Karen grinned at her response. “I see. Even more fascinating.”
Lauren scowled. “Why?”
“Because there’s no reason to want a man’s respect unless you think he’s worthy of your own.”
“Yes, well, that remains to be seen,” Lauren said, not prepared to make that kind of admission, even to one of her best friends. “He’s still too full of himself.”
And yet there had been those moments—brief though they had been—when she and Wade had connected on some level. It wasn’t just chemistry, she told herself. It was something more, something with potential.
“As if,” she muttered.
“As if what?” Karen asked, looking intrigued.
“Nothing.”
Karen chuckled, her expression knowing. “There it is again. Oh, this is going to be fun.”
“What?”
“Watching you fall like a ton of bricks. I can hardly wait to tell Emma and the others. They’ve been placing bets lately on when your turn would come. Now that you’re actually right here under their noses, they’re each going to be doing everything they possibly can to be the one who sets you up with the right man. I love it that I’m already in the lead on that and they don’t even know it.”
Lauren frowned. “Don’t be so smug. Gina suspects. She was out here after you and Grady went to bed. She picked up on some things I said and got all sorts of crazy ideas into her head.”
“Oh, really? Such as?”
“Never mind. I am not playing this game. My turn has already rolled around twice—with disastrous results,” Lauren reminded her. “I don’t intend to go that route again.”
“Oh, piddle,” Karen responded. “Those men weren’t worthy enough to shine your shoes. As for Wade, I think he’s a man of real substance.”
“And you know that how? He hasn’t even been here a month.”
“Sometimes you just know these things,” Karen said loftily.
“Yeah, like you knew it the first time you looked into Grady’s eyes,” Lauren retorted. “You thought he was a thieving scoundrel.”
Karen shrugged off that little reminder. “We did have a few issues to iron out, you’re right, but that just made things a little livelier. And don’t try to change the subject. I can hardly wait to share this good news with the rest of the Calamity Janes.”
“Don’t you dare,” Lauren said, annoyed because she hadn’t been able to convince Karen that there was no news to spread. Sweet heaven, once people started talking, it would be no time at all before the news somehow reached the tabloids, and that would be the end of her anonymity. There was always someone willing to leak gossip about a celebrity for the right price.
“Or what?” Karen taunted, much as she had when they were girls.
“I’ll have a little talk with Grady,” Lauren responded, deciding that a very personal threat was better than trying to explain to the uninitiated Karen about the hot market for gossip. Karen hadn’t had her life dissected on the front pages of newspapers for years, but she did care what Grady thought of her. In fact, Karen was already looking a little pale.
“About?” Karen asked suspiciously.
“Oh, I’m sure there are a lot of things he doesn’t know about the Calamity Janes in their prime,” Lauren said blithely. “I seem to recall one particular incident in which his beloved, honorable, sedate wife was caught mooning the school principal.”
“I never did that,” Karen protested, her cheeks turning red. “Not intentionally anyway. I had no idea he was anywhere around.”
“The point is, you did it, and I have witnesses.”
“Okay, okay, I won’t say a word about you and Wade.”
“There is no ‘me and Wade,”’ Lauren reminded her.
“No, of course not,” Karen said dutifully, though she couldn’t quite mask the twinkle in her eyes. “I’ll try to remember that when your expression goes all soft and mushy every time his name is mentioned.”
“It does not,” Lauren said, horrified. “Does it?”
“If you don’t believe me, ask Grady.”
“I am not asking Grady anything of the kind,” Lauren said. “In fact, I think I’ll avoid you two altogether and drive over to Winding River. Maybe I can find somebody who’s actually nice to me and buy them an expensive steak dinner at Stella’s.”
“Not tonight you won’t,” Karen said, her expression smug. “It’s meat-loaf night at Stella’s, which means that’s where Grady and I are headed as soon as he gets back. Care to join us?”
Lauren sighed. Why bother trying to fight the inevitable? “I suppose, but I’m buying.”
“I’ll let you and Grady fight that battle,” Karen said. “Oh, and just so you know, Wade usually turns up for Stella’s meat loaf, too.”
Wade had gotten into the habit of driving to Winding River for his evening meals when he first started working for Grady. Though his boss invited him to share meals at the main house, watching Grady and Karen make eyes at each other had given Wade a strange feeling. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said it was envy. He’d never seen two people any crazier in love or less reticent about public displays of affection.
At any rate, he’d started by going to the Heartbreak, having a few beers and a sandwich, but the place was too smoky for his taste and the food was lousy. After a couple of nights, even the music began to grate on his nerves. All that love-gone-wrong stuff was too depressing given his own unattached state.
Now he alternated between Tony’s, where he could get a decent pizza or some filling pasta, and Stella’s, where the nightly special was guaranteed to remind him of the kind of meal a man’s mother should have made. Of course, his never had. He’d been lucky to get a frozen dinner that had been nuked beyond recognition. Cooking hadn’t been Arlene’s forte, and most nights she’d been at work anyway. He’d been left to his own devices. Learning to cook had been a matter of self-preservation, but he hadn’t taken to it. Now that he
