Wrangling the Redhead - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,45
his bed the other night.
“Why are you resisting?” she had demanded finally. “Don’t you want to be seen with me in public?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Wade had snapped.
“Then it must be because the party is at Cole’s,” she’d guessed, hitting the nail on the head on the first real try. “Have you even met him?”
“No, we’re not likely to travel in the same circles,” he’d said wryly.
She’d given him a pitying look. “Is that so? Who serves you dinner at Stella’s more often than not?”
He’d stared at her blankly. “Are you talking about Cassie?”
She’d nodded. “Cassie Davis, Cole’s wife.”
Wade had been stunned. “Cassie is married to Cole Davis and she’s waiting tables in a diner? You have to be kidding me. What kind of man—”
Lauren had cut him off, grinning. “Don’t even go there. It drives Cole crazy, but Cassie loves her job. She pretty much told him he could complain from now till doomsday, but she wasn’t giving it up,” she said proudly, then studied him with a penetrating look. “Still think you won’t fit in at this party? Grady and Karen will be there, too.”
“Okay, fine,” he’d grumbled, defeated.
Now, as he turned his truck into the long driveway that led up to a sprawling new ranch house, his second thoughts came flooding back. The house had soaring panels of glass and the kind of custom details that could be spotted even from a distance. The home he’d grown up in would have fit in one tiny alcove of this place. Even Grady’s spacious house was small by comparison.
Before Wade could get all of his defenses firmly in place, Lauren was tugging him into the middle of a throng of people, introducing him to a group of women she referred to as the Calamity Janes, her best friends from high school. He already knew Cassie and Karen. To his surprise, Gina Petrillo from Tony’s Italian restaurant was another of them. And that attorney he’d met at the Blackhawks’ one morning, Emma Hamilton, was the fifth.
He realized Lauren was regarding him with amusement. “What?” he asked.
“Feeling better? You already know half the crowd. They’re not that scary, are they? Now, let’s go for broke and I’ll introduce you to the men.”
Wade studied the cluster of males around the barbecue with surprise. Looking at them, it was impossible to tell which ones had money and which did not. They were all wearing faded jeans and T-shirts and well-worn boots. If he’d had to hazard a guess, he would have said they were all in the same income bracket he was. All except one, anyway. His jeans actually looked as if they’d been pressed at the dry cleaners and though his shirt was western in style, it was as starched as any dress shirt hanging in Wade’s closet. He pegged him right off as the wealthy Cole Davis.
To his astonishment, he was flat-out wrong. Davis was in the same well-worn cowboy attire as the rest of them. The man in the fancier duds was Rafe O’Donnell, Gina’s fiancé.
“You’ll have to excuse him,” Gina said to Wade, tucking her arm through the man’s. “Rafe is a bigshot New York lawyer. This is his idea of dressing down. We’re working on it. I’m going to take him out to the barn for a romp in the hay before the afternoon is over and try to mess him up a little.”
Lauren winked at Wade. “Definitely something for him to look forward to, right, Wade?”
Wade felt a rush of heat to his face. “I don’t think they want to hear about that.”
“I certainly do,” Gina assured him.
“Me, too,” Rafe agreed, clearly fascinated.
“Well, my mama taught me it is never polite to kiss and tell, so I’m sorry, but I can’t be the one to satisfy your curiosity,” Wade said.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Gina said blithely. “I can get Lauren to blab almost anything.”
Wade frowned down at Lauren. “Is that so?”
“Well, not everything,” she assured him. “A smart woman always has some secrets.”
“Maybe we’d better talk about that,” Wade said, steering her away from her friends.
She gazed up at him, her expression innocent. “Something wrong?”
“Just how much of our private business do you share with the universe?”
She stiffened at his curt tone. “I don’t share any of it with the universe,” she said tightly. “But I do talk to my friends. They care about me. They want to know what’s going on in my life, so, yes, they know that I care about you. Is that a problem?”
Wade forced