Wrangling the Redhead - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,36
to make a bad marriage.”
“Thank you for saying that, but in both instances it was my mistake. I exercised lousy judgment. Neither man was who I thought he was.”
“Don’t you suppose they set out to make you believe they were whatever you wanted them to be? In other words, that they might have deliberately deceived you?” Pretty much the way Travis had deceived his mother.
Lauren seemed completely startled by his understanding of that. “Of course they did,” she said at once. “But I should have seen through it.”
“Are you some kind of mind reader?” he asked.
“No, but—”
He leaned forward and regarded her intently. “Look, everybody sees what they want to see when they look at another person, especially once their hormones have kicked in. And some people happen to be masters at knowing just which buttons to push. You got taken in. It’s not a character flaw. You were just too trusting.”
A nasty thought occurred to him. “You’re not still pining away for either of those guys, are you?”
She laughed at that, and his mood brightened considerably.
“No way,” she said fervently. “That part of my life was over long before I made the decision to come back here.”
Satisfaction washed over him. “Good. Then we’re both agreed, the past is over with, right? We’re looking forward from here on.”
Lauren lifted her glass, then tapped it against his bottle of beer. “To the future,” she said.
Wade took a long swallow of beer, then echoed, “To the future.”
It was suddenly looking brighter than it had in a very long time.
Chapter Eight
Wade stood on the back steps to the main house, frozen in place as Lauren’s heated words carried outside. All of his complacency about the future was being destroyed by the half of the argument he could hear.
“Jason, you can forget about it,” Lauren snapped in a furious tone Wade had never heard her use. “I’ve told you at least a hundred times that I am not coming back. Why can’t you get it through your head that that part of my life is over?”
Those were the same words she’d spoken to him the night before, but they sounded very different now. Wade’s gut churned as he waited to see what would come next.
“No,” she said flatly. “No, absolutely not. Look, it was a great run while it lasted, but that’s it. No more.”
So, he thought, listening to her, despite her claims the night before, she had left someone behind, someone who hadn’t liked being dumped, someone who was still pestering her. She had lied to him about the men she’d married. They weren’t out of her life, the way she’d insisted. Was it possible that one of them was stalking her? That he hadn’t gotten over the divorce? Or could this be someone entirely different, not an ex-husband but a third man who had a hold on her heart—or thought he did?
Just let him show up in Winding River, Wade thought, filled with rage. He’d put an end to any lingering possessiveness this Jason felt toward Lauren. The thought of another man putting his hands on her—having the right to put his hands on her—made Wade crazy. And the fact that it did made him crazier yet.
He sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm down. He had no right to let it make him nuts. He knew that. But that didn’t seem to ease the tightening in his belly or the raw fury that bubbled up inside. He spun away from the door and headed for the barn. Halfway there, he muttered an oath and turned back.
They had business to discuss. They had made a vow in his kitchen the night before to leave the past alone. He wasn’t going to start the day by letting whatever had gone on in Lauren’s past get in the way of the here and now, at least not when it came to the horses. When it concerned the two of them…well, that was a whole other issue. One of these days, he’d ask all the questions that were suddenly nagging at him about whether she’d been totally honest about being rid of emotional ties to her ex-husbands or any other man.
By the time he got back to the house, it was quiet. Apparently the call had ended. He rapped on the door and stepped inside, forcing what he hoped was a completely neutral mask onto his face.
He spotted Lauren at once, sitting at the table, her shoulders hunched, her head resting on her