Courting the Enemy. Sherryl Woods

The mission had been passed down to the next generation, and finally to Grady himself.

      That land, part of his Native American heritage, part of a time when his ancestors had had no rights at all, was Blackhawk land. He couldn’t let anything—not even a woman as desirable as Karen Hanson—distract him from getting it back while his grandfather was still alive to savor the triumph.

      He chuckled dryly as he imagined how she was going to react to any attempt on his part to get to know her. She’d probably shoot him on sight if he showed up at the ranch again, especially if she guessed that his mission was to find her weaknesses and exploit them.

      For once he was going to have to follow his grandfather’s advice and rely on patience and maybe a little subterfuge to get what he wanted. There were a lot of chores around that ranch that needed doing. Karen struck him as a pragmatic woman. If he simply appeared one day and went to work, steering clear of her for the most part, would she run him off or accept the help because she knew she needed it? He was counting on the latter. Maybe over time, she would get used to his presence, come to accept it and allow him a little insight into her soul.

      Grady lifted his beer in a silent toast to the ingenuity of his plan. By this time tomorrow he intended to have taken his first steps in Karen Hanson’s shoes.

      Of course, he admitted ruefully, it remained to be seen if he’d live to tell about it.

      “Why not sell to him?” Gina asked as the Calamity Janes sat in the ranch kitchen eating pasta that she had prepared. The room was filled with the rich scent of garlic and tomato and basil. A plate of garlic bread had been all but demolished and there were only a few strands of spaghetti left in the huge bowl she had prepared for the five old friends.

      Karen had put out an urgent call for their help within minutes of Grady Blackhawk’s departure. She was counting on the Calamity Janes to give her advice and to keep her mind off the disconcerting effect his visit had had on her. Selling to Grady was not the advice she’d been expecting. She’d been hoping for some clever way to sidestep his determination permanently. That warning of his was still ringing in her ears.

      “How can I sell to Grady?” Karen asked. “Caleb hated him. It would be the worst kind of a betrayal. And it would break his parents’ hearts. Even though they’ve moved, they still think of this ranch as home.”

      “Do you want to spend the rest of your life struggling to keep the ranch afloat for two people who will never come back here? This place is a nostalgic memory for the Hansons. For you, it’s nothing but backbreaking work,” Cassie pointed out. “Don’t forget, you were relieved when your own parents sold out and moved to Arizona. You said you’d never set foot on a ranch again.” She grinned. “Of course, that was five minutes before you met Caleb, and from that moment on, all bets were off. You claimed to each and every one of us that you had always wanted to be a rancher’s wife.”

      Karen frowned at the well-meant reminder. “No, to be perfectly honest, you’re right. I don’t want to be a rancher. I never did,” she admitted. “But—”

      Cassie cut her off. “Then consider Grady’s offer if it’s a fair one. Caleb would understand.”

      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,”