Katy stared into the mirror, seeing the miracle Hannah had wrought with her dress. She looked like a different person. Sexier. Hipper. “Maybe I had some unconscious motive I didn’t recognize, but I wouldn’t have picked my wedding day to be dumped.”

“That was unfortunate, but she was probably plagued by guilt, which caused her to wait until the last minute to act. She’s probably not enjoying her honeymoon at all, thinking about you crying your eyes out.” Hannah stood. “I haven’t seen you cry at all, Katy. And I think all this talk of sexual dysfunction is a cover-up. Maybe you just wanted to keep men on the periphery of your life.”

“If I didn’t then, I do now. It’s humiliating when the maid of honor marries your fiancé, wearing the hot pink dress you picked out for her. It’s like, here’s hot and sexy and here’s plain and virginal. Which do you think most guys want? I don’t know,” Katy murmured. “You sure have a lot of insight into people, Hannah. How did you develop that?”

“I’m a hairdresser. I’ve heard lots of stories over the years. Be still.” Gently she took hold of Katy’s below-shoulder-length hair, slicked it into a smooth, high ponytail, then took one strand which she wound around the rubber band and pinned down. “Now a touch of red lipstick,” she said, applying it to Katy as she spoke, “and whammo! Instant femme fatale.”

Katy inspected herself in the mirror. “Maybe it’s fatal femininity.”

“Think confident. Be confident. I’m confident that you’re a woman not to be overlooked. Anyway, the plain-vanilla you is all but a memory.” Satisfied, Hannah put away the needle and thread and the hair-brush and lipstick, glancing with cool smugness at Katy’s dress. “See how easy it is to be daring?”

“This is daring?”

“For you? Yes. It’s a start. Let’s go have lunch at the cafeteria, Virginity Barbie. All this thinking’s made me hungry.”

LAREDO HESITATED outside the door of the Never Lonely Cut-N-Gurls Salon. If Katy saw him going in here, he was toast. Unfortunately, he needed Ranger, and he needed him now.

Glancing guiltily across the street at the Lonely Hearts Salon, he pushed open the door.

KATY GASPED as she saw Laredo go inside the enemy camp. She and Hannah stepped back inside the door quickly, staring at each other in surprise.

“Whoa,” Hannah said. “I have to admit to being caught off guard.”

Katy’s heart felt as if it bled a drop as red as her newly short dress. “I told you. It’s a dysfunctional thing. Those girls have allure—and I do not.” Why should she even care? she asked herself. She didn’t like him anyway.

Did she?

“Boys will be boys, I suppose,” Hannah said. “You could go rescue him from himself.”

“I’d rather join Marvella’s payroll. Come on. Let’s go eat at the cafeteria. Only, we’re taking the back door. I wouldn’t dream of allowing Mr. I’ll-Ride-That-Bull-For-You to know we saw him slinking into the competition’s bunker.”

“Hold still, Tex,” Ranger said, his teeth gritted, slightly annoyed at being dragged away from Cissy to tend his brother in Delilah’s barn. Tex was writhing a bit dramatically on the hay-covered floor, and Ranger had been far more impressed with the shoulder-massage Cissy had been giving him back at the salon atop a satin-covered chaise lounge. “I’ve got to check your shoulder good because if it’s broken, it’ll set crooked. What were you thinking, anyway?”

Tex tried his hardest to lie still while Ranger none too gently probed his back and shoulder. “I wanted to test this bull and see if what Cissy said was true.”

Laredo stared at his prone twin. “You couldn’t tell a darn thing with that bull in a pen.”

“I can tell you he’s got a helluva liftoff. But I don’t think he cranks left. No, I don’t.”

Ranger stopped what he was doing to look at his brother. “You don’t think he cranks left?”

Tex shook his head. “I don’t.”

The three men studied the bull through the rails. Bloodthirsty seemed satisfied to have flung Tex into the stall across the aisle. For the moment he was quite a bit calmer.

“He does have a spring-loaded midair jump, though,” Tex said. “Either this bull’s changed his mind about how he tries to kill people or you were getting set up, Laredo.”

Ranger shook his head. “Cissy’s a nice girl. She wouldn’t deliberately tell someone wrong.”

“And bulls don’t change their mind,” Tex said stubbornly. “If they start out kicking left, that’s usually the way they always go. Bloodthirsty didn’t hesitate. Then he bunched himself up in the air and tossed me over the pen.”

Laredo wasn’t certain what to think. “Why would Cissy give me a bad tip?”

“So you’d lose, dummy,” Tex told him. “She’s a woman, and she’s a rival, and she’s sucking Ranger’s face to make certain all her bases are covered.”

“She didn’t suck my face!” Ranger protested.

“Your lips are pink,” Laredo pointed out. “Did you borrow some tinted chapstick, maybe? Drink a strawberry pop? Borrow a sun lamp and use it on your lips?”

“It was just a friendly peck,” Ranger said. “Nothing more.” But his face and neck turned as pink as the lipstick, and Laredo frowned.

“Why are you lying?”

“I’m not.” Ranger shrugged and gently helped Tex to his feet. “I think your shoulder’s fine. Just don’t test him again anytime soon.”

“Why? So we won’t interrupt your friendly pecking with Cissy?” Tex asked. “What’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into you?” Ranger shot back. “Since when have you cared who I talked to?”

“Since we’re supposed to be here helping out a woman who rescued us last month, Ranger,” Laredo stated. “Have you forgotten whose girls helped us and Union Junction through the big storm? Who helped with sandbagging, and cooking, and mopping up a creek’s worth of water? Who hung curtains in our house and cleaned and generally kept the town from getting washed under?”

Ranger stared at his brothers, speechless. He shook his head as if his ears were buzzing. Then his shoulders drooped. “I don’t know what came over me,” he said, his tone apologetic. “It was like…it was like the call of the wild, and I couldn’t shut it off. Like being in a dream I didn’t want to wake up from.” He looked at them sheepishly. “For a minute there, I was almost totally hypnotized by a woman. Whew!”

“Oh, boy.” Tex shook his head. “Listen, we’ve got to keep our heads on straight. Our brother has signed on to ride one of the worst bulls I’ve ever come in contact with, and he has no idea what he’s doing. We’ve gotta have a plan.”

“My plan is to get on and stay on,” Laredo said. “I’m going to be more stubborn than this bull.”

Bloodthirsty Black cared little for Laredo’s announcement. He gave a round-nostriled snort, reminding everyone he was in the business of tossing cowboys as if they were hay.

“Maybe you should just give money to Miss Delilah’s charity,” Ranger said doubtfully.

“It’s a man thing.” Laredo glanced toward the barn exit. “In Spain, they run from bulls. Malfunction Junction Ranch cowboys laugh in the face of danger.”

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