Wrangling the Redhead - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,68
understand.
“He’s gone?” Fighting shock, Lauren tore her gaze from Karen and stared at Grady. “But why? Where would he go?” When no answers were forthcoming, her voice faltered. “He’s really gone? You’re sure?”
Grady’s expression was full of pity. It was almost more than Lauren could bear. He nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I watched him pack up his truck and leave. I tried to stop him. Believe me, the last thing I wanted was to see him take off like that, but he wouldn’t listen to reason. Nothing I said could persuade him to stick around till you got back.”
“But it’s just for a few days, right? A sudden trip, like mine? Maybe something happened to his mother, an emergency of some kind,” she said, clinging to hope by a thread, refusing to believe the obvious conclusion to be drawn from the fact that Wade had packed his belongings into his truck before he’d driven off.
“He took Miss Molly,” Grady said, clearly knowing that that was the most telling indicator of Wade’s intentions.
Lauren struggled with the implications. “But why?” she asked, even though the answer was staring her in the face. There was a newspaper lying right there on the kitchen table, a paper that had plainly been twisted by someone filled with anger. Lauren spread it out on the table, smoothed the front page, then gasped. It was the first time she’d seen how the story of her disappearance had been played out by the media. This one had been written before the press conference, and it was filled with innuendo and speculation, most of it damning. But the mere existence of her picture on the front page had no doubt been more than enough to cause Wade to bolt straight out of her life. It was what Emma had predicted. He felt utterly betrayed.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, imagining all that must have gone through Wade’s mind when he’d seen it.
“What?” Karen demanded, then peered over her shoulder. “Oh, hell.”
Grady nodded. “That about sums it up. Wade wasn’t real happy about being deceived. Lauren, I love you like a sister, but what were you thinking?”
Karen groaned. “This is all my fault, Lauren. I’m the one who told you not to tell him what you did for a living.”
Grady stared at her, his expression incredulous. “You? Why? Honesty has always been such a huge thing with you.”
Karen regarded him with an impatient expression. “Oh, you know perfectly well why. I thought it would give them a chance to get to know each other without all the rest getting in the way. It wasn’t a lie, just an omission,” she snapped, then sighed. “It was a mistake. I can see that now.”
Lauren knew that all the blame didn’t belong with her friend. She had to accept the bulk of it. She’d been so happy knowing that Wade really cared for her, not some mythical superstar who didn’t really exist, that she’d let the masquerade go on way too long. She and Emma had talked about that very thing. She had resolved to tell Wade everything just when things had started to spin out of control in California.
Of course, there had been a hundred times before that when she should have told Wade the truth, when she should have shared the last ten years of her life with him. Instead, she had kept it a secret as if it was something of which she was ashamed. No wonder he felt betrayed.
She had to make him see why she’d done it, had to tell him that she was in love with him, had to convince him to forgive her. But how could she when she had no idea where he was?
“I have to find him,” she told her friends. “I have to make things right.”
“And then what?” Grady asked. “Are you saying you have no intention of going back to Hollywood, of picking up where you left off? Wade will never be happy out there.”
“Grady’s right,” Karen said. “Be sure of exactly what you want before you go after him.”
For once in her life, Lauren did know what she wanted. She was surprised that it wasn’t plain to Karen, who knew her as well as anyone on earth did.
“I thought you knew,” she said to her best friend. “I want this. What you two have. Isn’t that obvious? If it isn’t clear to you, it’s little wonder that Wade didn’t get it.”
Karen regarded her with an unwavering stare. “Then why haven’t you