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If his goal had been to intimidate her, he’d failed miserably. He saw that in a heartbeat. In fact, she took a deliberate step toward him, then another, until she was standing toe-to-toe, hands on hips, her flowery scent coming off of her in tantalizing waves. She seemed oblivious to the fact that she was barely chin-high to him. Wade swallowed hard and had to force himself not to back off. No pint-sized squirt was going to turn the tables on him, especially not when they both knew he was right.
“Now you listen to me,” she said, poking a perfectly manicured finger into his chest. “I was in that corral because Grady and Karen asked me to take a look at Midnight. Last I heard, this was their ranch. Is that permission good enough for you, cowboy?”
Wade regarded her skeptically. “They asked you to go in there with that stallion? Into the corral with him? Why would they do a thing like that?”
“Maybe because I’ve known my way around horses since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Maybe because—unlike some people—I don’t try to bully them into things they’re not ready to try. Maybe because gaining the trust of a horse that’s been mistreated the way this one has been is something the wrangler they hired doesn’t know diddly about.” She smiled, the effect dazzling despite the phony sentiment behind it. “That would be you, I assume.”
To Wade’s everlasting regret, it was. But he was not about to get into a name-calling game with this little slip of a female. He did intend to have a long talk with Grady Blackhawk about just exactly who was in charge of the horses at this ranch. Last he’d heard, that was the job he’d been hired to do.
He leveled a look straight into those devastating blue-green eyes of hers. “Until Grady tells me otherwise, nobody goes near Midnight unless I say so. If I catch you in there again, you won’t be happy about the way I get you out.”
“Is that so?” she said, obviously unimpressed.
Wade slammed his hat back on his head and glowered. “Try me.”
He wasn’t entirely sure, but as she whirled around and walked away it almost sounded as if she murmured something along the lines of “Maybe I will.”
Maybe he was crazy, maybe he was overly optimistic, but he had a feeling that she was no longer talking exclusively about continuing their test of wills over the horse. In fact, he got the distinct impression that she had something else altogether in mind. And his body responded with a slam of lust so powerful he knew he’d be a long time getting to sleep that night.
* * *
Lauren made it back to the ranch house with her spine rigid and her shoulders straight, but she was seething inside. Of all the unmitigated nerve! That man had made it sound as if she was some sort of incompetent tenderfoot. She slammed the back door behind her, went to the sink and splashed a handful of cold water on her flaming face. She jerked up when she heard a chuckle.
“I see you’ve met Wade Owens,” Karen said, making no attempt at all to hide her amusement.
“Is that who that was?” Lauren asked. “Is he important around here or can I kill him?”
“Oh, I’d hold off for a while, if I were you. The man knows his horses. In fact, you two have a lot in common.”
“I doubt that,” Lauren said. “Arrogance and audacity are traits I try to avoid.”
Karen chuckled again, her eyes alight with merriment. “Not entirely successfully, if you don’t mind me saying so. I suspect you gave as good as you got out there.”
Lauren frowned at her, but didn’t argue. Unfortunately, few people on earth knew her better than Karen did. It would be pointless for Lauren to try to pretend with her that she was without flaws. And she had given this Wade Owens a few things to think about before she’d left him standing in the dust. Karen was right about that.
“This is better than watching one of those romantic comedies you star in,” Karen added, sounding as if she had enjoyed the entire scene just a little too much. “You’re all flustered and indignant. Wade’s clearly in an uproar. From what I could see from here, he said more in the last ten minutes than I’ve heard him say over an entire meal.”
“Are you saying that man is the strong, silent type?” Lauren asked incredulously, thinking of the barrage of disdainful words he’d hurled at her.
“Has been so far,” Karen confirmed. “Apparently you got under his skin.”
“Only because I dared to win over one of his precious horses. Apparently his ego couldn’t take it.”
“It was good to see you haven’t lost your touch,” Karen said. “Not with horses, anyway. I’m not so sure about men, though. You usually do better at charming them.”
“I don’t need to charm this Wade person.” Why waste her breath on a man that pigheaded? Her gaze narrowed. “Or do I? Are you telling me we have to work together?”
“It makes sense. He is the wrangler. Grady says he’s good. What I find fascinating, though, is that your instinctive charm failed you,” Karen said. “You allowed him to throw you completely off-kilter.”
“I most certainly did not,” Lauren argued, though she had to admit that for several minutes out there her blood had stirred in a very disconcerting way. She had liked letting her temper flare wildly out of control.
For the past ten years, she had kept a lid on it just to avoid being stereotyped as one of Hollywood’s temperamental prima donnas. She had fallen into an uncharacteristic passivity in her marriages as well. Neither man had been worth getting stirred up over, which was pretty much proof that the relationships had been doomed from the start. She sighed heavily, Wade Owens forgotten for the moment.
“Why the sigh?” Karen asked.
“Just thinking of how much of my life I’ve wasted not being true to myself.”
“You haven’t wasted your life,” Karen scolded. “You’ve accomplished what some actresses can only dream of.”
“But I never wanted to be an actress. I wanted to live in Los Angeles because it was glamorous and exciting, but I would have been perfectly content to be a bookkeeper at one of the Hollywood studios. If that producer hadn’t asked me to audition for his movie while we were going over his film budget, I would still be a bookkeeper. It’s like the past ten years happened to some other person.”
“Are you regretting the money and the fame?”
Lauren considered the question. “I don’t regret them, no. How could I? It’s been an incredible ride, and I know how lucky I am, but something’s missing. It has been for a long time. That’s why I’m back here, to see if I can find it.”
It was the first time she’d made the admission aloud. To her relief, Karen didn’t laugh. In fact, she seemed to be giving careful thought to Lauren’s statement.
“Love?” Karen suggested. “Is that what you’re searching for?”
“Could be,” Lauren admitted. She had been envious watching all of her friends fall madly in love, one by one.
“Kids?”
She hadn’t really thought about having a family, but, yes, that was part of it, too. She wanted to hold her own babies in her arms, buy the girls sweet little dresses and the boys shiny new trucks and decorate a nursery. Until this second, she hadn’t realized just how loudly her biological clock had been ticking.
Rather than admit to all that, she said, “Or maybe I’m just looking for a healthy dose of reality. Good friends. Hard physical work. A beautiful sunset.” She shrugged. “I wish I could put my finger on it.”
“Maybe a man like Wade Owens could help you figure all that out,” Karen suggested.
Lauren considered the square-jawed cowboy with the cold-as-flint eyes and downturned mouth. Okay, so he had broad shoulders, narrow hips and enviable muscles. So what? She gave her friend a scathing look. “First he’d have to get over himself.”
Karen laughed. “Hey, I saw that little scene out there. He’d probably say the same about you.” Her expression sobered. “Did you introduce yourself, by the way? Or did he recognize you?”
Lauren realized with a sense of shock that Wade hadn’t seemed the least bit concerned with who she was. In fact, she was almost a hundred percent certain he’d had no idea she was anything other than an unwanted interloper. That pleased her more than she could say.
“If he did, he didn’t care,” she told Karen. “He was just mad as spit that I was on his turf.”
“Maybe you should keep it that way,” Karen said thoughtfully. “Let him get to know you without all the Hollywood glitter as a distraction. It can’t be easy to find a man who can see past the image. Wouldn’t that be a relief, for a change?”
“That’s certainly true,” Lauren agreed, seeing the benefit of clinging to a little anonymity for as long as she could. “But I’m sticking around town so I can find myself, not so I can find a man.”
“Any reason you can’t do both?”
“Maybe not, but I don’t think your friend Wade would want to be considered as a candidate,” she said, though she couldn’t explain the vague sense of disappointment that crept over her as she said it. Why should she give two figs whether an arrogant, full-of-himself wrangler gave her a second look or not?
She forced herself to be honest. Maybe it was because he was the sexiest male she’d come across in ten long years. Maybe it was because he was so damn gritty and real that he made all the polished, sophisticated men she knew pale by comparison.
Or maybe it was just because for the first time in forever, she’d felt completely alive, with her temper close to boiling and her heart slamming in her chest. In the last half hour she’d discovered that everything she’d experienced in recent years was little more than a two-bit imitation.
She had hoped that living in Winding River would bring her a certain amount of peace. Thanks to Karen and Grady’s wrangler, she’d just discovered that it was promising to be downright fun.
2
Wade spent the rest of the afternoon seething over his run-in with the Blackhawks’ houseguest. The woman had more audacity and arrogance than any female he’d encountered in years. While that might have been stimulating in the short term, it was nothing to tangle with over the long haul.
Not that Wade was a long-haul kind of guy. He’d learned that from his daddy, God rest his sorry butt.
Blake Travis had been one of the wealthiest men in Montana when he’d met Wade’s mama at the Lucky Horseshoe Saloon in Billings thirty years ago. To a woman like Arlene Owens, he had seemed like the answer to a prayer. She had fallen for him like a ton of bricks. To hear her tell it, the man had been God’s gift to womankind—not just rich and powerful, but also kind and generous. He’d certainly left her with something to remember... Wade.
Unfortunately, it turned out that old Blake had a nasty habit of seeking out vulnerable women, impregnating and then abandoning them. He seemed to think it was his right to take whatever he pleased and damn the consequences. He simply bought off anyone who raised a fuss. Arlene had learned all this long after it was too late to help her protect herself.
Totally naive about his reputation, Arlene had been convinced that the man would provide for her and her baby, if only he knew about their situation. Off she’d gone to the Travis ranch outside of town to share the good news. There she’d been greeted by Blake’s wife and introduced to his two legitimate sons and heirs. The long-suffering Mrs. Travis had given Arlene a modest check and assured her that it was the best she could hope for in terms of support from that sneaky, lying snake of a philanderer Blake Travis. Stunned and humiliated by the mere existence of a wife, Arlene had taken her at her word.
She had considered packing up everything she owned and moving, but a stubborn streak that Wade had inherited kept her right where she was. And once Wade was old enough to ask about his daddy, she had told him the unvarnished truth.
Over the years, Wade had built up a healthy loathing for the rich, who thought they could play havoc with people’s lives and leave others to clean up their messes. His occasional chance encounters with his half-siblings had been tense affairs. He’d bloodied their noses and threatened to do worse. They’d been sent off to boarding school soon afterward, and his mother had gotten a stern warning from the sheriff that Wade was on thin ice.
When Wade turned eighteen, he’d gone to tell his daddy just exactly what he thought of him, but Blake had had the misfortune to die before Wade could share his opinion. That had left him with a lot of outrage and no satisfactory way to rid himself of it.
It had also left him grimly determined never to find himself in the same fix. He was responsible when it came to women. He never lied. He never cheated. And he used fail-proof protection—or at least he assured himself that it was as close to fail-proof as a man could get. There would be no trail of heartbroken women or abandoned children in his life.
If and when he ever settled down, it would be for life, and with some sweet, down-to-earth woman who’d stick close to home, raise his children and never give him a moment’s grief. Karen Blackhawk’s friend had grief written all over her.
He muttered yet another curse at the memory of the way she’d come after him with every bit as much temper as he’d used in trying to scare the daylights out of her. With her fancy boots, designer jeans and those soft, neatly manicured hands, everything about her spoke of money. Maybe she knew horses, but he suspected whatever she’d learned had been during a childhood of privilege. If she’d ever done a hard day’s work in her life, he’d eat his hat.
“Problem?” Grady asked, appearing in the stable office just as Wade uttered another colorful profanity.
“Tell that woman to stay the hell away from my horses,” Wade said without a moment’s thought to censoring himself with the man who’d only been his boss for a few weeks now.
Grady’s lips twitched with amusement. “Had a run-in with Lauren, did you?”
“Is that her name?” He scowled at Grady, who was still fighting a grin. “It’s not funny. She’s going to get herself killed. She doesn’t have the sense God gave a gnat. You should have seen her. She walked right into the corral with Midnight, like he was some docile pet pony.”
“So?”
“You know what that horse is capable of doing. I shudder to think about what could have happened.”
“But nothing did happen, did it?” Grady said. “Wade, Lauren’s no tenderfoot. She grew up around here. Karen says she learned to ride practically before she could walk. I’ve watched her in action.”
“Oh, I can imagine that,” Wade said with biting sarcasm. “She is something to look at, no question about that.”
Grady frowned at him. “I’m talking about her skills. She’s every bit as good with horses as you are,” he insisted. “Give her a chance.”
The praise made Wade’s stomach turn over. Filled with trepidation, he studied Grady’s solemn expression, then heaved a sigh. “Dammit Grady, is that an order? Please tell me you didn’t go and hire her.”
“Without talking to you? Of course not,” Grady said, though he looked vaguely guilty when he said it.
“Then what the hell was she doing out there?”
“Like I said, she’s good with horses. She’s also one of Karen’s best friends. She needs something to keep her occupied while she’s here. We asked her to help out with the training, work with Midnight and a couple of the others that aren’t doing well with the usual techniques. She’ll answer to you. I’ll make that clear to her. Your job is safe.”
“I’m not worried about my job,” Wade snapped. “I’m worried about her pretty little neck. The woman’s got more guts than sense. Midnight could have squashed her like a bug. You know how he is.”
“I went over his history with Lauren before she went out there. She’s worked with abused animals before. She knew what she was doing,” Grady insisted in yet another futile attempt to soothe Wade.
“Couldn’t prove it by me,” Wade retorted, still seething over the scene he’d walked up on.
“She got out of there in one piece, didn’t she?” Grady reminded him, his tone mild. “Midnight didn’t come to any harm, right?”
“This time,” Wade conceded. “Next time, she might not be so lucky. A horse won’t give a hang that she’s beautiful or has a gentle touch. If he’s of a mind to, he’ll still kick her from here to next week, or break his own leg going wild in his stall.”
Grady still didn’t seem to be taking Wade’s concerns all that seriously. If anything, his amusement seemed to be growing. “I’m pretty sure I heard a compliment in there somewhere. Lauren got to you, didn’t she? What’s really bugging you? Is it that she has a way with horses or that she looks great in a pair of jeans?”
Wade wanted to protest that it was neither, but clearly, Grady had already drawn his own conclusions. Anything Wade had to say would only add fuel to the fire. Too much protesting would have a contradictory effect.
Besides, there was some truth to what Grady said. Once he’d calmed down, Wade had been forced to admit that he admired Lauren’s refusal to back down from either Midnight or from him. And her tush did do amazing things for a pair of faded jeans. There was no denying that, so why bother trying?
“Are you telling me to let her do whatever strikes her fancy where the horses are concerned?” he asked Grady, unable to keep a note of resignation from his voice. He wanted to be very clear on his boss’s expectations and where to place the responsibility for any disasters that took place.
“As long as it’s not going to get her killed, yes,” Grady said.
Wade shrugged, aware that any further argument would be a waste of breath. Until something disastrous happened, he’d go along with it, as long as Grady understood that any calamity was on his head. “Okay, then,” he told him. “It’s your ranch and your insurance.”
“And your reputation,” Grady pointed out, his expression just a little too doggone innocent to suit Wade.
“How’s that?” Wade asked, his gaze narrowed.
“Everybody knows you’re in charge of the horses around here. It’s your reputation that will suffer if you let anything happen to Lauren on your watch.”
Well, hell. His boss had just set a pretty tidy little trap for him.
* * *
“I had a talk with Wade this evening,” Grady said as he joined Karen and Lauren around the dinner table.
Lauren’s gaze shot up. “Oh?” She could just imagine what kind of remarks Wade would have made about their encounter. Still, Grady didn’t look overly upset, so maybe the man had been smart enough to keep his opinions to himself.
“He understands that you’re going to be helping with the horses,” Grady added.
“How does he feel about that?” she asked. Not that it mattered to her, but it might to Grady.
Grady grinned. “Pretty much like you’d expect after the run-in you two had. He has some reservations, but he’s withholding judgment for the time being.”
“How noble of him,” Lauren snapped, and shoved aside her plate. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, after all. You’re paying him good money to handle your stock. I’m sure he’s very good at his job. I don’t want to create problems by getting in his way. None of us really knows if I’m going to make a worthwhile contribution around here. Maybe it’s best if I bow out and leave it to the experts.”
Karen shot a warning gaze at her husband. “Lauren, you’re not the problem. And if Wade has a problem, he’ll get over it. We want you here—right, Grady?”
“Of course,” he said at once, surreptitiously reaching below the table to rub his shin, which Karen had apparently kicked. “From what I heard, you managed to get in that corral with Midnight. Nobody else has been able to get near him, not even Wade.”
Lauren’s spirits brightened. “Really?”
“That horse kicks up a fuss like you wouldn’t believe when Wade gets anywhere close,” Grady confirmed. “Knowing his history, I probably shouldn’t have agreed to buy Midnight, but I couldn’t bear the thought of him being put down because no one could handle him. It’s not the horse’s fault that his last owner was a mean son of a bitch.”
“You’re right,” Lauren said. “He’s a spectacular animal. It’ll take time, but I guarantee he’ll be worth every bit of effort I put into him.”
Grady exchanged a look with his wife, then asked Lauren, “You’re making Midnight your special mission, then?”
Lauren nodded, accepting the challenge without hesitation. Not just because she’d fallen in love with the high-spirited creature, but because it would give Wade Owens fits to have to sit by and watch her succeed where he had failed.
“Because you believe in him or because you want to show Wade up?” Grady teased.
“Does it matter?” Lauren said, refusing to admit that he’d hit the nail on the head. “Either way, you get what you want.”
Grady chuckled. “This is going to be better entertainment than the westerns on TNT.”
Lauren held up her glass of tea in a mock toast. “So glad I’m able to provide you newlyweds with a diversion.”
“Oh, I can think of plenty of things to do that are more exciting than watching you tie that man up in knots,” Karen retorted, turning a heated gaze on her husband.
“Come to think of it, so can I,” he said, kicking his chair back as he reached for her hand and then pulled her from the room.
“I’ll do the dishes,” Lauren called after them, barely containing a laugh at the speed of their departure.
Still, after they’d gone, she sighed, unable to stop the wave of envy that washed over her. She’d been married twice, but she had never been in love like that, never taken one look at her husband and forgotten about everything else. Maybe she’d spent too many years faking emotions on-screen to know the real thing when it came along.
Thinking about that, she absentmindedly finished off the leftovers, then groaned at the amount of food she had eaten. It was more than she consumed in two days when she was working on a movie. At this rate, unless she exercised hard for a solid three hours every day, she’d be as big as a house by the end of summer. Already, her size-four jeans were getting snug in the waist, and she’d barely been here twenty-four hours.
It doesn’t matter.
The shocking words echoed in her head. Lauren dropped down on a chair and stared at the empty lasagna dish with a sense of astonishment. For the first time in ten years, her weight actually didn’t matter. Nor did her dress size. She was finally free of all of the unnaturally rigid self-control she’d been forced to live by from the moment she’d taken up a career in front of a camera.
“Oh, my,” she murmured, reaching for the last piece of garlic bread as a final act of defiance. It was loaded with butter and garlic, and it tasted absolutely heavenly, even though it was no longer warm from the oven.
A tap on the back door had her looking up guiltily and brushing crumbs from her lips.
“What’s this? Pigging out on the food I brought by last night to celebrate your arrival?” Gina asked, grinning.
“I am,” Lauren said, shoving aside that nagging guilt. “And you know what? I don’t care.”
“Uh-oh, is there a rebellion in the making?”
“There is,” Lauren confirmed. She eyed the box in Gina’s hand eagerly. “Did you bring dessert?”
“Cheesecake, as a matter of fact. I was experimenting with a tiramisu flavor. Rafe had to fly to New York this morning, so I’m looking for a guinea pig.”
“You’ve found one,” Lauren said enthusiastically, getting up to grab plates from the cupboard.
“Where are Grady and Karen?” Gina asked.
Lauren directed a pointed look toward the ceiling.
Gina grinned. “Ah, newlyweds. I keep forgetting that they’re never available after dinnertime. I’m glad Rafe and I aren’t like that.”
Lauren hooted. “Only because he’s still out of town so much. Just wait till he moves his practice out here and hooks up with Emma. She’s so efficient, she’ll have them both out the door every afternoon by four. You’ll be just as disgusting as Grady and Karen.”
“Jealous?” Gina asked.