The Cowboy

  "You can kick me out later. After we've talked. Why don't you pour yourself a brandy for your nerves and we'll continue this conversation in a civilized manner."

  She glanced at the glass he held in one hand and realized he'd found her Scotch. The bottle had been left over from last year. No one she knew drank Scotch except Rafe Cassidy and her father. "You were never particularly civilized."

  "I've changed."

  "I doubt it."

  "Pour the brandy, Maggie, love," he advised a little too gently.

  She thought about refusing and knew it wouldn't do much good. Short of calling the police there was no way to get Rafe out of her apartment until he was ready to leave. Pouring brandy would at least give her something to do with her hands. Perhaps the liquor would stop the tiny shivers that seemed to be coursing through her.

  Rafe's hard mouth twisted with faint satisfaction as he realized she was going to follow orders. With laconic grace he took his booted feet off the coffee table, got up and followed her into the gray and white kitchen.

  "I never did like this picture," he said idly as he passed the framed painting on the wall. "Always looked like recycled junk stuck in paint to me."

  "Our taste in art was one of several areas in which we had no common ground, wasn't it, Rafe?"

  "Oh, we had a lot in common, Maggie. Especially in the middle of the night." He stood lounging in the doorway as she rummaged in the cupboard for a glass. She could feel his golden-brown eyes on her, the eyes that had always made her think of one of the larger species of hunting cat.

  "Then again, the middle of the night was about the only time you had available to devote to our relationship," she reminded him bitterly. "And I recall a lot of nights when I didn't even get that much time. There were plenty of nights when I awoke and discovered you were out in the living room going through more papers, working on more ways to take some poor unsuspecting company by surprise."

  "So maybe I worked a little too much in those days."

  "That's putting it mildly, Rafe. You're obsessed with Cassidy and Company. A mere woman never stood a chance of competing."

  "Things are different now. You look good, Maggie. Real good."

  Her hand shook a little at the controlled hunger in his voice. The brandy bottle clinked awkwardly on the rim of the glass. "You look very much the same, Rafe." Overwhelming, fierce, dangerous. Still a cowboy.

  He shrugged. "It's only been a little over a year."

  "Not nearly long enough."

  "You're wrong. It's been too damn long. But we'll get to that in a minute." He picked up her brandy glass as soon as she finished pouring and handed it to her with mock gallantry. His big hand brushed against her fingers in a deliberate movement designed to force physical contact.

  Margaret snatched her glass out of his hand and turned her back on him. She led the way into the living room. Beyond the wide expanse of windows the lights of Seattle glimmered in the night. Normally she found the view relaxing but tonight it offered no comfort.

  She sat down in one of the white leather chairs. It was something of a relief not to have to support her own weight any longer. She felt weak. "Don't play games with me, Rafe. You played enough of them a year ago. Just say whatever it is you feel you have to say and then get out."

  Rafe's eyes raked her face as he sat down across from her. He gave her his thin smile. It was the only sort of smile he had. "Let's not get into the subject of who was playing games a year ago. It's a matter of opinion."

  "Not opinion. Fact. And as far as I'm concerned, the facts are very clear."

  He shook his head, refusing to be drawn. "We can sort it all out some other time, if ever. Personally, I think it's best to just forget most of what happened a year ago."

  "Easy for you to say. It wasn't your career and your professional reputation that were ruined."

  Rafe's eyes darkened. "You could have weathered the storm. You chose to walk away from your career and take up writing full-time."

  Margaret allowed herself a small, negligent shrug. "You may be right. As it happens I had a better career to walk to. Best professional move I could have made. I love my writing and I can assure you I don't miss the business jungle one bit. I wouldn't go back for anything." Her writing, which had been part-time until last year, had become full-time after the disaster and she didn't regret it for a moment.

  "You dropped out of sight. Found a new apartment. Took your listing out of the phone book." Rafe leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles once more on the coffee table. He sipped reflectively at his Scotch. "Took me a while to find you when I started looking. Your publisher refused to give out your address and your father was not what you'd call cooperative."

  "I should hope not. I told him I never wanted to see you again as long as I lived. I assumed the feeling was mutual."

  "It was. For a while."

  "When did you start looking for me?"

  "A few months ago."

  "Why?" she demanded bluntly.

  "I thought I made that clear. I want you back."

  Her stomach tightened and her pulse thrummed as it went into a primitive fight-or-flight rhythm. "No. Never. You don't want me, Rafe. You never wanted me. You just used me."

  His fingers clenched the glass but his face betrayed no change of expression. "That's a lie, Maggie, love. Our relationship had nothing to do with what happened between Cassidy and Company and Moorcroft's firm."

  "The hell it didn't. You used me to get inside information. Worse, you wanted to taunt Jack Moorcroft with the news that you were sleeping with his trusted manager, didn't you? Don't bother to deny it, Rafe, because we both know it's the truth. You told me so yourself, remember?"

  Rafe's jaw tightened. "I was mad as hell that morning when I found you warning Moorcroft about my plans. As far as I was concerned, you'd betrayed me."

  The injustice of that seared her soul. "I worked for Jack Moorcroft and I discovered you were after the company he was trying to buy out; that you'd used me to help you try to outmaneuver him. What did you expect me to do?"

  "I expected you to stay out of it. It had nothing to do with you."

  "I was just your pawn in the game, is that it? Did you think I'd be content with that kind of role?"

  Rafe drew a deep breath, obviously fighting for his self-control. "I've thought about it a lot during the past year. Every damn day, as a matter of fact, although I told myself at the time that I wasn't going to waste a minute looking for excuses for you. It took me months to calm down enough to start assessing the mess from your point of view."

  "Since when did you ever bother to examine anything from my point of view?"

  "Take it easy, Maggie, love. I realize now that you felt you had some legitimate reason to do what you did. Yes, sir, I've given it a lot of thought and the way I see it, the whole thing was basically a problem of confused loyalties. You were mixed up, that's all." His mouth curved ruefully. "And a multimillion-dollar deal went down the drain because of it, but I'm willing to let bygones be bygones."

  "Oh, gee, thanks. Very magnanimous of you. Rafe, let's get one thing straight. I never asked you to make excuses for me. I don't want you making excuses for me. I don't need your forgiveness because I didn't do anything wrong."

  "I'm trying to explain that I don't feel the same way about what happened as I did last year," he said, his voice edged with impatience.

  "If you're feeling a twinge or two of guilt about the way you used me and the way you treated me afterward, I hereby absolve you. Believe me, if I were in the same situation again, I'd act exactly the same way. I'd still warn Moorcroft. There. Does that make you feel justified in treating me the way you did?"

  He stared at her, his leonine eyes brilliant with some undefined emotion. "You weren't his mistress, were you? Not before or afterward."

  She wanted to strike him. It took everything she had to maintain her self-control. "Why should I confirm or deny that?"

  "Moorcroft said you'd been sleepi
ng with him up until he realized I was interested in you. He saw a golden opportunity and decided to take advantage of it. He told you to go to me, let me seduce you, see what you could learn."

  Margaret shuddered. "You and Moorcroft are both outright bastards."

  "He lied to me that morning, didn't he? You were never his."

  "I was never any man's."

  "You were mine for a while." Rafe took another swallow of his Scotch. "And you're going to be mine again."

  "Not a chance. Never in a million years. Not if you were the last man on earth."

  Rafe ignored each carefully enunciated word. He frowned thoughtfully as he stared into the darkness. "From what I can tell, you never even saw Moorcroft again after you handed in your resignation. Why was that, Maggie? Did he kick you out because you'd become a liability? Was that it? He didn't want you working for him once the scandal broke? Did he force you to resign?"

  "Wouldn't you have asked for my resignation in the same circumstances? If you found out one of your top management people was sleeping with your chief competitor, wouldn't you have demanded she leave?"

  "Hell, yes. Everyone who works for me knows that in exchange for a paycheck the one thing I demand is loyalty."

  Margaret sighed. "Well, at least you're honest about it. As it happens, Jack didn't have to ask me to turn in my resignation. I was very anxious to go by then. I'd been planning to quit my job in another couple of years to pursue my writing full-time, anyway. The scandal last year just speeded up the process a bit."

  Rafe swore softly. "I didn't come here to argue with you. I've told you, as far as I'm concerned, the past is behind us and it's going to stay there."

  "Why did you come here? You still haven't made your reasons clear. I'm out of the business world these days, Rafe. I have no secrets to spill that might help you force some company into an unwilling merger or enable you to buy out some poor firm that's gotten itself into a financial mess. I can't help you in any way."

  "Stop making it sound as if I only used you for inside information," Rafe said through gritted teeth.

  "You knew who I was before you approached me at that charity function where we met, didn't you?"

  "So what? That doesn't mean I plotted to use you."

  "Oh, come on, now, Rafe. I'm not a complete fool. Do you swear it never crossed your mind that it might be useful to talk to someone who was as close to Jack Moorcroft as I was? Wasn't that why you introduced yourself in the first place?"

  "What the hell does it matter why I approached you that first time? Within five minutes of meeting you I knew that what we were going to have together had nothing to do with business. I asked you to marry me, damn it."

  She nearly choked on her brandy. "Yes, you did, didn't you? The first week I met you. And I was actually considering it even though every instinct I possessed was screaming at me to run." That was not quite the truth. A few of her more primitive instincts had shouted at her to stay and take the risk.

  "I'm going to ask you again, Maggie."

  She was suddenly so light-headed she thought she might faint. "What did you say?"

  "You heard me." Rafe got to his feet and paced soundlessly across the white carpet to the window. He stood looking out into the night. "I'm prepared to give you a little time to get accustomed to the notion again. I know this is coming out of the blue for you. But I want you, Maggie. I've never stopped wanting you."

  "Is that right? I distinctly recall you telling me you never wanted to see me again."

  "I lied. To myself and to you."

  She shook her head in disbelief. "I saw the rage in you that morning. You hated me."

  "No. Never that. But I was in a rage. I admit it. I couldn't believe you'd gone straight to Moorcroft to warn him about my plans. When you didn't even bother to defend yourself, I decided I'd been had. Moorcroft was more than willing to reinforce the idea."

  "I did go straight to Moorcroft," Margaret agreed grimly. "But I was the one who'd been had. As far as I'm concerned you and Moorcroft both took advantage of me. It's one of the reasons I left the business world, Rafe. I realized I didn't have the guts for it. I couldn't handle the level of warfare. It made me sick."

  "You were too soft for that world, Maggie, love. I knew that from the first day I met you. If you'd married me, you would have been out of it."

  "Let's be honest with each other, Rafe. If I'd married you a year ago, we'd have been divorced by now."

  "No."

  "It's the truth, whether you want to admit it or not. I couldn't have tolerated your idea of marriage for long. I knew that at the time. That's why I put off giving you my answer during those two months we were together." She also knew that if the blow-up hadn't occurred, she probably would have succumbed to Rafe's pressure tactics and married him. She would have found a proposal from Rafe impossible to resist. She had been in love with him.

  Rafe glanced over his shoulder, his mouth gentling. "It might have been a little rough at times but it would have worked. I'd have made it work. This time it will work."

  Margaret squeezed her eyes shut on hot tears. Determinedly she blinked them back. When she looked at Rafe again, she saw him through a damp mist but she was fairly certain she wouldn't actually break down and cry. She must not do that. This man homed in on weakness the way a predator homed in on prey.

  "I'm surprised at you, Rafe. If you felt this strongly about the matter, why did you wait an entire year to come after me?" Margaret thought with fleeting anguish of the months she had spent hoping he would do just that before she had finally accepted reality and gotten on with her life. "It's not like you to be so slow about going after what you want."

  "I know. But in this case things were different." His shoulders moved in an uneasy, uncharacteristic gesture. "I'd never been in a situation like that before." He turned toward her and swirled the Scotch in his glass. His eyes were thoughtful when he finally raised them to meet hers. "For the first few months I couldn't even think clearly. I was a menace to everyone during the day and stayed up most of the nights trying to work myself into a state of exhaustion so I could get a couple of hours' sleep. Ask Hatcher or my mother if you want to know what I was like during that period. They all refer to it as the Dark Ages."

  "I can imagine you were a little upset at having your business plans ruined," Margaret said ironically. "There was a lot of money on the line and Moorcroft's firm cleaned up thanks to my advance warning. You lost that time around and we all know how you feel about losing."

  Rafe's gaze sparked dangerously but the flare of anger was quickly dampened. "I can handle losing. It happens. Occasionally. But I couldn't handle the fact that you'd turned traitor and I couldn't deal with the way you'd walked out without a backward glance."

  "What did you expect me to do after you told me to get out of your sight?"

  Rafe smiled bleakly. "I know. You were hardly the type to cry and tell me you were sorry or to grovel on your knees and beg me to forgive you and take you back, were you?"

  "Not bloody likely," Margaret muttered. "Not when I was the innocent victim in that mess."

  "I used to fantasize about it, you know."

  "Fantasize about what? Me pleading for your forgiveness?"

  He nodded. "I was going to let you suffer for a while; let you show me how truly sorry you were for what you'd done and then I was going to be real generous and take you back."

  "On your terms, of course."

  "Naturally."

  "It's a good thing you didn't hold your breath, isn't it?"

  "Yeah, I'd have passed out real quick because you sure as hell never came running back to me. At first I assumed that was because you'd gone back to your affair with Moorcroft."

  "Damn you, there never was any affair with Moorcroft."

  "I know, I know." He held up a hand to cut off her angry protest. "But I couldn't be certain at the time and I could hardly call up Moorcroft and ask, could I? He'd have laughed himself sick."

  "It would have
served you right."

  "My pride was already in shreds. I wasn't about to let Jack Moorcroft stomp all over it."

  "Of course not. Your pride had been a lot more important than whatever it was we had together, hadn't it?"

  He turned to face her. "I'm here tonight, aren't I? Doesn't that say something about my priorities?"

  She eyed him warily. "It says you're up to something. That's all it says. And I don't want any part of it. I learned my lesson a year ago, Rafe. Only a fool gets burned twice."

  "Give me a chance to win you back, Maggie. That's all I'm asking."

  "No," she said, not even pausing to think about her response. There was only one safe answer.

  He watched her for a moment and Margaret didn't like the look in his eyes. She'd seen it before and she knew what it meant. Rafe was running through his options, picking and choosing his weapons, analyzing the best way to stage his next assault. When he moved casually back to the white chair and sat down, Margaret instinctively tensed.

  "You really are afraid of me, aren't you, Maggie, love?"

  "Yes," she admitted starkly. "You can be an extremely ruthless man and I don't know what you've got up your sleeve."

  "Well, it's true there are a few things you don't know yet," Rafe said softly.

  "I don't want to know them."

  "You will."

  "All I want is for you to leave."

  "I told you when you opened the door tonight that you don't have to be afraid of me."

  "I'm not afraid of you. But I have some common sense and I will admit I'm extremely cautious around you. I definitely do not intend to get involved with you again, Rafe."

  He turned the glass in his hands. "What I had in mind was a little vacation for you."

  That alarmed her. "A vacation? I don't need or want a vacation."

  "At the ranch," he continued, just as if she hadn't spoken.

  "Your ranch in Arizona?"

  "You never had a chance to see it. You'll like it, Maggie."

  "No, absolutely not. I don't want to go to any ranch. I hate ranches. If I wanted to go on a vacation, I'd choose a luxury resort on a South Sea island, not a ranch."