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or leave a pancake breakfast the way he could take or leave anyone or anything. But that morning he'd needed it. Memories of teenage camping trips, Sunday morning breakfast as a child and the occasional times in his past when things had seemed to be going right all coalesced into a desire for pancakes. Hot, homemade pancakes fitted the morning perfectly. He'd known without asking that Rani's kitchen would contain the makings.
    He hadn't realized until he was blundering around between cupboards, refrigerator and too many pots and pans that he needed more than pancakes. He needed someone there to share them. The sense of things coming slowly into focus had intensified when Rani had walked into the kitchen and made breakfast for him.
    The problem was that Rani hadn't seemed to realize how right the whole situation was, or perhaps something in her was afraid of seeing the Tightness of it. He'd known at once that she was careful and cautious by nature and that she didn't approve of people who weren't. She'd sat across the table, delicately lecturing and scolding and dismissing him until he'd suddenly wanted to pull her down onto the kitchen floor and make love to her until she acknowledged his right to be there.
    He'd known just how he'd do it, too, even though the wild impulse had startled him. He would have kissed her until the feminine challenge in her tawny eyes was replaced with passion. Then he would have held her very close, crushing her soft breasts against his chest while he stripped away the brightly colored sweater and the snug jeans. Flint knew with sure instinct that her body would fit his perfectly. He could imagine the soft roundness of her thighs, the heat he would generate in her and the clinging, yielding way she would hold him.
    He would have made love to her until she took him very, very seriously; until she admitted he had a right to make love to her.
    Instead he'd let her order him out of the kitchen and send him off to work. Flint swore softly and wielded the rake with controlled force. He reminded himself grimly that if the legend of the Clayborne ring held any truth at all, the scene in the kitchen had ended the only way it could for now. After all, the lady wore the ring. Until he'd taken her to bed, he was more or less at her mercy.
    When he was near Rani he had to keep reminding himself that he didn't believe in legends.
     
    Rani ordered a hamburger with an extra-large portion of french fries and sat back as Mike Slater told his amusing tale of trying to get the fallen tree cleared out of the drive of the lakefront cottage he was renting. Beyond the cafe window the main street of Reed Lake was busier than usual as trucks full of deer hunters stopped at the gas station, bought beer from the general store or stopped at one of the two cafes for coffee.
    Rani frowned at the sight of the rifles hanging in the back of the red Ford pickup that was parked just outside the window. Two laughing men in camouflage shirts were returning from the grocery store with six-packs of beer under their arms.
    "Why the disapproving librarian look?" Mike asked good-naturedly, following her gaze.
    Rani smiled wryly. "You'd think those men would have better sense than to mix rifles and beer."
    Mike grinned, his pleasantly intense eyes crinkling at the corners. "Are you kidding? The main reason they're here is to have an excuse to party all night long with their good buddies. For most of them this is their yearly fling away from the wife and the kids. For two week each year they get to pretend they're macho survivalists instead of nine-to-five clock-watchers. The deer hunting just provides the excuse. If it's any consolation, you can bet most of them won't manage to kill a damn thing."
    "I trust that will be some consolation to the deer. I suppose hunting is an example of the old male bonding thing. It's one way men prove their manhood to themselves."
    "And have a good time while they're doing it. Don't be too hard on them, Rani.