Laredo's Sassy Sweetheart (3 page)

The next morning Laredo met his brothers at the arena so they could get an eyeful of Bloodthirsty Black in his holding pen. The bull looked as if he had only ten more seconds before he busted out another perfectly good stall. Stepping back so they wouldn’t irritate the bull more, Tex and Ranger shook their heads in unison.

“You’re a nut,” Ranger said. “You’re going to need spine replacement if you ride him.”

Laredo glared at him. “Tex is the one who’s coaching me. You just came along for the laugh.”

Tex shrugged. “He came along to keep me company on the ride, and mainly to try to help me talk you out of getting yourself killed. How’s your health insurance, by the way? Both physical and mental? Maybe you should see a head shrink before you do this, ’cause I think you may have left your brains back in puberty.”

Twin or no, Laredo was duty-bound to argue. “If
I was deranged, I wouldn’t be calling for reinforcement. Now, shut up and start coaching.”

“Let me ride him for you,” Ranger offered. “The Lonely Hearts girls just need a champion. They don’t care who it is.”

“It’s gonna be me,” Laredo said stubbornly.

“Why?” Tex demanded. “Ranger has the most wins besides me.”

“He’s too old. That was ten years ago.”

“Excuse me?” Ranger said. “I’m thirty-two. You are thirty-four. How am I too old?”

“Because you’ve always been old. Me, I’m just now trying to find myself. This is my midlife crisis,” Laredo said proudly, staring at Bloodthirsty Black. “All two to three thousand pounds of it.”

“Sheesh. Other men want a pretty woman. My twin wants a head-and-neck rearrangement from an animal born to hate him. Makes perfect sense to me.”

Ranger chuckled. “If Laredo’s suffering a crisis, does that mean you are too, Tex?”

“Just because Archer’s spending all his time writing to a Nicole Kidman look-alike in Australia, does that mean you’re burning up the stationery with Byronic sonnets?” Tex jutted his chin. “Pull your head out, Ranger. Being twins does not mean we’re split halves of the same person, as you very well know!”

Bicker, bitch, battle. For a moment Laredo thought his whole big fantasy of being a hero might go flushing downstream, until Katy Goodnight rounded the corner, bearing a basket with a cherry-
printed cloth napkin inside. Instantly his whole day brightened. “Hi, Katy,” he said with a big grin he couldn’t control.

“Hi, Laredo,” she said with a smile, before turning to his brothers. “And another Laredo,” she said to Tex. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have forgotten your name since I met you only a month ago, but I do remember your face,” she said to Ranger.

“Well, that’s all that’s important,” he said gallantly. “If a pretty gal just remembers my face—”

“Howdy, fellas,” said another female voice.

They all turned as Hannah Hotchkiss came into view, carrying a basket decorated with blueberry sprigs. “This is Hannah,” Laredo began, then ceased his introduction when he realized Ranger had nearly swallowed his teeth as she smiled up into his face. “Ranger,” Laredo said sternly, “this is Katy’s best friend.”

“We brought you a snack,” Hannah said. “We didn’t know you had company, Laredo. But we have plenty.”

Ranger took the basket from her and peeked inside. “Mmm. Cookies and strawberries. My favorite.” He pulled Hannah with him until they were off by themselves.

Laredo rolled his eyes at Tex. “Did you have to bring him?”

“Oh, well. He can amuse himself now.” Tex smiled at Katy. “How’ve you been, anyway?”

“Just busy. What brings you to Lonely Hearts Station?”

“We came to give Laredo some tip—”

“They just stopped by to say hello,” Laredo said.

“It’s nice of you to check on your twin. Is it true that twins are really close?” Katy asked.

“No,” Laredo said.

Tex laughed. “We’re fraternal in mind-set, you might say. I’m the settled one, Laredo is the wild one. If one of us was ever in a fistfight at school, the teachers didn’t bother to check which one of us it was. They just automatically called Mason and said, ‘Come get Laredo.”’

“It wasn’t quite like that,” Laredo said, getting more annoyed with his twin by the second. “I wasn’t a hooligan.”

“I grow roses,” Tex said.

“Oh, I love roses,” Katy replied.

The dreamy tone in her voice as she stared into his twin’s eyes was almost more than Laredo could stomach. Her reaction was the same as every other woman’s when Tex mentioned those stupid roses. Clearly, the roses were a conversational prop Tex employed just to get a woman’s attention—he probably grew the stupid things just to get on women’s good sides. “Okay, enough with the flowery stuff. Can we get on with the lesson?”

“Lesson?” Katy repeated.

“Yeah, I’m teaching Tex everything I know about bulls.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything,” Katy said, her voice innocent.

Tex snickered, and Laredo made a mental note to
punch him later. “I know a few things,” he said, trying to hang on to his bravado. Something about Katy just got him so mixed up and confused! He wanted to brag in front of her, wanted to strut his stuff just a little, but somehow he kept goofing it up.

“What Laredo means,” Hannah said, as she and Ranger moved back to the circle, “is that he knows more about Bloodthirsty Black. He’s filling Tex in on the history.”

“That’s right.” Laredo straightened with a grateful glance at Hannah. “History’s important.”

“Yeah, we all remember your report card,” Ranger said.

Silence descended. “Excuse me,” Tex said. “I’m going to go find a gents’.”

He left, and the conversational void stretched. Laredo frowned at Ranger, who sighed.

“Now, just what is it about this bull we need to know?” Ranger said, clearly deciding to leave off the sibling rivalry and let Laredo get his neck broken if he was determined to do so.

“He pulls to the left,” a voice said. “And then, just when you lean, he jerks to the right with a mean midair kick. Every time.”

All four of them whirled to look at the woman who’d spoken. Laredo felt his jaw go slack, and heard Ranger’s jaw hit the pavement with a resounding thunk.

This woman was simply stunning. As fresh and cute as Katy was, as punky-funky cute as Hannah
was, this woman would set records for head-snapping stares.

Beside him, he could feel Katy stiffen.

“Hell-oo, there,” Ranger said. “Thanks for the tip.” He tipped his hat to her, and grinned.

The woman smiled back, one hand on her hip, the other casually resting against Bloodthirsty Black’s stall. “You’re welcome.”

Laredo glanced at Katy for an intro. Hannah didn’t seem too happy about the woman’s presence, either, especially since she and Ranger had just spent a cozy five-minute chat together.

The woman ignored the female frostiness and extended a delicate hand to Ranger. “Staying in town long?” she asked softly, her voice full of hints.

“He’s leaving in a couple of hours, actually,” Laredo replied.

“And you?” she asked smoothly, looking back to Laredo.

He probably shouldn’t tell what he was up to, Laredo thought. Katy probably wanted him to be the surprise weapon. “Uh, a guy can’t hang around beautiful women in a quaint town forever, I guess.”

“That’s too bad. We’re real nice to strangers here in Lonely Hearts Station.” The woman smiled, and imperceptibly tightened her posture so that her breasts thrust forward in an invitation even the greenest male could understand.

Laredo thought he could see Ranger’s eyes spinning around in their sockets. Wow! He didn’t think
he’d ever seen his hard-edged brother so…softened up.

“This is Cissy Kisserton,” Katy said reluctantly. “Cissy, meet Ranger and Laredo Jefferson.”

“Real cowboys?” Cissy asked.

“Born and bred, ma’am,” Ranger said. Hannah rolled her eyes, which Laredo thought was appropriate.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you,” Cissy said. “Just wanted to be friendly to the visitors in town. You send them over our way for a cup of cocoa, Katy. We’ll make sure they’re well taken care of.”

“It’s a bit chilly in here, after all, isn’t it?” Ranger said. “I’ll take you up on that cup of cocoa right now, Miss Cissy,” he said, following after the beautiful woman like a lovestruck puppy.

The two of them disappeared around the corner, but not before Laredo saw Ranger slip his arm around her. Laughter floated over the stalls to them. Laredo groaned to himself. Ranger was the most steadfast of the brothers! Certainly he had his share of wild hairs—he’d been bluffing about going to do some military service for nearly a year now…of course, he’d never leave Malfunction Junction Ranch, but he’d sure been trying to put action where his big mouth was. He’d actually started hanging around the police station, trying to act civilized.

But nothing like a beautiful woman to make a man’s mouth run away from him. Laredo looked at Katy, who appeared dumbfounded; Hannah seemed
disappointed down to her very orange toenails, peeping out of cut-open tennis shoes.

The expression on Hannah’s face told Laredo that Cissy wasn’t the only woman around who thought Ranger was a hunk.

Oh, boy.

“Where’s Ranger?” Tex asked, coming back to join them.

“He went off with a woman,” Laredo said. “Cissy Kisserton. You should have seen her.”

“You should have seen
him,
” Hannah said. “It was like watching a giant tree get felled by one termite.”

“Oh. I apologize for my brother’s behavior,” Tex said.

“Is Cissy a Never Lonely Cut-N-Gurl?” Laredo asked.

“Obviously,” Katy said.

“Whoa.” He’d have to be very careful to avoid that Venus fly trap. There was a real sensitive issue between the two salons for certain, and it clearly wasn’t all about who gave the better haircut. “By the way, Tex, Cissy was awfully helpful. She says Bloodthirsty Black pulls to the left. And when you lean, he jerks to the right with a midair kick every time.”

“Does he, now?” Tex eyed the bull speculatively. “And why was the competition being so helpful?”

Laredo looked at Katy and Hannah. “I guess she just wanted to be nice to the strangers in town.”

Katy and Hannah made disgusted sounds, gathered up their baskets with the food in them and marched off without a word.

The parting looks they shot the men spoke loudly, however.

“You just blew it,” Tex told his twin.

“What did I say?”

“First rule of girlhunting—never let a woman you like believe another woman has anything to offer you. Anyway, I’m supposed to be giving you tips on Mr. Bloodthirsty, here, not love. It’s unseemly for a brother to have to coach his twin in things any freshly minted teenage boy knows.”

Laredo’s heart sank. “Cissy was awfully friendly. I thought she was nice. And she didn’t have to tell us about the trick this old bull plays.”

“True.”

“Ranger stuck on her like glue. He didn’t see anything wrong with her, either.”

“There, then. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Laredo frowned. Nothing to worry about except he’d upset Katy, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

“Pulls to the left, huh?” Tex said. “When I went to the gents’, I noticed the arena was empty. There’s no one around. Let’s sit you up on Bloodthirsty and see exactly how hard he kicks.”

“Have you lost your mind? I’m not getting up on him.” Laredo eyed the bull, who was pawing at something in his stall as if he were sharpening his
hooves for the kill. “Don’t we need about four other men helping us hold him?”

“If we were loading him in a chute, yeah. But you’re just gonna get up on top of this bull and get used to the feel of him underneath you.”

Laredo shook his head. “I’ll wait till Saturday.”

Tex sighed. “Look. It’s not that hard. Watch me.”

He pulled on his glove and looped a rope around the bull’s neck. The animal snorted, demonstrating his displeasure by slinging his head. Tex jumped up on the top rail, squared himself up, jumped and landed briefly on the bull’s back.

There was silence for an infinitesimally split second, and then all hell broke loose.

“I
DON’T THINK
the Jefferson boys are the men we thought they were,” Katy said to Hannah as they walked home. “Laredo brags, Tex is a ladies’ man and Ranger’s off with the enemy.”

Hannah nodded. “For a minute I thought Ranger might have liked me. He sure seemed to.”

Katy’s heart melted at the sound of sadness in Hannah’s voice. “It’s just that darn Cissy Kisserton. She knocks men down at their kneecaps.”

“But if he’d really liked me, he wouldn’t have even seen her,” Hannah said. “You notice Laredo didn’t so much as shake her hand.”

Katy brightened a little. “I suppose he didn’t.” Then she faded again. “But he’s still a braggart. If
I were to fall for another man, I know I’d want one whose actions match his words.”

“That may be the impossible holy grail, Katy. All men pad their résumés. So do women.”

“
I
don’t.”

“You
do,
” Hannah insisted. “I’ve noticed that since Laredo hit town, you’re trying to stand like our competition does. Tush out and breasts stuck forward.”

Together, they walked up the back-stair entrance of the salon and went upstairs to Katy’s room. “It’s true,” Katy said. “That’s exactly what I was doing. But if I don’t shift things around, I’ll never stand a chance against a girl like Cissy. She’s got all the moves. And it’s only a matter of time before those girls set their aim on Laredo. I just don’t want to be around when they score a bull’s-eye.”

“Now, now.” Hannah sank onto the bed and stared down at Rose the mouse. “Courage. Laredo seems loftier in morals than most men.”

“I don’t know. I noticed a marked decrease in loftiness when Cissy came by. We brought picnic baskets, and Cissy brought a tight skirt and high heels.”

Hannah frowned slightly. “I thought I might like Ranger, but it was one of those moments where you look at someone and see someone they’re not because you want them to be something else. I must be in a needy phase. I’ll have to be more careful.”

Katy sat beside her, and patted Hannah’s hand. “What happened to daring?”

“That’s you, not me.” Hannah perked up. “Katy, stand up,” she said.