Read Online Sylvie's Cowboy by Iris Chacon - Free Book Online

on that polo
match the other day. I owe him one.”
    ...
    After her first day on the job at Clarice’s
Beauty World, Sylvie had luxuriated in a hot bath before covering
her sheer nightie with a mammoth, thick, terry robe borrowed from
Walt. Looking deliciously frowsy from her bath, with damp tendrils
of her hair curling innocently about her face, she had power over
Walt McGurk that she would never have imagined. When she reclined
on the living room sofa and joked about her aching feet and a good
massage, Walt simply sat down at the opposite end of the sofa and
took her dainty feet onto his lap.
    Sylvie pretended this was something any
friend would do. She pretended Walt McGurk was exactly the kind of
sensitive guy one would expect to rub one’s tired feet. She
pretended her heartbeat remained steady and her body temperature
did not rise.
    Walt pretended that if he wanted Sylvie to
have a job, he was obligated to do his part to keep her fit for the
work. He pretended he didn’t detect a lilac scent rising from her
legs and feet as a result of her recent bath. He pretended he had
not thought of her naked under a blanket of bubbles in the tub just
down the hall from where he had been pretending to read. He
pretended that massaging her feet was for her benefit, because she
had as good as asked for it. He pretended his hands were not
enjoying the sensations of massaging her delicate arches, small
toes, smooth ankles, shapely calves.
    To prove that Walt’s therapeutic attentions
had no emotional effect on her, Sylvie elected to transact some
business by telephone. Time is money. Waste not, want not. Make
every minute count. When she had mentally recited every appropriate
aphorism she could remember, she reached for the phone lying on the
nearest end table. She scrolled through her contacts and selected a
number. She placed the call and set her phone on speaker, so Walt
would hear.
    Daniel Stern answered on the second ring.
“Don’t wait for the beep, I’m a real person. What’s up?”
    Walt grimaced at the recognition of the
voice.
    Sylvie giggled coquettishly. “Danny, you’re
too cute. How are you?”
    Flirting was Dan’s first language. “Not half
as fine as you are, Sylvie, my sweet. What can I do to you this
evening?”
    “I can’t stop thinking about what you said at
the match the other day about shooting that sweet polo pony. You
didn’t really shoot him, did you?” Her tone said she was certain
Dan was too good-hearted to harm any furry friend.
    She was wrong about Dan, of course, but he
refrained from remarking that if he had not murdered that useless
animal, it was only for lack of convenient opportunity. Instead, he
steered the conversation onto a tangent. “Oh, that’s right! You
wanted to sell me a horse, if I recall correctly.” He delivered the
line in a manner calculated to make Sylvie think he had waited all
his life for the chance to pay her large sums of money for whatever
she chose to offer.
    Sylvie winked at Walt and cranked up her
salesmanship performance for his benefit. “Well, Danny, I do think
you could always use another one, especially a good one—and we
breed some beauties out here at our ranch.”
    Walt mimed,
We?
    Sylvie waved him off. “When can I show you
our fabulous thoroughbreds, Danny? You’ll be happy with any horse
you get from us; we guarantee it.”
    Walt mimed,
No WE don’t!
    Dan decided if the way to Sylvie’s heart was
through her ponies, he might as well take a shot. “Why don’t you
bring your best pony out to the Polo Club next time you come. Let
me look him over. Maybe we can make a deal.”
    “Super!” she said, aiming a look of triumph
in Walt’s direction. “I’ll do it. You won’t be sorry. See you next
weekend.”
    “I look forward to it,” Dan said in what he
thought was his seductive voice. “ ‘Bye.”
    “ ‘Bye.” Sylvie hung up the phone and leaned
back, reveling in the foot massage.
    Walt’s hands slid across her ankle began to
knead