Ranger's Wild Woman

And it wasn’t any easier knowing that Cissy had kissed Ranger, too.

“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT,” Marvella said to her sister, Delilah, as she held out Cissy’s farewell note. “I hope you’re happy with running off my prize girl.”

“I didn’t run off anyone,” Delilah said with a shrug. “I lost a girl, too.”

“Not like Cissy. Cissy brought in more customers than any other hairstylist I had.”

“And it wasn’t for her ability with hair,” Delilah said. “Not that I’m partial to one of my girls more than another—they’re all daughters to me—but Hannah’s spunk is going to be missed around here. Far as I can see, Cissy wasn’t any more special than Hannah, so quit acting like you lost something more valuable than I did. Anyway, I knew nothing about their plans, as you can see.” She held out the goodbye note from Hannah, but Marvella ignored it.

“I should sue you for lost business.”

Delilah sniffed. “Try it. Then you’ll have to reveal exactly what your business includes, Marvella. Nobody’s quite sure exactly what all’s going on at your salon or why you need a monster-size heated spa.”

“Massages and aromatherapy, just like the big city,” Marvella told her. “Nothing fancy. Just pretty girls and relaxation at the end of a hard day for the menfolk. Don’t make it sound so sinister.”

Delilah had her doubts that it was so innocent, but that wasn’t the point at the moment.

“One of my girls said she saw a truck stop to pick up Cissy and Hannah,” Marvella revealed. “It was too dark to be certain, but Valentine said it looked like Ranger Jefferson’s truck. Now, you can say that’s a coincidence, that there’s a lot of trucks around these parts, but we all had a good look at what the Jefferson boys drove last month. They all flaunt those extended-cab, super-size, my-wheels-are-bigger-than-yours stud machines. And I want you to know two things,” Marvella said flatly. “One: I aim to find my best girl and bring her back. Two: If I find out it was a Jefferson boy behind the wheel of that truck, I’m holding you personally responsible since you brought those boys here in the first place. This town’s not been the same since you went on your little sightseeing junket and came back towing those grateful cowboys. You’ve barely convinced me you weren’t behind this little midnight rendezvous, but I’ll still blame you if Ranger Jefferson snuck off with Cissy.”

“Sister,” Delilah said softly, “I haven’t had much to do with you since you accused me of stealing your husband. Now you’re claiming I had something to do with your best shop girl heading out. Frankly, I’m done talking to you. I can go another twenty or so years before we speak again.”

Delilah closed the door, pulling down the blind. Sighing, she walked into the kitchen where Jerry, her truck driver friend-in-need sat, his face set in sympathetic lines.

“Did you hear that?” Delilah asked.

“Every word.” He patted the chair next to him. “Sit down and let me warm your coffee.”

She did, appreciating his willingness to care for her. “You’re always here for me, Jerry. How lucky I am that you came to my shop instead of Marvella’s.”

“Naw. How lucky I am,” he said, placing the warmed-up coffee cup in front of her. “Aromatherapy gets up my nose.”

Delilah laughed. “You wouldn’t have noticed it with all the girls in skimpy outfits just waiting to fix you up.”

“Nope,” he said, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. “I got little enough under my cap that I don’t need a cut often, and I can trim my own beard. But the best part of being here is the chocolate chip cookies, and the coffee.” He gave her a twinkling eye as she lifted a brow at him. “Though the company’s what really brings me back every week. Couldn’t find that across the street.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you. I needed to hear you say that.” Glancing at the note in her hand, she said, “So. I’m down a girl. I guess that’s a good thing, considering I had to cut my staff in half two months ago.”

“Heard those gals you had to let go are rocking it in Union Junction. Stopped through there last week to check on them, and every last one of them is happy in the salon they started. And the Jefferson brothers are fixing up the house for them real nice.”

Delilah nodded. “That just leaves me to figure out why Hannah suddenly up and left me. It’s just so unlike her to be ditzy.”

“Think it was the love bug.” Jerry emptied his coffee cup.

“What love bug?”

“The one she caught for Ranger Jefferson when he was here helping Laredo ride Bloodthirsty Black last month.”

“I didn’t know she’d caught a bug,” Delilah said, surprised. “Seemed like she was totally focused on helping Katy metamorphasize into the woman-she-could-be to catch Laredo.”

Jerry shrugged. “And at some point, Ranger got under Hannah’s skin. Only Hannah thought Ranger liked Cissy, so she gave him a wide berth. Hannah’s a firecracker when she’s made up her mind something’s one way or the other.”

“But now Cissy’s gone and Hannah’s gone, so that means they struck out together. I just don’t imagine the two of them would willingly share a truck with Ranger Jefferson. Marvella can’t be right about that.”

The phone rang in the kitchen, and Delilah answered it.

“Hey, Mason. Fine, everything’s fine here.” Her eyes widened as she listened, giving Jerry a stunned glance. “No, Ranger’s not here. Neither is Archer. Haven’t seen either of them. Okay. Will do. See you this weekend.”

She hung up the phone. “Malfunction Junction’s missing two cowboys. Twins. Mason sounded like he was standing in a pot of boiling water.”

Jerry started laughing.

“It’s not funny,” Delilah said, her good mood totally shot. “The four of them’ll not last long in the same truck. It’s a volatile mixture, and I wish Hannah was back here where she belongs before she gets her feelings hurt!”

“DOES DELILAH KNOW you’ve gone?”

Hannah’s eyes met Ranger’s in the rearview mirror of the truck. Dark and expressive eyes. She should have been able to read his thoughts.

It annoyed her that she couldn’t. She’d never carried on a conversation with Ranger from behind, and she couldn’t measure him without being able to see the rest of his face or at least his posture—it was hard enough to feel comfortable around him when she could meet him face forward. Prickling ran down her arms and tingled her neck.

“Hannah,” he said. “Does Delilah—”

“Heard you,” she replied quickly, realizing his tone was telling her a lot, mainly that he thought she was ignoring him. “I left Delilah a note.”

The dark gaze left the road and met hers in the mirror again for the briefest of moments. “Did something happen to make you leave?”

I fell in love with you and had to get away from here knowing you didn’t feel the same about me. And did you have to kiss Cissy?

Dumb question. There wasn’t a man alive who could resist Cissy.

That didn’t mean she had to be Heartbroken Hannah. “Did you leave Mason a note?” she snapped back.

His eyes hooded.

“Then I assume nothing in particular happened to make you leave.” She settled herself in her seat and stared out the window. Beside her, Archer cleared his throat.

“I didn’t leave a note. I signed my name to the pithy message Ranger left beside Mason’s plate,” he offered.

She turned to stare at him, as did Cissy. Archer shrugged. “Seemed like Ranger said everything that needed to be said.”

“I said I was going to join the military,” Ranger stated. “Did you actually read it before you John Hancocked it? Not writing your own note seems rather lazy, by the way, for a man who nearly wore his fingers out hitting the send button to Australia.”

“Easy, bro,” Archer said mildly. “Ye ol’ love life is none of thy concern.”

Hannah shook her head, perplexed. “Besides Mason who works hard, and Frisco Joe who figured it out, and now Laredo, who’s moved to North Carolina to be with Katy like a real man would, are all of you pretty much rascals?”

“And relationship-dysfunctional?” Cissy put in. “It’s almost scary that the two of you could be in the same truck and not know it.”

“How was I to know that my twin was a stowaway?”

Cissy shrugged. “I heard twins had some special extrasensory perception for each other. Y’all seem to be blocking your ESP.”

“Heaven forbid he could have just asked for a ride,” Ranger complained.

“Heaven forbid you could have offered,” Archer rejoined.

“Did I know you’d be up for the military?”

“Did you think to ask?” Archer demanded. “Why did you think you could leave me behind with His Highness the Hardheaded?”

Cissy and Hannah both turned to face Archer again.

“Well, that’s what Mimi calls him,” Archer said sheepishly. “Mason, that is, before she quit hanging around our place.”

“She probably had to leave out of self-defense,” Hannah said. “Your family isn’t exactly easy for a woman to bear.”

In the mirror’s reflection, she saw Ranger’s eyebrows peak over his eyes. “How would you know?”

Caught, because she didn’t want to admit that her feelings had been hurt by Ranger, Hannah said, “Keep your eyes on the road, cowboy. All of us want to reach our varied destinations safe and sound.”

“And I want to talk about your destination,” Ranger stated. “Where exactly are you two going?”

Cissy turned completely to face Hannah. “I don’t know that it’s such a good idea to tell him. They’re just going to say that we don’t know what we’re doing.”

“You said it for me,” Ranger pointed out. “I think it, I know it’s true and now you’ve put it out in the open. We’re all prepared for my reaction, so just say it: What’s your end-of-the-line destination?”

“I called a friend of mine who runs a gambling riverboat in Mississippi,” Hannah said. “Cissy and I are going to be hostesses on the boat. Well, I’m going to be a card dealer. I got Cissy a job as a hostess.”

Both men started laughing, immensely amused by the revelation. “Going to the good ship, Lollipop,” Archer sang, until Hannah’s annoyed expression brought his tune to an end.

Ranger turned the truck at an exit ramp, parking at a truck weigh station and rest area. “Okay,” he said sternly. “All ladies out of my truck. I ain’t taking you any farther than this.”

Cissy hesitated, but Hannah popped right out of the truck. “Fine,” she said. “I can get a better-looking, more polite and chivalrous ride, anyway. One that doesn’t poke his nose in my business and then laugh.”

“Archer laughed, I just—”

“Same thing. All you Jeffersons are alike. It’s your way or the highway. Well, I,” she said with a deliberate glare at Ranger as she tugged her leopard-print duffel from the truck, “don’t even think you’re that hot of a kisser.”

“Huh?” Ranger and Archer said at the same time.

“Now wait a minute—” Ranger began.

“Kisser?” Archer stared at his twin. “Did you kiss her?”

“Technically, it was a peck,” Ranger began.

“He pecked both of us, then,” Cissy inserted. “Only my kiss went beyond the peck category, I feel certain.”

“You kissed her, too? And they’re both riding in the same vehicle with you?” Archer grinned over the seat at his twin. “No wonder the atmosphere in here has been decidedly icy. Brr.”

Hannah didn’t want to hear about the kissing Cissy had gotten from Ranger, but knowing that the man was such a fast-and-loose kisser was the main reason she didn’t want to let her heartstrings get pulled any tighter. Obviously, her kiss hadn’t meant anything to him.

“I knew this was a bad idea. Cissy, I vote we call Jerry. Sooner or later, he’ll be by this way in his rig. We should have done that in the first place, I guess.”

Maybe, but she and Cissy had agreed between themselves that burdening anyone with their departure wasn’t fair. And, frankly, they were afraid they couldn’t say goodbye if they had to face down a couple of salons full of friends. And Cissy would have had to say goodbye to Marvella—no easy thing, considering Marvella would have thrown a fit.

But for Hannah, saying goodbye to Delilah would have been impossible. She couldn’t have said goodbye, and she wouldn’t have. In the end, she would have stayed—always captive to the hope that Ranger would return. Call. Ask her out. Remember their kiss.

Ranger crossed his arms at her, and Hannah felt her heart sink a little deeper in her chest. Did he have to be so handsome, even when he was being so dreadfully bossy? “Go,” she told him. “Head off. Don’t waste my time giving me the omnipotent eye.”

“The omnipotent eye,” Archer mused. “Isn’t that what Helga does to us when we put our boots on the coffee table?”

“Can I speak to you alone for a moment?” Ranger said to Hannah.

“I don’t see why—” she started, but Cissy gave her a shove and Ranger gave her arm a pull and she was heading off toward a picnic table with Ranger before she’d finished her sentence.

“Look,” he said, sitting her down on the plank seat. “Have you thought this through?”

She thought she heard concern in his voice, real concern, and it startled her out of her indignation. “Yes, I have. And you can stop looming over me like you know everything and what I know could fit into a thimble.”

He stared at her. “I’m not looming.”

Okay. So at over six feet he couldn’t exactly help his proportions. She’d wanted to be able to read his posture, and now she certainly could. “So. How long did you think about your road trip?”

“A while.”

“I don’t remember you mentioning it before.”

“We didn’t talk much.”

No, they hadn’t. Mostly, she’d wanted to kiss him. And that peck comment had hurt her feelings, because it had been more than that to her. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going into the military.” He gave her a most belligerent glare, daring her to laugh.

Which she did. “Okay, that’s it,” she said. “Get back behind the wheel and stop harassing me about my spur-of-the-moment plans.”

“Hang on.” He put his boot on the bench beside her and leaned forward. “I’m a man, and you’re a woman.”

She cocked a brow at him. “Continue. So far, you’re astounding me with your powers of observation.”

“What I’m saying is, it’s one thing for me to be heading off into the wild blue yonder. Joining the military is an honorable, responsible way to work through this phase of my life. You, on the other hand, are going off willy-nilly, shady-lady, to get a job as a card dealer in a floating casino. That is not a particularly admirable thing, not that I’m making any judgment calls here.” He held up a hand to ward off her rebuttal. “I just don’t know that it’s safe. And maybe you know that it’s not such a good idea, or you wouldn’t have snuck off like a thief in the night without telling Delilah.”

“You’re big-brothering me, and I don’t like it,” Hannah told him.

“Not exactly that,” he admitted. “Since I kissed you, I feel a bit more responsibility than the average Joe, I guess.”

“You called it a peck,” she reminded him, her indignation clear. “A peck. If you pecked me, what did you do to Cissy?”

“Now, Cissy,” Ranger immediately rejoined, leaning back to grin at her, “that girl can suck the lips off a man’s face. She takes a man’s breath and makes him feel that dying in her arms is a good thing.”

“Really!” Hannah hopped to her feet. “You know what? I’ve had enough of your bellyaching and your grousing. You get us to the state line, and that’ll be just fine, Ranger Jefferson. And you can just let the military have your sorry self. Maybe they can kick some sense into you.”

She headed toward the truck without waiting for him to reply. Ranger stared at her retreating red-tipped blond hair and saucy backside as she flounced off. He raised a brow. “Baby, baby,” he murmured. “I do believe that little gal is jealous.” And then he grinned.

RANGER QUIT GRINNING by the time Archer and Hannah decided they had something in common. Snug as two bugs in the back seat, they taught each other their best tricks at cheating in card games.

It was bad enough, Ranger thought sourly, that his twin was full of bad ideas and tomfoolery. Of course, it was all in the spirit of fun, under the guise of tricks, but he didn’t think it was a good idea for her to know any more tricks than she already did. Her repertoire was astonishing. Where did such a little spitfire learn so many sideways maneuvers?

Worse, he didn’t want Archer teaching her anything, card tricks notwithstanding. And he sure as hell didn’t like the repetitious, nerve-grinding, unnecessary bursts of laughter from the back seat.

Those two were becoming way too close for his comfort. And they were having way too much fun, playing reindeer games in the back seat while he sat up here like a chauffeur. Ranger’s teeth ground together. That’s what it sounded like: reindeer games. Childish. Immature. His twin was leading Hannah astray, and she was going there with a smile on her face.

“Don’t you think the two of you have played enough games?” he demanded. Cissy glanced up at him from the magazine she was reading, and he gave her a sidelong glance that was empty of the irritation he felt.

Hannah and Archer ignored him.

“Gotcha!” Hannah squealed, moving fast to grab something from Archer’s side of the truck. He moved to elude her and cards went flying over the seat and everywhere else. It was snowing diamonds and hearts, and Ranger’s temper snapped. “I can’t drive if you two are going to keep acting like monkeys in the back seat.”

Archer looked at him. “Cool it, bro. We’re not bothering you.”

Oh, they were bothering him a lot. His gaze met Hannah’s in the mirror. Ever so pointedly, knowing he could do nothing about it, to show her utter disdain for his comment about monkeys, Hannah stuck her tongue out at him.

No one else noticed, but that wasn’t the point. The woman was set on bothering him. She was going to make him pay for his remark about Cissy. He shouldn’t have said it, especially since he’d colored what happened between him and Cissy, but it was too late to take back his exploratory quest into Hannah’s jealousy. Now she was in top wild-filly form.

And that naughty pink tongue drove him nuts.

“I’d offer to drive,” Archer said, his tone not serious at all, “but it’s more fun to sit back here with Hannah. Deal, lady.”

She gave Ranger one last pointed glare in the mirror before the sound of shuffling cards shredded his nerves.

Great. The two of them were having the time of their lives. And he sat up front with Cissy Kisserton, who really hadn’t sucked the lips off his face at all.

Hannah Hotchkiss was just about the most annoying woman he’d ever met!

A burst of laughter erupted from his twin, and Ranger decided enough was enough. “I think I’ll take a break here. Give everybody a chance to stretch.” He pulled the truck alongside a historical marker, well off the highway. The road’s shoulder was thin, and below, a beautiful canyon stretched as far as he could see, dry and majestic and peaceful. Ranger felt his brain start to compress to a normal size. He took a deep breath, determining that he could forgive his twin anything. He smiled at Cissy, who had so far borne her seatmate’s bad temper without complaining.

He could even feel more jovial toward Hannah. “Let’s get a beer out of the back of the truck, and we can all sit back there and munch. We can even play some of those card games you love,” he told Hannah as kindly as he could, in an effort to be forgiving toward her for everything she’d done to him. He could be a good host. He could be fair and even-tempered. “Card games and icy beer sounds like a great combo, doesn’t it?” he asked the group at large as he clambered into the truckbed. “And could you ask for a better view?”

Hannah followed his lead, clearly not certain to what they owed his new, improved mood. He set the cooler in the middle of the truckbed, pulled out beers for everyone, closed the lid and pointed to the faux table top. “Deal,” he told her. “Any game you like.”

“I’m best at strip poker,” she told him.

He choked on his beer. It went down hard on his Adam’s apple, making him mad all over again. “Strip poker! Hannah Hotchkiss, are you trying to drive me insane? Because if you are, you’re…you’re…” He stopped when he saw the incredulous stares on Cissy’s and Archer’s faces. Belatedly, it came to him that she’d been teasing him, getting his goat. Janking his chain—which was a cross between a jerk and a hard yank.

He had to admit she’d janked him pretty good.

Well, he could jank a pretty mean chain himself. “Strip poker? Go right ahead. Deal me in, lady.”

I’ll just love seeing you lose.

Chapter Three

“I don’t think so,” Hannah said narrowly. “I really don’t trust this sudden change in you. I’ll sit in the truck. Thanks for the beer, though.” She hopped into the back seat.

Archer shrugged and joined her. “Guess I’m not in the mood, either. Maybe after a few more hours on the road.”

Cissy grabbed her beer and slid into the front seat. Ranger glared after the three of them. “Now, look,” he said. “All of you are riding in my truck, on my gas money. Archer, you’re a stowaway, and you ladies are hitchhikers. That means I get to call some of the shots.” The good mood he’d tried to work himself into was totally, completely gone.

Archer pushed his hat back. “Okay, boss. What do you want us to do, besides play cards? We’re happy to earn our keep somehow. I’ll chip in the gas money for me and the gals. How’s that?”

Ranger liked that even less. “The gas money isn’t the point.”

“What is, then?” Hannah asked, staring up at him with those ridiculously innocent eyes, and that perky hair just flying away all over her head like it had training in getting his attention.

Like Hannah and her antics with Archer. None of them understood him. Now he knew why Crockett was always moaning that no one appreciated his artistic bent or the beauty in the nudes he painted. He empathized with Bandera, who spouted Whitman like a dervish and claimed his memory-driven talent and Shakespearian oration were underrated by his brothers. He could even see why Tex got so frustrated when his brothers laughed at his buddus interruptus problem—buds that wouldn’t bloom—in their mother’s rose garden.

It hurt to be misunderstood. And he just didn’t want to say out loud what he really felt.

But he was going to have to do it. Somehow.

“I think it would be best if you and Cissy changed places,” he primly told Archer.

“Why?” everyone asked at once.

Irritation spiked his brows. “Because it would just be best for the sake of propriety.”

Archer’s expression said Ranger had lost his case with that one. “You’re beginning to sound like an idiot, bro.”

Hannah blew a huge bubble with pink gum, let it pop and blow back against her lips. How could any woman drink beer and chew bubble gum? It was weird. It was amazing. Disquieting. And it made him think about her pink tongue and her pink lips and her red-tipped dirty-blond hair. And sex.

Sex with…Hannah.

“Have you always had mental problems?” she demanded. “I’ve never heard so much nonsense in my life. How can riding in the back seat have a lack of propriety about it?”

“I can’t see you clearly,” he complained.

“We’re not doing anything exciting,” Hannah told him. “Nothing any more exciting than you and Cissy are doing. Currently.”

Maybe the edge in her voice was only heard by him, but it told him everything he needed to know. She’d been jealous of him and Cissy kissing, and now she was feeding him his own medicine with a large spoon.

Well, two could play at that game. “Never mind,” he said cheerfully. “Miss Cissy, let me help you into the seat. Comfortable? Did I tell you how much I like you in those jeans? No girl wears jeans like you do.”

And then he gave Hannah a big grin as he closed Cissy’s door.

KNOCK YOURSELF OUT, Hannah thought to herself. Play your one-man band in Cissy’s orchestra of admirers. I don’t care.