The Cowboy

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