by Tina Leonard
“It’s fine,” he said hurriedly. “Leap anytime you like.”
“Hawk,” she repeated slowly. “He found me when I tried to leave town and get away from Marvella. Maybe he could find my family. Or at least find out what happened to them.” She looked back up at him. “You know, that’s a good idea, if you think he would.”
“Why not? He’s a hired tracker. Money talks.”
She sighed. “Of course, I don’t have the kind of money.”
Tex nodded. “Well, it’s something for us to look into. We could ask about the cost.”
“The cost of flying to South America alone would be prohibitive. Not to mention the bribes you’d need to get information out of the locals.”
“I thought about all that.” He tapped her nose. “Don’t give up. We can think of something.”
She looked at him. “We? That’s the second time you said ‘we.”’
“Well, hell. You rescue me, I’ll rescue you.” He grinned at her. “I bet you couldn’t resist sleeping with that cake under your pillow last night, could you?”
Her expression was coy. “None of your business, cowboy.”
“You did. And you dreamed about someone, didn’t you?”
She shook her head. “I slept like a log.”
“Sleep on it again tonight. I bet you dream of me. I’m starting to get under your skin.”
She laughed at him, and he was glad to hear the sound. “Remind me to spray myself with repellant the next time you fly around.”
And then she walked away. Her hips switched tantalizingly, and he had to admit, that was a well-packaged woman. There were moments when he wanted to unwrap that package again.
“She’s a good girl,” he reminded himself.
Though there was definitely something going on between the two of them.
He just wasn’t certain what it was.
“CISSY!” MARVELLA CALLED.
Cissy turned around, and she saw Tex do the same. Marvella traveled the extra fifteen feet, hauling the new cowboy with her. “Cissy, this is Ant Dilworth. Ant, meet my best girl, Cissy Kisserton.”
Cissy noticed Tex had drawn within listening distance. Shame on him for being so nosy!
“Howdy, Miss Cissy,” Ant said. “Kisserton’s the perfect name for you. I’d kiss a gal like you a ton, if you was mine.”
Marvella laughed. “Kiss her tons. I get it. Ant, you’re a very smart cowboy. I like brains in a man.”
Ant looked full of himself. Tex glowered. Cissy smiled.
“And this is Tex Jefferson, a local cowboy who’s been kind enough to ride for our salon in the past.”
The men shook hands. “Ah, yeah. You’re the one she bid on first, but then decided was too tore up. Too bad, man.”
Cissy tried not to giggle. But Tex’s expression was priceless.
“Hey, why don’t the two of you show Ant around Mayfest?” Marvella asked. “We want him to have a good time before the rodeo.”
Cissy and Tex looked at each other. Ant drew himself up to his full five-foot-six height.
“All right, Marvella,” Cissy said reluctantly. “Tex?”
“Well, I wouldn’t dream of leaving this young man without friends,” Tex said, his dark gaze on Cissy.
“Wonderful!” Marvella exclaimed. “But you have him back in good shape and on time, Cissy.”
“Oh, we will.” She frowned at Tex, and he raised a brow.
“Here’s some spending money for my guest,” Marvella said, opening her black bag. “We’re good to our riders here.”
“I can see that!” Ant said happily. “Getting invited to that raffle was the best thing that ever happened to me!”
“That’s exactly what Tex said,” Cissy fibbed, just to watch the flames explode from Tex’s head. “He loves the fact that ten women won him.”
“I would, too! If you decide you’re too worn out to deal with ten women, you just call me,” Ant told Tex. “I’ll be happy to help you out, old hoss.”
“Yep,” Tex said to Cissy, “I can see this is going to be as much fun as I can stand.”
Marvella’s sister, Delilah Honeycutt, who owned the Lonely Hearts Salon, and her friend, Jerry Martin, joined the group. “Hello, Cissy,” she said to Marvella. “Tex. Thanks for coming to Lonely Hearts Station,” she said to Ant. “We do appreciate your participation in the rodeo.”
“Happy to be of service, ma’am,” Ant replied.
Delilah turned her attention to Cissy. “I know you’re aware that what started out as a charity auction for my salon turned into a lot more than we ever imagined.”
“Yes,” Cissy replied. “I know it’s been very successful.”
“More than we ever dreamed. In light of that fact, I turned in a proposal to the town council last month asking that the funds we earn go to charities in Lonely Hearts Station. The town fathers put me in charge of the Charity Selection committee, because of my position on the council and the fact that it was my idea.”
Cissy wasn’t surprised. The council was made up of four people: Delilah, and three elderly men who were completely loyal to her. They’d never been inside Marvella’s salon, and they never would. Delilah had been in town first and had done a lot to grow the town. Marvella, to their mind, might bring in much-needed tax dollars, but she was still “new.”
“Cissy, I hope you’ll take this check in the spirit that it’s meant,” Delilah said. “I’ve decided that, based on what Tex has told me about your situation, you are the candidate who could benefit the most from this cowboy raffle. I’d like you to accept two thousand dollars.”
Chapter Five
Cissy sucked in a breath, and Marvella walked away, dragging Ant with her.
“I hope it will come in handy, if you decide to send someone to look for your family. I’m awfully sorry about what you’re going through.”
Cissy burst into tears. Tex blinked, not sure what to think about her reaction.
“Thank you so much,” Cissy said. And then she hugged Delilah.
Delilah patted her back. “Well, you two go on and enjoy the rest of the day.” And then she and Jerry left.
Cissy put her face on Tex’s chest and sobbed like crazy. Slowly, he put his hands up to comfort her. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t do that. Last time you got upset, I had to compliment your butt. Who knows what I’ll say this time?”
“Oh, shut up,” Cissy said. “You set me up for this and you know it.”
“What?”
“You know very well that I lied to your brother about which way Bloodthirsty Black cranked. I wanted Delilah’s salon to lose. I cheated. And now Delilah’s giving me money. I feel so bad!”
“Well, that was very bad of you,” Tex said, thinking it was funny that she’d feel so guilty. After all, Tex had figured out the problem before Laredo got his pride-bearing load kicked clean into the next county. “Very, very bad.”
But then he stopped himself cold. “But not that bad,” he corrected. Not bad enough to interest him.
“Pretty bad,” Cissy said, sniveling onto his shirt-front.
Normally, he wouldn’t want a woman doing that wet-’n’-weepy thing on his shirt, but she felt kind of good tucked up against him. He was going to give her a pass, just this once, on the waterworks. “Nah. Tiny bad.”
“Very bad!” Cissy exclaimed, annoyed.
“Just a little wee bit. Barely noticeable bad.”
Cissy stepped away from him. “Tex, I’m bad! Bad, bad, bad! So bad I don’t think I can accept the money.”
He pulled her back to him—to comfort her as any gentleman would. “You have to accept the money. How else are we going to get Hawk to South America?”
She looked up at him. “You did this on purpose.”
“Well—”
“You went over there and gave Delilah a sob story so that she’d give me money.”
“Well—”
“I can’t accept it, though,” Cissy said definitively. “That would make me really, reall
y bad. Like, trashy bad.”
He frowned. “I think you’re confused on the meaning of trashy.”
“How?”
“Trashy’s kind of a good thing. For example…” Searching for an example was always difficult where women were concerned. You had to find one that wouldn’t offend, and yet one that illuminated appropriately. With Cissy, he wasn’t sure which way to go.
“I’ve got one,” she said. “That ice skater who had a competitor whacked on the knee.”
“No!” She definitely didn’t get that trashy was a sexy thing.
“Uh, the movie star who stole stuff.”
“No, no. You’re going about this all wrong. Mae West was trashy. Today’s equivalent would probably be…I don’t know. Girls with a little spice.” He shrugged. “It’s just me, you know. My brothers like the safe ones. I like the unsafe ones. They make me feel edgy.”
“You are such a sicko that I’m almost attracted to you,” Cissy said. “And that scares me.”
“Why? I’m just looking for a good time.”
She rolled her eyes. “I need to confess to Delilah before I accept this money. Your intentions were honorable, but you’ve flushed me out of hiding.”
“So your terms are confession before donation?” He nodded. “Good, good. Very good. Definitely making up for the bad girl who lied about the left-cranking steak-on-hooves.”
“Guess that makes me too good for your taste,” Cissy said. “Too prim and proper.”
“Not really,” he said, dropping a friendly arm around her shoulders. “Since you dumped those ten stylist friends on me, you’re pretty much in the cow patty as far as I’m concerned. I admire your wicked ways.”
“They’re not my friends,” Cissy said, allowing him to walk with her to the salon, “and I didn’t know who was the last bidder before Marvella. I just knew it was time for me to quit running up your price. You should have gone for about fifty, you know.”
“The market bears what it will bear. We need to think up a battle plan,” he told her.
“We need to take Ant around first,” she reminded him.
“Did I say I was staying to help you entertain the baby-faced lad?” He glanced around. “Actually, it looks like Marvella is buying Ant some cotton candy over there.” He pointed to one of the street vendors.
“Well, I don’t like cotton candy. So he’s lucky he’s with Marvella.”
“I remember you saying you don’t like clingy things,” he said cheerfully.
She opted to ignore the jibe. “So, what’s the battle plan?”
“We need to get in touch with Hawk.”
She looked up at him, trying to keep her anxiety down. The check Delilah had given her was stiff in her pocket, reminding her that this moment was real. What if Hawk couldn’t find out anything about her family? What if he learned bad news? She swallowed. “And then?”
“I’ll figure that out later. First, I’ve got a date with ten women, thanks to you. For now we need to figure out how you’re going to comfort Marvella tonight when Babyface gets thrown before the buzzer. I got a real bad feeling about him, and Marvella does not like to lose.”
Cissy gasped. “He can’t be a bad cowboy! I read his biography in the program.”
“Let me tell you two things about riding a bull, Cissy. One, even the best cowboy gets tossed occasionally. Two, the rider himself sends in that biography.”
“Are you saying Ant might have padded his résumé?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of him before.”
“I can’t think about that right now.” Cissy pursed her lips. “You could be wrong.”
“I’ve been wrong before. But not usually about rodeoing.”
She turned and headed toward Ant. “I better go take him off Marvella’s hands.”
“Hey, what about me?” Tex called after her.
Either she didn’t hear him, or she ignored him. Tex kicked at a tiny rock in the street.
“Oh, Tex,” he heard.
To his astonishment, it was Delilah calling him from the doorway of her salon.
“Yes, ma’am?” He ambled toward her.
“I’ve had a bit of a disaster.”
Her broad face showed little sign of her usual contentment. “Is there something I can do?”
Jerry joined them in the doorway. “There is, son. You can ride Bloodthirsty Black for us tonight. Our cowboy canceled, leaving us in a bit of a pickle.”
That would put Tex squarely at odds with Cissy. As much as he wanted to ride that bull for Delilah, there was a limit to what a man should do to put himself at odds with the most beautiful girl around.
Then again, things couldn’t get much worse. It wasn’t like they were going to have wild sex together, again, or get married and have babies.
His throat dried at the thought of Cissy. Cissy carrying a baby, preferably his. Making love to that silvery female as many times in a day as he could manage.
Boy, howdy.
Now, why would he think of Cissy like that? Maybe his brain had overheated due to all the new plans he was having to hatch.
And then again, maybe hanging around Cissy too much was enough to make a man incinerate. Thank heaven neither he nor Cissy ever wanted children. Or marriage. Or even each other.
“I’ll do it,” he told Delilah. “I’m not doing anything else tonight.”
And if a little Ant got squashed in the process, well, that would just teach him a thing or two about the fickle nature of rodeo.
IT WAS LAST’S TURN to stay home and do the chores while everybody else drove over to Lonely Hearts Station for the monthly fair and rodeo, but Mason gave his youngest brother the night off. There’d be a lot of fun in the little town tonight, but Mason didn’t feel like looking for fun. He was worried about his next-door neighbor, Mimi, and her father, Sheriff Cannady. The brothers had recently discovered the secret Mimi had been keeping to herself. Things were more dire with the sheriff than he’d ever dreamed they could be, and the chance of finding the sheriff a new liver seemed more remote by the day. He hated to see Sheriff Cannady felled by the rogue infection that had mostly destroyed his liver—and very nearly the man.
Mimi’s new husband, Brian, was a good man, but he was little help with the chores. Citified lawyers didn’t usually know all that much about what needed to be done on a ranch. Mason figured he’d mosey over to Mimi’s in a bit to stick his head in.
He saw the red Ferrari go by, which meant Brian was leaving for the evening. With a sigh, he realized the lawyer was probably headed to the hospital to check on the sheriff for Mimi. Which meant Mimi was home with the chores. “I’ll go now,” he said to himself. “Before it gets too late.”
A minute later, he was on Mimi’s porch knocking on the door. When she let him in, it was obvious that his childhood playmate had been crying. “Mimi! Bad news?”
He wanted desperately to take her into his arms, but he knew he couldn’t. Why had Brian been leaving if Mimi was upset?
“No. No bad news.” She seemed to wilt onto a kitchen bar stool. “I just had a minute to myself, and I guess I decided to have a meltdown.”
Then it wasn’t about her and Brian. Good. “This is about your father.”
She nodded.
There wasn’t much he could say about that. The sheriff had him worried sick, too. But Mimi worried him just as much.
“I do have some good news,” she said quietly. “I may be pregnant.”
He blinked, and something inside him seemed to shatter. “That’s…awesome, Mimi. I know you were hoping for that.”
She crooked a brow at him. “How did you know that?”
“Because I know you. You’re my best friend.”
That put a tiny smile on her face. Mimi wanted to give her father a grandbaby; hence the hurry-up wedding with a man she’d met only recently. Mason hadn’t had to think too hard to figure out what motivated his childhood friend. He reached over and wiped a tear from her cheek. “What does Brian think
about becoming a father? I bet he’s over the moon.”
The smile faded. “Well,” she said, “I think he’ll be stunned.”
“Stunned.”
She nodded.
Oddly, Mason felt pleased that she’d told him first. Then he reigned in the inappropriate thought. “Well, I’m sure he’ll be excited once the shock wears off.” As far as Mason was concerned, the shock would never wear off. But he wasn’t part of the marriage, so he shouldn’t be feeling devastated. According to his brothers, he’d had a chance with Mimi that he’d lost forever.
Now he needed to quit being a dope. Mimi’s life was moving forward. It was past time for him to pull his head out. Gently, he reached out to pat her shoulder. “Hey, I’m going to go do your chores.”
She looked up at him. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Little mama, I’m going to be an uncle. That means you’ve got to take care of yourself.” He grinned at her, to show her that he was the same old Mason, the brother she could count on anytime.
Then he walked out of the kitchen, knowing he had to do something to cure his stubborn heart.
“OKAY, HERE’S THE PLAN,” Tex said. “I’ll make good on my date with the girls, win the rodeo tonight, and then I’ll apologize to Cissy,” he told Last. “Then I’ll hunt down Hawk and make certain he’s on board for this mission.”
“Hmm.” Last sipped his beer as Tex examined his gear. They sat in the Lonely Hearts Station barns, so Tex could check out Bloodthirsty Black before he had to be the life of the party. “She’s changing you.”
“Who?” Tex glanced up.
“Cissy Kisserton.”
“How so?”
“It’s like you’ve developed Purpose in Life. Maybe that’s what was missing in you. Maybe it wasn’t really fear of intimacy at all. Although I do not see you making a relationship work with this woman, no matter how much she may know about the opposite sex—”
“Watch it,” Tex growled.
“And I don’t see you making a relationship work with any of the ten women who won you.” Last crossed his legs as he sat on a beam and watched his brother. “You know, you can be as macho as you want around the ladies and wind-and-crank them so they jump around for you like robo-girlfriends, but that’s still all surface interaction. It won’t get deep inside you, where the problem is.”