“I’m giving Bill my oldest bull,” Mina told them. “It got through the fence and damaged a young bull, again. It hurt another so badly that he had to be put down. It was either give him away or sell him for beef, and I think poor Bill would have worn black for a year. He loves that old bull.”

“Nice solution,” John Callister chuckled. “A bull who hates the competition that much is dangerous to have around,” he added more somberly.

“Yes, which is why Bill’s getting him.”

Sassy had gone to the drinks table to get ginger ale for herself and her husband, after Mina had declined. She looked out of sorts.

“What’s ailing you?” John drawled with a tender smile.

“That Merridan woman,” Sassy said curtly, glaring toward a brunette with sleek, short black hair wearing a dress that showed most of what she had. “She’s gone through two husbands and now she’s flirting with Daisy Harrington’s husband. He’s just eating it up and Daisy went toward the restroom with tears running down her cheeks.”

“Every apple barrel has a rotten apple somewhere in it,” John said. “But in case you wondered, I’m immune,” he added with a rakish grin and bent to brush his lips over Sassy’s pert nose.

She wrinkled her nose at him and laughed. “I knew that.”

To Mina, who knew women like Ida Merridan very well, that kittenish, come-hither attitude was disgusting. That it worked on men so well was unfathomable. Couldn’t they see that it was just an act? Her mother had been exactly the same, promising paradise, but for a price. Ida was dripping diamonds and rubies, and Mina would have bet that she hadn’t paid for a single one of them herself.

She was working on an older man, who was dressed in what looked like a designer suit. Her long red nails teased at his chest, like blood against the blinding white of his shirt. He was flushed and laughing, obviously flattered by the attentions of a woman half his age, more beautiful than any other woman in the room.

She really was gorgeous, Mina was thinking. Ida had jet-black hair, cut short, like a pixie cap around her delicate features. She had blue eyes and a pretty, pouting mouth. Her figure was perfect, displayed in a dress that probably cost more than Mina’s whole net worth—a black sheath with crystal accents that hugged every curve, cut low in front, but just low enough to still be decent in company.

Obviously, she thought, that woman had never been hunted by men when she was in her early teens. Just thinking about how her mother’s endless parade of men had approached her made her sick. One or two had been actually kind. The rest…

She sipped her soft drink and sighed. She wished she could find an excuse to go home. She felt as out of place as a cotton handkerchief at a silk bazaar.

“Hey, Miss Mina,” Bill called from behind her.