Heartbreaker Read online

  She’d begun totalling the figures she had posted in the ledger. His eyes drifted over her, drinking in her serious, absorbed expression and the way she chewed her bottom lip when she was working. She’d taken over his office so completely that he sometimes had to ask her questions about what was going on. He wasn’t certain he liked having part of the ranch out of his direct control, but he was damn certain he liked the extra time he had at night.

  That thought made him realize he’d be spending the next few nights alone, and he scowled. Once he would have found female companionship in Miami, but now he was distinctly uninterested in any other woman. He wanted Michelle and no one else. No other woman had ever fit in his arms as well as she did, or given him the pleasure she gave just by being there. He liked to tease her until she lost her temper and lashed back at him, just for the joy of watching her get snooty. An even greater joy was taking her to bed and loving her out of her snooty moods. Thanks to his mother, it was a joy he’d have to do without for a few days. He didn’t like it worth a damn.

  Suddenly he realized it wasn’t just the sex. He didn’t want to leave her, because she was upset about something. He wanted to hold her and make everything right for her, but she wouldn’t tell him about it. He felt uneasy. She insisted nothing was wrong, but he knew better. He just didn’t know what it was. A couple of times he’d caught her staring out the window with an expression that was almost…terrified. He had to be wrong, because she had no reason to be scared. And of what?

  It had all started with the accident. He’d been trying to reassure her that he wasn’t angry about the car, but instead she’d drawn away from him as if he’d slapped her, and he couldn’t bridge the distance between them. For just an instant she’d looked shocked, even hurt, then she’d withdrawn in some subtle way he couldn’t describe, but felt. The withdrawal wasn’t physical; except for the night of the accident, she was as sweet and wild in his arms as she’d ever been. But he wanted all of her, mind and body, and the accident had only made his wanting more intense by taunting him with the knowledge of how quickly she could be taken away.

  He reached out and touched his fingertips to her cheekbone, needing to touch her even in so small a way. Her eyes cut up to him with a flash of green, their gazes catching, locking. Without a word she closed the ledger and stood. She didn’t look back as she walked out of the room with the fluid grace he’d always admired and sometimes hated because he couldn’t have the body that produced it. But now he could, and as he followed her from the room he was already unbuttoning his shirt. His booted feet were deliberately placed on the stairs, his attention on the bedroom at the top and the woman inside it.

  SOMETIMES, WHEN THE days were hot and slow and the sun was a disc of blinding white, Michelle would feel that it had all been a vivid nightmare and hadn’t really happened at all. The phone calls had meant nothing. The danger she’d sensed was merely the product of an overactive imagination. The man in the ski mask hadn’t tried to kill her. The accident hadn’t been a murder attempt disguised to look like an accident. None of that had happened at all. It was only a dream, while reality was Edie humming as she did housework, the stamping and snorting of the horses, the placid cattle grazing in the pastures, John’s daily phone calls from Miami that charted his impatience to be back home.

  But it hadn’t been a dream. John didn’t believe her, but his nearness had nevertheless kept the terror at bay and given her a small pocket of safety. She felt secure here on the ranch, ringed by the wall of his authority, surrounded by his people. Without him beside her in the night, her feeling of safety weakened. She was sleeping badly, and during the days she pushed herself as relentlessly as she had when she’d been working her own ranch alone, trying to exhaust her body so she could sleep.

  Nev Luther had received his instructions, as usual, but again he was faced with the dilemma of how to carry them out. If Michelle wanted to do something, how was he supposed to stop her? Call the boss in Miami and tattle? Nev didn’t doubt for a minute the boss would spit nails and strip hide if he saw Michelle doing the work she was doing, but she didn’t ask if she could do it, she simply did it. Not much he could do about that. Besides, she seemed to need the work to occupy her mind. She was quieter than usual, probably missing the boss. The thought made Nev smile. He approved of the current arrangement, and would approve even more if it turned out to be permanent.

  After four days of doing as much as she could, Michelle was finally exhausted enough that she thought she could sleep, but she put off going to bed. If she were wrong, she’d spend more hours lying tense and sleepless, or shaking in the aftermath of a dream. She forced herself to stay awake and catch up on the paperwork, the endless stream of orders and invoices that chronicled the prosperity of the ranch. It could have waited, but she wanted everything to be in order when John came home. The thought brought a smile to her strained face; he’d be home tomorrow. His afternoon call had done more to ease her mind than anything. Just one more night to get through without him, then he’d be beside her again in the darkness.

  She finished at ten, then climbed the stairs and changed into one of the light cotton shifts she slept in. The night was hot and muggy, too hot for her to tolerate even a sheet over her, but she was tired enough that the heat didn’t keep her awake. She turned on her side, almost groaning aloud as her muscles relaxed, and was instantly asleep.

  It was almost two in the morning when John silently let himself into the house. He’d planned to take an 8:00 a.m. flight, but after talking to Michelle he’d paced restlessly, impatient with the hours between them. He had to hold her close, feel her slender, too fragile body in his arms before he could be certain she was all right. The worry was even more maddening because he didn’t know its cause.

  Finally he couldn’t stand it. He’d called the airport and gotten a seat on the last flight out that night, then thrown his few clothes into his bag and kissed his mother’s forehead. “Take it easy on that damned checkbook,” he’d growled, looking down at the elegant, shallow and still pretty woman who had given birth to him.

  The black eyes he’d inherited looked back at him, and one corner of her crimson lips lifted in the same one-sided smile that often quirked his mouth. “You haven’t told me anything, but I’ve heard rumors even down here,” she’d said smoothly. “Is it true you’ve got Langley Cabot’s daughter living with you? Really, John, he lost everything he owned.”

  He’d been too intent on getting back to Michelle to feel more than a spark of anger. “Not everything.”

  “Then it’s true? She’s living with you?”

  “Yes.”

  She had given him a long, steady look. Since he’d been nineteen he’d had a lot of women, but none of them had lived with him, even briefly, and despite the distance between them, or perhaps because of it, she knew her son well. No one took advantage of him. If Michelle Cabot was in his house, it was because he wanted her there, not due to any seductive maneuvers on her part.

  As John climbed the stairs in the dark, silent house, his heart began the slow, heavy rhythm of anticipation. He wouldn’t wake her, but he couldn’t wait to lie beside her again, just to feel the soft warmth of her body and smell the sweetness of her skin. He was tired; he could use a few hours’ sleep. But in the morning… Her skin would be rosy from sleep, and she’d stretch drowsily with that feline grace of hers. He would take her then.

  Noiselessly he entered the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. She was small and still in the bed, not stirring at his presence. He set his bag down and went into the bathroom. When he came out a few minutes later he left the bathroom light on so he could see while he undressed.

  He looked at the bed again, and every muscle in his body tightened. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He couldn’t have torn his eyes away even if a tornado had hit the house at that moment.

  She was lying half on her stomach, with all the covers shoved down to the foot of the b