JAKrentz - The Pirate, The Adventurer, & The Cowboy (55 page)

Margaret flinched from the jolt of deep longing that knifed through her. She did not move. She was not sure she could have moved if she'd tried. She was paralyzed—a rabbit confronted by a mountain lion.

Rafe's mouth slanted across hers again and she was thoroughly confused by the unexpected tenderness of his kiss. His fingers stroked her nape, feather-light against her sensitive skin. A tremor sizzled along her nerve endings. She shivered.

"Yeah, you still do, don't you? I've been thinking about this for the past year," Rafe muttered. "One whole year, damn you. Every night and every day. There were times when I thought I'd go clear out of my mind with wanting you. How could you do that to me, Maggie?"

She was shaken by the bleak depths in his voice. "If it was the sex you missed, I'm sure there must have been someone around to give you what you wanted."

"No," he stated harshly. "There was no one. There hasn't been anyone since you, Maggie."

She stared up at him in shock. When he finally had found time for bed, Rafe had proved himself to be a deeply sensual man. She remembered that much quite vividly. "I don't believe you."

"Believe it," he growled as his mouth grazed hers one more time. "God knows I do. I had to live through every night alone and it nearly drove me crazy."

"Rafe, you can't walk back in here after a whole year and do this to me," Margaret said desperately. "I won't let you."

"Let me stay tonight."

"No."

He drew back slightly, releasing her. "I had a hunch you'd say that but I had to ask. Don't worry about it, I've waited this long, I can wait a little longer."

"You'll wait until hell freezes over," she said crisply. "You've said what you had to say, Rafe. Now leave."

He hesitated briefly. Then he nodded and picked up his hat. He jammed it down low over his glittering eyes. As he reached for his jacket, he glanced at the airline ticket he'd left on the table. "Next Monday. The eight o'clock flight."

"I won't be on it."

"Please."

Margaret's mouth fell open in amazement. "What did you say?"

"I said
please
. Please be on the eight o'clock flight. Come to Arizona to talk to the woman who will probably be marrying your father. Come to Arizona to find out what kind of evil deal I've cooked up to get your dad to sell his company to me. Come to Arizona to see if I really have changed. Come to Arizona to give us both a second chance."

"I'd be a fool to do it."

"There hasn't been anyone else for either of us for the past year, Maggie. That should tell us both something." He hooked the jacket over his shoulder and strode to the door.

"Rafe, wait, I'm not going to do it, do you hear me? I won't be on that plane." Margaret managed to unstick herself from the carpet and go after him, but she was too late.

The door closed softly behind him before she could ask him how he knew there had been no one else for her during the past year.

«
^
»

I
t had been the longest year of his life, Rafe thought savagely, and Maggie looked as if she'd spent it sleeping on rose petals and sipping tea. It was almost more than he could take to see her looking so serene and untouched by the past twelve months.

He clung to the knowledge that she had been as celibate as he had. It was the only thing that gave him any real hope. On some level she had been waiting for him, he told himself. On some level she was still his and knew it.

Outside on the street in front of her apartment building he managed to find a cab for the ride back to his hotel. Knowing he was heading toward a lonely hotel room when he should have been spending the night in Maggie's bed did nothing for Rafe's temper. Still, the players in the game were finally in position at last and the first moves had all been made. The action was ready to start.

She was as striking as ever, he admitted to himself as he sprawled back against the seat in the cab. More so. She was a little more sure of herself now than she had been a year ago.
And a hell of a lot less willing to accommodate herself to his schedule
, he thought with grim humor.

The sight of her tonight had nearly shattered his carefully honed self-control. He had promised himself he would remain in command of the situation, but when she had walked through the door his first instinct had been to pull her down onto the carpet of her elegant living room and make love to her until she was wild. He needed desperately to feel her respond to him the way she had the last time on that memorable night before everything had gone up in smoke. Lord, he was starving for her.

He had never been so hungry in his life and he had to be patient. He stared moodily at the cheerfully garish lights of the public market as the cab driver turned east on Pike Street. It had been a year since he had seen Seattle at night.

The cab halted in front of the lobby of the expensive hotel and Rafe got out. He reached for his wallet.

"Nice boots," the cabbie remarked as he pocketed the excessive tip.

"Thanks." Rafe turned toward the lobby.

"Hey, if you've got nothin' else to do this evenin'," the cabbie called after him, "I can give you a couple of suggestions. I know where the action is here in town. No sense spendin' the night alone."

"Why not? It's the way I spend all of my nights lately."

Rafe went on into the marble and wood-paneled lobby. He couldn't stop picturing Maggie as she had looked tonight standing framed in the doorway of her apartment. Her sleek black hair had been pulled back to accent the delicate lines of her face. Her aquamarine eyes were even larger and more compelling than they had been in his dreams.

The sophisticated silk dress she wore glided over subtle, alluring curves. She looked as if she'd put on a couple of pounds but they had gone to the right places. She still moved with the grace of a queen.

Maggie had obviously found her footing in her new career as a writer. In fact, she looked depressingly content. Rafe felt like chewing nails. It seemed only fair that she should have suffered as much as he had. But apparently she hadn't.

He reminded himself once more of the report from the discreet investigative agency he had employed. Maggie dated only rarely and never seriously. Until recently she had spent a lot of her free time with two other women who had been friends of hers for the past couple of years.

Rafe had never met Sarah Fleetwood and Katherine Inskip but their names showed up so often in the reports that he had come to think of the unknown women as duennas for his lady. Somewhere along the line he had unconsciously started depending on them to keep Maggie out of trouble.

Trouble meant another man in Maggie's life, as far as Rafe was concerned. But as luck would have it, Sarah and Katherine had been the ones who had found the other men. He wasn't making his move any too soon, Rafe told himself. No sense leaving a woman like Maggie at loose ends for very long.

Rafe went into the hotel bar and found a secluded booth. He ordered a Scotch and sat brooding over it, analyzing the scene in Maggie's living room, searching for flaws in the way he'd handled the delicate negotiations, wondering if he'd applied just the right amount of pressure.

He'd spent months putting the plan together and he'd used every lever he could find. He would have bargained with the devil himself to get Maggie back. But tonight he'd played the last cards in his hand. Now he could only pray Maggie would be on that Monday morning flight to Tucson. His whole future was hanging in the balance and Rafe knew it. The knowledge made his insides grow cold.

T
he book signing session
on Saturday morning went well. Margaret thoroughly enjoyed talking to the readers and other writers in the area who had made their way by car, bus and monorail into downtown Seattle to meet the author of
Ruthless
. She was especially grateful for the enthusiastic crowd this morning because it took her mind off the difficult decision that had to be made by Monday. For a while, at least, she did not have to think about Rafe Cassidy.

"I just loved
Ruthless." A
happily pregnant woman with a toddler clinging to her skirts handed her copy of the book to Margaret to sign. "I always feel good after I've read one of your books. I really love your heroes. They're great. Oh, Christine is the name, by the way."

"Thanks, Christine. I'm glad you liked the book. I appreciate your coming downtown today." Margaret wrote Christine's name on the title page, a brief message and then signed her own name with a flourish.

"No problem. Wouldn't have missed it for the world. I was an account executive at a brokerage house here in Seattle before I quit to raise kids for a while. I really identify with the business settings in your stories. When's your next book due out?"

"In about six months."

"Can't wait. Another hero like Roarke, I hope?"

Margaret smiled. "Of course." Roarke was the name of the hero in
Ruthless
, but the truth was all her heroes were similar. They all bore a striking resemblance to Rafe Cassidy. That had been true from her first book, which had been written long before she had ever met Rafe. It was probably why she had fallen so hard and so fast for him when he'd exploded into her life last year, she thought.

At first sight she had been certain Rafe was the man of her dreams.

Except for the boots, of course
. Looking back on the disaster Margaret knew she ought to have been warned when her dream man showed up in a Stetson, fancy boots and a silver belt buckle. In her books her heroes always wore European-styled suits and Italian leather shoes.

Hard, savvy and successful businessmen for the most part, her male characters always had a ruthless edge that made them a real challenge for the heroines. But in the end, unlike Rafe, they all succumbed to love.

A stylish-looking woman in a crisp suit who was standing directly behind Christine extended her copy of
Ruthless
. "Christine's right. Give us another hero like Roarke. He was great. I love the tough-guy-who-can-be-taught-to-love type. I think of them as cowboys in business suits."

Margaret stared at her. "Cowboys? Good heavens, what makes you call them that? I like the sophisticated urban type. That's the kind I always write about."

The woman shook her head with a knowing look in her eye. "But your heroes are all cowboys in disguise, didn't you know that?"

Margaret eyed her thoughtfully. She had long ago learned to appreciate some of the insights her readers had into her books but this one took her back. "You really think so?"

"Trust me. I know cowboys when I see them, even if they are wearing two hundred dollar silk shirts."

"She's right, you know," another woman in line announced with a grin. "When I'm reading one of your books, I always visualize a cowboy."

"What on earth makes you do that?" Margaret asked in utter amazement.

The woman paused, considering her answer. "I think it's got something to do with their basic philosophies of life—the way they think and act. They've got a lot of old-fashioned attitudes about women and honor and that kind of thing. The sort of attitudes we all associate with the Old West."

"It's true," someone else in line agreed. "The shoot-outs take place in corporate boardrooms instead of in front of the saloon, but the feeling is the same." She leaned forward to extend her copy of
Ruthless
. "The name is Rachel."

"Rachel." Margaret hurriedly signed the book and handed it back. "Thank you."

"Thank you." Rachel winked mischievously. "Speaking of cowboys," she said, exchanging a smile with the other woman, "maybe one of these days you can give us the real thing, horse and all."

"We'll look forward to it," the first woman declared as she collected her signed book.

Margaret managed a laugh and shook her head, feeling slightly dazed. "We'll see," she temporized, not wanting to offend the readers by telling them she'd once run into a real corporate gunslinger who was very much a cowboy and the result had been something other than a happy ending.

She turned, smiling, to greet the next person in line and nearly dropped her pen when she caught sight of the familiar figure standing in front of her. It never rained but it poured, she thought ironically.

"Hello, Jack. What are you doing here? I didn't know you read romance."

Jack Moorcroft smiled down at her, his light hazel eyes full of genuine curiosity. "So you really made it work, did you?"

"Made what work? My writing? Yes, I've been fortunate."

"I didn't think you could turn it into a full-fledged career."

"Neither did anyone else."

"Can I buy you a coffee or a drink when you're finished here? I'd like to talk to you."

"Let me guess what this is all about. I haven't seen you since the day I resigned. You moved the headquarters of Moorcroft Industries to San Diego nearly a year ago, according to the papers. And now, out of a clear blue sky you suddenly show up again in Seattle two days after Rafe Cassidy magically reappears. Can I assume there's a connection or is this one of those incredible coincidences that makes life so interesting?"