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
Safe Harbor #425
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
*Honor #775
*Cherish #781
*Kate’s Vow #823
*A Daring Vow #855
*A Vow To Love #885
The Parson’s Waiting #907
One Step Away #927
Riley’s Sleeping Beauty #961
Finally a Bride #987
‡A Christmas Blessing #1001
‡Natural Born Daddy #1007
‡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
††The Cowboy and His Wayward Bride #1234
††Suddenly, Annie’s Father #1268
◊The Cowboy and the New Year’s Baby #1291
◊Dylan and the Baby Doctor #1309
◊The Pint-Sized Secret #1333
◊Marrying a Delacourt #1352
◊The Delacourt Scandal #1363
A Love Beyond Words #1382
§Do You Take This Rebel? #1394
§Courting the Enemy #1411
§To Catch a Thief #1418
§Wrangling the Redhead #1429
Silhouette Desire
Not at Eight, Darling #309
Yesterday’s Love #329
Come Fly with Me #345
A Gift of Love #375
Can’t Say No #431
Heartland #472
One Touch of Moondust #521
Next Time…Forever #601
Fever Pitch #620
Dream Mender #708
Silhouette Books
Silhouette Summer Sizzlers 1990
“A Bridge to Dreams”
Maternity Leave 1998
“The Paternity Test”
††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
