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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 dislike her even more to make certain he never made a move on her.
    She had gone to an exclusive women’s college back east, and after graduation had spent a couple of weeks with a friend who lived in Philadelphia. During that visit she’d met Roger Beckman, scion of one of the oldest and richest families in town. He was tall and black haired, and he even had a trim mustache. His resemblance to John was slight, except for those points, and Michelle couldn’t say that she had consciously married Roger because he reminded her of John, but she was very much afraid that subconsciously she had done exactly that.
    Roger was a lot of fun. He had a lazy manner about him, his eyes wrinkled at the edges from smiling so much, and he loved organized crazy games, like scavenger hunts. In his company Michelle could forget about John and simply have fun. She was genuinely fond of Roger, and came to love him as much as she would ever love any man who wasn’t John Rafferty. The best thing she could do was forget about John, put him behind her,