Laredo's Sassy Sweetheart. Tina Leonard

of love had hit the ranch. He was in the mood for adventure, a change of pace. Love wasn’t going to hit him, he vowed, and picked up his packed duffel bag. He was not about to settle down.

      He wanted to do something big.

      Without another glance back he left the only home he’d ever known to venture out into the warm March morning. First stop: paying a visit to the Lonely Hearts Beauty Salon, just long enough to say hello to some ladies who’d made his life a little more fun last month. There was a place for a troubled man to find a sympathetic ear.

      Three hours later he was standing outside the salon, amazed by the hubbub inside—it sounded more like a general meeting place—when suddenly the door flung open. His sleeve firmly grasped in two desperate female hands, he was hauled inside.

      He remembered Katy Goodnight, the woman who now had him in her determined grip. He remembered thinking that a man could spend many good nights with a girl like her.

      “This is him!” Katy announced to the room at large, which was filled with elderly men, a lot of women and even a pet chicken in a cage on one of the back counters. “This is the man we can enter in the rodeo as the champion for Lonely Hearts Station, Texas. If anyone can ride Bloodthirsty Black, it’s Laredo Jefferson. Ladies and gentlemen, pay homage to your champion, and the man who can whup the daylights out of our rival, the Never Lonely Cut-N-Gurls and their bull, Bad-Ass Blue!”

      Voices huzzahed, hands clapped, Katy released his shirt so she could clap, too, and even the chicken uttered a startled squawk. But no one was more startled than Laredo to be picked as some kind of bull-riding savior.

      He’d never ridden a bull in his life.

      Katy whispered, “You got here just in the nick of time. You’re my hero!”

      He swallowed, and decided to keep his mouth shut. After all, he’d been looking for a little adventure—and it wasn’t every day a man got to be a hero to a woman named Goodnight.

      KATY KNEW that desperation had just opened the door and sent her a man—a man who looked as if he could solve her problem. Laredo was big enough to hang on to an ornery, few thousand pounds of irritated horns-and-hooves. He was strong, judging by the muscles in his forearms and the biceps not covered by a short-sleeved red T-shirt. That area below the leather belt and covered by nicely fitted blue jeans looked healthy, as well—guaranteed to fit in a saddle and keep a seat well past the eight-second horn.

      He was sexy as all get-out, too—a strong chin, square face and simmering dark eyes under a summer-weight western hat set her heart to jumping just like mad Bloodthirsty Black when he shook off lesser handlers. But sex appeal had nothing to do with her mission.

      All she needed was a man who could hang on for eight seconds. Was that so much to ask?

      Maybe hanging on wasn’t what Laredo wanted—by the look on his face, she’d completely startled him with her announcement—but matters being what they were, she’d have to take the chance that his gentlemanly instincts would overcome his shock.

      Their last bull rider had backed out after the Never Lonely Cut-N-Gurls sank their claws into him, filling his ears with stories. Katy had a vague idea what stories might be told in the salon across the street. Remembering her ex-fiancé, Stanley, wrapped around her ex-best friend, Becky, in the bridal changing room in the church, she had an inkling they were bedtime stories.

      She eyed Laredo with eyes that missed nothing, and realized that if the Never Lonely girls had set an all-out campaign for the previous rider the Lonely Hearts girls had sent into the arena, Laredo had about a sixty-minute shelf life before he was discovered by the enemy.

      And lured away.

      Temptation must be avoided at all costs.

      Because Miss Delilah, the owner of the Lonely Hearts Salon, really, really needed a champion. Katy’s boss—and rescuer—Delilah, was looking for something big, something miraculous to happen for her salon. It housed the closest thing to real family Katy had ever known. So unless he turned her down, something big and miraculous was what Laredo Jefferson was going to be, Katy determined, staring up at him as he stared down at her, apparently rooted to the floor in his big boots. If she weren’t so desperate, she’d have time to appreciate the scenery, but as it was, time was limited.

      Please let him say yes, she prayed, gazing up into those beautiful, stunned eyes.

      Or at least don’t let him shrug her off like the crazy woman she knew she must seem to be. She’d never had much luck with men—in fact, her ex-fiancé was right now enjoying her ex-best friend’s thong in the south of France on a honeymoon Katy had planned—but, she wasn’t really frigid. She was certain her heart was warmer than an ice cube, no matter what Stanley said. Being a virgin wasn’t a crime…naiveté was unfortunate, perhaps, but it wasn’t prissy, uncaring virtue she’d been wearing like a steel-plated hymen. It was just…innocence.

      Or maybe, she thought suddenly, as she dimly realized Laredo had gorgeous dark-coffee-colored eyes that were dilated and focused on her with a heat matched only by the sun outside, maybe it was uncertainty that had kept her a virgin.

      Uncertainty may have frozen her once, but today was a new day, and Laredo was not Stanley. She took a deep breath and forced her best cajoling tone. “So, what do you say, cowboy?” she asked softly.

      “Little lady,” he finally said, finding the voice she’d shocked out of him. “We have a problem.”

      Her throat dried out. A problem. That didn’t sound like a yes, did it? She could feel all her sister stylists watching them, could feel their breath held as tightly in their chests as hers was. “Problem?”

      His eyes softened as he nodded. “Would you care to talk about it, maybe outside?” he asked.

      Slowly she released his sleeve, which she’d been clutching since she’d dragged him inside the salon. “All right, Laredo.” She glanced around at everyone in the salon. “I’ll be right back.”

      Not towing a hero, maybe, and minus her paltry self-confidence. Not that her self-confidence was the main thing, of course. If Laredo couldn’t be the hero they were looking for, then time was paramount. They’d have to find another hero.

      The rodeo was in four days, and someone had to ride their bull. Lord only knew she’d fantasized about riding it herself, to save Delilah from her sister, Marvella, who owned the competing salon across the street. Marvella’s salon had just about finished off Miss Delilah’s honest way of work.

      Because, rumor had it, it wasn’t just a close shave being sold across the street by the Never Lonely girls, which left Miss Delilah with very few clients indeed. She’d had to let half her staff go last month. Fortunately, Union Junction had welcomed the nine newcomers. Yet, how cruel of Marvella to deliberately set out to ruin her own sister!

      Not yet, Katy told herself, as Laredo closed the salon door behind them. Not if she had anything to do with it.

      Outside, the sun shone brightly on the pavement. If it was possible, Laredo looked even more handsome in bright light.

      Flirting skills. Enticement. Clearly, she was lacking in some womanly fundamentals, she decided. Because Becky, her ex-best friend, who even now was no doubt having her thong removed by the apparently lusty Stanley Katy had never known, would have roped, tied and thrown Laredo to the ground, all without doing much more than smiling. Rolling her hips. Showing pretty knees beneath her daily miniskirt parade.

      Becky would have had a yes out of Laredo before he’d even drawn another breath.

      That didn’t mean she was sexless or frigid, Katy assured herself. It just meant she hadn’t ever tried flirting. She didn’t get an F just because she didn’t take the course.

      She took a deep breath, marshaled up her best Barbie smile, widened her eyes and sucked in her stomach so her breasts would at least marginally appear through her linen ankle-length dress—a move she was copying straight from the Never Lonely Cut-N-Gurl handbook. Her posture thrown off by the sudden