“Me, too,” Karen agreed.
“That makes three, then,” Wade said. “Lauren, how about you?”
“I’ll have a small green salad,” she said.
He stared at her. “And?”
“That’s it, just a small salad, please, Cassie. Dressing on the side.”
“You’ve got it,” Cassie said, and hurried away.
Wade didn’t miss the way she immediately huddled with Stella by the kitchen door, or the way the owner’s gaze promptly shifted in their direction. He grinned at Lauren, who was wearing an especially stormy expression.
“Looks like we’re causing a stir,” he noted, more amused by that than he would have been under other circumstances. The fact that Lauren was clearly irritated gave him a perverse sense of satisfaction.
“Yes, well, some people ought to mind their own damn business,” she retorted.
Grady’s eyes widened as he finally caught on to the sparks flying between Wade and Lauren. “Uh-oh. Karen, maybe you and I should move to that booth over there.”
“Good idea,” she said, abandoning them so fast it made Wade’s head spin. Grady was right on her heels.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Lauren said, scowling at him.
“Me? All I did was point out the obvious. Besides, it’s your friends who are talking, not mine.”
“Well, they wouldn’t have anything to talk about if you’d just…”
“Just what? Ignored Grady’s invitation and sat by myself?”
Flashing eyes met his. “Yes. As a matter of fact, that would have been just perfect.”
“Really? Don’t you think he would have wanted to know why? And since he has insisted we both make an effort to get along, do you think I should take the blame because you’re being a spoiled brat?”
“Me? A spoiled brat?” Indignation turned her eyes an amazing shade of deep sparkling green.
Wade leaned back. “That’s how it seems to me. You’ve ruined a perfectly pleasant evening for everyone by making your disdain for me plain.”
For an instant she seemed genuinely taken aback by his assessment. “But I don’t…” Her voice trailed off and her expression turned miserable. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“Behaving like a spoiled brat, what else? It’s just that you and I parted on a lousy note after a halfway-decent day. Then, after that, Karen ticked me off with a lot of nonsense about you and me. And now here you are, crowding me, and Cassie’s looking as if she’s just discovered the best-kept secret in Winding River, and I got testy, okay? I’ve already dealt with enough speculation to last me a lifetime. So sue me.”
“That’s what I like,” he said. “A heartfelt apology.”
When she lifted her downcast gaze and met his eyes, there was a jolt to his system. He had a hunch his heart couldn’t take a lot of vulnerable looks like that.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, and this time she sounded as though she meant it.
“So what was that comment about dealing with a lot of speculation all about?”
For a minute she looked so flustered, he was certain he must have hit on something sensitive, but then a cool mask slipped over her face so quickly, he was sure he must have imagined it.
“Did I say that?” she said. “It’s a small town. People talk. You know how it goes.”
Unfortunately, he did, so he let the subject drop. He grinned, then nodded in the direction of Grady and Karen, who were unabashedly watching the entire exchange. “Think we should invite them back over?”
“In the interest of peace and harmony, by all means,” Lauren agreed at once. “Besides, it will keep them from falling off their seats trying to hear what we’re saying.”
Wade glanced across the aisle and noted that Grady and Karen were, indeed, on the edge of the booth’s benches, clearly trying to look uninterested in his conversation with Lauren.
“You have permission to return now,” he said, amused by the flash of guilt on Grady’s face and the eagerness on Karen’s. She popped back across the aisle so fast, she almost tripped over her husband.
“Well?” she demanded. “Everything okay?”
“We’ve made peace,” Lauren informed them.
Wade caught her gaze and added, “Again.”
“You two making peace a lot?” Grady inquired.
Lauren nodded. “It seems to be our destiny.”
Hearing that word in connection with the two of them gave Wade a bad moment. He didn’t believe in destiny of any kind, especially not where women were concerned. Arlene had thought his father was her destiny, and look where that had gotten her. She’d been saddled with a bastard kid for the rest of her life. Even when he seethed with resentment toward his father, Wade could admit that it was Arlene who’d really gotten the raw deal. Her heart—and her spirit—had been irreparably broken.
Wade studiously avoided looking at the woman next to him and concentrated on his boss. “I went looking for those wild horses today.”
The change of topic was so sudden that even Grady seemed taken aback, but he went along with it.
“And?” he said to Wade. “Find anything?”
“Not a sign of them.”
“You don’t suppose somebody’s already rounded them up, do you?” Grady speculated.
Wade shook his head. “I would have heard about it.”
Lauren frowned at him. “How? You’re new in town.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to keep my ear to the ground,” he told her. “If somebody had gotten their hands on those horses, I’d have heard. Everybody knows I’m looking to build up our stock.”
“Our stock? Since when did any of that stock start belonging to you?” Lauren asked.
“Actually, Wade owns a part interest in the horse operation,” Grady said. “That was our deal.”
She looked thoroughly surprised by the news. “Which one of you does Midnight actually belong to?”
“I bought him,” Grady said. “He’s got terrific bloodlines. You can see that by looking at him. Wade’s hoping to breed him. We’ll split up any foals he sires.”
“But first I have to get him to stop kicking out at anything that gets within five feet of him,” Wade said.
Lauren studied him with a blend of fascination and humor. “Which means you need me.”
Wade feigned an exaggerated sigh. “So it seems.”
A grin spread across her face. “What a perfectly lovely position for me to be in.”
“Don’t get too cocky, sweetheart. There are other people in the world who have a way with fractious horses.”
“Maybe so, but none of them are me. Nor are they here. Right now, I’m all you’ve got.” She reached up and patted his cheek. “Be nice to me.”
The touch was no more than a two-second caress, but Wade’s pulse took off like a stock car at Daytona. The woman was a sorceress. At this rate, she’d have him tamed right along with Midnight. He couldn’t have that.
Before she could tuck her hand safely beneath the table, he caught it in midair and brought it to his lips. Gaze clashing with hers, he kissed her knuckles, lingering over the job until he felt her skin heat.
“A word of warning,” he murmured.
“What?” she whispered, her voice suddenly shaky.
“You don’t want to play with fire.”
“Oh, my,” a voice beside him murmured.
Wade looked up to find Cassie standing there with an armload of plates and a dazed expression. He grabbed a couple of the dinners before they wound up on the floor and passed them off to Karen and Grady, then took Lauren’s salad and served it to her. By that time, Cassie had recovered enough to set his own plate in front of him.
She regarded Lauren with a questioning look. “Anything else?”
“Oh, I think that about does it,” Lauren said wryly. “I’m apparently providing dinner and the entertainment. I hope everybody’s happy.”
Wade grinned at her. “I know I am.”
/>
Chapter Five
It took a lot to rattle Lauren, but Wade had managed to completely disconcert her the night before. As she sat on the porch sipping her morning coffee, she considered the entire encounter at Stella’s. She wasn’t sure which had shaken her more, her physical response to him or the discovery that he had a stake in the ranch’s horses.
Since the latter was far less threatening to her personal equilibrium, she decided to deal with that first. Why had she been so surprised? Was it merely because Grady hadn’t mentioned it? Or was it because she’d dismissed Wade as being nothing more than a ranch employee who served at Grady’s discretion? Was she a snob—the spoiled brat that Wade had accused her of being?
No, she assured herself, that couldn’t be. She had always gotten along with everyone, respected them for the work they did, whatever it was.
As a child, she had known intuitively that the wrangler working for her father was as important as the foreman or, in terms of his workload, even as necessary as her father himself.
In Hollywood, she had accepted from the first that everyone on the set made a contribution, from the gofers right on up through the director and executive producer. She’d excluded no one when she threw a party, and on the set she’d been friendly with everyone. In fact, some of the people she’d been closest to had worked behind the scenes in the least lofty, and often least appreciated, positions.
Of course, she had learned one bitter lesson during that time. While she had viewed everyone as equally important and worthwhile, her ex-husbands had sought her out specifically because of what they viewed as her exalted position on the Hollywood scene and how that might help them climb the film world’s social and career ladders.
She sighed and went back to Wade. Her reaction to him had been based on his attitude, not on his position, she concluded after considering the situation from all angles. She was relieved by the assessment, if only because it meant she didn’t owe him an immediate apology.
As for the other matter, the way she’d responded to that glancing kiss he’d brushed across her knuckles, to his thigh snugly fitted against her own, to the burning intensity of his gaze…well, that was a whole other kettle of fish. Her reaction to that had been out of all proportion to the importance of the incidents. Heck, she’d been kissed with mind-numbing intensity on-screen and it hadn’t meant anything at all. This didn’t, either.
Of course, those on-screen kisses hadn’t stirred so much as a whisper of arousal, while the merest touch of Wade’s lips had sent her blood pressure into the stratosphere. What was that all about?
Loneliness, she concluded. That’s all it was. The absence of a meaningful relationship in her life. The absence of sex, while all around her the other Calamity Janes were falling madly, passionately in love with the men of their dreams.
She had spent the last year watching her best friends succumb one by one—first Cassie, then Karen, Gina and Emma. Karen had dragged her heels the longest, because she’d only been widowed a few months when Grady had come into her life, but even so, Lauren had sat by and watched her friend slowly but surely come alive again under Grady’s tender attention.
Sitting on the sidelines with all that going on was enough to make a less self-confident woman feel utterly unattractive and undesirable. Lauren knew better—in her head, anyway. She was deliberately putting out “stay away” vibes. Wade had been the first man in a long time to flat-out ignore them, maybe even to consider them a challenge.
And he’d just been playing games with her. She knew that, too. He’d wanted to get to her to make a point. Trying to figure out exactly what that point was had kept her up half the night. She had a funny feeling it had been a warning, not just a balm to his own inflated ego.
“You going to lounge around out here all day, or do you intend to grace us with your presence down at the corral?” Wade inquired, coming up on her from behind yet again.
Lauren frowned at him. “I wish you’d stop sneaking up on me.”
“Hey,” he said, looking wounded. “I knocked on the kitchen door. When nobody answered, I came inside and shouted. Then I spotted you out here and came on out. I don’t think that qualifies as sneaking.”
“Whatever,” she said, refusing to get drawn into an argument as ridiculous as this one was turning out to be.
“So how about it? You working today?”
“As soon as I finish my coffee,” she said, stubbornly staying right where she was. “I can only spend an hour or so with Midnight, anyway.”
Wade nodded. “True, but I have another horse you might want to take a look at. If you’re interested.”
Feeling more eager than she wanted to be, Lauren forced a casual note into her voice. “What’s the problem?”
“I wish to heck I knew,” Wade admitted with evident frustration. “I bought her at a sale in Cheyenne a couple of months back. She seemed to be doing fine, but ever since we got here, she’s been off her feed. The vet can’t find anything wrong.”
“Then she’s your horse, not Grady’s?”
“Yes. Is that a problem? I’ll pay whatever fee you set if you think you can help her.”
Lauren frowned at that. “It’s not about the money. I just like to know who I’m answering to.” She stood up. “Let’s go take a look at her. But first I’ve got to stop in the kitchen and pick up some treats for Midnight.”
“If you bring a carrot for Miss Molly, you’ll make her day. That’s the only thing she shows any interest in at all.”
She regarded him with amusement. “Miss Molly?”
“My mom was a big fan of the golden oldies.”
She stared at him blankly.
“‘Good Golly, Miss Molly.’ Little Richard.”
To her amazement, he sang a few bars in a low voice that seemed to linger over the part about how good she looked to him. His gaze never left her face.
“I remember,” she said, her voice a little choked. He was doing it again—charming her, tying her up in knots.
In the kitchen, she hurriedly sliced a couple of carrots into chunks, then followed Wade out the door.
“Should I count this as a sign of respect that you’re letting me near your horse?” she asked as they reached the barn.
“You wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near Midnight a second time if I hadn’t seen for myself that you know your way around horses,” he claimed.
“I thought Grady ordered you to give me a chance.”
“He did, but I would have fought him tooth and nail if I’d thought there was any risk involved to the horses. As it was, I was more worried about the risk to you. There’s a point when being intrepid and confident turns dangerous.”
His words made her heart flutter. She’d had directors blithely ask her to dangle from the side of a mountain with little concern for her safety. Here was a man she barely knew who’d been truly worried about her getting hurt even when he hadn’t much liked her.
“Thank you…I think.”
“No problem,” he said, shrugging off the thanks. “Miss Molly’s still in her stall. She won’t leave it unless I force her.”
Lauren took the hint and fell into step beside him as he approached the pretty little bay filly. She was a beauty, all right. Perfectly proportioned for her size, she had a coat that gleamed in the weak rays of sun filtering through the window behind her.
“She’s beautiful,” Lauren said, then inched closer to the stall. “Aren’t you, girl?”
The horse showed little interest in her or in Wade. She just stood there silently, head hanging. Even when Lauren extended a chunk of carrot on the palm of her hand, Miss Molly barely lifted her head to examine it. Finally, with little enthusiasm, the horse took the carrot, chewed slowly, then turned her back on both of them to poke her head through the open window and gaze at the pasture beyond.
“What can you tell me about her?” Lauren asked Wade.
“Like I said, I bought her at a sale in Cheyenne. She was a spirited little thing, and s
he was training well. Then we came here and…” He shrugged. “You can see how she is.”
“Where were you before? What was it like?”
“It was another ranch. The barn wasn’t half as nice as this one.”
“A lot of other horses?”
“No more than here.” He regarded her curiously. “What are you thinking?”
Lauren hesitated to say. She was no expert in animal behavior. What she knew came from instinct and experience—but Wade was actually regarding her with genuine attention, awaiting her verdict.
“Okay,” she said finally. “This may sound crazy, but could she be homesick?”
A bark of laughter erupted before he could contain himself. “Homesick? She’s a horse, not a college freshman. Besides, she wasn’t in that barn all that long. How could she have gotten that attached to anything?”
Lauren reacted defensively to the instantaneous derision in his voice. “It was just a thought. Ignore it, if you think it’s stupid.” She whirled around and left the barn.
She was outside at the railing watching Midnight in the distance when Wade finally joined her.
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly.
“For?”
“I asked for your opinion. I had no right to make fun of it when you gave it.”
“True,” she agreed.
“So, let’s say you could be right about this. What the hell do I do? Move back to the other ranch?”
“That seems a little extreme,” she said, grinning at the frustration in his voice. “Let me think about it. Maybe I can come up with something less drastic.”
“I hope so,” he said, giving her another of those thoroughly disconcerting looks. “I’m just starting to like the scenery around here.”
After several days Wade was forced to face the fact that he’d misjudged Lauren when he’d assumed she was nothing more than some pampered rich girl who was visiting the ranch on a lark. She had a head on her shoulders and a real knack with horses—all horses. She was like some kind of pied piper with them. Although she hadn’t solved Miss Molly’s problem yet, she was doing well with Midnight. He came to her almost eagerly now, which Wade could readily understand. The horse was male, wasn’t he? And Lauren was every inch a female.
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