Wrangling the Redhead Read Online Free

watching all of her friends fall madly in love, one by one.
    “Kids?”
    She hadn’t really thought about having a family, but, yes, that was part of it, too. She wanted to hold her own babies in her arms, buy the girls sweet little dresses and the boys shiny new trucks and decorate a nursery. Until this second, she hadn’t realized just how loudly her biological clock had been ticking.
    Rather than admit to all that, she said, “Or maybe I’m just looking for a healthy dose of reality. Good friends. Hard physical work. A beautiful sunset.” She shrugged. “I wish I could put my finger on it.”
    “Maybe a man like Wade Owens could help you figure all that out,” Karen suggested.
    Lauren considered the square-jawed cowboy with the cold-as-flint eyes and downturned mouth. Okay, so he had broad shoulders, narrow hips and enviable muscles. So what? She gave her friend a scathing look. “First he’d have to get over himself.”
    Karen laughed. “Hey, I saw that little scene out there. He’d probably say the same about you.” Herexpression sobered. “Did you introduce yourself, by the way? Or did he recognize you?”
    Lauren realized with a sense of shock that Wade hadn’t seemed the least bit concerned with who she was. In fact, she was almost a hundred percent certain he’d had no idea she was anything other than an unwanted interloper. That pleased her more than she could say.
    “If he did, he didn’t care,” she told Karen. “He was just mad as spit that I was on his turf.”
    “Maybe you should keep it that way,” Karen said thoughtfully. “Let him get to know you without all the Hollywood glitter as a distraction. It can’t be easy to find a man who can see past the image. Wouldn’t that be a relief, for a change?”
    “That’s certainly true,” Lauren agreed, seeing the benefit of clinging to a little anonymity for as long as she could. “But I’m sticking around town so I can find myself, not so I can find a man.”
    “Any reason you can’t do both?”
    “Maybe not, but I don’t think your friend Wade would want to be considered as a candidate,” she said, though she couldn’t explain the vague sense of disappointment that crept over her as she said it. Why should she give two figs whether an arrogant, full-of-himself wrangler gave her a second look or not?
    She forced herself to be honest. Maybe it was because he was the sexiest male she’d come across in ten long years. Maybe it was because he was so damn gritty and real that he made all the polished, sophisticated men she knew pale by comparison.
    Or maybe it was just because for the first time in forever, she’d felt completely alive, with her temper close to boiling and her heart slamming in her chest.In the last half hour she’d discovered that everything she’d experienced in recent years was little more than a two-bit imitation.
    She had hoped that living in Winding River would bring her a certain amount of peace. Thanks to Karen and Grady’s wrangler, she’d just discovered that it was promising to be downright fun.

Chapter Two
    W ade spent the rest of the afternoon seething over his run-in with the Blackhawks’ houseguest. The woman had more audacity and arrogance than any female he’d encountered in years. While that might have been stimulating in the short term, it was nothing to tangle with over the long haul.
    Not that Wade was a long-haul kind of guy. He’d learned that from his daddy, God rest his sorry butt.
    Blake Travis had been one of the wealthiest men in Montana when he’d met Wade’s mama at the Lucky Horseshoe Saloon in Billings thirty years ago. To a woman like Arlene Owens, he had seemed like the answer to a prayer. She had fallen for him like a ton of bricks. To hear her tell it, the man had been God’s gift to womankind—not just rich and powerful, but also kind and generous. He’d certainly left her with something to remember…Wade.
    Unfortunately, it turned out that old Blake had a nasty