LITMIR.BIZ

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you really think so?” Katy asked doubtfully.

      “A man does not agree to ride a bull unless he’s fairly sure there’s a helluva prize waiting for him once he’s hit the dirt, honey.”

      Katy straightened. “I don’t think of myself in those terms.”

      “Wait till I’m done with you. You’ll be thinking Scarlet O’Hara by Saturday. I promise.”

      “Scarlet O’Hara was a flirt, a maneater,” Katy protested.

      “Exactly.”

      “YOU’RE DOING WHAT?” Mason shouted in Laredo’s ear over the phone. “Have you clean lost your mind?”

      Laredo pictured Katy’s concerned face. “Not lost it, just temporarily misplaced it, maybe. Mason, I need some tips.”

      “You want a phone course in killing yourself by stupidity.”

      “Someone has to do this, and it’s going to be me.”

      “Obviously,” Mason muttered. “This is not what I thought you meant when you said you were heading back east for adventure. You’ve barely left the county!”

      “You know what they say about one’s own backyard.”

      “Oh, hell.” There was an audible sigh from the other end of the line. “I guess I’ll send Tex over with the gear you’re going to need.”

      “Tex won’t want to be torn away from his roses right now,” Laredo warned. “He’s right in the middle of preparing for the oncoming spring season.”

      “I’ll hire Martha Stewart to baby-sit his buds,” Mason growled. “In the meantime, Tex can come out there and share his vast knowledge with you.”

      Somehow, the idea of his twin coming out and spending time around Katy wasn’t altogether appealing. “Well—”

      “I can’t give you pointers by phone, if you’re determined to do this. What’s the name of the bull, by the way?”

      “Bloodthirsty Black.”

      “Is he a first-night bull or a marquee bull?”

      Laredo scratched his head. “He’s an unknown quantity. The last cowboy who was supposed to ride him had a change of plans.”

      “Maybe he was smart.”

      Any man who chose having sex over bull riding probably had some sense. Laredo squinted around Katy’s room. Her bed was unrumpled and covered with a clean, white cotton bedspread. There were white lace curtains floating at the open window. Beside her bed, Rose the mouse stared up at Laredo, her pink-flesh ears and tiny paws quivering. She was smaller than his little finger, and for a mouse, quite adorable. Her red price tag was stuck on the side of her wire-covered box as a pretend welcome mat. Katy had drawn a door above the welcome mat, and placed paper lace cutouts around fake windows. Laredo sighed to himself, then sat straight up as he realized something white and lacy was poking out from under Katy’s pillow.

      Gingerly, he tugged the lace. It left its hiding place with a smooth, gliding flash of froth. Holding it up, he realized it was sheer, it was very short, and Katy slept in this at night. His pulse raced as he glanced toward the door. He was pretty certain Katy wouldn’t appreciate walking in and finding him with her nightgown in his hands and very little room left in his jeans.

      “Laredo?” Mason’s voice asked in his ear. “Laredo!”

      Having sex or riding a bull.

      He hadn’t been offered sex. But occasionally a lucky hero got gifted with such a prize. Shoving the nightgown back under the pillow, he said, “I’m riding that bull, Mason, come hell or high water.”

      “DID YOU GIRLS NOTICE the new man in town?” Marvella asked as she stared out at her sister’s salon.

      “Did we ever!” her girls chorused.

      “Looked like a real cowboy to me,” Marvella said. “I so love cowboys! I do wonder how Delilah keeps coming up with these timely miracles.”

      “I’ve got first dibs,” a stylish brunette called. “It’s my turn for a new customer.”

      “Honey, he’s not a customer till you convince him he is,” someone corrected her. “And all’s fair in love until the moment one of us closes the bedroom door.”

      “I wouldn’t say it’s over just because the door closes,” someone said. “If I recall, one of you managed to be in the bed waiting, while you had a fake phone call downstairs for the girl he thought he was going to be spending the night with.”

      A few giggles went round the room, and a redhead in the corner blushed uncomfortably. “I should have known it was a trick. Extra points for creativity, especially since he didn’t seem to mind the switch,” she said.

      “Well, this cowboy isn’t going to get his eight seconds onboard Bloodthirsty Black. If Delilah wants to be humiliated twice, we can accommodate her,” Marvella said. “But we can’t be obvious, because I can guarantee you, he’s been told in detail how truly mean, unkind and positively sex-starved we are. Delilah will be extracautious this time.” She tapped long fingernails against the windowsill. “In four days. I don’t want him to even lay a leg over Bloodthirsty Black. This calls for sweetness and light, and dainty coincidence.”

      “Dainty?”

      “Did you see that he was escorting Katy Goodnight on a walk? That’s dainty as powdered sugar on a doughnut,” Marvella pointed out.

      “If her fiancé ditched her at the altar and married her best friend, she’s got something missing in her sugar bowl,” someone suggested. “Dainty is not always delightful.”

      “Okay,” Marvella said with a snap of her fingers. “I’ve got just the plan.”

      “Is it dainty?”

      She smiled as she watched the lights coming on inside her sister’s salon. “No,” she said. “It’s a doozy.”

      Chapter Three

      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.

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