The Calamity Janes: Lauren

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.