The Pirate & The Adventurer & The Cowboy

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.

2

    « ^ »

    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