He nodded, frowning, seemingly flustered by her full-force display of flirt-go-ditz.

“I’ve never ridden a bull,” Laredo said.

THE EXPRESSION on Katy’s face was no longer hero worship, and Laredo felt as if all the air had been let out of him. Bam! Just like that, he was an ordinary mortal again. And here he’d been dreaming of doing something big with his life.

“Never ridden a bull,” Katy murmured, as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “But you live at the Malfunction Junction Ranch. All your brothers bull ride. I saw the ribbons and trophies. There must have been hundreds.”

He shook his head. “Not me, though. Mason figured I was the one most likely to have a wandering foot that’d take to the rodeo lifestyle permanently. It’s one of the very few things I would admit that my brother guessed right about me. And Last never has, either, but that’s because he was the baby and Mason didn’t have time to teach him to ride much of anything except a horse. Actually, Last never really did learn to ride a horse very well.” He realized he was babbling, trying to fill in space so he wouldn’t have to finish letting Katy down.

“Wandering foot?” Katy repeated. “What does that have to do with staying on a bull?”

He ran a gentle finger along the curve of her chin. God, how he hated disappointing her. She really was a cute little thing in her sandals and long dress, just like a girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes. He liked the fact that she had little or no makeup on. Her hair was a bit ruffled, which he wouldn’t have expected for someone who worked in a beauty salon. Everything about her seemed somehow fresh and innocent, from her big blue eyes to the dark bangs that framed them. “Mason was determined to keep our family together. It’s a long story, but it has to do with the fact that our father left when most of us were young and Mason got stuck with the details of parenting. He made decisions the best he could. Sometimes he was wrong. But most of the time, he was dead-on.”

“So you’re a restless type.”

“That’s right.”

She pulled her chin away from his finger. “I wouldn’t know the feeling.”

He eyed her, knowing that she wouldn’t find that adjective attractive in a man. But that was okay, because he wasn’t trying to suit himself up to be attractive to her. “I don’t suspect you would.”

“So you never got to ride a bull?”

“I could have sneaked around. Last wasn’t supposed to, either, but he did just the same. Mason didn’t want the baby of the family busting himself up.”

“Of course not,” she murmured.

“But Last has always done whatever he pleased.”

She glanced up at him. “But you obeyed your brother.”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t quibble with his logic. I didn’t want the family separated myself, and I wouldn’t have been the one to do it. No one else seemed to have a hankering to leave the ranch like I did.”

“You’ve left now,” she said.

“Yes.”

Hope flared in her eyes. “Maybe now is the time to disobey Mason about bull riding!”

He laughed. “I don’t have to obey him anymore. But I wouldn’t be any good at riding, Katy. I never learned. And there’s more to it than getting on.”

She looked as if she might cry any second.

“Here,” he said gently, “let’s take a walk. Tell me what’s going on, and maybe I can help you resolve your situation.”

“I need a hero,” she said stubbornly.

He placed a hand dramatically over his chest. “I promise I think better than I ride. Come on. Walk and talk.”

She sighed, not liking his offer one bit, but clearly seeing no way to refuse. “There’s a lot at stake.”

“You don’t look like the kind of girl who hangs around rodeos, Katy.” He eyed her curves underneath her long dress with appreciation. She’d look mighty fine in blue jeans—

“I’m not,” she said as they began to walk side by side. She glanced up, almost catching him eyeing those curves. “Until last week, I’d never even seen a bull up close.”

“What happened last week?” He couldn’t resist asking since her head had drooped, her pretty sable-colored hair swinging forward as she spoke. “Tell Uncle Laredo.”

She shot him a wry look. “You are not my uncle, cowboy.”

“Oh, that’s right. I’m supposed to be the hero. Only I got shot off my horse.”

“Bull, not horse.” She sighed. “Every year Miss Delilah buys a bull from one of the local FFA kids. The kids raise their bulls, usually from the time they were born, until they auction them at the fair. This pays for college and other expenses. Then Delilah enters her bull in certain events, such as riding, and best hoof painting.”

“Hoof painting?” He put out a hand to slow her determined gait. “You act like you’re marching on the enemy yourself. What’s best hoof painting?”

“It’s sort of a paint-your-nails-for-bulls event. Only it’s the hooves that get painted as pretty as they can possibly be. Flowers, doodles, Indian sunsets, you name it. On an animal that won’t stay still. It’s a mental and physical challenge.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“Miss Delilah thought it up.”

“Of course.” It sounded like a beauty salon owner’s idea.

“Don’t sound so snickery. Miss Delilah raises a lot of money for charity with her contests. People come from miles around to enter. And then, when the fair comes to town the following year, she sells the bull to the restaurant in Texas that bids the most for it. By then, everybody’s seen her bull for that year, in several events, and they bid it pretty high. With this money, she’s been able to keep her salon open.” Katy shook her head sadly. “Everyone wins, you know. The student who raised the bull, Lonely Hearts Station charities, a lucky restaurant and Miss Delilah’s favorite charity, taking in women who need a helping hand. But not since the Never Lonely girls opened up their salon.”

She tossed her head in the direction of a business no one could miss—almost the red-light establishment of beauty salons with a neon sign sure to light up a dark sky and all manner of lip prints painted on the windows. “Rivals, huh?”

“Delilah’s sister, Marvella, runs that shop, and she wants nothing more than to put Delilah out of business. And her weapon of the moment is a bull named Bad-Ass Blue.”

Laredo would have laughed, except, by the serious stiffness in Katy’s back, he knew he’d better swallow the laughter fast. “So, how does a bull ruin Miss Delilah’s shop?”

“By getting more attention. By having a rider that knows how to showboat. By luring our rider into missing his ride,” Katy said bitterly. “Bloodthirsty Black never even got out of the chute because we didn’t have a rider.”

Laredo was afraid to ask, but he had to know. “And the best-hoof-painting contest? How did Bloodthirsty Black fare in that?”

“Not at all,” Katy said. “Someone slipped a baby mouse into his stall and he darn near broke it down trying to crush the poor thing. After that no one dared get near him.”

Laredo shook his head. “No one plants a mouse. They just hang around livestock areas.”

“Not this one. It still had the price tag on it.”

He couldn’t help a chuckle now, which earned him a rebuking stare from Katy. “They don’t put price tags on mice, Katy.”

“This one was wearing a red price tag on his back. Two dollars and ninety-eight cents,” she said definitively.

Laredo was positive she was giving him a tall tale. “A marked-down mouse, I guess.”

She instantly halted, putting her fists on her hips. It was a gesture he kind of thought looked good on her, even though any sane man shied away from a ticked-off female. “There is nothing funny about Miss Delilah’s dilemma. If you were truly my hero, you would know that this is a serious matter.”

That stung, far worse than it should have. So much for doing something big—he couldn’t even pass a small hero’s test like not laughing at a story aimed to make him look like a patsy. “I’m sorry,” he said earnestly.