Heartbreaker Read online

  “Use the Mercedes. Just call the ranch and Nev will have a couple of men bring it over. I wouldn’t trust that piece of junk you’ve been driving to get you to the grocery store and back.”

  It could have been a gesture between friends, a neighborly loan of a car, even something a lover might do, but Michelle sensed that John intended it to mean more than that. He was maneuvering her into his home as his mistress, and if she accepted the loan of the car, she would be just that much more dependent on him. Yet she was almost cornered into accepting because she had no other way of getting to Tampa, and her own sense of duty insisted that she sign those papers as soon as possible, to clear the debt.

  He was waiting for her answer, and finally she couldn’t hesitate any longer. “All right.” Her surrender was quiet, almost inaudible.

  He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until his muscles relaxed. The thought that she might try driving to Tampa in that old wreck had been worrying him since he’d gotten the call from Miami. His mother had gotten herself into financial hot water again, and, distasteful as it was to him, he wouldn’t let her starve. No matter what, she was his mother. Loyalty went bone deep with him, a lot deeper than aggravation.

  He’d even thought of taking Michelle with him, just to have her near. But Miami was too close to Palm Beach; too many of her old friends were there, bored, and just looking for some lark to spice up their lives. It was possible that some jerk with more money than brains would make an offer she couldn’t refuse. He had to credit her with trying to make a go of the place, but she wasn’t cut out for the life and must be getting tired of working so hard and getting nowhere. If someone offered to pay her fare, she might turn her back and walk away, back to the jet-set life-style she knew so well. No matter how slim the chance of it happening, any chance at all was too much for him. No way would he risk losing her now.

  For the first time in his life he felt insecure about a woman. She wanted him, but was it enough to keep her with him? For the first time in his life, it was important. The hunger he felt for her was so deep that he wouldn’t be satisfied until she was living under his roof and sleeping in his bed, where he could take care of her and pamper her as much as he wanted.

  Yes, she wanted him. He could please her in bed; he could take care of her. But she didn’t want him as much as he wanted her. She kept resisting him, trying to keep a distance between them even now, after they’d shared a night and a bed, and a joining that still shook him with its power. It seemed as if every time he tried to bring her closer, she backed away a little more.

  He reached out and touched her cheek, stroking his fingertips across her skin and feeling the patrician bone structure that gave her face such an angular, haughty look. “Miss me while I’m gone,” he said, his tone making it a command.

  A small wry smile tugged at the corners of her wide mouth. “Okay.”

  “Damn it,” he said mildly. “You’re not going to boost my ego, are you?”

  “Does it need it?”

  “Where you’re concerned, yeah.”

  “That’s a little hard to believe. Is missing someone a two-way street, or will you be too busy in Miami to bother?”

  “I’ll be busy, but I’ll bother anyway.”

  “Be careful.” She couldn’t stop the words. They were the caring words that always went before a trip, a magic incantation to keep a loved one safe. The thought of not seeing him made her feel cold and empty. Miss him? He had no idea how much, that the missing was a razor, already slashing at her insides.

  He wanted to kiss her, but not with his men watching. Instead he nodded an acknowledgment and turned his horse away to rejoin Nev. The two men rode together for a time, and Michelle could see Nev give an occasional nod as he listened to John’s instructions. Then John was gone, kicking the gray into a long ground-eating stride that quickly took horse and rider out of sight.

  Despite the small, lost feeling she couldn’t shake, Michelle didn’t allow herself to brood over the next several days. There was too much going on, and even though John’s men had taken over the ranching chores, there were still other chores that, being cowboys, they didn’t see. If it didn’t concern cattle or horses, then it didn’t concern them. Now Michelle found other chores to occupy her time. She painted the porch, put up a new post for the mailbox and spent as much time as she could with the men.

  The ranch seemed like a ranch again, with all the activity, dust, smells and curses filling the air. The cattle were dipped, the calves branded, the young bulls clipped. Once Michelle would have wrinkled her nose in distaste, but now she saw the activity as new signs of life, both in the ranch and in herself.

  On the second day Nev drove the Mercedes over while one of the other men brought an extra horse for Nev to ride. Michelle couldn’t quite look the man in the eye as she took the keys from him, but he didn’t seem to see anything unusual about her driving John’s car.

  After driving the pickup truck for so long, the power and responsiveness of the Mercedes felt odd. She was painfully cautious on the long drive to Tampa. It was hard to imagine that she’d ever been blasé about the expensive, sporty cars she’d driven over the years, but she could remember her carelessness with the white Porsche her father had given her on her eighteenth birthday. The amount of money represented by the small white machine hadn’t made any impression on her.

  Everything was relative. Then, the money spent for the Porsche hadn’t been much. If she had that much now, she would feel rich.

  She signed the papers at the lawyer’s office, then immediately made the drive back, not wanting to have the Mercedes out longer than necessary.

  The rest of the week was calm, though she wished John would call to let her know when he would be back. The two days had stretched into five, and she couldn’t stop the tormenting doubts that popped up in unguarded moments. Was he with another woman? Even though he was down there on business, she knew all too well how women flocked to him, and he wouldn’t be working twenty-four hours a day. He hadn’t made any commitments to her; he was free to take other women out if he wanted. No matter how often she repeated those words to herself, they still hurt.

  But if John didn’t call, at least Roger didn’t, either. For a while she’d been afraid he would begin calling regularly, but the reassuring silence continued. Maybe something or someone else had taken his attention. Maybe his business concerns were taking all his time. Whatever it was, Michelle was profoundly grateful.

  The men didn’t come over on Friday morning. The cattle were grazing peacefully in the east pasture; all the fencing had been repaired; everything had been taken care of. Michelle put a load of clothing in the washer, then spent the morning cutting the grass again. She was soaked with sweat when she went inside at noon to make a sandwich for lunch.

  It was oddly silent in the house, or maybe it was just silent in comparison to the roar of the lawn mower. She needed water. Breathing hard, she turned on the faucet to let the water get cold while she got a glass from the cabinet, but only a trickle of water ran out, then stopped altogether. Frowning, Michelle turned the faucet off, then on again. Nothing happened. She tried the hot water. Nothing.

  Groaning, she leaned against the sink. That was just what she needed, for the water pump to break down.

  It took only a few seconds for the silence of the house to connect with the lack of water, and she slowly straightened. Reluctantly she reached for the light switch and flicked it on. Nothing.

  The electricity had been cut off.

  That was why it was so quiet. The refrigerator wasn’t humming; the clocks weren’t ticking; the ceiling fan was still.

  Breathing raggedly, she sank into a chair. She had forgotten the last notice. She had put it in a drawer and forgotten it, distracted by John and the sudden activity around the ranch. Not that any excuse was worth a hill of beans, she reminded herself. Not that she’d had the money to pay the