The Calamity Janes: Lauren. Sherryl Woods

      

      #1 New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods returns with a story of the Calamity Janes…fierce friends facing challenges in life and love

      Lauren Winters has achieved fame and fortune, but all she wants when she goes home to Winding River, Wyoming, for a reunion with old friends is a break from her high-profile career. Seizing the chance to work incognito as a horse trainer for Wade Owens, she revels in the wrangler’s attention.

      But how is the man who’s disdainful of the rich and powerful going to feel when he discovers she’s deceived him? Will Wade be able to see past her celebrity and believe in the woman who’s fallen in love with him?

Also by #1 New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods

      Chesapeake Shores

      Dogwood Hill

      The Christmas Bouquet

      A Seaside Christmas

      The Summer Garden

      An O’Brien Family Christmas

      Beach Lane

      Moonlight Cove

      Driftwood Cottage

      A Chesapeake Shores Christmas

      Harbor Lights

      Flowers on Main

      The Inn at Eagle Point

      The Sweet Magnolias

      Swan Point

      Where Azaleas Bloom

      Catching Fireflies

      Midnight Promises

      Honeysuckle Summer

      Sweet Tea at Sunrise

      Home in Carolina

      Welcome to Serenity

      Feels Like Family

      A Slice of Heaven

      Stealing Home

      Look for Sherryl Woods’s next novel

      Willow Brook Road

      available soon from MIRA Books

      For a complete list of all titles by Sherryl Woods,

      visit www.sherrylwoods.com.

      The Calamity Janes: Lauren

      Sherryl Woods

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

Dear Friends,

      When I first conceived the idea for The Calamity Janes series years ago, I knew I wanted to write about a group of friends who’d been a bit of a disaster back in high school, then taken very different paths. Now they’re back in Wyoming for their class reunion and the chance to catch up on their lives. In a lot of ways, these women were the predecessors of The Sweet Magnolias. I’m so delighted that new readers will have a chance to get to know them.

      Back then, in addition to writing about strong friendships, I also wanted to attempt a group of books set in a parallel time frame. In other words, even though these are very separate stories, the plots overlap during the big class reunion. Only the final book continues past the last dance. It was an interesting writing challenge. As you read the five stories, you’ll have to decide if the experiment worked.

      I hope you’ll have as much fun with The Calamity Janes as you’ve had through the years with The Sweet Magnolias and that you’ll enjoy the Wyoming setting as much as I enjoyed visiting that part of the country to do research for the series.

      With all good wishes for lasting friendships in your life.

      Sherryl

      Contents

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

Also by

       Title Page

Dear Friends

Prologue

1

2

3

       4

       5

       6

       7

       8

       9

       10

       11

       12

       13

       14

       15

       Epilogue

       Extract from Willow Brook Road by Sherryl Woods

       Copyright

Prologue

      The plastic surgeon, a Hollywood celebrity in his own right, seemed particularly enamored by his computerized demonstration of exactly what he could achieve with a face-lift.

      “A little nip right here,” he said, clicking a key and altering the world-famous face on the screen so that the already flawless skin around the eyes was an almost imperceptible smidgen tighter. “A tuck here.” The soft, rounded chin disappeared.

      “It’ll take ten years off,” he promised enthusiastically. “And now’s the time to start, before the aging process really gets a grip on you.”

      Lauren Winters listened to his spiel, stared at the image of her face on the screen and shuddered.

      What was she thinking? She was only twenty-eight, and she was worrying about taking ten years off of her appearance. Was she suddenly expecting to be cast in some teen flick as an eighteen-year-old high-school senior? Hardly. She was doing just fine playing leading ladies her own age in blockbuster romantic comedies.

      Making this appointment to discuss plastic surgery had obviously been a knee-jerk reaction to her latest divorce. That made two failed marriages—not bad by Hollywood standards, but a far cry from what she’d anticipated when she’d been growing up on a ranch in Winding River, Wyoming, where marriages—even bad ones like her parents’—tended to last forever.

      Suddenly her life seemed incredibly shallow and pointless. Mentally she ticked off the accomplishments