Angus climbed down from his truck, plunked his cowboy hat on his head and cringed at the loud music shaking the tin roof of the Ugly Stick Saloon.

Colin joined him. “You don’t think she’ll sell the ranch, do you?”

“The ranch is in Mom’s name. She can do anything she wants with it.” He hoped and prayed she wouldn’t sell, but who knew what she would do after the way she’d left them earlier.

A stream of women had lined up at the door to get in.

Colin grinned. “At least she didn’t have to twist my arm to come out on ladies’ night. It’s not that I don’t love women; it’s just that I love all of them. I always say, why get stuck with one when you can enjoy the lot?” He settled his hat on his head and smiled. “This’ll be fun.”

Angus’s gut tightened as he neared the crowd. It wouldn’t be fun for him. “I’m not good at this.”

“It’s easy. All you have to do is be a good listener. Nod a few times and crack your face every once in a while with a smile.” Colin patted Angus’s back. “Mom’s right. You’ve spent far too much time with your horses.”

“I like horses,” Angus grumbled.

“And you don’t like women?” Colin puffed out his chest. “A man has needs.”

Angus shrugged. “I get my needs satisfied with a widow woman in Amarillo, once a month when I go to the horse auction. I get what I want, she gets what she wants, no strings. It’s perfect.”

Colin shook his head. “Angus, big brother, you really do need to get a life.”

Angus glared at his brother. “And you’re much better? You’re with a different woman every week? How’s that better? At that rate, you’ll never marry and have kids. Mom wants you to settle down with one woman, not a harem.”

“I haven’t met the one woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. How does Mom expect me find her in two months when I’ve been dating women for the past eight years and have yet to even narrow it down to twenty?”

As they neared the bar, the woman at the back of the line waiting to get in spotted them and squealed and shouted, “Here come the cowboys!”

The rest of the women turned and made the same screeching noise as the first. As one, the crowd of females rushed toward them, feral looks blazing from their eyes.

Angus would have turned and run if Colin hadn’t hooked his arm.

“You should see your face.” Colin laughed out loud. “Come on, don’t be chicken. They’re just a bunch of women.”

“But they’re eyeing us like sides of beef.”

“Enjoy it!” Colin let the ladies grab his hands and usher him through to the door.

Angus was swept along behind him and practically shoved through the entrance into the Ugly Stick Saloon.

The crowd of ladies inside was even wilder than the one outside. Angus and Colin were pushed, shoved and pinched as they inched through the mob to the bar.

“I can’t do this,” Angus said again as his ass was pinched and some really daring woman grabbed his package. “Hey!”

The woman winked. “Just testing the goods.” She turned to her friend. “That one’s mine.”

“Move aside, girls.” Audrey Anderson, five months pregnant and barely showing, waded through the crowd toward them, hooked Colin’s arm and then Angus’s. “Let them through. Give these fine cowboys some air to breathe.” She chuckled and led them toward the bar and two empty stools. “Have a seat, gentlemen. The fun begins in a few minutes. What can I get you? The drinks are on the house for the cowboys tonight.”

“Whiskey. Make it a double.” Angus needed all the help he could get.

“Angus, when are you going to sell me that quarter horse stud?” Jackson Gray Wolf was seated on the stool beside Angus. He set down his beer and held out his hand.

Angus took it, glad for a little testosterone in the sea of feminine laughter and rabid glances. “When are you ready to pay an arm and a leg for him?”

“I’m ready. I just sold some stock and made a pile of money. I can afford him.”

Angus shook his friend’s hand. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not in the market to sell him anytime soon. But it’s always good to see you, Jackson.”

“That’s a shame.” Jackson turned and shook hands with Colin. “Your mother called to let us know you were on your way. Thanks for coming. Glad to hear she’s still cancer-free.”

Angus was still angry at his mother’s ultimatum, but he couldn’t be mad long. The woman had been through so much with her husband’s death and then a two-year-long battle with breast cancer. She was tough, but her family meant everything to her. Angus could understand her desire to see them all settled with wives and children of their own. She probably thought she wouldn’t be around forever and that they needed someone to see them through hard times.

Angus stared out at the mob of women. Searching for a wife in this insanity wasn’t his idea of how to go about doing it.

Jackson grinned. “Feeling outnumbered?”

“You bet.” If Angus were prone to panic attacks, he’d swear he was on the verge of one.

Jackson shook his head and ran a hand through his thick black hair. The man commanded attention with the high cheekbones, strong jaw and piercing eyes of his Kiowa ancestors. “We had two of our cowboys call in sick. With this crowd, it might have caused a riot. When your mother called and said you were coming, I wanted to reach through the phone and hug the woman.”

Though Angus loved his mother and was glad her cancer was in remission, he didn’t feel much like hugging her. She’d condemned him to a night of screaming females, all wanting to touch him and pinch his ass. Had they no shame? “I’m here for the whiskey.” He’d have a couple drinks, maybe a burger from the grill, hang out a while and head home. That ought to appease his mother and maybe she’d calm down and quit the crazy talk.

Sell the Rafter M Ranch? Over his cold, dead body.

He leaned over to Colin and whispered, “How much money you got in the bank?”

“Not enough to buy a three-thousand-acre ranch. And neither do you.”

“If we put our savings together—”

“We might have a small down payment. But what bank would loan us the amount it would take to buy three thousand acres of prime range?” Colin shook his head and lifted his glass to his lips. “The odds would be more in our favor of finding a wife in two months than scrounging up a sizeable down payment. And holy hell, think of the monthly mortgage bill that would eat up every bit of profit either one of us could make off that place.”

Yup, they were screwed. Angus raised his glass and downed the whiskey, welcoming the slow burn it made all the way to his belly.

Jackson leaned toward the brothers. “Get ready, they’re about to start.”

Angus, along with the crowd of women, turned toward the stage where Audrey stood with a microphone in her hand. “Ladies and, er, Ladies!”

The women in the crowd whooped and hollered.

“I want to thank you all for coming out and bringing your hard-earned cash to the Ugly Stick Saloon’s Annual Cowboy Auction. This year’s proceeds will benefit the county women’s shelter.”

Another round of whoops and hollers.

Angus nearly slid off his chair and left. Already his ears rang, and he couldn’t hear himself think.

“Ha!” Colin laughed. “Trust Mom to make this night interesting.”

“Yeah, well, I’m ready to head home.” He couldn’t understand any man who’d be willing to put himself on display like a prized bull on the auctioneer’s block. The man would have to be insane, desperate or have a pair of iron balls.

“You can’t go now. We have to see who they suckered into being auctioned off tonight. This’ll be a hoot.” Colin sat back, a grin on his face, his whiskey in his hand.

Charli Sutton, Connor Mason’s fiancée and Audrey’s assistant manager of the Ugly Stick Saloon, took the mic from Audrey. She shook back her mane of blond hair and grinned. “Who’s ready for some beefcake?”

Angus could swear the noise emitted from all those women actually lifted the roof of the building. He fought the urge to cover his ears.

“Our first cowboy up for bid has a thirty-two-inch waist, is six feet tall, has black hair and gray eyes. He’s offered to escort the winning bidder on two dates to the winner’s choice of locations. This handsome cowboy grew up on a ranch, but prefers his horses with wings. Please give it up for the sexy resident flyboy, Jake Maddox!”

Charli stepped aside to the crushing applause as Jake Maddox swaggered out on the stage in jeans, cowboy hat, boots and a blue chambray shirt. Raunchy stripper music played and Jake, whom Angus considered a friend, strutted around the stage, tipped his hat to the crowd of women and winked. Then he unbuttoned his shirt, one button at a time, pulled it off his back and tossed it into the crowd.

Like a shark feeding frenzy, the women fought over the shirt, ripping it to shreds.

Angus couldn’t bear to watch his friend’s shame as the bidding started and the women holding numbered paddles practically foamed at the mouth in their excitement to win two dates with Jake. Poor bastard.

While the bidding continued, Angus leaned across the counter and held up his glass to get the bartender’s attention.

Libby Jones hurried over. “Another whiskey?”

Angus shook his head. The way Colin was knocking back the drinks, someone would have to drive him home. “No. I’m designated driver. Water would be great. And something for a headache, if you have it.”

Libby set him up with a glass of iced water and a couple of generic ibuprofen pills. As he chugged them down, the flash of auburn hair at the other end of the bar caught his attention, reminding him of a girl he knew from, hell, how many years ago? Six? Seven?

His pulse leaped and he tried to see her around the other people crowding up to the bar for another drink. It couldn’t be the beautiful, carefree college girl he’d fallen for that summer between her junior and senior years of college.

Gwen Graves.

That had been the year his father died. He’d given up his job at the firm in Dallas and returned home to run the ranch.

One day he’d been in Temptation collecting supplies and feed. He’d literally run into her at the diner. He’d gone in for a quick bite to eat. As he left, he’d turned to say goodbye to a friend and opened the door in Gwen’s face, knocking her over. When he’d apologized she’d told him he could make it up to her by buying her a milkshake. That had been the beginning of something he’d spent the next seven years trying to forget.

They’d seen each other every day for an entire month. She’d taught him how to two-step at the Ugly Stick Saloon. He’d tried to teach her how to ride a horse western style, but she’d preferred riding double behind him, her arms around his waist.

She’d gone with him out to tend cattle and mend fences, helping him by handing him a hammer and nails. Her smile rivaled the sun, the light smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose adding to her sweet girl-next-door appeal, and her body…

He could picture her as if it were yesterday. One hot day, they’d gone to the creek to cool off in the natural pool shaded by willow trees. He’d watered the horse and turned to find her standing naked on the rock ledge overlooking the pool’s smooth surface.

“Last one in is a rotten egg!” She winked, trotted over to the edge and dove in, swam to the middle and flipped over onto her back, her bare breasts gleaming in the dappled sunlight finding its way through the tree branches. “Feels so good.”

To this day, his throat locked up and he fought to swallow at the image of her smooth white breasts tipped with tantalizing rosy areolas, half-submerged in the water, her smile urging him to join her. That particular memory was indelibly etched into his mind.

The woman at the end of the counter only resembled Gwen by the color of her hair.

When he got a better look, he realized it couldn’t be her. Her face was perfectly made up and she wore a light-gray business suit. She appeared to be more interested in her conversation with Mona Daley, Temptation’s beauty shop owner, than in the bidding war that had begun over Jake.

Angus wondered if the woman in the business suit was single. Then again, he hadn’t had much in common with the women he’d met when he’d worked in Dallas at an architectural firm. They’d all been too uptight, wearing narrow pencil skirts and high heels. He’d much rather be with a woman comfortable in jeans and cowboy boots.

Like Gwen.

He sighed.

Ah, Gwen. Timing couldn’t have been better or worse. He’d needed her joyous spirit and love of life that summer. His father’s death had been a huge blow to the family. Without giving it a second thought, Angus gave up his dreams of being in charge of building incredible skyscrapers, to return to the ranch and help out his grieving mother. With one brother gone, the other in college, it had been up to him to take over.

When Gwen left, Angus had every intention of going after her. But circumstances and his mother’s fight with breast cancer put the kibosh on that plan. He couldn’t expect Gwen to put her life on hold, waiting for him. She was a young, vibrant woman on the verge of graduating college and starting a new career. He’d only hold her back.

Since that summer, Angus hadn’t been interested in any other woman. None of them had Gwen’s smile or her beautiful hazel eyes—gold one minute and green the next. The thought of starting all over and putting his heart out there again held no appeal to him. It hurt too much.

“Sold! The two dates with the handsome Jack Maddox go to bidder number 549 for one thousand dollars. Congratulations, and thank you for your donation to the women’s shelter.”

The women clapped and cheered, patting the winner on the back.

Audrey emerged from the crowd, grinning. “Wasn’t that great? One thousand dollars!”

Jackson smiled and pulled her between his knees. “That’s great, sweetheart. Shouldn’t you be off your feet?”

She cupped his cheek in her palm. “I’m fine. I think the baby likes all this noise. She’s been kicking ever since the bidding started.”

“He will never be one of the cowboys strutting across that stage.” Jackson kissed the tip of her nose and caressed her hips.

Audrey ran her fingers through his hair and cupped the back of his neck. “Oh, come on, you’ve done your share of stripping for the cause.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Jackson protested. “I was stripped.”

“You say potato. I say tomato.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet, her eyes gleaming wickedly. “Could you help me out in the storeroom? I’m sure there’s a box I just can’t lift.” With a wink to Libby behind the bar, she dragged Jackson away. Although dragged wasn’t exactly how he went.

The man looked more than willing to go.

“That’s what we need,” Colin commented.

“What’s that?” Angus asked.

“A relationship like Audrey and Jackson have.”

“Those are so few and far between.” Angus slid off the stool. “Ready to go?”

Colin’s brows wrinkled. “Come on, Angus. Stay. I’m getting a kick out of watching this whole process.” He glanced around the room. “I can’t wait to see the next schmuck they conned into this.”

“Might be worth it if they were auctioning off a cook. With Mom on strike, we’re going to suffer.”

“Shh. Charli’s about to announce the next cowboy.” Colin leaned forward, a grin spreading across his face. “Gotta see who will be the next sucker.”

“Ladies, this next hunkilicious man is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some lucky woman. He’s tall at six feet two inches.”

“Ahhh,” the crowd sighed as one.

“He’s got black hair and amazing gray eyes.” Charli dragged it out, spurring their anticipation.

Angus shook his head. Somewhere behind the stage or in the crowd, a cowboy was probably shaking in his boots, dreading the moment his name was announced and he was paraded around the stage like a pony.

“Descended from strong Scottish warlords, he’s a true-blue, honest-to-goodness, rough-around-the-edges rancher with big, calloused hands.” Charli paused and winked at the women. “You know what that means.”

The women screamed and clapped, beer sloshed and laughter followed. Every numbered paddle in the room fluttered.

Colin elbowed Angus in the ribs. “I could swear they’re describing you.”

Angus leaned forward, his heart stuttering against his ribs. He drew in a breath and held it.

“Ladies, our next offering will be for not one, not two, not three dates with this hunka hunka burnin’ love. The lucky winner gets four dates with a man some would call a horse whisperer, a real-life cowboy, boots and all.” Charli stared across the room, straight into his eyes. “One of Texas’s most eligible bachelors, Angus McFarlan!”

Colin shouted, “Hot damn!” Then he laughed so hard he doubled over, a hand pressed to his side, and fell off his stool.

How could this be? “I didn’t sign up for this,” Angus said, but wasn’t heard over the shouts and catcalls from the hundreds of horny women in the crowd.

Still sputtering, Colin pointed a finger at him. “You should see your face. I can’t believe she did this.”

“Who?” Angus would like to get his hands around the throat of whoever had played this rotten trick on him.

“Who do you think? Mom!” Colin slapped Angus on the back. “You’re in it now. These women won’t let you back out.”

“Come on up to the stage, Angus.” Charli crooked her finger and grinned. “The ladies want to see what they’re getting for their money.”

Angus turned to run, but was blocked by Greta Sue, the bar’s bouncer.

“Come on, cowboy, we’ll get you there in one piece.” Greta Sue grabbed his hand in her manlike grip and charged forward like a linebacker breaking through the defensive line of an opposing football team.

Angus tried to free his hand, but Greta Sue held tight. Short of hurting her, he had to go along.

Women touched, pinched and kissed his cheeks as he passed through the crowd. One of them caught hold of his shirt and wouldn’t let go. With Greta Sue pulling him one direction and his shirt going the other, the buttons gave, popping one at a time until the last one ripped free of the fabric. The shirt came off as he was pushed and shoved from behind, with Greta Sue leading the charge in the front.

The only good thing about making it to the stage was that Greta Sue released his hand and the women couldn’t pinch his ass. Angus stood, glaring at the rabid females, rubbing his butt and wishing he were anywhere but there. The exit seemed so far away. He spun, hoping to duck out the back of the stage, but Greta Sue stood behind him, her arms crossed, feet spread.

He could knock her down and make a run for it, but his mama had taught him better than to hit a woman, no matter how manly she might be. Getting through the crowd to the exit was not even the slimmest possibility.

Charli stood to the side, with that damned silly grin on her face. “What will you give for four dates with this mass of purely masculine muscle?”

Angus closed his eyes and prayed no one would bid. That he’d be allowed to walk free of this huge embarrassment. When he got home, he’d have a long talk with his mother about volunteering him for charity events he had no desire to be a part of.

“Five hundred dollars!” a woman shouted, waving her paddle from the middle of the room.

Angus’s hopes for a humiliating but commitment-free escape melted away as the first paddle rose high in the air.

“Do I hear seven-fifty?” Charli prompted.

“Yup!” Another paddle shot into the air.

“One thousand. Do I hear one thousand dollars?” Charli barely got the words out before another paddle rose.

“Me!” the woman cried out.

Angus stared out into the mass of eager female faces. “Ms. Fenton?” Was that the gray-haired librarian he used to visit once a month as a kid?

“That’s right, sweetie, I might be old, but I’m not dead.” She winked at him. “At least not yet. And I’d like a little beefcake to keep me warm for four delicious dates.”

Angus’s eyes widened. Holy shit. What was it about a cowboy auction that got the young and old single women to come out of the woodwork and blow their hard-earned cash on a few measly dates?

“Fifteen hundred anyone?” Charli stared around the room.

Angus did too, wondering if anyone would outbid Ms. Fenton and rescue him from four dates with a woman old enough to be his grandmother but with a wicked grin that frankly had Angus quivering in his boots.

The bidding stalled and Angus had to do something to get it going again, or he would be spending the next month taking Old Lady Fenton out to dinner. Not that she wasn’t nice and all, but the way she was rubbing her hands together made him as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Desperation drove him to do something he would never have done in a million years.

Angus tightened his abs and shoved a hand through his thick hair, pausing like the models and weightlifters did to show off the hard-earned six-pack definition across his belly. He hadn’t gained those muscles in a weight room. Tossing hay bales and lifting heavy fence posts did that to a man over the years.

God, he felt silly, but the crowd surged forward and eyes widened.

“One thousand going once…” Charli started.

“Fifteen hundred!” The woman who’d shouted was probably in her forties.

Angus nodded. Better. He couldn’t expect the younger ladies to have that kind of money. Dating a cougar wouldn’t be bad. Hopefully, she wouldn’t expect more than the four dates and he’d be done. Free to spend time with his horses.

“Turn around!” another woman shouted.

“Come on, Angus,” Charli said. “Turn around and let the women see the whole package.”

He frowned at her.

“It’s for a good cause,” Charli cajoled.

“Come on, Angus,” Colin’s deep voice called out over the others. “Show ’em whatcha got.”

Angus made a slow turn and paused with his back to the crowd, feeling incredibly stupid.

“Fifteen hundred going once…” Charlie gave a long pause, “…going twice…”

“Five thousand dollars!”

Angus spun toward the sound of utter insanity, searching the faces for the one woman who’d shouted.

Every face in the crowd turned as well, and they all seemed to be looking at the lady standing beside Mona at the bar. The auburn-haired woman who’d, for a brief moment, reminded Angus of someone who’d stolen his heart so many years ago. His chest tightened, and he squinted against the stage lights, but couldn’t quite make out her face.

“Sold!”