The Pirate & The Adventurer & The Cowboy

white barns.

    "You're an arrogant, high-handed bastard at heart, that's what you are." Margaret was suddenly acutely aware of an audience. Tom and another man in work clothes and boots glanced toward Rafe and grinned broadly. "Rafe, people are watching. For heaven's sake, put me down."

    "I don't take orders from a mistress."

    "Damn it, Rafe."

    "Now, I might listen to an engaged lady or a wife, maybe, but not a mistress. No, ma'am."

    "Put me down."

    "In a minute. I want to find us some privacy first."

    "Privacy. Rafe, you're creating an embarrassing public spectacle. And you have the nerve to wonder why I never came crawling back to you on my hands and knees this past year begging you to forgive me. This sort of behavior is exactly why I considered I'd had a very lucky escape."

    "Let's not bring up past history. We're supposed to be making a fresh start, remember? If I can let bygones be bygones, so can you."

    "You are unbelievably arrogant."

    "Yeah, but even better, I usually get what I want."

    He carried her into the soft shadows of a long barn. Hanging upside-down as she was, Margaret had an excellent view of a straw-littered floor. The earthy scents of horses and hay wafted up around her. A row of equine heads with pricked ears appeared above the open stall doors.

    Margaret gasped as Rafe swung her off his shoulder and onto her feet. As she regained her balance she glared at her tormentor and fumbled to readjust the clip that held her hair at her nape.

    "Honestly, Rafe, that was an absolutely outrageous thing to do. I'd demand an apology but I know I won't get one. I doubt if you've ever apologized in your entire life."

    "Maggie, love, we'd better have a long talk. There appears to be a slight misunderstanding here."

    "Stop calling me Maggie. I've told you a hundred times I don't like it. That's another thing. You never really listen to me, do you? You think everything has to be done your way and the rest of us should just learn to like it that way, no matter what. Your mother tried to tell me this morning that you'd changed during the past year but I knew better and I was right, wasn't I? You just proved it. You're still a thickheaded, domineering, bossy, overbearing cowboy who rides roughshod over everyone else."

    "
That's enough
." Rafe stood with his booted feet braced, his hands on his hips, his eyes narrowed dangerously.

    "Good Lord, you are a real cowboy, aren't you?" Her voice was scathing. "You look right at home here in this barn with that…that
stuff
on your boots."

    He glanced down automatically and saw the stuff to which she referred with such disdain. There was a small pile of it near his left boot. Prudently he moved the elaborately tooled black leather boot with its red and yellow star design a few inches to the right.

    "Goes with the territory," Rafe said. He looked up again. "And you can quit playing the sophisticated city girl who's never seen the inside of a barn. I know the truth about you, lady. Connor and I have had a few long talks."

    "Is that right?" she sniffed.

    "Damned right. I know for a fact you were born on your dad's ranch in California and you were raised on it until you were thirteen. You didn't start picking up your fancy airs until Connor sold the place and your family went to live in San Francisco."

    "I prefer to forget my rustic background," she retorted. "And for your information, my standards have changed since I was thirteen. For all intents and purposes, I'm very much a city girl now and I expect a certain level of appropriate behavior from the male of the species."

    "You'll take the behavior you get. Furthermore, I think I've had all the squawking I want to hear from you,
city girl
. You're not the only one who expects a certain level of appropriate social behavior. You're acting like a sharp-tongued, temperamental prima donna who thinks she can play games with me."

    "That's not true."

    "Yeah? Then what was all that nonsense by the pool a few minutes ago? What do you think you're doing telling our folks you don't intend to marry me?"

    "It's the truth. I don't intend to marry you. I've never said I would marry you. Marrying you would be an extremely dumb thing for me to do."

    The glittering outrage in his eyes was unnerving. Rafe took a single step closer. Margaret took a prudent step backward. A horse in a nearby stall wickered inquiringly.

    "I didn't bring you down here to set you up as a mistress and you know it," Rafe said between his