But Karen knew he wouldn’t. The kind of enmity he had felt for Grady Blackhawk was deep and eternal. It was an emotional, gut-deep hatred that couldn’t be abandoned in favor of practicality or sound business reasons or even sheer exhaustion, which was what she was beginning to feel as the endless days wore on.
“Okay, if the issue really comes down to keeping this place away from Grady Blackhawk, then I’ll buy the ranch,” Lauren said, drawing laughter.
“And what would you do with a ranch?” Karen asked, trying to imagine the big-screen superstar mucking out stalls or castrating bulls or any of the other backbreaking tasks required by ranching.
“You seem to forget that I grew up on a ranch, same as you,” Lauren replied with a touch of indignation. “In fact, nobody around here had a better way with horses than I did.”
“That was a long time ago. Somehow it’s hard to picture now. It doesn’t quite work with the glamorous image you’ve created in Hollywood,” Cassie said.
Lauren scowled. “It could work if I wanted to make it work. This glamour stuff is highly overrated.”
Karen thought she heard an increasingly familiar note of dissatisfaction in her friend’s voice. She’d heard it when Lauren was home for the reunion, and it had continued to pop out from time to time on her return visits.
The fact that those return visits, even under the guise of checking up on Karen, were happening more and more frequently was telling. Lauren had done only one film in the past six months and turned down half a dozen offers. Compared to the pace of her career in the past, that was darned close to retirement.
“Okay, Lauren, spill it,” Karen ordered. “What are you not telling us? Are you getting tired of being the multimillion-dollar superstar?”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Lauren said with a touch of defiance. “And you needn’t look so shocked. I never intended to be an actress. I certainly never thought I’d be famous for my looks. I was the brainy one, remember? I wore glasses and had freckles and hair that wouldn’t quite do what I wanted it to. I still do. Do you know that without my contacts and makeup and with my hair air-dried instead of styled, I can actually walk into a supermarket and no one looks twice at me?”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Karen asked. She had never been able to grasp how a woman as private and shy as Lauren had always been had learned to cope with fame.
“Yes, but it just proves how shallow the rest of my life is,” Lauren said. “It’s all built on lies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining.”
“Yes, you are,” they all said in a chorus, followed by laughter.
“Okay, maybe a little. I just want something more.”
“A ranch?” Karen asked skeptically.
Lauren’s expression set stubbornly. “Maybe.”
Karen shook her head. “Let me know when you make up your mind for sure. Until then, I think I’ll just hang on to this place.”
“You know what I think?” Emma said, her too-perceptive gaze studying Karen intently. “I think Karen’s just holding out so she can keep this Grady Blackhawk coming around.” A grin spread across her face. “Have you seen this man? I remember him from the funeral. He is seriously gorgeous. All dark and brooding, with trouble brewing in his eyes.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Karen insisted, but she had. God help her, she had.
“Liar,” Emma accused. “You’d have to be blind not to notice.”
“It was my husband’s funeral,” Karen snapped. “I wasn’t taking note of the sex appeal of his worst enemy.”
“What about today?” Emma persisted. “Did you notice today?”
Since in typical attorney fashion, Emma wasn’t going to let up until she got the confession she was after, Karen conceded, “Okay, he’s a good-looking man. That doesn’t make him any less of a scoundrel.”
“Have you figured out just why Caleb hated the man so much?” Gina asked as she absentmindedly shredded the last piece of garlic bread into a little pile of crumbs.
“Because of the land, of course,” Karen said. “Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about?”
Gina was already shaking her head before Karen finished speaking. “I don’t think so. There had to be more to it. I think this was personal.”
“It’s fairly personal when a man tries to buy up your mortgage so he has the leverage to take your land,” Karen said. “It’s even more personal when you suspect him of trying to sabotage your herd of cattle.”
“I think there’s more,” Gina said stubbornly. “Caleb was the nicest guy in the world. He loved everybody. He trusted everybody. He even liked Emma’s ex-husband well enough, though heaven knows why. He got along with everybody-except Grady Blackhawk.”
“The bad blood between the Hansons and Blackhawks went back a lot of years,” Karen reminded her. “It was always over the land.”
“Maybe that’s just what they said, maybe that was a cover for the real reason for the animosity,” Gina said.
Karen sighed at her persistence. “Okay, Gina, what do you think it was about?”
“I think there was a woman involved,” Gina said at once. “And a broken promise.”
The rest of them groaned.
“If you ever decide to give up the restaurant business, maybe you could write romance novels,” Emma said. “In this instance, it sounds to me as if you’re reaching a bit.”
“More than a bit,” Karen said. “Can we change the subject?”
“You got us over here to talk about Grady,” Emma reminded her. “You said you wanted advice. I could always have a restraining order drawn up to keep him out of your hair.”
“Typical lawyer,” Gina said with an undeniable trace of bitterness that ran awfully deep under the circumstances. “Turn a simple situation into a legal brawl. All Karen has to do is tell the man she’s not interested in his offer. Period.”
“Which I’ve done,” Karen said.
“And you think that’s the end of it?” Emma scoffed.
Karen thought of Grady’s taunt as he’d walked out. No, unfortunately, she didn’t believe it was over. He would be back. The only questions were when and what his tactics might be.
“He’s not through,” she admitted reluctantly. “He’s not the kind of man who will give up easily. He’s been after this land as long as I’ve known Caleb. And his father was after it before that. I doubt he took my refusal to sell all that seriously. In fact, it seemed to amuse him.”
“All the more reason to sell to me,” Lauren said. “I know how to deal with men like that. Hollywood is crawling with creeps who don’t know how to take no for an answer.”
“I’d love to hear how you handle them,” Gina said, looking surprisingly despondent. “I’ve got one I’d like to shake.”
Emma’s gaze sharpened. “Care to explain that?”
“No,” Gina said flatly. “But if Lauren has any techniques that are both legal and effective, I’d like to hear them.”
“I can’t talk with a lawyer present,” Lauren joked. “She’d be duty-bound to turn me in.”
“Illegal, then,” Gina surmised. “I’ll keep that in mind, if it comes to that.”
Karen was about to jump all over the remark and demand answers, but a warning glance from Cassie silenced her. Maybe Cassie knew more of the story than the rest of them. She and Gina had always had a special bond, perhaps because they’d worked together so often when they were teens, both as waitresses, but with Gina always snooping around the kitchen, testing recipes of her own whenever she was given the chance.
“We’re getting pretty far afield, anyway,” Cassie said. “We need to help Karen decide what to do about Mr. Blackhawk if he comes around again. Since she won’t let Emma file for a restraining order, does anybody have any other ideas?”
“Like I said earlier, speaking personally, that man gives me plenty of ideas,” Emma said. “He’s a hottie.”
They all stared at her.
“A hottie?” Karen echoed incredulously.