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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. Other men want a pretty woman. My twin wants a head-and-neck rearrangement from an animal born to hate him. Makes perfect sense to me.”

Ranger chuckled. “If Laredo’s suffering a crisis, does that mean you are too, Tex?”

“Just because Archer’s spending all his time writing to a Nicole Kidman look-alike in Australia, does that mean you’re burning up the stationery with Byronic sonnets?” Tex jutted his chin. “Pull your head out, Ranger. Being twins does not mean we’re split halves of the same person, as you very well know!”

Bicker, bitch, battle. For a moment Laredo thought his whole big fantasy of being a hero might go flushing downstream, until Katy Goodnight rounded the corner, bearing a basket with a cherry-printed cloth napkin inside. Instantly his whole day brightened. “Hi, Katy,” he said with a big grin he couldn’t control.

“Hi, Laredo,” she said with a smile, before turning to his brothers. “And another Laredo,” she said to Tex. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have forgotten your name since I met you only a month ago, but I do remember your face,” she said to Ranger.

“Well, that’s all that’s important,” he said gallantly. “If a pretty gal just remembers my face—”

“Howdy, fellas,” said another female voice.

They all turned as Hannah Hotchkiss came into view, carrying a basket decorated with blueberry sprigs. “This is Hannah,” Laredo began, then ceased his introduction when he realized Ranger had nearly swallowed his teeth as she smiled up into his face. “Ranger,” Laredo said sternly, “this is Katy’s best friend.”

“We brought you a snack,” Hannah said. “We didn’t know you had company, Laredo. But we have plenty.”

Ranger took the basket from her and peeked inside. “Mmm. Cookies and strawberries. My favorite.” He pulled Hannah with him until they were off by themselves.

Laredo rolled his eyes at Tex. “Did you have to bring him?”

“Oh, well. He can amuse himself now.” Tex smiled at Katy. “How’ve you been, anyway?”

“Just busy. What brings you to Lonely Hearts Station?”

“We came to give Laredo some tip—”

“They just stopped by to say hello,” Laredo said.

“It’s nice of you to check on your twin. Is it true that twins are really close?” Katy asked.

“No,” Laredo said.

Tex laughed. “We’re fraternal in mind-set, you might say. I’m the settled one, Laredo is the wild one. If one of us was ever in a fistfight at school, the teachers didn’t bother to check which one of us it was. They just automatically called Mason and said, ‘Come get Laredo.”’

“It wasn’t quite like that,” Laredo said, getting more annoyed with his twin by the second. “I wasn’t a hooligan.”

“I grow roses,” Tex said.

“Oh, I love roses,” Katy replied.

The dreamy tone in her voice as she stared into his twin’s eyes was almost more than Laredo could stomach. Her reaction was the same as every other woman’s when Tex mentioned those stupid roses. Clearly, the roses were a conversational prop Tex employed just to get a woman’s attention—he probably grew the stupid things just to get on women’s good sides. “Okay, enough with the flowery stuff. Can we get on with the lesson?”

“Lesson?” Katy repeated.

“Yeah, I’m teaching Tex everything I know about bulls.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything,” Katy said, her voice innocent.

Tex snickered, and Laredo made a mental note to punch him later. “I know a few things,” he said, trying to hang on to his bravado. Something about Katy just got him so mixed up and confused! He wanted to brag in front of her, wanted to strut his stuff just a little, but somehow he kept goofing it up.

“What Laredo means,” Hannah said, as she and Ranger moved back to the circle, “is that he knows more about Bloodthirsty Black. He’s filling Tex in on the history.”

“That’s right.” Laredo straightened with a grateful glance at Hannah. “History’s important.”

“Yeah, we all remember your report card,” Ranger said.

Silence descended. “Excuse me,” Tex said. “I’m going to go find a gents’.”

He left, and the conversational void stretched. Laredo frowned at Ranger, who sighed.

“Now, just what is it about this bull we need to know?” Ranger said, clearly deciding to leave off the sibling rivalry and let Laredo get his neck broken if he was determined to do so.

“He pulls to the left,” a voice said. “And then, just when you lean, he jerks to the right with a mean midair kick. Every time.”

All four of them whirled to look at the woman who’d spoken. Laredo felt his jaw go slack, and heard Ranger’s jaw hit the pavement with a resounding thunk.

This woman was simply stunning. As fresh and cute as Katy was, as punky-funky cute as Hannah was, this woman would set records for head-snapping stares.

Beside him, he could feel Katy stiffen.