“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
