"Saying 'I told you so'?" She turned her head and gave him a sassy grin. "But I'm good at it."
He gave her an affectionate slap on her sleek hip and yawned. "You're good at it, all right. I'll have to admit it looks like the Cassidys are going to have an artist in their ranks."
"You're beginning to like Sean, aren't you?"
"He's okay."
"And you're going to tell Julie you like him and approve of him, aren't you?"
"Probably," Rafe admitted. He was feeling too complacent and sensually replete to argue about anything right now.
Maggie giggled delightfully in the darkness. "I love you when you're like this."
"Like what?"
"So reasonable."
Rafe felt a cold chill go through him. The satisfaction he had been feeling a few seconds ago vanished. He thought of the file in his study and the moves he had instructed Hatcher to make that morning. He levered himself up onto one elbow and looked down at the woman beside him.
She sensed the change in him instantly. "Rafe? What's wrong?"
"What about when I'm not reasonable by your standards, Maggie?" he asked. "Will you still love me?"
She searched his face, her eyes soft and shadowed. "Yes."
Rafe inhaled deeply and told himself she meant it. "Say it straight out for me. I need to hear the words."
"I love you, Rafe." She touched his shoulder, her fingers gliding down his arm in a gentle caress. "I never stopped loving you although I will admit I tried very hard."
Rafe fell back onto the pillow and pulled her down across his chest. He drove his fingers through her tangled hair and held her head clasped in his hands. "I love you, Maggie. I want you to always remember that."
"I will, Rafe."
He lay there looking up at her for a while and then the tension went out of him. His good mood restored itself. "Does this mean we're finally engaged?"
She smiled slowly. "Why, yes, I guess it does."
"You're sure?" he pressed. "You're willing to set a date?"
Maggie nodded. "Yes. If you're very sure you want to marry me."
"I've never been more certain of anything in my life." He used the grip in her hair to pull her mouth closer to his own. When he kissed her, she parted her lips for him, letting him deep inside where he could stake his intimate claim. Rafe growled softly as he felt himself start to grow hard again.
Maggie giggled.
"What are you laughing at, lady?"
"You sound like a big cat when you do that."
He rolled to the edge of the bed, taking her with him. Then he stood up with her in his arms. Maggie laughed up at him as she clung to his neck. "What are you doing? Where are we going?"
"Swimming."
"But it's two in the morning."
"We can sleep late."
"We're both stark naked."
He grinned and eyed her body appreciatively. "That's true."
"You're impossible, you know that?"
"But you love me anyway, right?"
"Right." Maggie looked down as he reached the pool. She glanced up again in alarm as she realized his intentions. "I don't mind a late night swim, but don't you dare drop me into that water, Rafe."
"It's not cold."
She gave him a quelling look. "All the same, I do not like entering swimming pools by being dropped into them."
"Think of this as just another little example of simple frontier justice."
"Rafe, don't you dare. What justice are you talking about, anyway?"
"This is for trying to set me up at that gallery this evening."
Her eyes widened innocently. "But you agreed to go to the show with no strings attached. You said you liked Sean after you got to know him."
Rafe shook his head deliberately. "That's not the point. The point is you tried to set me up. Tried to manipulate me into doing exactly what you wanted. If you're going to play games like that, Maggie, love, you have to be prepared to pay the price." He opened his arms and let her fall.
She yelled very nicely as she went into the water. When she surfaced she promptly splashed him, laughing exuberantly as he tried to dodge.
Rafe grinned back at her and then dove into the pool thinking that this was probably one of the best nights of his entire life.
9
« ^ »
Rafe waited until Margaret's back was turned in the large mall bookstore before he strolled casually over to the romance section. He stood there for a moment, lost in a sea of lushly illustrated paperbacks. Then he spotted a familiar-looking name. Fuchsia foil spelled out Margaret Lark. The title of the book was Ruthless.
After another quick glance to make certain that Margaret was still busy browsing through mysteries, Rafe examined the cover of her latest book. It showed a man and a woman locked in a passionate embrace. The man had removed the charcoal gray jacket of his suit and his tie hung rakishly around his neck. His formal white shirt was open to the waist and his hand was behind the lady's back, deftly lowering the zipper of her elegant designer gown.
The couple was obviously standing in the living room of a sophisticated penthouse. In the backdrop high-rise buildings rose into a dark sky and the sparkling lights of a big city glittered.
Rafe opened Ruthless to the first page and started to read.
"It's no secret, Anne. The man's a shark. Just ask anyone who worked for any of the companies Roarke Cody is supposed to have salvaged in the past five years. He may have saved the firms but he did it by firing most of the management and supervisory level people. We're all going to be on the street in a week, you mark my words."
Anne Jamison picked up the stack of files on her desk and glanced at her worried assistant. "Calm down, Brad. Cody's been hired to straighten out this company, not decimate the staff. He must be good to have acquired the reputation he's got. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get going. I've got a meeting in his office in five minutes."
"Anne, you're not listening. The guy's ruthless. Don't you understand?" Brad trailed after her to the door. "He's probably called you into his office to fire you. And after he lets you go, I'm next. You'll see."
Anne pretended to ignore her frantic assistant as she made her way down the hall, but the truth was, she was not nearly as confident as she looked. She was as aware of Cody's reputation as Brad was—more so, in fact, because she'd done some checking.
"Ruthless" was, indeed, the right word to describe the turnaround specialist who had been installed here at the corporate headquarters of Seaco Industries. Roarke Cody had left a trail of fired personnel in his wake wherever he had gone to work. He was nothing less than a professional hit man whose gun was for hire by any company that could afford him.
Three minutes later Anne was shown into the new gunslinger's office. She held her breath as the tall, lean, dark-haired man standing at the window turned slowly to face her. One look and her heart sank. She had been putting up a brave, professional front but the fact was, she had known the full truth about this man the first day she'd met him. There was no mercy in those tawny gold eyes—no compassion in that hard, grim face.
"Good morning, Mr. Cody," she said with the sort of gallant good cheer one adopted in front of a firing squad. "I understand you're on the hunt and you'll be having most of management for dinner."
"Not most of management." Roarke's deep voice was tinged with a hint of a Western drawl. "Just you, Miss Jamison. Seven o'clock tonight." He smiled without any humor. "I thought we might discuss your immediate future."
Anne's mouth fell open in shock. "Mr. Cody, I couldn't possibly…"
"Perhaps I should clarify that. It's not just your future we will discuss," he said smoothly. "But that of your staff, as well."
And suddenly Anne knew exactly how it felt to be singled out as prey.
"For heaven's sake, what are you doing?" Margaret hissed in Rafe's ear.
"Reading one of your books." Rafe closed Ruthless and smiled blandly. "Something sort of familiar about this Roar
ke guy."
To his surprise, Margaret blushed a vivid pink. "You're imagining things. Put that back and let's go get that coffee you promised me."
"Hang on a second, I want to buy this." Rafe reached for his wallet as he started toward the counter.
Margaret hurried after him. "You're going to buy Ruthless? But, Rafe, it's not exactly your kind of book."
"I'm not so sure about that."
She stifled a groan and retreated to wait near the door as Rafe paid for the book. A moment later, his package in one hand, Rafe ambled out into the air-conditioned mall. "Okay, let's get the coffee."
Margaret marched determinedly toward a small cafe near a fountain and sat down. "Are you really going to read that?"
"Uh-huh. Why don't you have your coffee and go shop for a while? I'll just sit here and read."
"Why this sudden interest in my writing?"
"Maggie, love, I want to know everything there is to know about you. Besides, I'm curious to see whether or not I save Seaco Industries."
"Whether or not you save it," she gasped in outrage. "Rafe, don't get any ideas about my having used you as a model for the hero in my book."
Rafe paid no attention to that as he dug Ruthless out of the sack and put it down on the table in front of him. "Come on, Maggie, love. Light brown eyes, dark brown hair and a Western drawl? Who do you think you're kidding?"
"I have news for you, Rafe. There are millions of men around who fit that description."
"Yeah, but I'm the one you know," he said complacently as he ordered two cups of coffee from a hovering waitress.
Margaret gave him an exasperated glare. "You want to know something? Most of my heroes look like Roarke Cody. And I wrote at least three of them long before I ever met you."
"Is that right? No wonder you fell straight into my hands the day I met you. I was your favorite hero come to life. The man of your dreams."
"Why you arrogant cowboy. Of all the…"
"Give me a hint," Rafe said, interrupting her casually. "Does the heroine sleep with this Roarke guy in the hope that she can persuade him not to fire her and her staff?"
"Of course not." Margaret was obviously scandalized at the suggestion. "That would be highly unethical. None of my heroines would do such a thing."
"Hmm. But he tries to get her to do that, right?"
Margaret lifted her chin. "Roarke Cody is quite ruthless in the beginning. He tries all sorts of underhanded, sneaky maneuvers to get the heroine."
"And?"
"And what?"
"Do any of those underhanded, sneaky maneuvers work as well as the underhanded, sneaky maneuver I used to get you down here to Tucson?"
Margaret folded her arms on the table and leaned forward with a belligerent glare. "I am not going to tell you the plot."
"Go shopping, Maggie, love. I'll wait right here for you." Rafe propped one booted heel on a convenient empty chair, leaned back and picked up Ruthless.
Margaret spent over an hour in the colorful, Southwestern-style shops. The air-conditioned shopping mall was crowded with people seeking to escape the midday heat.
The clothes featured in the windows tended to be brighter and more casual in style than what she was accustomed to seeing in Seattle. It made for an interesting shopping experience that she deliberately lengthened in the hope of causing Rafe to grow bored and restless.
But when she returned to the indoor sidewalk café, several packages in hand, she saw to her dismay that he was still deep into Ruthless.
She told herself she ought to find his interest in her book gratifying or at the very least somewhat amusing. But the fact was, it made her uncomfortable. He had guessed the truth immediately. He was the hero of Ruthless and of every book she had ever written.
Margaret had been in the middle of writing Roarke and Anne's story when she had met Rafe. She had finished it shortly after Rafe had turned on her and accused her of betraying him. It had not been easy to write a happy ending when her own lovelife was in shambles.
But a part of her had sought to work out in Ruthless the ending that had been denied to her in real life. Her own relationship might have gone on the rocks but she'd still had her dreams of what a good relationship could be. A woman had to have faith in the future.
"Not finished yet?" Margaret came to a halt in front of Rafe.
He looked up slowly. "Gettin' there. Ready to go?"
She nodded. "I could use a swim."
"Good idea." Rafe got to his feet and dropped Ruthless back into the paper bag. "You know this Roarke guy started out okay in the beginning. He had the right idea about how to save Seaco. You've got to cut a lot of dead wood when you go into a situation like that. But I get the feeling he's being set up for a fall."
"He's being set up for a happy ending," Margaret muttered.
Rafe shook his head, looking surprisingly serious. "The problem is, he's starting to let his hormones make his decisions. He's getting soft." Rafe chuckled. "Not in bed, I'll grant you, he's holding up just fine there. But when it comes to business, he's falling apart. Going to shoot himself in the foot if he doesn't get back on track."
"He's falling in love with the heroine and that love is causing him to change," Margaret snapped.
"It's causing him to act stupid."
"Rafe, for pity's sake, it's just a story. Don't take it so seriously."
"Real life business doesn't work like that."
"It's a story, Rafe. A romance."
"You know," Rafe said, looking thoughtful as they walked out of the mall into the furnace of the parking lot, "your dad was right. It's a good thing you got out of the business world, Maggie. You're not tough enough for it."
"My father said that? I'll strangle him."
"He said it during one of our early conversations and I agree."
"You're both a couple of turkeys."
"Maybe women in general just aren't hard enough to make it in the business world," Rafe continued philosophically. "You've got to be willing to be ruthless, really ruthless or you'll get eaten by the bigger sharks. Women, especially women like you, just don't have that extra sharp edge, know what I mean?"
Margaret came to a full halt right in the middle of the blazing parking lot and planted herself squarely in front of a startled Rafe. She was hotter than the blacktop on which she stood, her anger suddenly lashed into a fire storm.
"Why you chauvinistic, pig-headed, redneck cowboy. I always had a feeling that deep down inside you didn't approve of women in the business world and now at last the truth comes out. So you don't think women can handle it, do you? You don't think we'll ever make it in big business? That we aren't ruthless enough?"
"Now, honey, it was just an observation."
"It's a biased, prejudiced, masculine observation. I've got news for you, Rafe Cassidy, one of these days women are going to not only make it big in the business world, but we're going to change the way it operates."
Rafe blinked and reached up to pull the brim of his Stetson lower over his eyes. "Is that right?"
"Darn right. You men have been running it long enough and women are getting tired of playing by your rules. We're getting tired of cutthroat business practices and vicious competition—tired of playing the game for the sake of some man's ego."
Rafe shrugged. "That's the way it works, Maggie, love. It's a jungle out there."
"Only because men have made it into one. I suppose that after you got civilized and no longer had the thrill of the hunt for real, you had to create a new way to get your kicks. So you turned all your aggressive instincts into the way you do business. But that's going to change as women take over."
"Uh, Maggie, love, it's kind of hot out here. What do you say we go back to the ranch and continue this fascinating discussion in the swimming pool?"
"Your sister is a good example of the new breed of female businessperson. And Sean Winters has shown the good sense to turn his stores over to her to manage. You could take a lesson from him."
&
nbsp; A small smile edged Rafe's mouth. His eyes gleamed in the shadow of his hat. "You want me to turn Cassidy and Company over to you?"
"Of course not. I don't want anything to do with that company. I've got my own career in writing and I like it. But I swear to God, Rafe, if we have a daughter and if she shows an interest in the family business, you'd darn well better let her have a hand in it."
Rafe grinned slowly. "It's a deal. Let's go home and work on it."
Margaret stared at him in frowning confusion as he took her arm and steered her toward the Mercedes. "What are you talking about?"
"Our daughter. Let's go home and get busy making one. I want to see this brave new world of business once the women take over. The sooner we get started producing the new female executive, the sooner we'll see if it's going to work."
Margaret felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. She struggled for air. "A daughter? Rafe, are you talking about a baby?"
"Yeah. Any objections?"
She cleared her throat, still dazed by the abrupt change of topic. A baby—Rafe's baby. A little girl to inherit his empire. Margaret recovered from her initial shock and began to smile gloriously.
"Why, no, Rafe. I don't have any objections at all."
Rafe was feeling exceptionally good two days later when he walked down the hall to his study. He had no premonition of disaster at all.
But, then, he'd been feeling very good every day since Margaret had arrived. Now that they had the house to themselves he was indulging himself in the luxury of waking up beside her in the mornings. He loved that time at dawn when they lay together in tangled white sheets and watched the morning light pour over the mountains.
One of these days he really was going to have to start going back into the office on a regular basis, he told himself. But all in all, if the truth be known, he was slightly amazed at how well things were going with him on vacation.
He chuckled to himself at the thought that he might not be as indispensable at Cassidy and Company headquarters as he'd always assumed. Maggie wouldn't hesitate to point that out to him if he gave her the chance.
He rounded the corner, glancing at his watch. Hatcher had gone back out to his car to get another file. They had been working for the past two hours before taking a break and now they were going to finish the business. Rafe was looking forward to joining Margaret out by the pool.
The Cowboy Page 14
