Heartbreaker (8 page)

''If your men do my work, I'll still be in
debt to you."

"I don't consider it a debt; I call it
helping a neighbor."

"I call it a move to keep me
obligated!"

"Call it what you like, but that's the
deal. You're one woman, not ten men; you're not strong enough to take care of
the livestock and keep the ranch up, and you don't have the money to afford
help. You're mighty short on options, so stop kicking. It's your fault, anyway.
If you hadn't liked to ski so much, you wouldn't be in this position."

She drew back, her green eyes locked on him.
Her face was pale. "What do you mean?"

John got to his feet, watching her with the
old look that said he didn't much like her. "I mean that part of the
reason your daddy borrowed the money from me was so he could afford to send you
to
St. Moritz
with your friends last year. He was trying to hold
his head above water, but that didn't matter to you as much as living in style,
did it?"

She had been pale before, but now she was
deathly white. She stared at him as if he'd slapped her, and too late he saw
the shattered look in her eyes. Swiftly he rounded the table, reaching for her,
but she shrank away from him, folding in on herself like a wounded animal. How
ironic that she should now be struggling to repay a debt made to finance a trip
she hadn't wanted! All she'd wanted had been time alone in a quiet place, a
chance to lick her wounds and finish recovering from a brutal marriage, but her
father had thought resuming a life of trips and shopping with her friends would
be better, and she'd gone along with him because it had made him happy.

"I didn't even want to go," she
said numbly, and to her horror tears began welling in her eyes. She didn't want
to cry; she hadn't cried in years, except once when her father died, and she
especially didn't want to cry in front of Rafferty. But she was tired and off
balance, disturbed by the phone call from Roger that morning, and this just
seemed like the last straw. The hot tears slipped silently down her cheeks.

"God, don't," he muttered, wrapping
his arms around her and holding her to him, her face pressed against his chest.
It was like a knife in him to see those tears on her face, because in all the
time he'd known her, he'd never before seen her cry. Michelle Cabot had faced
life with either a laugh or a sharp retort, but never with tears. He found he
preferred an acid tongue to this soundless weeping.

For just a moment she leaned against him, letting
him support her with his hard strength. It was too tempting; when his arms were
around her, she wanted to forget everything and shut the world out, as long as
he was holding her. That kind of need frightened her, and she stiffened in his
arms, then pulled free.

She swiped her palms over her cheeks, wiping
away the dampness, and stubbornly blinked back the remaining tears.

His voice was quiet. "I thought you
knew."

She threw him an incredulous look before
turning away. What an opinion he had of her! She didn't mind his thinking she
was spoiled; her father had spoiled her, but mostly because he'd enjoyed doing
it so much. Evidently John not only considered her a common whore, but a stupid
one to boot.

"Well, I didn't. And whether I knew or
not doesn't change anything. I still owe you the money."

"We'll see my lawyer tomorrow and have
the deed drawn up, and that'll take care of the damned debt. I'll be here at
nine sharp, so be ready. A crew of men will be here in the morning to take care
of the fencing and get the hay out to the herd."

He wasn't going to give in on that, and he
was right; it
was
too much for her, at least right now. She couldn't
do it all simply because it was too much for one person to do. After she
fattened up the beef cattle and sold them off, she'd have some capital to work
with and might be able to hire someone part-time.

"All right. But keep a record of how
much I owe you. When I get this place back on its feet, I'll repay every
penny." Her chin was high as she turned to face him, her green eyes remote
and proud. This didn't solve all her problems, but at least the cattle would be
cared for. She still had to get the money to pay the bills, but that problem
was hers alone.

"Whatever you say, honey," he
drawled, putting his hands on her waist.

She only had time for an indrawn breath
before his mouth was on hers, as warm and hard as she remembered, his taste as
heady as she remembered. His hands tightened on her waist and drew her to him;
then his arms were around her, and the kiss deepened, his tongue sliding into
her mouth. Hunger flared, fanned into instant life at his touch. She had always
known that once she touched him, she wouldn't be able to get enough of him.

She softened, her body molding itself to him
as she instinctively tried to get close enough to him to feed that burning
hunger. She was weak where he was concerned, just as all women were. Her arms
were clinging around his neck, and in the end it was he who broke the kiss and
gently set her away from him.

"I have work to get back to," he
growled, but his eyes were hot and held dark promises. "Be ready
tomorrow."

"Yes," she whispered.

Two pickup trucks came up the drive not long
after sunrise, loaded with fencing supplies and five of John's men. Michelle
offered them all a cup of fresh coffee, which they politely refused, just as
they refused her offer to show them around the ranch. John had probably given
them orders that she wasn't to do anything, and they were taking it seriously.
People didn't disobey Rafferty's orders if they wanted to continue working for
him, so she didn't insist, but for the first time in weeks she found herself
with nothing to do.

She tried to think what she'd done with
herself before, but years of her life were a blank. What
had
she done?
How could she fill the hours now, if working on her own ranch was denied her?

John drove up shortly before nine, but she
had been ready for more than an hour and stepped out on the porch to meet him.
He stopped on the steps, his dark eyes running over her in heated approval.
"Nice," he murmured just loud enough for her to hear. She looked the
way she should always look, cool and elegant in a pale yellow silk surplice
dress, fastened only by two white buttons at the waist. The shoulders were
lightly padded, emphasizing the slimness of her body, and a white enamel
peacock was pinned to her lapel. Her sunshine hair was sleeked back into a
demure twist; oversized sunglasses shielded her eyes. He caught the tantalizing
fragrance of some softly bewitching perfume, and his body began to heat. She
was aristocratic and expensive from her head to her daintily shod feet; even
her underwear would be silk, and he wanted to strip every stitch of it away
from her, then stretch her out naked on his bed. Yes, this was exactly the way
she should look.

Michelle tucked her white clutch under her
arm and walked with him to the car, immensely grateful for the sunglasses
covering her eyes. John was a hardworking rancher, but when the occasion
demanded he could dress as well as any Philadelphia lawyer. Any clothing looked
good on his broad-shouldered, slim-hipped frame, but the severe gray suit he
wore seemed to heighten his masculinity instead of restraining it All hint of
waviness had been brushed from his black hair. Instead of his usual pickup
truck he was driving a dark gray two-seater Mercedes, a sleek beauty that made
her think of the Porsche she had sold to raise money after her father had died.

"You said your men were going to help
me," she said expressionlessly as he turned the car onto the highway
several minutes later. "You didn't say they were going to take over."

He'd put on sunglasses, too, because the
morning sun was glaring, and the dark lenses hid the probing look he directed
at her stiff profile. "They're going to do the heavy work."

"After the fencing is repaired and the
cattle are moved to the east pasture, I can handle tilings from there."

"What about dipping, castrating,
branding, all the things that should've been done in the spring? You can't
handle that. You don't have any horses, any men, and you sure as hell can't
rope and throw a young bull from that old truck you've got."

Her slender hands clenched in her lap. Why
did he have to be so right? She couldn't do any of those things, but neither
could she be content as a useless ornament. "I know I can't do those
things by myself, but I can help."

"I'll think about it," he answered
noncommittally, but he knew there was no way in hell he'd let her. What could
she do? It was hard, dirty, smelly, bloody work. The only thing she was
physically strong enough to do was brand calves, and he didn't think she could
stomach the smell or the frantic struggles of the terrified little animals.

''It's my ranch,'' she reminded him, ice in
her tone. "Either I help, or the deal's off."

John didn't say anything. There was no point
in arguing. He simply wasn't going to let her do it, and that was that. He'd
handle her when the time came, but he didn't expect much of a fight. When she
saw what was involved, she wouldn't want any part of it. Besides, she couldn't
possibly like the hard work she'd been doing; he figured she was just too proud
to back down now.

It was a long drive to
Tampa
, and half an hour passed without a word between them.
Finally she said, "You used to make fun of my expensive little cars."

He knew she was referring to the sleek
Mercedes, and he grunted. Personally, he preferred his pickup. When it came
down to it, he was a cattle rancher and not much else, but he was damned good
at what he did, and his tastes weren't expensive. "Funny thing about
bankers," he said by way of explanation. "If they think you don't need
the money all that badly, they're eager to loan it to you. Image counts. This
thing is part of the image."

"And the members of your rotating harem
prefer it, too, I bet," she gibed. "Going out on the town lacks
something when you do it in a pickup."

"I don't know about that. Ever done it
in a pickup?" he asked softly, and even through the dark glasses she could
feel the impact of his glance.

"I'm sure
you
have."

"Not since I was fifteen." He
chuckled, ignoring the biting coldness of her comment. "But a pickup never
was your style, was it?"