chip on his shoulder, one that must be too heavy to carry most of the time. Yet she sensed that he might want to unburden hims
elf.

  “Are your parents still alive, Cord?” she asked gently. Her sandwich forgotten, she studied his face. The scar gave it character and interest, and suddenly, she found herself captivated by the finely honed edge of his chin. Or was it the groove on his upper lip, or the sexy droop of his eyelids at the corners? She looked away, her mouth dry with what she recognized as sexual attraction. But how could she be lusting after anyone in that way? To feel sexual attraction when you were pregnant wasn’t possible, or was it?

  Cord didn’t seem to notice her unease. “My father is dead. I never knew my mother.”

  Brooke made herself stop thinking about her attraction to this man and thought, instead, about her mother, so caring and kind. All of a sudden, she remembered the tooth pillow that her mother had made for her out of white satin. It had been shaped like a large molar. There had been a little pocket on the front for the tooth, and the pocket was big enough to hold a couple of bills from the tooth fairy. Her father, so patient and hardworking, still farmed the same plot of land that had been in his family for three generations. There seemed nothing to say to Cord but, “I’m sorry things were difficult for you, Cord.”

  “It all happened a long time ago,” he said, but there was a world-weariness to his voice that, in that moment, made him seem older than he looked. She found herself hoping he would enlighten her further, but his expression was shuttered now, and she had the feeling that nothing she could say would make him open up.

  He called to Joe and ordered a beer. “Want anything?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. She was searching for some suitable topic, one that wouldn’t make him uncomfortable, when he said suddenly, “When did you say your baby’s due?”

  Grateful for the lifeline, she didn’t even mind that it was a question that only a couple of days ago she would have considered too personal. “In October. The nineteenth, if I calculated correctly.”

  He nodded. “October is a nice month to be born. The weather’s cool, and if you live in the climate for it, there’s fall color.”

  “And Halloween,” she said. “I can use a Halloween theme for birthday parties.”