The Pirate & The Adventurer & The Cowboy

a person will go for revenge. I also know how much I wanted you. It was entirely possible I'd deluded myself into thinking I'd really succeeded in convincing you to come back to me. God knows I want you back bad enough to tell myself all sorts of lies. But when you didn't deny the meeting with Moorcroft…"

    "Never mind," Margaret said urgently. "Don't say it. I'm sorry. I should have stood my ground and yelled at you until you believed I was innocent."

    Rafe's mouth curved gently. "You don't even have to yell. I'm always ready to listen."

    "Hah. What a bunch of bull. You didn't listen last year."

    "Yes, I did." Rafe sighed. "Maggie, last year you told me the truth, too. I listened to every damn word. When I caught you in Moorcroft's office you admitted immediately you'd just told him I was after Spencer, remember? You said you'd had to tell him—that it was your duty as a loyal employee of Moorcroft."

    "Oh. Yes, I did say that, didn't I?"

    "Our problem last year had nothing to do with your lying to me. You were too damned honest, if you want to know the truth. I'll tell you something. I would have sold my soul for a few sweet lies from you last year. More than anything else in this world I wanted to believe you hadn't felt your first loyalty was to Jack Moorcroft instead of me."

    Margaret closed her eyes, feeling utterly wretched. "Are you ever going to be able to forgive me for that, Rafe? I don't know if we can go on together if you aren't able to understand why I did what I did."

    "Hell, yes, I forgive you." Rafe pulled two more glasses out of his desk drawer and splashed Scotch into each. He handed one glass to Margaret who clutched it in both hands. "I hate to admit it, Maggie, love, but I was the idiot last year. You want to know something?"

    "What?" she asked warily.

    "I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I admire you for what you did. You were right. In that situation your business loyalties belonged to Moorcroft. You were his employee, drawing a salary from him and you believed you'd betrayed his interests by talking too freely to me. You did the right thing by going to him and telling him everything. I only wish I could count on all of my employees having a similar set of ethics."

    Margaret couldn't believe what she was hearing. A surge of euphoric relief went through her. "Thank you, Rafe. That's very generous of you."

    Rafe took a swallow of Scotch. "Mind you, I could have throttled you at the time and it took me months to calm down, but that doesn't change the facts. You did what you thought was right, even when the chips were down. You've got guts, Maggie."

    She grinned slowly. "And out here in the Wild West you admire guts in a woman, right?"

    "Hell, yes. No place for wimpy females around here."

    "I thought you said I was soft. Too soft for the business world."

    "That's different. You're a woman. Being soft doesn't mean you don't have guts."

    Margaret got up, put her glass of Scotch down on the desk and walked around to sit on Rafe's knee. She put her arms around his neck and leaned her forehead down to rest against his. "You are a hopelessly chauvinistic, anachronistic, retrograde cowboy, but I love you, anyway."

    "I know," he said, his voice dropping into the deep husky register that always sent shivers down Maggie's spine. "I've been fairly certain of it all along but I knew it for sure when you grabbed me by the shirt a minute ago, shoved me into this chair and begged me to listen to you."

    "I did not exactly beg."

    He smiled. "Pleaded?"

    "Never. Well, maybe a little."

    His smile widened into a grin. "It's okay, Maggie. I love you, too. More than anything else on God's earth. And just to prove how insightful, sensitive and intuitive I can be, I'll tell you that I understand what you went through a while ago when you came in here and pinned me down."

    "You do?"

    "Honey, I know first hand what it's like to stomp all over your own pride."

    "Actually, it's not quite as bad an exercise as I thought it would be."

    "I don't know about that. Personally I wouldn't want to have to repeat it too many times. Once was enough for me."

    She relaxed against him. "What about Hatcher?"

    Rafe tipped her head back against his shoulder and kissed her exposed throat. "Don't worry about him. There's no real harm done. I told you I've been letting him see bad information. The Ellington deal is safe."

    "Yes, but, Rafe, don't you think you should try to understand why he did it?"

    "I do