Wrangling the Redhead

by Sherryl Woods

  “But it’s just for a few days, right? A sudden trip, like mine? Maybe something happened to his mother, an emergency of some kind,” she said, clinging to hope by a thread, refusing to believe the obvious conclusion to be drawn from the fact that Wade had packed his belongings into his truck before he’d driven off.

  “He took Miss Molly,” Grady said, clearly knowing that that was the most telling indicator of Wade’s intentions.

  Lauren struggled with the implications. “But why?” she asked, even though the answer was staring her in the face. There was a newspaper lying right there on the kitchen table, a paper that had plainly been twisted by someone filled with anger. Lauren spread it out on the table, smoothed the front page, then gasped. It was the first time she’d seen how the story of her disappearance had been played out by the media. This one had been written before the press conference, and it was filled with innuendo and speculation, most of it damning. But the mere existence of her picture on the front page had no doubt been more than enough to cause Wade to bolt straight out of her life. It was what Emma had predicted. He felt utterly betrayed.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, imagining all that must have gone through Wade’s mind when he’d seen it.

  “What?” Karen demanded, then peered over her shoulder. “Oh, hell.”

  Grady nodded. “That about sums it up. Wade wasn’t real happy about being deceived. Lauren, I love you like a sister, but what were you thinking?”

  Karen groaned. “This is all my fault, Lauren. I’m the one who told you not to tell him what you did for a living.”

  Grady stared at her, his expression incredulous. “You? Why? Honesty has always been such a huge thing with you.”

  Karen regarded him with an impatient expression. “Oh, you know perfectly well why. I thought it would give them a chance to get to know each other without all the rest getting in the way. It wasn’t a lie, just an omission,” she snapped, then sighed. “It was a mistake. I can see that now.”

  Lauren knew that all the blame didn’t belong with her friend. She had to accept the bulk of it. She’d been so happy knowing that Wade really cared for her, not some mythical superstar who didn’t really exist, that she’d let the masquerade go on way too long. She and Emma had talked about that very thing. She had resolved to tell Wade everything just when things had started to spin out of control in California.

  Of course, there had been a hundred times before that when she should have told Wade the truth, when she should have shared the last ten years of her life with him. Instead, she had kept it a secret as if it was something of which she was ashamed. No wonder he felt betrayed.

  She had to make him see why she’d done it, had to tell him that she was in love with him, had to convince him to forgive her. But how could she when she had no idea where he was?

  “I have to find him,” she told her friends. “I have to make things right.”

  “And then what?” Grady asked. “Are you saying you have no intention of going back to Hollywood, of picking up where you left off? Wade will never be happy out there.”

  “Grady’s right,” Karen said. “Be sure of exactly what you want before you go after him.”

  For once in her life, Lauren did know what she wanted. She was surprised that it wasn’t plain to Karen, who knew her as well as anyone on earth did.

  “I thought you knew,” she said to her best friend. “I want this. What you two have. Isn’t that obvious? If it isn’t clear to you, it’s little wonder that Wade didn’t get it.”

  Karen regarded her with an unwavering stare. “Then why haven’t you sold your house in Los Angeles? For that matter, why are you still living here with us?”

  Lauren flinched at the question. Hurt and flustered, she simply stared back. “I…”

  Instantly apologetic, Karen reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Sweetie, I am not asking that to hurt your feelings or to suggest for one single minute that you’re not welcome here. I’m just saying that anyone looking at this situation—even me—has to wonder if it’s not temporary. That house in California, Jason’s constant calls—it looks to an outsider as if you’re hedging your bets.”

  In fact, there was a picture of that very house accompanying the article that began on the tabloid’s front page and filled two more pages inside. Wade must have looked at it and thought the same thing that Karen was daring to say. With all of that waiting for her in California, why would she ever consider a life with a man who lived in a cottage on another man’s land?

  “Oh, God, what have I done?” she asked with a moan.

  “Nothing that can’t be fixed,” Karen said optimistically. “If you’re sure about what you really want.”

  “I’m sure,” Lauren insisted. She wanted the life she’d had the last couple of months with Wade. She wanted kids and a ranch and friends she could count on. It was so much more than she’d ever found as a celebrity.

  But how could she make him believe that, how could she make him see that the life she’d left behind, the one she’d hidden from him, meant nothing to her?

  Words wouldn’t do it with him any more than they had with Jason. Nor could she count on empty promises. She needed a grand gesture. Something he would see as irrefutable evidence of her intentions.

  And she was pretty sure she knew exactly what it should be. She looked across the table at Grady and Karen.

  “Is the Grigsby ranch still for sale?” she asked, knowing that Otis Junior had been anxious to get whatever he could for it at the same time he’d sold off the horses. She feared he might have found a buyer just as eager to steal the property from someone to whom it only represented a leftover nuisance from a life he’d long ago abandoned.

  Her friends exchanged a look, then nodded.

  “How about Midnight?” she asked. “Would you sell him to me?”

  A grin spread across Karen’s face. “Absolutely.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Grady protested. “That horse—”

  His wife cut him off. “That horse is Lauren’s wedding gift to Wade. Am I right?”

  Lauren nodded. “If he’ll have us.”

  Grady frowned at his wife. “I was just going to say that Wade already owns half of that horse.”

  “All the better,” Lauren said, warming to her plan. “Then if I buy your half stake in him, we’ll be joint owners.”

  “Say yes, Grady,” Karen prodded.

  Grady gave both of them a resigned look. “Fine. Yes. Midnight is all yours. Yours and Wade’s, that is. He’s going to be expecting a check, though. I told him I’d find a buyer for Midnight and the other horses and send him his share of the proceeds.”

  Lauren reached for her checkbook. “How much?”

  Karen gasped. “You don’t want him to find out that you’ve bought them, do you?”

  “No, the check will be to Grady. He can pay Wade. Full value, too. I don’t want any deals.”

  Grady’s eyes lit up with feigned avarice. “Now that’s what I like to hear,” he teased. “Of course, if you make that check too big, Wade might not have any incentive to come back.”

  “Grady!” Karen protested.

  “Except to see Lauren, of course,” he added hurriedly.

  “I knew what you meant,” Lauren assured him. “How much?”

  He named a figure she knew to be reasonable given the quality of the stock she was buying. She ripped the check out and handed it to him.

  “Now all I have to do is buy someplace to keep them,” she said wearily.

  “Not until morning,” Karen said emphatically. “We all need a good night’s sleep.”

  “Especially you, little mama,” Grady said, his gaze suddenly tender.

  “Oh my gosh, I forgot about the baby,” Lauren said with dismay. “Go up to bed right now. You need all the rest you can get.”

  Karen scowled at her. “Don’t you start, too. One worrywart in the house is enough. I’m getting plenty of sleep. Lauren’s the one who looks as if she’s been
run over by a truck.”

  “Thanks so much,” Lauren mocked. “But I’m too wound up to sleep yet. Go on to bed. I’ll clean up the dishes before I come up.”

  “It’s three teacups,” Karen countered. “Leave them.”

  “It will take me five seconds. Now scoot, you two.”

  After they’d gone, Lauren washed the cups, then went onto the porch. It was a clear, starry night with just a hint of fall in the air.

  Too restless to sit and enjoy it, she set out on a walk. The moon was bright enough to light the way. She went first to the barn to look in on Midnight. The horse’s ears pricked up the instant she came near.

  “Hi, big fellow. Did you miss me?”

  He nudged her pockets in search of sugar or carrots.

  “Sorry. I forgot.”

  As if he understood and forgave her, he simply nudged her again, his big eyes soulful.

  “What am I going to do if this plan doesn’t work?” she asked him, sliding her arms around his neck and resting her head against him. Midnight tolerated the gesture, whinnying softly in response.

  She drew in a deep breath, relishing the scents of horses and fresh hay and oats. No negative thoughts, she admonished herself. Her plan was going to work. It had to. Her entire future depended on it.

  The Grigsby ranch was a disaster, even worse than Lauren had remembered. The Calamity Janes wandered through the empty house with her, clucking under their breath and muttering their certainty that Lauren had finally lost her mind completely.

  “Okay, just spit it out,” she said finally. “What are the big objections?”

  “It’s falling down,” Cassie said at once.

  “The kitchen hasn’t been renovated since the Dark Ages,” Gina said, predictably fixated on the ancient appliances.

  “It will cost a fortune to heat, unless you spend a fortune making it more airtight than it is right now,” Emma said, shuddering. “I can feel a breeze standing right here. In another month or so this place will be freezing.”

  “Maybe you’re feeling a breeze because the window is open,” Lauren suggested optimistically.

  “Nope, the air is coming up through the floor,” Emma retorted, then latched onto Karen’s arm. “Stand here. Is that air or not?”

  Karen stood silently where she’d been directed, then nodded. “It’s definitely air.” She turned to Lauren. “Sorry. I cannot lie to a member of the legal profession.”

  Lauren shrugged off the problem. “I don’t care. I want it. It’s the best piece of property available.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I called the real estate agent first thing this morning and asked about all the listings in the area before I arranged to pick up the keys to see this one,” she said. “Trust me, if I want a ranch nearby, this is the cream of the crop.”

  “It’s a knockdown,” Cassie said, her expression dire. “You’d have to start from scratch. Do you want to spend that much time and money on this?”

  Since Lauren had no firm idea where Wade was or when Grady might hear from him, she had all the time in the world. “Yes,” she said very firmly, then one by one looked each of them squarely in the eye to emphasize the point. “And I’m not tearing it down. I’ll renovate it. It’ll be the first good use I’ve had for my money in a long time.”

  “Okay, then,” Emma said briskly. “I’ll do the negotiating. Otis Junior is slime. It will be a pleasure taking him to the cleaners.”

  “The money goes to Otis Senior,” Lauren reminded her. “He’s up in years and not all that well. He might need it for his care.”

  “Good point,” Cassie chimed in.

  “Then I’ll have to insist it be put in a trust for just that, so that Otis Junior can’t touch it while his daddy’s alive,” Emma said, pulling her cell phone from her purse to call the real estate agent.

  While Emma and the agent negotiated, the others kept on wandering around making notes on all that needed to be done. They came back eventually and handed several sheets of paper to Lauren.

  “Just a few starting points,” Gina said with a grin. “I put the kitchen on top. I can’t be expected to cook dinners for all of us in the state it’s in now.”

  Lauren gave her an impulsive hug. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For seeing the potential.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Gina said. “But there’s nothing I like better than designing the way a kitchen ought to look so that it functions efficiently.”

  Lauren glanced at the sketch she’d drawn. “Isn’t this a little big?”

  “I figure you won’t really want a formal dining room. I think having a big, friendly kitchen where all your friends and family can gather is much cozier, don’t you?”

  Lauren chuckled. “Why do I get the feeling this is your dream kitchen, not mine?”

  “There’s no reason it can’t be yours,” Gina retorted. “Besides, Rafe says I have a perfectly good kitchen at Tony’s. He doesn’t see why I need another one at home since we never eat there. So, here you go, this is the one I’d have if he weren’t so mule-headed. It’s all yours. Consider it your housewarming present.”

  “There’s just one thing you’re not taking into account,” Lauren pointed out. “I can’t cook, nothing beyond the basics, anyway.”

  Gina stared at her, clearly horrified. “How did I let that happen? We’ll start with cooking lessons tomorrow. You can’t expect the man to marry you if you can’t even put an interesting meal on the table.”

  “Believe me, my problems with Wade run far deeper than whether I can make a decent casserole,” Lauren said.

  “Well, we have to start somewhere,” Gina told her just as Emma hung up, her expression triumphant.

  “It’s yours,” she said. “We got a good deal and protected Otis Senior. All in all, a terrific negotiation, if I do say so myself.”

  “Emma, you’re magnificent,” Lauren praised.

  “Well, of course she is,” Cassie said, grinning at her. “She’s one of us.”

  “Look what I found,” Gina said, emerging from another foray into the kitchen with five paper cups filled with tap water. “We can have a toast to your new home.”

  They lifted the cups into the air and Karen said, “To Lauren. May she find the same kind of happiness here that the rest of us have found, and may it last forever.”

  “To Lauren,” the others chorused.

  Tears welled up in Lauren’s eyes as she looked around her. She had a house. She had her friends. Now if only she could get Wade to come back, she would have everything any woman could possibly want.

  “Oh, no,” Cassie murmured. “She’s crying.”

  “I am not,” Lauren said.

  “She’s just realized what she’s done,” Emma said. “I can always call and say the deal’s off.”

  “Don’t you dare. This is exactly what I want.”

  “A falling-down house?” Emma said skeptically. “It’s not too late. I can get you out of it. There’s a grace period for buyer’s remorse.”

  “Absolutely not. I want a home where I can build a family, and this is it.” Her voice quivered slightly. “There’s just one thing missing.”

  “If Wade Owens has an ounce of sense in his head, he’ll be back,” Karen assured her. “In the meantime, there is a lot of work to be done if this place is going to be ready to welcome him.”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Gina pointed out. “I can spare a few hours in the morning. So can Rafe. What about the rest of you?”

  “Cole and I will be here,” Cassie promised.

  “And Grady and I,” Karen added. “Though he’ll probably insist I sit in a corner and watch all the activity.”

  “I’ll be here, but I’m not sure I trust Ford on any ladders,” Emma said. “It’s not that he’s clumsy, but he gets some idea in his head for a story and he gets distracted.”

  Funny, Lauren thought as she fought off more tears. Compared to her pla
ce in California, this place truly was a disaster. It didn’t even have any real charm on its side. But despite that, it still felt more like a home than any place she’d ever lived.

  Or it would once Wade stepped through the door and declared that he was back in her life to stay.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wade hadn’t intended to go back to Winding River, not ever. The memories there were too painful. The prospect of bumping into Lauren was even worse. When he thought of how she had deceived him, it made him physically ill. When he thought of how desperately he loved her just the same, it made him curse the day they’d crossed paths.

  For the first couple of months after he’d left, he bummed around the rodeo circuit, caring for stock, looking for…something. Work, maybe. A stud he could build his ranch around one day, one with half the spirit and bloodlines of Midnight. A pair of green eyes that could dazzle him or a soft body that would fit his as perfectly as the one he’d left behind.

  He found none of that. In fact, his head was filled with memories of Winding River and a woman who’d given him something he’d never expected to find, then ruined it all by betraying him.

  When the memory of her face began to dim, he found himself in a video store, searching for all her old movies. He wanted to see for himself the woman she’d kept from him. Watching her face light up the screen, listening to her voice, he’d been as captivated as he’d once been by the real woman. It was little wonder that she had legions of fans, little wonder that she hadn’t been able to turn her back on all of that for the life he could have offered her.

  Not that he’d given her a chance to say no, he admitted grudgingly. Because he’d known what the answer would be. No way could what he was offering stack up to the millions she was making in Hollywood or the adoration of thousands of fans. He had a hard time admitting it was pride that had made him leave town without confronting her, but that was the truth of the matter. The pitiful fact was that he would have forgiven her betrayal in a heartbeat if he’d thought for one single second that they stood even a small chance of making it.