“You have permission to return now,” he said, amused by the flash of guilt on Grady’s face and the eagerness on Karen’s. She popped back across the aisle so fast, she almost tripped over her husband.
“Well?” she demanded. “Everything okay?”
“We’ve made peace,” Lauren informed them.
Wade caught her gaze and added, “Again.”
“You two making peace a lot?” Grady inquired.
Lauren nodded. “It seems to be our destiny.”
Hearing that word in connection with the two of them gave Wade a bad moment. He didn’t believe in destiny of any kind, especially not where women were concerned. Arlene had thought his father was her destiny, and look where that had gotten her. She’d been saddled with a bastard kid for the rest of her life. Even when he seethed with resentment toward his father, Wade could admit that it was Arlene who’d really gotten the raw deal. Her heart—and her spirit—had been irreparably broken.
Wade studiously avoided looking at the woman next to him and concentrated on his boss. “I went looking for those wild horses today.”
The change of topic was so sudden that even Grady seemed taken aback, but he went along with it.
“And?” he said to Wade. “Find anything?”
“Not a sign of them.”
“You don’t suppose somebody’s already rounded them up, do you?” Grady speculated.
Wade shook his head. “I would have heard about it.”
Lauren frowned at him. “How? You’re new in town.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to keep my ear to the ground,” he told her. “If somebody had gotten their hands on those horses, I’d have heard. Everybody knows I’m looking to build up our stock.”
“Our stock? Since when did any of that stock start belonging to you?” Lauren asked.
“Actually, Wade owns a part interest in the horse operation,” Grady said. “That was our deal.”
She looked thoroughly surprised by the news. “Which one of you does Midnight actually belong to?”
“I bought him,” Grady said. “He’s got terrific bloodlines. You can see that by looking at him. Wade’s hoping to breed him. We’ll split up any foals he sires.”
“But first I have to get him to stop kicking out at anything that gets within five feet of him,” Wade said.
Lauren studied him with a blend of fascination and humor. “Which means you need me.”
Wade feigned an exaggerated sigh. “So it seems.”
A grin spread across her 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.” She reached up and patted his cheek. “Be nice to me.”
The touch was no more than a two-second caress, but Wade’s pulse took off like a stock car at Daytona. 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, lingering over the job until he felt her skin heat.
“A word of warning,” he murmured.
“What?” she whispered, her voice suddenly shaky.
“You don’t want to play with fire.”
“Oh, my,” a voice beside him murmured.
Wade looked up to find Cassie standing there with an armload of plates and a dazed expression. He grabbed a couple of the dinners before they wound up on the floor and passed them off to Karen and Grady, then took Lauren’s salad and served it to her. By that time, Cassie had recovered enough to set his own plate in front of him.
She regarded Lauren with a questioning look. “Anything else?”
“Oh, I think that about does it,” Lauren said wryly. “I’m apparently providing dinner and the entertainment. I hope everybody’s happy.”
Wade grinned at her. “I know I am.”
Chapter Five
It took a lot to rattle Lauren, but Wade had managed to completely disconcert her the night before. As she sat on the porch sipping her morning coffee, she considered the entire encounter at Stella’s. She wasn’t sure which had shaken her more, her physical response to him or the discovery that he had a stake in the ranch’s horses.
Since the latter was far less threatening to her personal equilibrium, she decided to deal with that first. Why had she been so surprised? Was it merely because Grady hadn’t mentioned it? Or was it because she’d dismissed Wade as being nothing more than a ranch employee who served at Grady’s discretion? Was she a snob—the spoiled brat that Wade had accused her of being?
No, she assured herself, that couldn’t be. She had always gotten along with everyone, respected them for the work they did, whatever it was.
As a child, she had known intuitively that the wrangler working for her father was as important as the foreman or, in terms of his workload, even as necessary as her father himself.
In Hollywood, she had accepted from the first that everyone on the set made a contribution, from the gofers right on up through the director and executive producer. She’d excluded no one when she threw a party, and on the set she’d been friendly with everyone. In fact, some of the people she’d been closest to had worked behind the scenes in the least lofty, and often least appreciated, positions.
Of course, she had learned one bitter lesson during that time. While she had viewed everyone as equally important and worthwhile, her ex-husbands had sought her out specifically because of what they viewed as her exalted position on the Hollywood scene and how that might help them climb the film world’s social and career ladders.
She sighed and went back to Wade. Her reaction to him had been based on his attitude, not on his position, she concluded after considering the situation from all angles. She was relieved by the assessment, if only because it meant she didn’t
