Heartbreaker Read Online Free PDF

straightened, his dark brows drawing together as he stared down at her. “Whoa, honey, let’s backtrack a little. What do you mean, ‘keep the ranch going’? The ranch is already dead.”
    â€œNo, it isn’t,” she denied, stubbornness creeping into her tone. “I still have some cattle left.”
    â€œWhere?” His disbelief was evident.
    â€œIn the south pasture. The fence on the east side needs repair, and I haven’t—” She faltered at the growing anger in his dark face. Why should it matter to him? Their land joined mostly on the north; his cattle weren’t in any danger of straying.
    â€œLet’s backtrack a little further,” he said tightly. “Who’s supposed to be working this herd?”
    So that was it. He didn’t believe her, because he knew there were no cowhands working here any longer. “I’m working the herd,” she threw back at him, her face closed and proud. He couldn’t have made it any plainer that he didn’t consider her either capable or willing when it came to ranch work.
    He looked her up and down, his brows lifting as he surveyed her. She knew exactly what he saw, because she’d deliberately created the image. He saw mauve-lacquered toenails, white high-heeled sandals, crisp white linen pants and the white silk shirt, damp now, from contact with his wet clothes. Suddenly Michelle realized that she was damp all along the front, and hectic color rose to burn along her cheekbones, but she lifted her chin just that much higher. Let him look, damn him.
    â€œNice,” he drawled. “Let me see your hands.”
    Instinctively her hands curled into fists and she glared at him. “Why?”
    He moved like a striking rattler, catching her wrist and holding her clenched hand in front of him. She pulled back, twisting in an effort to escape him, but he merely tightened his grip and pried her fingers open, then turned her palm to the light. His face was still and expressionless as he looked down at her hand for a long minute; then he caught her other hand and examined it, too. His grip gentled, and he traced his fingertips over the scratches and half-healed blisters, the forming calluses.
    Michelle sat with her lips pressed together in a grim line, her face deliberately blank. She wasn’t ashamed of her hands; work inevitably left its mark on human flesh, and she’d found something healing in the hard physical demands the ranch made on her. But no matter how honorable those marks, when John looked at them it was as if he’d stripped her naked and looked at her, as if he’d exposed something private. She didn’t want him to know so much about her; she didn’t want that intense interest turned on her. She didn’t want pity from anyone, but she especially didn’t want him to soften toward her.
    Then his gaze lifted, those midnight eyes examining every inch of her proud, closed expression, and every instinct in her shrilled an alarm. Too late! Perhaps it had been too late from the moment he’d stepped onto the porch. From the beginning she’d sensed the tension in him, the barely controlled anticipation that she had mistaken for his usual hostility. Rafferty wasn’t used to waiting for any woman he wanted, and she’d held him off for ten years. The only time she’d been truly safe from him had been during her brief marriage, when the distance between Philadelphia and central Florida had been more than hundreds of miles; it had been the distance between two totally different life-styles, in both form and substance. But now she was back within reach, and this time she was vulnerable. She was broke, she was alone, and she owed him a hundred thousand dollars. He probably expected it to be easy.
    â€œYou didn’t have to do it alone,” he finally said, his deep voice somehow deeper and quieter. He still held her hands, and his rough thumbs still moved