Wrangling the Redhead (14 page)

“Come on over here, Lauren Winters,” he coaxed. “Let’s get reacquainted.”

The full-fledged smile she bestowed on him was worth sacrificing a few more probing questions. She
slipped into his lap and settled her head on his shoulder with a contented sigh.

“This is lovely,” she murmured.

It was, Wade thought. More than lovely, in fact. It was just about perfect. If only he didn’t have this increasingly sick sensation in the pit of his stomach that it was all going to blow up in his face.

Lauren had thought for a few minutes that her heart was going to leap straight out of her chest. When Wade had pressed her to reveal her last name, she had been consumed by a terrible sense of dread. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to say it aloud, to force a nonchalant tone into her voice.

Only when it had become clear that the name meant nothing to him had she been able to breathe again. Only then had her heartbeat returned to normal. Obviously Wade didn’t follow movies or the gossip about celebrities that had been a mainstay of her life for so many years. She had forgotten that there were people in the world to whom all of that meant less than nothing.

Why, then, hadn’t she told him the rest? Maybe he wouldn’t have realized just what being an actress meant. If he was so oblivious to that world, he might have accepted her past as easily as if she’d told him she’d been an accountant, as something of no consequence whatsoever.

But in her panic, she had frozen, and then the moment had passed. Now, cradled in his arms, she could almost convince herself that none of it mattered, that it would all turn out okay eventually.

“So,” he began, his fingers grazing her cheek as he
gently brushed a wisp of hair away from her face, “where do you see this going?”

Her heart leaped. She wanted to be absolutely clear on what he was asking. “This?”

“You and me.”

She considered her answer. “Truthfully, I’ve been so content with where we are, I haven’t thought about where we might be headed. Have you?”

“Not until today,” he admitted.

“What happened today?”

“Grady asked if I intended to marry you.” He grinned at her. “He was being very big brotherly about it.”

“What did you tell him?” she asked, her heart in her throat.

“The same as what you said, that I hadn’t been thinking that far ahead.” His gaze captured hers. “Should we, though? Should we think about it?”

He looked so worried, so sweetly concerned about doing the right thing. “Only if you want to. I’m in no rush,” she reassured him.

He scanned her face intently, then smiled. “Liar. I suspect you’re the kind of woman who was born being in a rush.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she said, then reconsidered.

After all, she hadn’t been able to wait to finish school and take off. She had raced through high school with the same amount of impatience as Emma and Gina, eager to get out into the world. Of course, from the beginning they had been intent on making a name for themselves in their respective fields. She had only wanted to be away from Winding River. She had craved an adventure, but never in a million years had she imagined the kind of glamour and excitement that
were in store for her. Nor had she known that eventually it would become such an albatross.

“Okay, maybe I was once,” she told him. “But no more. Since I’ve come back, I’ve learned to take one day at a time, to linger over life’s pleasures and savor them.”

She glanced up just as a vivid orange sun slid below the horizon, leaving a sky streaked with brilliant color. “There,” she said. “Just look at that. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?”

“Yes,” Wade murmured, his gaze never leaving her face. “You.”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “You say the most amazing things. How did I ever get so lucky?”

He seemed surprised by her words. “You think you’re the lucky one?”

“I
know
I am,” she said. “I came back here hoping—no,
praying
—that I would find something that had been missing from my life, and here you are. Just like that.”

He grinned. “Just like that, huh?”

“Okay, maybe not just like that,” she said with a laugh. “We did have to get past all the animosity and distrust and your ego.”

“
My
ego?” he echoed incredulously, obviously recalling her high-and-mighty attitude on the day they’d met.

“Well, you were way too sure of yourself that day you found me with Midnight,” she reminded him.

“And you weren’t?”

She laughed. “Me? I was docile as a lamb.”

“My, but you do have a selective memory,” he said. “But that’s okay, as long as you remember one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“That you belong to me.”

Lauren’s gaze narrowed. “Belong?” she echoed.

“Okay,” he said, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Bad choice of words. I did not mean that in a possessive way. No, indeed. A commitment way, that’s how I meant it.”

“You want me to make a commitment to you?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I guess I do.”

“Now there’s a firm response if ever I heard one,” she teased. “Do you or don’t you?”

“I do, darlin’,” he said emphatically. “I most definitely do.”

“And you’re making this same kind of commitment to me?”

“Absolutely.”

“Is this the kind of commitment where we agree not to see anyone else for the foreseeable future or is it the forever, happily-ever-after kind?”

She saw the muscle work in Wade’s jaw as he wrestled with the question.

“Let’s start with the foreseeable future and see where it takes us. Does that work for you?”

Well enough, she thought to herself. She could envision a foreseeable future that lasted through eternity. And she was pretty sure that without much effort, she could get Wade to see that, too…if only her past didn’t surface and ruin it all.

L
auren took the morning off to drive into Winding River. After her conversation with Wade the night before, she wanted to talk to Emma. While all of her friends were sensible, Emma was the one who was the least romantic, the least likely to get caught up in the thrill of a relationship and forget the practicalities. Lauren had called her at dawn, aware that years of workaholic habits hadn’t deserted Emma even after months back in Winding River. They had agreed to meet for breakfast at Stella’s.

Lauren was in their favorite secluded booth in the back when Emma strolled in. Stella already had her coffee cup filled and had left her usual breakfast of cereal and a banana. Emma frowned at them.

“Am I that predictable?” she asked Lauren.

“We all are,” Lauren lamented, picking at her usual bowl of strawberries with not even a dollop of milk in
the bowl, much less cream. “And after all these years, if we tried to change, it would probably shock Stella so badly she’d have to retire.”

Emma sighed and picked up her spoon. “Oh, well, at least it’s healthy.” She gazed at Lauren and waited. “Come on. You didn’t call me at 6:00 a.m. just for my scintillating company. You were fine when I saw you yesterday, so something’s obviously happened. Spit it out.”

“That’s what I love about you. You’re so sympathetic.”

“You didn’t call me for sympathy, you called for my levelheaded advice—am I right?”

“Yes,” Lauren agreed meekly.

“I can’t give it if you don’t tell me the problem.”

“Okay, okay. I think I may have made a terrible mistake with Wade and I don’t know how to fix it,” she blurted.

Emma went absolutely still. “What kind of mistake? He’s not hurting you, is he?”

Lauren felt the color drain from her face. She should have realized that would be Emma’s greatest fear. Emma had dealt with too many domestic-violence tragedies in her law career, first in Denver, then with the shooting death that had kept her coming back to Winding River for months before she’d finally decided to stay.

“Absolutely not,” she assured her friend. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful. No, actually this is something
I
did. Or didn’t do.”

Emma’s concerned expression eased. “You’re not making a lot of sense,” she said.

“I’ve kept things from him. I told you before that I never told him about my career in Hollywood. Appar
ently he’s not a movie fan, so he still doesn’t have a clue what I did when I lived in California.”

“And you think he’s going to be furious when he finds out about the deception?” Emma guessed. “You’re probably right.”

“Thanks. That’s just what I needed to hear.”

She shrugged. “You asked. I told you a long time ago that it wasn’t a good idea to keep that kind of secret.”

“It’s just that I was so tired of being Lauren Winters, the superstar,” Lauren explained defensively. “Karen and I both thought it would be a good idea to leave my identity a secret at the beginning, so Wade would just be getting to know me. He didn’t even know my last name until last night.”

Emma regarded her incredulously. “You were sleeping with a man who didn’t know your last name?”

Lauren shrugged. “You know how it is. If you miss an introduction at the very beginning, sooner or later it begins to get awkward to ask. Besides, I was afraid it would tip him off. Turns out, he still doesn’t have a clue. Now if I tell him, especially with the way he feels about money and power, I’m afraid he’ll completely freak out.”

“Okay, this has gone beyond making sure that he’s not just after you for your money. You have to tell him,” Emma said flatly. In her world, things were usually black or white. It was only when it came to her sense of justice and mercy that she found the shades of gray. “The sooner, the better. I can’t believe no one has slipped around him before now.”

“Probably because all of you know that I wanted to leave Hollywood behind, and people here in town have just come to accept me the way they remember me
from before. They’re simply relieved that I didn’t come back putting on airs or dragging an entourage of celebrities with me.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Emma agreed. “But you’re…” She fumbled for a minute, gestured at Lauren and added, “You’re
you.
How is it that no stranger has recognized you and asked for your autograph while Wade’s around?”

Lauren laughed. “Not without my makeup, I’m not ‘me.’ Not even the tourists make the connection, though once in a long while someone will look at me with a faintly puzzled expression, as if they recognize me but can’t quite place me.”

“I still say you’ve been lucky to get away with it this long. Tell him, Lauren, and while you’re at it, explain why it was so important to you that he accept you for the woman you are. Otherwise he’s going to think you deliberately set out to make a fool out of him.”

“I would never do that,” Lauren protested.

“Of course you wouldn’t, but he might not be able to see that if he discovers the truth some other way.”

“You’re right. I know you are,” Lauren said wearily. “But it’s been such a relief just being me again.”

“Sweetie, being a superstar is a part of who you are. You can’t lock that part of your life in a closet and forget about it. It’s one of the reasons you crave your privacy, the same as me,” she said with a commiserating expression. “I had my fill of media attention in Denver, and it almost destroyed me. I almost let it destroy what Ford and I were building together until I woke up and realized he was a different kind of journalist from that creep my ex-husband had bought off to ruin my professional reputation. My mistake was
trying to bury the past, instead of sharing it with Ford so we could deal with it.”

Lauren was absorbing Emma’s advice when Emma’s cell phone rang. She still carried it out of habit, though it didn’t ring nearly as persistently as it once had. Now, more often than not, it was Caitlyn calling to report on her latest riding lesson or Ford calling just to say hello. Emma fished it out of her purse, answered it, then handed it to Lauren.

“For you,” Emma said. “It’s your agent.”

Lauren reluctantly accepted the phone. “Jason, what on earth are you doing calling me on Emma’s cell phone?”

“I called the ranch. When I told Karen it was urgent that I get in touch with you, she thought that would be the quickest way to track you down.”

“What kind of business could we possibly have that’s so urgent?”

“Brace yourself,” he warned. “I’ve had a dozen inquiries in the last few days from reporters wanting to know your whereabouts.”

Lauren’s heart began to thud. “What have you told them? Why are they even looking for me?”

“I haven’t told them anything,” he said defensively. “In fact, I’ve done my level best to steer them in the wrong direction, but it’s possible that may have backfired.”

“Backfired how?”

“They’re more determined than ever to find you. They think there’s some big secret, that you’re sick or locked away in drug rehab or something. One of the TV entertainment magazines got wind of the fact that you’d turned down a fortune to do that new movie. Now everybody wants to know why.”

“Oh my God,” she murmured. She knew what the tabloid—and even the legitimate mainstream—reporters could be like once they sensed a big story. “Can’t you issue some sort of statement?”

“I can try,” Jason said. “But they’re not going to rest until they see you in person. I think you should fly back, hold a press conference and dispel all the rumors. It would be better than letting them track you down, at least if you hope to maintain any privacy over there.”

Lauren could see the sense in what he was suggesting, but the thought of going back, even for a day, stirred up all the tension she’d thought was finally behind her.

Then again, maybe this really would put the whole thing to rest, once and for all. No one would be able to accuse her of slipping away to hide something. And sooner or later the frenzy would die down and people would forget about her. She could live the rest of her life in blissful anonymity.

“Okay,” she said at last. “I’ll come back. Call my publicist and explain what’s going on. Set up a press conference for tomorrow at one o’clock at your office. I’ll fly in in the morning and leave right after the press conference. No one-on-one interviews.”

“Great,” he said. “I’ll take care of it. I really do think this is for the best.”

“I hope to heaven you’re right,” she said.

Now all she had to do was find Wade and explain everything to him before she left. He had to know the whole truth before it was splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the country. Keeping it from him now was out of the question.

When she’d hung up, she explained everything to Emma.

“You’re doing the right thing,” she assured Lauren. “Now get home and tell Wade.” She grinned. “Maybe you can even talk him into going with you. With a man that gorgeous by your side, no one would ever question why you decided to walk away from Hollywood. Besides, everybody loves a great romance. You ought to know. You starred in enough of them.”

Unfortunately, when Lauren got back to the ranch, Karen greeted her with more bad news.

“Grady and Wade had to ride up into the hills,” she explained. “Some of our herd broke through a fence up there, and they’re trying to round them up. I’m not expecting them back tonight. I would have gone with them, but somebody had to stay here to take care of the horses.”

“That and the fact that Grady wouldn’t let you go,” Lauren guessed.

“Well, he did mount a pretty strenuous case against it,” Karen admitted. “I decided to let him win this one, because someone did need to stay behind.”

“What about me?”

“I knew the second I talked to Jason that there was a good chance you’d have to go to Los Angeles to settle this media frenzy that had him so worked up.”

“That could have waited.”

“No,” Karen insisted. “Better to get it over with before you have photographers crawling all over Winding River. How long could it be before one of them decided to check out your hometown?”

“You’re right. I’d better get upstairs and pack. Maybe I’ll fly out tonight, so I’ll have a little time to meet with my publicist before tomorrow’s press con
ference. Are you sure Wade and Grady won’t get back tonight?”

“Not without a miracle.”

Lauren called the local airport and made arrangements to charter the same plane she’d used before to fly her in and out of Winding River. She would call her publicist from the plane.

When she was ready to leave, she hugged Karen tightly. “Please, whatever you do, keep Wade away from newspapers and the TV tomorrow. I have to explain all of this to him myself.”

“I’ll do my best,” Karen promised. She tucked a finger under Lauren’s chin. “Remember, chin up. Fighting spirit. And once this is over, you can put it all behind you once and for all—if that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Lauren said fervently. She just prayed it would go according to plan and that she’d still have the man she loved to come home to when it was over.

By the time Wade and Grady made it back to the ranch two days later, they were exhausted, sweaty and filthy. All Wade wanted was a long shower, some halfway decent food and a good night’s sleep. A couple of sweet kisses from Lauren wouldn’t be such a bad thing either, he thought with a burst of anticipation as he unsaddled his horse and headed for his house. He doubted if he could handle anything more intense right about now.

“Come on up for some food before you head to bed,” Grady told him. “I imagine Lauren will be around.” He grinned. “In case that’s an incentive.”

“Oh, it is,” Wade confirmed.

He’d actually missed her the last couple of days.
Never before, with the exception of his mother, had he had ties to anyone that ran deep enough for him to care whether he saw them from one minute to the next or not. Phone calls satisfied his need to be in touch with his mother, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough with Lauren. In fact, now he knew with certainty that he couldn’t go for long without catching a glimpse of her, without holding her in his arms.

He rushed through his shower, pulled on clean clothes and hurried up to the main house. Karen greeted him with a smile.

“You must be starved. I’ve got breakfast almost ready. Have a seat. Grady should be back down any minute.”

He glanced around, but there was no sign of Lauren. “Where’s Lauren?” he asked, not giving two hoots if he appeared overly anxious. Everyone in this house seemed to know where things stood between them anyway.

A flash of something that might have been guilt tracked across Karen’s face. “She had to go out of town unexpectedly.”

Wade’s gut began to churn. “When?”

“The same day you and Grady took off to round up the cattle.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Los Angeles. She thought she’d be back yesterday, but she got held up. She called last night. She expects to be home by tonight.”

Thoughts of that persistent business associate of hers tormented him. “Does this have something to do with Jason?” he asked, his voice tight.

Karen kept her back to him, deliberately focusing on the bacon she was cooking. “I’ll let her explain every
thing. She’d hoped to talk to you last night. She was disappointed that you weren’t home yet.”

Wade shoved away from the table, his appetite suddenly gone. “Thanks for the offer of breakfast, but I’ve got to go.”

She turned then, her expression stricken. “Don’t go. The food’s ready.”

“No appetite,” he insisted. “I need sleep more than I need food.”

All the way to his place, he wrestled with his rude behavior and the reason for it. He had no business taking it out on Karen just because he was disappointed—okay, upset—by Lauren’s vanishing act the minute his back was turned. He was just exhausted. That had to be it. He trusted Lauren, didn’t he? Of course he did. She had never given him any reason to do otherwise. She had explained about this Jason person time and again. There was no reason to be worried.

In fact, the way to avoid this kind of response in the future was to solidify their relationship. It was all well and good to say that they were committed to each other, as they had the other night, but marriage was the only commitment that really counted.