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useless tears. Somehow she had to hold
on to the ranch, repay that debt, and hold off John Rafferty…
    The last would be the hardest of all, because
she'd be fighting against herself. She didn't want to hold him off; she wanted
to creep into his iron-muscled arms and feel them close around her. She wanted
to feed her hunger for him, touch him as she'd never allowed herself to do,
immerse herself in the man. Guilt arose in her throat, almost choking her.
She'd married another man wanting John, loving John,
obsessed
with
John; somehow Roger, her ex-husband, had sensed it, and his jealousy had turned
their marriage into a nightmare.
    Her mind burned with the memories, and to
distract herself she walked briskly into the kitchen and prepared dinner for
one; in this case, a bowl of cornflakes in milk. It was also what she'd had for
breakfast, but her nerves were too raw to permit any serious cooking. She was
actually able to eat half of the bowlful of cereal before she suddenly dropped
the spoon and buried her face in her hands.
    All her life she'd been a princess, the
darling, pampered apple of her parents' eyes, born to them when they were both
nearing forty and had given up hope of ever having children. Her mother had
been a gentle, vague person who had passed straight from her father's keeping
into that of her husband, and thought that a woman's role in life was to
provide a comfortable, loving home for her husband, who supported her. It
wasn't an unusual outlook for her generation, and Michelle didn't fault her
mother for it. Langley Cabot had protected and spoiled both his wife and his
daughter; that was the way life was supposed to be, and it was a source of
pride to him that he supported them very well indeed. When her mother died,
Michelle had become the recipient of all that protective devotion. Langley had wanted her to have the best of everything; he had
wanted her to be happy, and to his way of thinking he had failed as a father
and provider if she weren't.
    In those days Michelle had been content to
let her father shower her with gifts and luxuries. Her life had been humming
along just as she had always expected, until the day Langley had turned her world upside down by selling the Connecticut house where she'd grown up, and moved her down to a
cattle ranch in central Florida ,
not far from the Gulf coast. For the first time in her life, Langley had been unmoved by her pleas. The cattle ranch was
his dream come true, the answer to some deeply buried need in him that had been
hidden under silk shirts, pin-striped suits and business appointments. Because
he'd wanted it so badly, he had ignored Michelle's tears and tantrums and
jovially assured her that before long she'd have new friends and would love the
ranch as much as he did.
    In that, he was partially right. She made new
friends, gradually became accustomed to the heat, and even enjoyed life on a
working cattle ranch. Langley had completely remodeled the old ranch house when
he'd bought it, to ensure that his beloved daughter wasn't deprived in any way
of the comfort she was accustomed to. So she'd adjusted, and even gone out of
her way to assure him of her contentment. He deserved his dream, and she had
felt ashamed that she'd tried to talk him out of it. He did so much to make her
happy, the least she could do was return as much of the effort as she could.
    Then she'd met John Rafferty. She couldn't
believe that she'd spent ten years running from him, but it was true. She'd
hated him and feared him and loved him all at once, with a teenager's wildly
passionate obsession, but she had always seen one thing very clearly: he was
more than she could handle. She had never daydreamed of being the one woman who
could tame the rake; she was far too vulnerable to him, and he was too strong.
He might take her and use her, but she wasn't woman enough to hold him. She was
spoiled and pampered; he didn't even like her. In self-defense, she had devoted
herself to making him