#1 New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods returns with a story of the Calamity Janes…fierce friends facing challenges in life and love

Lauren Winters has achieved fame and fortune, but all she wants when she goes home to Winding River, Wyoming, for a reunion with old friends is a break from her high-profile career. Seizing the chance to work incognito as a horse trainer for Wade Owens, she revels in the wrangler’s attention.

But how is the man who’s disdainful of the rich and powerful going to feel when he discovers she’s deceived him? Will Wade be able to see past her celebrity and believe in the woman who’s fallen in love with him?

Also by #1 New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods

Chesapeake Shores

Dogwood Hill

The Christmas Bouquet

A Seaside Christmas

The Summer Garden

An O’Brien Family Christmas

Beach Lane

Moonlight Cove

Driftwood Cottage

A Chesapeake Shores Christmas

Harbor Lights

Flowers on Main

The Inn at Eagle Point

The Sweet Magnolias

Swan Point

Where Azaleas Bloom

Catching Fireflies

Midnight Promises

Honeysuckle Summer

Sweet Tea at Sunrise

Home in Carolina

Welcome to Serenity

Feels Like Family

A Slice of Heaven

Stealing Home

Look for Sherryl Woods’s next novel

Willow Brook Road

available soon from MIRA Books

For a complete list of all titles by Sherryl Woods,

visit www.sherrylwoods.com.

The Calamity Janes: Lauren
Sherryl Woods

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Dear Friends,

When I first conceived the idea for The Calamity Janes series years ago, I knew I wanted to write about a group of friends who’d been a bit of a disaster back in high school, then taken very different paths. Now they’re back in Wyoming for their class reunion and the chance to catch up on their lives. In a lot of ways, these women were the predecessors of The Sweet Magnolias. I’m so delighted that new readers will have a chance to get to know them.

Back then, in addition to writing about strong friendships, I also wanted to attempt a group of books set in a parallel time frame. In other words, even though these are very separate stories, the plots overlap during the big class reunion. Only the final book continues past the last dance. It was an interesting writing challenge. As you read the five stories, you’ll have to decide if the experiment worked.

I hope you’ll have as much fun with The Calamity Janes as you’ve had through the years with The Sweet Magnolias and that you’ll enjoy the Wyoming setting as much as I enjoyed visiting that part of the country to do research for the series.

With all good wishes for lasting friendships in your life.

Sherryl

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Also by

Title Page

Dear Friends

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Epilogue

Extract from Willow Brook Road by Sherryl Woods

Copyright

Prologue

The plastic surgeon, a Hollywood celebrity in his own right, seemed particularly enamored by his computerized demonstration of exactly what he could achieve with a face-lift.

“A little nip right here,” he said, clicking a key and altering the world-famous face on the screen so that the already flawless skin around the eyes was an almost imperceptible smidgen tighter. “A tuck here.” The soft, rounded chin disappeared.

“It’ll take ten years off,” he promised enthusiastically. “And now’s the time to start, before the aging process really gets a grip on you.”

Lauren Winters listened to his spiel, stared at the image of her face on the screen and shuddered.

What was she thinking? She was only twenty-eight, and she was worrying about taking ten years off of her appearance. Was she suddenly expecting to be cast in some teen flick as an eighteen-year-old high-school senior? Hardly. She was doing just fine playing leading ladies her own age in blockbuster romantic comedies.

Making this appointment to discuss plastic surgery had obviously been a knee-jerk reaction to her latest divorce. That made two failed marriages—not bad by Hollywood standards, but a far cry from what she’d anticipated when she’d been growing up on a ranch in Winding River, Wyoming, where marriages—even bad ones like her parents’—tended to last forever.

Suddenly her life seemed incredibly shallow and pointless. Mentally she ticked off the accomplishments and their downside.

Her marriages had been career moves...for the men.

She had made more money than she’d ever dreamed of, but had no one to spend it on, since her parents refused to take a dime from her. They had only recently agreed to sell their failing ranch, put the money into savings and use the winter retreat Lauren had bought for them in Arizona. Her father grumbled about it every single time they spoke. He acted as if her gift were a banishment, rather than a generous gesture.

Her picture was on the cover of magazines...the kind no one in her family read.

She’d starred in five box-office smashes in a row, though few people in Winding River ever made the trip to Laramie to see them, although some later rented the videos. Her old neighbors considered a night of dancing at the Heartbreak or dinner at Stella’s or Tony’s to be the height of entertainment. They were proud of her, but only in an abstract sort of way. Some actually seemed a little vague about what it was she did.

Even so, she was, by any standard, a successful, accomplished actress, but Lauren could honestly say she had no idea who she was anymore.

The invitation to her tenth high-school reunion had reminded her of that. A personal note from the class president had gushed on and on about Lauren’s Hollywood acclaim and said nothing at all about the teenage girl she’d been. Heck, back then, they’d barely spoken, which said volumes about how fame managed to turn former acquaintances into lifelong friends. Mimi Frances seemed to know Lauren Winters, superstar, better than Lauren knew herself.

Lauren had never felt comfortable in the role of actress, much less superstar. It seemed as fake to her as the fictional characters she played on-screen. There were a half-dozen identities that seemed more fitting and familiar: Lauren Winters, straight-A student; Lauren Winters, class valedictorian; Lauren Winters, president of the debate team; Lauren Winters, best friend; Lauren Winters, horse trainer; Lauren Winters, bookkeeper. Those were the parts of her that counted for something. They were the achievements she could point to with pride.

And, she realized with sudden clarity, she wanted them back. Okay, maybe not the bookkeeping, but the rest of it, the friendships and the horses and the respect for her brain as opposed to her beauty. She wanted to go home and find the old Lauren, who’d never even set foot in front of a camera, much less dreamed of being an actress.

Most of all, she wanted to see the Calamity Janes, her four best friends. The five of them had stuck together through thick and thin, stayed up all night talking about boys and dreams and spent hours on end creating mischief that had kept the whole town talking.

Even now, Lauren reflected, Cassie, Karen, Emma and Gina kept her grounded, though they were scattered around the country and phone calls were all that kept them connected. Nonetheless, they were always there with a shoulder to cry on, advice and, most of all, laughter. They were the people who mattered, not the agents and managers and publicists whose fortunes rose and fell with hers, not the men who sought the spotlight by being photographed at her side.

Her life these last ten years seemed more like an incredible fluke than something she’d achieved through hard work and ambition. Being discovered by a producer after she’d only been on the job in his studio accountant’s office for a month was the stuff of Hollywood legends. She’d laughed when he’d asked her to audition for his latest movie. She’d considered it a lark when she’d gotten the small but pivotal role that had ultimately earned her an Academy Award nomination.

But that nomination had made it all but impossible for her to go back to being an anonymous bookkeeper, whose success depended solely on whether the numbers added up at the end of the year. Other directors had taken her seriously, sought her out. The roles had kept coming, right along with the recognition and the publicity and the men. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, she’d become a sought-after superstar.

And along the way, she had gotten lost.

The doctor’s voice snapped her back to the present.

“So, Ms. Winters, shall I have my assistant schedule you for surgery next week? My calendar is booked months ahead, but for you I’m sure we can find some time.” The doctor beamed at her, his capped teeth gleaming, as he granted what he obviously viewed as a huge favor, though they both knew that having her for a client would be a publicity coup for him. He promised total discretion, but word would leak out. It always did.

Lauren weighed her choices—taking a trip home to see her best friends for their class reunion or having this ridiculously vain and unnecessary bit of surgery. In the end, there was no contest.

“Thank you so much for your time, Doctor, but I think I like my face just the way it is. I’ll keep it a while longer,” she said.

He stared at her, clearly stunned. “But if you wait, I can’t guarantee that the results will be as good.”

She gave him one of her trademark brilliant smiles, the one that had most men stumbling over their own feet. “To tell you the truth, Doctor, I don’t think the horses and cattle in Winding River will care.”

1

This week the Calamity Janes had gathered around Karen’s kitchen table for their Monday-night get-together. Now that Emma had moved back from Denver and opened her law practice, now that Gina was taking over Tony’s Italian restaurant in Winding River and Cassie had settled into her marriage with Cole, they assembled someplace each week to discuss their lives. Lauren joined them whenever she could, which was more and more frequently of late.

Even when she wasn’t in town, she had a feeling she was a prime topic of conversation. They were openly worried about her. She was the only one of them who hadn’t moved home again in the months since their class reunion had first brought her home. She was also the only one of them not happily married or engaged. Maybe if she’d been bubbling with enthusiasm for her life in Los Angeles, they wouldn’t be so concerned, but Lauren hadn’t been able to hide her disenchantment.

That being the case, not even she could explain why she hadn’t made the decision to move back to Winding River, when it was apparently clear to everyone that Los Angeles no longer held the allure it once had.

She stood for a moment on the back steps at the Blackhawk ranch that had become her home away from home, listening to the low hum of conversation inside, breathing in the soft, spring air, staring up at the clear, star-studded sky. This was the only place on earth where she felt totally at peace. Over the last few months she had finally begun to find herself again. Now she just had to reconcile what she was discovering with the life she’d been leading for the last ten years.

She heard her name mentioned, along with an increasingly familiar refrain, and knew that any private soul-searching was over for now.

“I’m telling you, something is seriously wrong. Lauren isn’t happy. I know she wants to move back,” Karen said for what had to be the thousandth time. “We have to do something.”

Lauren sighed, knocked on the screen door, then entered without waiting for a response.

“Talking about me behind my back again?” she asked lightly as she pulled out a chair and joined them. “Or did you know I was just outside?”

“I’d say the same thing to your face,” Karen retorted, obviously not the least bit embarrassed at having been caught. “In fact, I’ve been saying it so often, even I’m tired of hearing it.”

“Then why not drop it?” Lauren asked, unable to keep the edge out of her voice. The well-meant pressure wasn’t helping her to make up her mind. If anything, it was complicating the decision, making her wonder in the wee hours of the night if she wanted to come home for herself or because it was what her friends wanted. Would she be running from something or to something?

“I won’t drop it, because you’re not happy,” Karen said, frowning at her. “And I don’t know why you won’t do something to fix it.”

Emma stared at Lauren over the rim of her coffee cup. “Is Karen right? Do you want to move back? We’ve all heard you making noises about it for months now. What’s the holdup? Stop second-guessing yourself. Just do it...if it’s what you really want.”

“You’re here half the time anyway,” Cassie pointed out. “Why not make it official?”

They were right, Lauren acknowledged silently. If it was what she wanted, what she’d been alluding to ever since their reunion, it was time to act. One by one, her friends had come back home to Winding River. They were happy here. They’d found something that had been missing from their lives. She envied them that more than she could say.

But what if she didn’t find the same kind of contentment? What if she was romanticizing all of this? What if she was imagining that she’d be happier living a normal life in Wyoming than she was being in the center of a glamorous whirlwind in Hollywood? What if she burned her bridges and came home...only to discover that she was just as miserable? What if the problem was something inside her and not her career at all? Was she ready to risk making such a terrible discovery about herself?

“Talk to us,” Gina nudged. “Why are you hesitating?”

“It’s a huge step,” Lauren said, hedging because she didn’t fully understand her hesitation herself.

Emma nodded. “Okay, but what are the risks? It’s not the money. Unless you’ve been extremely foolish, you should have enough stashed away to last a lifetime.”

“True,” Lauren agreed. Leave it to the ever-focused Emma to begin reducing the decision to a list of pros and cons.

“And you’re not that crazy about being recognized everywhere you go,” Cassie weighed in. “So it can’t be that you’ll miss that.”

“Absolutely not,” Lauren said fervently. She hated having strangers watching her every move, taking note of it, even reporting it to some tabloid.

“Is it the acting?” Karen asked. “I’ve always had the feeling that you don’t take it all that seriously, even though you do it well. Am I wrong? Do you think you’ll miss it?”

Lauren shook her head. “It’s not the acting. It’s fun, but it doesn’t really mean anything to me. I’m not driven to perform.”

“What about all the hunky men? Is that it?” Gina asked, grinning. “Goodness knows, we’d all miss hearing about them, but I’m willing to sacrifice all those titillating inside stories to have you home.”

Lauren shuddered. “It is definitely not the men. Been there, done that. I haven’t met a one who wasn’t totally self-absorbed.”

“What, then?” Emma asked. “Give us one reason why moving back here to be close to all of us wouldn’t be the smartest thing you’ve ever done?”

Cassie nudged Emma with an elbow. “Could be you hit it on the head,” she teased. “We’re all here to bug her to death until she finds someone and settles down like the rest of us. That could be annoying.”

“Us? Annoying?” Emma said with exaggerated shock.

Lauren grinned. “Yes, well, there is that. You are a bunch of know-it-alls.”

“We’ll make a vow,” Emma said, looking pious. “You can make all your own decisions. We’ll stay out of everything.”

“Like you’re staying out of this?” Lauren taunted.

“Well, after this,” Emma replied blithely. “We have a vested interest in your return. We want you nearby. Our kids want you nearby. You spoil them all shamelessly.”

Lauren had been on the verge of making the decision to move back to Winding River for a long time now. She’d practically made a nuisance of herself by dropping in to stay with Karen at the blink of an eye. For a while she’d been able to claim that she was helping Karen out after her husband had died, but in the weeks since Karen had married Grady Blackhawk and moved to his ranch, which was closer to Winding River than her first husband’s, Lauren had continued to visit. She hadn’t even felt the need to come up with a new excuse. She just kept appearing on Karen and Grady’s doorstep. She had an entire wardrobe stashed in their guest room.

Grady had been amazingly tolerant about it. Because he was so completely and totally smitten with his new wife, he was one of the few men whose jaw didn’t drop when he looked at Lauren. She liked that about him. He treated her like a worthwhile human being, not a means to an end. Emma’s husband, Ford, was the same way, as were Cassie’s Cole and Gina’s Rafe. It was nice to be around males who were real, who respected her mind, not just her looks.

Maybe that was part of the problem. She was comfortable as a guest in the Blackhawk home. If she moved back, she’d have to find her own place, build her own life, not live on the periphery of theirs. It was a scary prospect. What on earth would she do here if she came back? She had too much energy to simply retire, even though she could well afford to do so. And doing bookkeeping, which had been her ticket out of Winding River, would bore her to tears now.

Karen reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “It’s time, sweetie. Just bite the bullet and do it. You can stay right here with Grady and me for as long as you want. In fact, he’d love it if you helped out with the horses. The new wrangler he hired last week is fantastic, but Grady says nobody has your touch.”

“Are you serious?” Lauren asked, feeling a little surge of excitement in the pit of her stomach at the suggestion of a real job, especially one working with horses. “Grady said that?”

“Absolutely, and my husband does not toss compliments around lightly when it comes to his horses,” Karen said. “He’d hire you in a heartbeat.”

Lauren waved off the suggestion. “I don’t need your money. I just need to feel as if I’m making a contribution.”

“You would be,” Karen insisted.

“Sounds like an ideal situation to me,” Emma chimed in. “I could draw up a contract.”

She was already reaching for her ever-present legal pad, when Karen scowled at her. “Put that away. We don’t need a contract.”

“Of course not,” Lauren said. “Besides, this will be a trial run. If it doesn’t work out, it’s nobody’s loss.”

“I just thought if it was spelled out in black and white, everybody would understand what was expected,” Emma said defensively. Drawing scowls, she reluctantly put away the pad of paper.

“That’s because you think like the lawyer you are. Lauren understands, right?” Karen asked.

“Perfectly. I work with the horses in return for room and board. Sounds fair to me.”

Karen’s eyes lit up. “Then it’s a deal?”

Lauren gave the matter another moment of consideration, then nodded. This was precisely the reason she’d been hesitating over that new movie deal her agent had brought to her. She’d known in the pit of her stomach that something better was just around the corner.

“It’s a deal,” she told Karen. “I’ll be back as soon as I clear up some loose ends in Los Angeles. But I won’t hang out here forever. Tell Grady that the minute we decide if it’s working out, I’ll find my own place. I don’t want him to panic that I’m settling in forever.”

Before the words were out of her mouth, she was surrounded by her friends, all of them talking at once. Now that the decision had been made, for the first time in years Lauren felt she was exactly where she was supposed to be, doing exactly what she was meant to do.

* * *

Wade Owens took one look at the woman slipping through the corral fence and felt his heart slam to a stop. He told himself it wasn’t her perfect derriere that caused the reaction. Nor was it the auburn hair, caught up in a careless ponytail and gleaming like fire in the sunlight. It was the fact that she was creeping up on a stallion who didn’t take kindly to strangers. What was obviously a little adventure for this tenderfoot was destined for a very bad ending.

Wade bolted toward the corral, then slowed his approach so he wouldn’t be the one responsible for spooking the horse. Midnight was already shifting nervously, his eyes rolling as the woman edged closer.

Wade could hear her murmuring to the anxious stallion and, though he couldn’t hear the words, her tone was low and soothing, not unlike the one he would have used. He found that tone reassuring, but he still intended to take a strip off this woman’s hide for venturing into the corral in the first place. Assuming she got out in one piece, which was still a dicey prospect.

Where the hell were Grady and Karen? Why had they allowed this woman to roam around on her own? Maybe they didn’t even know she was here. That had to be it. They knew how fractious Midnight was. If they were around, she would never be in harm’s way.

Midnight’s massive muscles rippled as she gently placed a hand on his neck. He pawed the ground, but he didn’t bolt as Wade had anticipated. Those quiet murmurs continued as she reached into her pocket and drew out a cube of sugar, then held it out in the center of her palm. Midnight sniffed, then daintily took the sugar as if he’d never even once considered trampling the woman beside him.

Wade finally felt his tension ease. She obviously knew the way to Midnight’s heart. The horse would lash out with deadly hooves at any prospective rider who came within ten yards of him, but he was a sucker for a treat—sugar, apples, carrots, it didn’t matter. He was already nosing her pocket for more.

Her laugh was a surprise, light and joyous, as the horse nudged her none too gently, almost landing her on her very attractive backside.

“Oh no you don’t. No more today,” she told him, rubbing his neck.

Wade was suddenly filled with the oddest yearning to trade places with Midnight. He wondered what those slender hands would feel like caressing his skin, sliding up his chest. As the image settled in, he muttered a curse. It was a pitiful thing when a man was jealous of a horse.

After a few more minutes, the woman finally eased away from Midnight and crawled back through the fence, an expression of satisfaction on her face. It lasted until she caught sight of Wade removing his hat. He was pretty sure his scowl would have intimidated Wyatt Earp himself. He meant it to make this woman quake in her very expensive boots.

“Hi,” she said, her smile coming easily—and fading just as quickly when it wasn’t returned.

“What exactly did you think you were doing?” he demanded, scowl firmly in place.

Whatever uncertainty she momentarily had been feeling vanished. Wade could practically see her temper stirring to life, turning her eyes to the color of a turbulent sea.

She met his gaze without flinching. “What did it look like, cowboy?”

The only way to deal with a woman who had more sass than sense was to lay it all on the line in plain English. “It looked an awful lot like you were trying to get yourself killed and ruin a fine stallion in the process,” he said with barely contained fury. “The next time you decide you want to have a chat with the stock around here, get permission. This isn’t a damn riding stable, and these horses aren’t pets.”

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.

Though the question was meant to be teasing, Lauren considered it seriously. “You know, I am.”

“Then we definitely have to get busy and find you a man. After all, you were the one who was matchmaking like a crazy woman all during the reunion. You practically threw me at Rafe.”

“Of course, that was before we knew he’d followed you out here in the first place to try to put you in jail,” Lauren said.

“Actually, he wanted to put my business partner in jail. I was just a means to an end.” Gina grinned. “Then there was Emma. Weren’t you the one who pushed her into Ford’s arms at the dance?”

“No, that was our English teacher. I actually tried to set her up with some guy who turned out to be an exterminator from Des Moines who’s married to one of our old classmates. It was not one of my shining moments.”

“Still, turnabout is fair play,” Gina insisted. “There must be someone around who’s worthy of you.”

Lauren thought of her reaction to Wade Owens earlier in the day. Instant animosity was probably not what Gina had in mind, but there had been a lot of electricity crackling in the air this afternoon. It was just as well that her friend didn’t know about her encounter with the sexy wrangler.

She took a deliberate bite of cheesecake, savoring the smooth texture and fabulous flavor. “Oh, sweet heaven,” she murmured. “Who needs men when there’s cheesecake like this? It’s sinful.”

Gina beamed. “Yes, but this pleasure is short-lived. A man’s forever.”

“If you’re lucky,” Lauren said. “I’ve had two who barely lasted till the ink was dry on the wedding license.”

“Oh, don’t be so cynical,” Gina said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “They were jerks. We’re talking about a real man.”

Once again, an image of Wade popped into Lauren’s head. With that whipcord-lean body he was a real man, no doubt about that.

“What?” Gina said, staring at her curiously. “You’ve already met someone, haven’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve only been here a couple of days. I’ve barely left the house. Why would you think that?”

“Because of your expression.”

“My expression? What about it?”

“It went all dreamy there for a minute. You can’t fake a look like that, and only one thing can cause it—a man. Who is he?”

“You’re crazy,” Lauren insisted. “And if you keep bugging me, I’m going to tell everybody in town that your cheesecake tastes like spoiled cottage cheese and has the texture of sand.”

Gina regarded her with a horrified expression. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.” Even as she uttered the words, Lauren recalled that same dare coming from Wade’s lips earlier in the day. And what had she said? Maybe I will. Those were certainly words meant to get a man all riled up. What had she been thinking?

“Why do I have the feeling you’re having some sort of flashback?” Gina asked, studying her intently. “It’s that man again, isn’t it?”

“I’m telling you, there is no man.”

Gina patted her hand. “Keep telling yourself that. I spent a lot of time in denial where Rafe was concerned, too. So did Emma with Ford, and Karen with Grady, and Cassie with Cole. Just look at us now. I recognize the signs.”

Lauren shuddered. Gina couldn’t be right. Her with Wade Owens? She wouldn’t allow it.

Then again, if her friends were anything to judge by, she might not actually have much say in the matter.

3

Lauren got up at the crack of dawn, filled her pockets with treats for Midnight—apples this time—then decided she deserved a hearty breakfast herself before she went out to work with the horse and risked an encounter with Wade. Both were going to require stamina, to say nothing of all her wits.

Even though she was up early, Grady and Karen were already long gone. A still-warm pot of coffee sat on the stove, along with two fresh eggs just gathered from the henhouse and a plate of crisp bacon. Lauren would have settled for cereal or toast, but an honest-to-goodness breakfast was too tempting to pass up.

Twenty minutes later, her stomach full, she carried her cup of coffee out to the porch and sat down with a sigh of pure contentment. The sun had just broken over the horizon in the east, splashing the rolling hills of the Snowy Range with a golden wash. The last lingering patches of snow glistened at the peaks.

A dozen meditation sessions couldn’t create the powerful serenity that stole through her now.

“This is the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” she said contentedly as she sipped her coffee and planned her morning. How often had she had the luxury of taking the time to plan her own day, the freedom to do whatever struck her fancy? Lauren couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had that opportunity. Too much of her life had been controlled by production schedules, publicity tours and endless rounds of meetings to discuss future film projects. Well, no more. She would be captive to nothing other than the rhythm of ranch life and her own limited role in it.

For now, the schedule would be especially light. An hour with Midnight, letting him get used to her presence and begin to accept her touch, would probably be as much as the horse could handle. After that, she’d take a drive over to Winding River, maybe try to scare up Emma and Gina to join her for lunch at Stella’s. What was the point of moving back if she didn’t grab every chance to be with her friends? The realization—after years of hurried phone calls and quick visits—that they would be nearby day in and day out, available for birthdays and holidays, still amazed and delighted Lauren.

The ringing of the phone snapped her out of her pleasant reverie. Habit had her running inside to grab the receiver, despite the likelihood that the call concerned ranch business.

“Blackhawk Ranch,” she said.

“Lauren, is that you?”

Lauren sighed at the sound of an all-too-familiar voice. Jason Matthews was an outstanding agent. He was an ardent champion for his clients, a real fighter. A few months ago she had loved that about him. Now that he refused to take no for an answer from her, she considered the trait less desirable.

She could envision Jason in his office, wearing a headset phone so his hands could be free to work the keys on his computer. He was probably going over his stock portfolio as they talked. For a man barely into his thirties, he was already obsessed with his retirement plan. He was always at his desk in Beverly Hills by the time Wall Street opened, on the phone to his broker ten minutes later.

“Hello, Jason. I thought when we said goodbye the other day, you understood what the word meant,” she said. “Why are you calling?”

“It’s taken some real hardball negotiating, but the studio just agreed to a higher figure if you’ll sign for that comedy we talked about,” he said, sounding exceedingly pleased with himself. “It’ll make you the highest-paid woman in films after Julia Roberts.”

Her heart sank. They’d already had this discussion—several times in fact. “Jason, I’m having a flashback here. Didn’t you call me a few days ago when I was packing my bags and say almost exactly the same words?”

“This is a new offer, even more money, and a percentage of the gross. They want you, Lauren, and they want you bad.” He was triumphant.

“Lovely, but my answer’s still the same,” she said. “I’m not interested in doing this project or any other project. Why are you still negotiating?”

“Because that’s what I do,” he explained patiently. “It’s what you pay me the big bucks to do. I want you to get every penny you’re worth. You’re the second-biggest female box-office star in the country these days. This film will set the precedent for every deal you do from here on out. It’s important to get it right.”

Lauren sighed. “But, Jason, you’re missing the point. I’m not going to do this film, period.”

“Of course you are.”

“I am not, so stop trying to run the money up. You’re wasting your time and theirs. How’s it going to look when they discover that I never intended to commit? You’re going to end up with a lot of egg on your handsome little face. Your credibility will be shot when you can’t deliver me.”

Her response was met by a long silence. “I don’t get it,” he said finally, clearly bemused by her attitude. In Jason’s world no one turned down the kind of money the studio had just put on the table. No one quit at the height of success, unless it was part of some publicity gambit to up the stakes.

“Is it the script?” he asked. “We talked about that. They’ll bring in a new writer to tweak it. You can have anybody you want.”

“The script is fabulous the way it is,” Lauren assured him. “I’m just not interested. How many times do I have to say that?”

“Until you make a believer out of me,” he retorted, evidently still unconvinced. “Whoops, hold on a sec. Ken just stuck a note under my nose. The studio’s on the other line.”

He sounded so gleeful. Clearly he hadn’t heard one word she’d said. “I am not holding on,” she told him, seizing the excuse to end the frustrating call. “I have to go.”

“Why? What’s more important than this?” Jason demanded.

“I have a date with a horse,” she said, and hung up before he could respond.

Because she knew Jason would call back a half-dozen times or more before he gave up for the day—and then only so she could sleep on the latest offer and he could begin the badgering again fresh in the morning—she left the house at once and headed for the corral. If there was any more communicating to be done, Jason could do it with the answering machine. He obviously didn’t care about much besides the sound of his own voice anyway.

Across the yard, the corral was empty, but as Lauren moved toward the open pasture beyond, she spotted Midnight. She climbed onto the split-rail fence and watched him. His black coat glistening in the sun, he was all alone, far from the other horses who’d been turned out that morning. After a moment, his proud head rose. He sniffed the air and his ears twitched. Slowly he turned in her direction, and it was as if he was studying her with the same intensity she had been directing his way.

Lauren took a piece of apple from her pocket and held it out. Midnight whinnied and shook his head, as if he was declining the tempting offer, but a minute later the powerful stallion with the blaze of white on his face trotted sedately toward her. He stopped a few feet away, still cautious.

“If you want this, you’re going to have to come and get it,” Lauren said quietly, still holding the apple out toward him.

Midnight pranced away.

“Okay, then.” She started to put the fruit back in her pocket, but a whinny of protest made her pause. She bit back a smile. “Think it over. I can wait.”

She sat there patiently, perfectly still, the sweet chunk of apple in plain sight. With something that sounded almost like a sigh, Midnight edged closer until he could take it daintily from her hand. Satisfied with the treat and the lack of danger from the human who’d offered it, he came closer still and nuzzled at her pocket. Only then did Lauren dare to touch him.

She rubbed her hand along his sleek neck. Though he didn’t skittishly dance away, he trembled at her light touch. The reaction was telling. The knowledge that someone had badly mistreated this magnificent animal made Lauren sick to her stomach. But the fact that he was already beginning to trust her humbled her.

“Good morning, handsome,” she murmured.

“You talking to me?” a low-pitched masculine voice inquired lazily.

Lauren’s head snapped around to find Wade standing just inches behind her, close enough to send Midnight dancing away. She watched the horse leave with real regret, then turned back to the man.

How had she missed Wade’s approach or the heat radiating from his body? Once again she was struck by the way he managed to make an ordinary T-shirt and jeans look like designer clothing. No man had a right to look that good, that tempting, at this hour of the morning.

Better yet, he was holding two mugs of steaming coffee. He offered her one.

“I saw you heading over this way and decided this would be a good time to make peace,” he explained.

She accepted the cup with caution. “Then the coffee’s not laced with arsenic?”

“Not by me,” he assured her. “You got any enemies around I don’t know about?”

“Not in Winding River,” she said, leaving out the fact that there were quite a few people in Hollywood who wouldn’t shed any tears if she disappeared forever. She’d discovered that jealousy and greed could turn friend to enemy overnight in the film business. Actresses she’d considered friends had bailed when she won a coveted role. Award nominations stirred envy, but that was almost the least of it. Everything had been a competition, with winners and losers.

Glad to be away from all that, she took an appreciative sip of the coffee. “Thanks. I needed this.” The talk with her agent had used up all Lauren’s reserves of energy.

“Not usually up this early?” Wade asked, the disdain back in his voice.

She sighed. For a minute there she’d almost believed they could make a fresh start. Instead, it had apparently been a lull before a new barrage of insults.

“Always up this early,” she corrected, determined not to escalate the fight. Let Wade do that, if he couldn’t stop himself. “But I’ll never get used to it. I’m a night owl by nature.”

“Hard to be a night owl on a ranch. Too many chores have to be done at daybreak.”

“And I grew up doing most of them,” she said. “I might not like morning, but I follow through on my responsibilities.”

He seemed duly chastised by the rebuke. “Look, Miss...”

“Lauren will do.”

He nodded. “Okay, then, Lauren. We obviously got off on the wrong foot yesterday. And it sounds as if we’re pretty darn close to doing the same thing again. How about if we start fresh with no preconceived notions? I’m Wade, by the way.”

Given the fact that he wasn’t going to go away, Lauren was more than willing to meet him halfway. They were going to have to work together. It made more sense to be friends than enemies. She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Wade.”

He took her outstretched hand in a grasp that was warm and all-too-brief. Even that quick brush of callused fingers across softer skin was enough to send a jolt of awareness through her. Work-roughened hands had always been more appealing to her than the manicured hands of most of her male costars. Hands with the texture of sandpaper could bring the skin alive. Just the thought was enough to make her tremble the way Midnight had earlier.

Wade studied her with a knowing look. “Cold?”

“No. I’m fine,” she said, embarrassed at having been caught reacting to his touch. “So, what’s the plan? I assume you have one.”

“Grady says I should let you try whatever you like with the horses, as long as you don’t get yourself killed. Since that’s not a notion that’s real popular with me either, how about going for a ride with me? Let me see how you handle yourself on a horse. Maybe I’ll be more reassured than I was yesterday.”

She chafed at the test, but she understood it. If she were in his position, she’d do the same thing. And since it was clear that Grady had tried to smooth things over, she owed it to him to give Wade at least a passing show of respect.

Still, she couldn’t resist a taunt. “Shall I take Midnight?” she inquired innocently.

He regarded her soberly, his gray eyes cool and assessing. “Only if you don’t care about coming back,” he said, not giving away by so much as a blink whether he was serious.

“Then I’ll save him for next time,” she said. “Since you know the animals better than I do, you choose one today. And don’t go with the slowest nag in the barn, or I’ll make you regret it.”

“How about we compromise?” he suggested, though it looked as if the word stuck in his craw.

“Now there’s a novel idea. I’m surprised you’re familiar with the concept.”

To her surprise, he winked at her. “Oh, you’d be amazed at the things I’ll do given the right incentive.”

She laughed. “That must mean Grady’s offered you a huge bonus for putting up with me.”

“Not a dime,” he insisted. “But he did lead me to believe that you weren’t a tenderfoot and that I owed it to you and the ranch to give you a fair chance.”

“Okay, then, what’s the compromise?”

“You pick your own horse, subject to my okay.”

Lauren nodded. “Fair enough.” She’d ridden almost every horse in the Blackhawk barn at one time or another.

A half hour later, they’d saddled up. Once Wade had explained that they might as well ride up into the hills to see if they could locate some wild horses that had been reported, Lauren abandoned her plan to go into town. Instead, she took the time to pack a couple of thick ham-and-cheese sandwiches and some of Gina’s extraordinary cheesecake along with a thermos of iced tea. If Wade thought he was going to put her through her paces, she was at least going to be well fortified for the experience.

“Maybe, if you’re as good as Grady says, you can talk those mustangs into coming back with us,” he taunted when she returned from the kitchen with their lunch. “I’m always looking for new stock at a good price. Can’t beat free.”

“Very amusing. I think Grady may have oversold my skill, if he has you believing I’m capable of sweet-talking a few wild stallions down into the corral.”

Wade’s gaze traveled over her from head to foot in an assessment deliberately meant to rile her. “You could always practice on me, see if you can tame me.”

Lauren’s heart thumped erratically at the suggestion. “Something tells me that you’re tougher than any horse I might tangle with.”

“Probably so, which is part of the challenge,” he agreed, then grinned as he shoved a battered Stetson on his head. “Let’s ride.”

He set off at a sedate pace that Lauren had no difficulty at all matching, but the instant they hit an open stretch of land, he urged his horse to a full gallop. As if that were going to intimidate her, she thought with amusement as she urged her horse ahead of his.

His grin spread. “So that’s the way it’s going to be,” he shouted, shooting past her.

The rush of the wind, the exhilaration of the challenge, the taunting of an infuriating man—all of it made Lauren almost giddy with pure delight. She felt vibrantly alive for the first time in months. No, in years.

Riding had always been that way for her, but this was even more so. Having Wade’s gaze on her, watching as doubt turned to respect, seeing an unwilling flare of heat replace the chilly disdain that he’d expressed in more ways than one, it reminded her of the first day she’d walked onto a movie set.

Everyone from the director to the cameraman and the grips had assumed that she was yet another of the producer’s whims. Heck, even she hadn’t been convinced that she had any right to be on that soundstage with an Oscar-winning actor and a woman whose every film had been a critical success, if not a box-office blockbuster.

But Lauren had taken the job seriously. She had her lines down cold, and ignoring the festival the butterflies were having in her stomach, she went to work. She had played that tiny scene with every bit of emotion and passion that she could call upon.

At the end of the take, the soundstage had been dead silent for a full minute before applause had erupted. Never before—or since—had any applause been as sweet. That her first performance had been recognized with an Academy Award nomination had been the icing on the cake for Lauren. Never had any success felt as hard-won.

Until today—right here, right now—with Wade Owens slowly beginning to relax, with the judgment in his eyes easing and fire replacing ice as his gaze met hers. He drew back on the reins, and his horse slowed.

“Ready for some lunch?” he asked as casually as if the last two hours had been no more than a friendly ride in the park.

So, Lauren thought, he wasn’t going to offer even token praise. That was okay. She knew he’d been impressed. He didn’t have to say the words, not today. One of these days, though, she would manage to coax him into giving her her due.

“I’m starved,” she admitted, dismounting.

Once she’d seen that the horse was cooled down and had water, she joined Wade under the shade of a cottonwood tree.

“Where’d you learn to ride like that?” he asked as he gratefully accepted one of the sandwiches she’d brought along.

“My father insisted I learn practically before I could walk,” she told him. “We didn’t have a lot of help around our ranch, so when I got a little older, he also insisted that I do my share. That meant I had to be as good as the men so I could pull my own weight.”

“How old were you when you were expected to do the same chores as everybody else?”

“I started helping when I was about eight, I guess. It took a little longer before my dad was satisfied that I wasn’t slacking off.”

Wade regarded her with sympathy. “Your father sounds like a hard man.”

Lauren had never really thought of him that way. He was just a man trying to eke out a living for his family and everyone was expected to do their part. Her older brother, Joe, had had it tougher than she had—so tough that he’d left home at sixteen and never returned. She had idolized him, and she’d been devastated when he left without a word. At some point, though, she had been forced to conclude that his love for her hadn’t been nearly as deep as hers had been for him. Even now, after all this time, she had no idea if Joe was dead or alive. She feared he was dead, because he hadn’t come out of the woodwork to ask for a handout once her face had been plastered all over magazines and tabloids.

“My father had a hard life, but he wasn’t a hard man,” she said slowly. “I can’t explain it. I thrived on the challenge, and I always had the feeling that he never asked more of me than he thought I could achieve. There’s a lot to be said for growing up like that. I’ve never been afraid of hard work and I’ve always believed I could do anything I set my mind to.”

“Yet, you left,” Wade pointed out. “At least that’s the impression I got from Grady, that you’d been away for a while.”

Lauren stiffened. Karen had been right. As long as Wade hadn’t recognized her, she wanted to cling to her anonymity a little longer. It was nice to be with a man who might be interested in the woman, not the image.

“I was away for several years,” she told him.

“Where’d you go?”

“Los Angeles,” she said cautiously, watching his face closely. Mentioning the city didn’t seem to trigger any sort of connection between her and films.

“That’s about as far removed from Winding River, Wyoming, as a person can get,” he said. “Why there?”

“It seemed like it would be exciting,” she said. That much was true. While she had never resented the work her father had piled on, back then it hadn’t been what she wanted. And once her beloved brother had gone, the allure of faraway places had intensified. Maybe she’d even had the wild idea that someday she would find Joe, talk him into coming home and making peace with the family. She knew it was what her father wanted, even though he’d never mentioned her brother’s name after the day he’d run off.

“Was it as exciting as you’d hoped?” Wade asked, studying her intently.

“It had its moments,” she said candidly.

“Yet, you came back.”

She shrugged. “It ran out of good moments.”

“And your parents? Are they still around here? Why aren’t you with them instead of the Blackhawks?”

“They’ve moved.”

“I see. So, what’s the deal? Are you planning on sticking around?”

“As long as there’s something for me to do and as long as Grady and Karen will have me,” she said.

His gaze narrowed. “And then what? You’ll run away again?”

Lauren wished she could be sure, because there was an intensity in Wade’s eyes that suggested her answer now was important in some way. “I didn’t run away back then. I was looking for something.”

“Which you apparently didn’t find.”

She nodded. “Which I definitely didn’t find.” She met his gaze. “What about you? How’d you end up in Winding River? I know you’re not from around here, or I’d have remembered you.”

“Oh? Why is that?” The wink of a dimple taunted her. “Am I that memorable?”

“You are, but then this is a small place. I remember everyone, especially the men who are the most annoying.”

He winced. “Ouch. A direct hit.”

He reached for the untouched half of her sandwich, but she moved it out of his reach. “Oh, no, at least not till I get an answer to my question.”

“I seem to have forgotten it.”

“How sad that a man of your tender years is losing his short-term memory,” she said. “How did you end up working for Grady?”

“I was working at a ranch a couple of hundred miles from here. I didn’t like the way things were going, and someone told me Grady was looking for a wrangler. We talked. I got the job.”

“Do you come and go a lot?”

That chill returned to his eyes, turning them as dark as a sky threatening snow. “What is it you really want to know, Lauren? Are you asking if I’m reliable? Grady’s already interviewed me. He’s satisfied with my past and my performance.”

“So he says,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t keep me from wanting to make sure you’re not going to bolt on my friends at the worst possible time.”

“As long as things are working out, I won’t bolt,” he said. “Satisfied?”

“Not really. Who gets to decide if things are working out?”

“Me and Grady.”

“I notice which one of you came first.”

“How’s that any different from you deciding to take off from whatever you were doing in California? Or did you get fired and come crawling back here with your tail tucked between your legs?”

“Hardly,” she retorted. Unwilling to elaborate, though, she forced a smile. “And you’re right. It’s no different, except that in your case my friends are involved, and nobody hurts them without taking me on in the process.”

He gave an exaggerated shudder clearly meant to mock her. “I’m trembling in my boots.”

“You should be. Believe it or not, you’ve seen me on my best behavior. Once I get riled up, a tornado seems tame by comparison. If you doubt that, I can give you a long list of testimonials.”

His lips twitched. “Is that so?”

“Yep,” she said, then rose gracefully to her feet. “If you don’t believe it, just try me.”

As she walked off to get her horse, she was almost certain she heard him put his own twist on her words from the day before.

“I just might do that, Miss Lauren,” he murmured, but then he drew his Stetson down over his eyes and leaned back against the tree as if he didn’t have another thought to spare for her.

Lauren cast one last scathing look in Wade’s direction, mounted her horse and headed back to the ranch.

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before that man gets a chance to try,” she muttered as she rubbed down her horse, checked his feed and then stalked into the house.

For a few fleeting moments, she and Wade Owens had actually seemed to be on the road to a peaceful coexistence. It hadn’t taken much to shatter that illusion, though.

Oh, well, she had dealt with her share of pigheaded men over time. It was just too darn bad that this one was sexy as sin.

4

As soon as he heard the sound of pounding hooves, Wade lifted the Stetson shading his eyes and watched Lauren race away. The woman could ride, no doubt about that. He’d deliberately set a tough pace for her earlier, but she hadn’t been the least bit fazed by it. In fact, she’d come darn close to beating him at his own game. Okay, for a few minutes there, she had beat him. If he hadn’t been so impressed, he might have found it annoying.

More important from his perspective, there was no question that she knew how to get to Midnight. The horse was skittish as could be around him and had been from the beginning, with no evidence of improvement. But in twenty-four hours, Lauren had the stallion literally eating out of her hand. If she could accomplish a miracle with Midnight, he had no quarrel with her sticking around. He had big plans for that horse. He couldn’t help wondering, though, if Lauren knew about them.

More important, he wondered if she really would be here long enough to finish the job or if this was some temporary lark. Something told him she had the same capacity for restlessness that he had. He hadn’t bought that stuff about the allure of California fading. He had a hunch she was just the type who moved on whenever the mood struck her. Though they hadn’t gotten into what kind of work she’d been doing out there, for all he knew she’d changed jobs once a year or even more frequently.

That was yet another reason to steer clear of her, he warned himself. Why invest any emotion in a female who wouldn’t be here long enough for him to learn much more than her name...which, come to think of it, he didn’t actually know. Just Lauren, she’d told him. What was that all about? Didn’t she see any point in full disclosure with the hired help?

“Don’t be a jerk, Wade,” he muttered as he mounted his horse and headed farther up into the hills to see if he could spot the wild horses that had eluded them earlier. It wasn’t as if Lauren whoever-she-was was important in the overall scheme of his life. Why should he give two hoots what sort of secrets she was keeping hidden or what kind of snob she was? As long as she did what Grady asked of her and stayed out of Wade’s way, the rest didn’t matter, right?

But Wade hadn’t reached the age of thirty without developing at least a modicum of honesty and self-awareness. He cared—especially about that uppity streak—because the woman got to him. She’d been turning his perceptions inside out from the moment they’d met. That ability she had to take him by surprise was more intriguing than it should be. He had a hunch it could get him into trouble before all was said and done.

Which meant just one thing...for his own peace of mind, he needed to stay the hell away from her.

* * *

Lauren was dusty, hot and tired, yet surprisingly exhilarated, by the time she walked back into the house to find Karen pouring two glasses of lemonade.

“I saw you coming,” Karen said, holding one of the glasses out. “Judging from the sour expression on your face, I thought you might need something cool and equally tart to drink.”

Lauren ignored the comment on her apparent mood, accepted the ice-cold glass and drank thirstily. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

Karen sipped her own lemonade and studied Lauren over the rim of her glass. “Good day?” she inquired eventually.

“Productive,” Lauren responded.

“In what way?”

She grinned. “I beat Wade’s butt in an impromptu race he set up to try to show off.”

Karen chuckled. “Haven’t you learned anything? Beating a man at his own game is no way to win his heart.”

“I’m not going for Wade’s heart.”

“Oh? What are you after?”

“His respect,” she said at once, surprised to find that it was true. If that morning’s ride had been meant to test her, it had also shown her that Wade was as skilled a rider as she was and then some. After dealing with him the last couple of days and seeing him in action, she had a feeling he gave his respect grudgingly, and she wanted to earn it.

Karen grinned at her response. “I see. Even more fascinating.”

Lauren scowled. “Why?”

“Because there’s no reason to want a man’s respect unless you think he’s worthy of your own.”

“Yes, well, that remains to be seen,” Lauren said, not prepared to make that kind of admission, even to one of her best friends. “He’s still too full of himself.”

And yet there had been those moments—brief though they had been—when she and Wade had connected on some level. It wasn’t just chemistry, she told herself. It was something more, something with potential.

“As if,” she muttered.

“As if what?” Karen asked, looking intrigued.

“Nothing.”

Karen chuckled, her expression knowing. “There it is again. Oh, this is going to be fun.”

“What?”

“Watching you fall like a ton of bricks. I can hardly wait to tell Emma and the others. They’ve been placing bets lately on when your turn would come. Now that you’re actually right here under their noses, they’re each going to be doing everything they possibly can to be the one who sets you up with the right man. I love it that I’m already in the lead on that and they don’t even know it.”

Lauren frowned. “Don’t be so smug. Gina suspects. She was out here after you and Grady went to bed. She picked up on some things I said and got all sorts of crazy ideas into her head.”

“Oh, really? Such as?”

“Never mind. I am not playing this game. My turn has already rolled around twice—with disastrous results,” Lauren reminded her. “I don’t intend to go that route again.”

“Oh, piddle,” Karen responded. “Those men weren’t worthy enough to shine your shoes. As for Wade, I think he’s a man of real substance.”

“And you know that how? He hasn’t even been here a month.”

“Sometimes you just know these things,” Karen said loftily.

“Yeah, like you knew it the first time you looked into Grady’s eyes,” Lauren retorted. “You thought he was a thieving scoundrel.”

Karen shrugged off that little reminder. “We did have a few issues to iron out, you’re right, but that just made things a little livelier. And don’t try to change the subject. I can hardly wait to share this good news with the rest of the Calamity Janes.”

“Don’t you dare,” Lauren said, annoyed because she hadn’t been able to convince Karen that there was no news to spread. Sweet heaven, once people started talking, it would be no time at all before the news somehow reached the tabloids, and that would be the end of her anonymity. There was always someone willing to leak gossip about a celebrity for the right price.

“Or what?” Karen taunted, much as she had when they were girls.

“I’ll have a little talk with Grady,” Lauren responded, deciding that a very personal threat was better than trying to explain to the uninitiated Karen about the hot market for gossip. Karen hadn’t had her life dissected on the front pages of newspapers for years, but she did care what Grady thought of her. In fact, Karen was already looking a little pale.

“About?” Karen asked suspiciously.

“Oh, I’m sure there are a lot of things he doesn’t know about the Calamity Janes in their prime,” Lauren said blithely. “I seem to recall one particular incident in which his beloved, honorable, sedate wife was caught mooning the school principal.”

“I never did that,” Karen protested, her cheeks turning red. “Not intentionally anyway. I had no idea he was anywhere around.”

“The point is, you did it, and I have witnesses.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t say a word about you and Wade.”

“There is no ‘me and Wade,’” Lauren reminded her.

“No, of course not,” Karen said dutifully, though she couldn’t quite mask the twinkle in her eyes. “I’ll try to remember that when your expression goes all soft and mushy every time his name is mentioned.”

“It does not,” Lauren said, horrified. “Does it?”

“If you don’t believe me, ask Grady.”

“I am not asking Grady anything of the kind,” Lauren said. “In fact, I think I’ll avoid you two altogether and drive over to Winding River. Maybe I can find somebody who’s actually nice to me and buy them an expensive steak dinner at Stella’s.”

“Not tonight you won’t,” Karen said, her expression smug. “It’s meat-loaf night at Stella’s, which means that’s where Grady and I are headed as soon as he gets back. Care to join us?”

Lauren sighed. Why bother trying to fight the inevitable? “I suppose, but I’m buying.”

“I’ll let you and Grady fight that battle,” Karen said. “Oh, and just so you know, Wade usually turns up for Stella’s meat loaf, too.”

* * *

Wade had gotten into the habit of driving to Winding River for his evening meals when he first started working for Grady. Though his boss invited him to share meals at the main house, watching Grady and Karen make eyes at each other had given Wade a strange feeling. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said it was envy. He’d never seen two people any crazier in love or less reticent about public displays of affection.

At any rate, he’d started by going to the Heartbreak, having a few beers and a sandwich, but the place was too smoky for his taste and the food was lousy. After a couple of nights, even the music began to grate on his nerves. All that love-gone-wrong stuff was too depressing given his own unattached state.

Now he alternated between Tony’s, where he could get a decent pizza or some filling pasta, and Stella’s, where the nightly special was guaranteed to remind him of the kind of meal a man’s mother should have made. Of course, his never had. He’d been lucky to get a frozen dinner that had been nuked beyond recognition. Cooking hadn’t been Arlene’s forte, and most nights she’d been at work anyway. He’d been left to his own devices. Learning to cook had been a matter of self-preservation, but he hadn’t taken to it. Now that he had decent options a few miles away, he was eating a whole lot better.

Of course, he had quickly discovered that his new routine wouldn’t guarantee him much privacy. Karen and Grady had a lot of friends, and most of them turned up at one restaurant or another every night of the week, especially since Karen’s pal Gina had taken over the kitchen at Tony’s.

He’d also discovered that he could count on bumping into Grady and Karen themselves on meat-loaf night at Stella’s. Unfortunately, the food was too good to sacrifice just so he could avoid spending time with the newlyweds.

What he hadn’t expected when he’d walked through the door tonight was to find Lauren sitting in a booth with the Blackhawks. Grady promptly beckoned him over.

“Have a seat,” Grady said. He seemed oblivious to the satisfied smirk on his wife’s face.

Wade hesitated, his gaze on Lauren. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, sit down,” she grumbled ungraciously. “I’m sure we can manage to be civil for an hour or so.” She turned a sour look on Karen and added, “If we can’t, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Wade grinned. “If it gets to be too much of a trial, I’ll eat fast.”

Karen chuckled, then quickly covered her grin.

“What?” Grady said, looking from his wife to Wade, and then at Lauren. “Did I miss something?”

“No, my darling man, you are as astute as ever,” Lauren assured him. “Your wife’s just being an annoying meddler.”

Wade slid into the booth next to Lauren just as the words crossed her lips. When his thigh brushed against hers, color flamed in her cheeks and her mouth snapped shut. Satisfied with her telling reaction, he regarded her innocently. “Anything wrong?”

“Not a thing,” she said, her jaw clenched tight.

He patted her hand. “Good. Now stop picking on Karen.”

Grady was still regarding them all with confusion, but his wife looked as if she was about to burst into laughter at any second. Given Lauren’s obviously unpredictable mood, Wade decided he’d better try to forestall that by getting their waitress over and their order placed.

As luck would have it, Cassie was working tonight. Her eyes widened, then turned speculative when she spotted Wade crowded into the booth next to Lauren.

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