Wrangling the Redhead Read online

  a cognizant v5 release august 27 2010

  “You need me.” A grin spread across Lauren’s 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.” Lauren reached up and patted Wade’s cheek. “Be nice to me.”

  The touch was no more than a two-second caress, but Wade’s pulse took off. 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.

  “A word of warning,” he murmured.

  “What?” she whispered, her voice suddenly shaky.

  “You don’t want to play with fire.”

  Sherryl Woods

  Wrangling the Redhead

  Books by Sherryl Woods

  Silhouette Special Edition

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  Never Let Go #446

  Edge of Forever #484

  In Too Deep #522

  Miss Liz’s Passion #573

  Tea and Destiny #595

  My Dearest Cal #669

  Joshua and the Cowgirl #713

  * Love #769

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  ‡ A Christmas Blessing #1001

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  ‡ The Cowboy and His Baby #1009

  ‡ The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter #1016

  ** A Ranch for Sara #1083

  ** Ashley’s Rebel #1087

  ** Danielle’s Daddy Factor #1094

  †† The Littlest Angel #1142

  †† Natural Born Trouble #1156

  †† Unexpected Mommy #1171

  †† The Cowgirl & the Unexpected Wedding #1208

  †† Natural Born Lawman #1216

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  ◊ The Cowboy and the New Year’s Baby #1291

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  ◊ Marrying a Delacourt #1352

  ◊ The Delacourt Scandal #1363

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  § Do You Take This Rebel? #1394

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  § Wrangling the Redhead #1429

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  †† The Unclaimed Baby

  § The Calamity Janes

  SHERRYL WOODS

  has written more than seventy-five novels. She also operates her own bookstore, Potomac Sunrise, in Colonial Beach, Virginia. If you can’t visit Sherryl at her store, then be sure to drop her a note at P.O. Box 490326, Key Biscayne, FL 33149 or check out her Web site at www.sherrylwoods.com.

  Winding River High School

  Class of ’91

  Welcome Home—Ten Years Later

  Do You Remember the Way We Were?

  Lauren Winters—The girl with all the answers, otherwise known as the one you’d most like to be seated next to during an exam. Elected most likely to succeed. Class valedictorian. Member of the Honor Society, County Fair Junior Rodeo Queen and star of the junior and senior class plays.

  Emma Rogers—That girl can swing…a bat, that is. Elected most likely to be the first female on the New York Yankees. Member of the Debate Club, the Honor Society and president of the senior class.

  Gina Petrillo—Tastiest girl in the class. Elected most popular because nobody in town bakes a better double chocolate brownie. Member of the Future Homemakers of America. Winner of three blue ribbons in the pie-baking contest and four in the cake-baking contest at the county fair.

  Cassie Collins—Ringleader of the Calamity Janes. Elected most likely to land in jail. Best known for painting the town water tower a shocking pink and for making the entire faculty regret choosing teaching as a profession. Class record for detentions.

  Karen (Phipps) Hanson—Better known as The Dreamer. Elected most likely to see the world. Member of the 4-H club, the Spanish and French clubs, and first-place winner at the county fair greased pig contest.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  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.”

  Chapter One

  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 romantic
izing 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.”