Free Betting Hearts by Dee Tenorio Page B

nearby.
    “Where do you think you’re going with those?”
    “Home. You left my car back at Shaky Jakes. Again.” She opened the door but, being Burke and it being his Explorer, he moved faster. The door clanged shut, his hand as flat against it as the line of his mouth.
    “You can’t go home in that getup.”
    She scoffed, plucking at the loose cotton. “I think Hayne and Dad will survive.”
    “Well, you’re not driving my car.”
    “Fine. I’ll walk in this getup.” She pulled the door open again. She didn’t plan to leave, of course. He just had to think she’d leave. Someday, she’d have to write a book on how to work this man to her way of thinking. A few more choice prods to his pride and he’d see the light. “I’m not staying here if you’re going to be useless.”
    The door clapped shut again. She didn’t bother hiding her smile. When he lowered his head, expression grim and unbending, she knew she had him. “You know what? Luke’s completely wrong about you. You’re the most damnably female woman I’ve ever met.”
    “Thank you.”
    “It wasn’t a compliment.” How dumb does he think I am?
    “Keep the hair if you must, but the style and the dress have to go.”
    “Are you ordering me to strip?”
    His mouth curved into a dry grin. “Not even if you were a natural blonde, honey.”
    She smirked. While he and Luke were about as much alike as dogs and cats, the one thing they had in common was their taste in women. Perhaps liking blondes was just a guy thing. She’d have to look into it.
    “If we’re going to make this work, one thing has to change before anything else.”
    “Yeah, what?”
    “You have to stop looking at me the way a friend does and start seeing me the way a man would.”
     
     
    He should have gotten a beer at May Belle’s before they left. Hell, it wouldn’t matter. He needed a shot glass for that last comment.
    “Burke?”
    He had a hot flash of her standing in his tub, wearing nothing but bubbles and water. She’d been all woman to him then, but damn if he was ever going to admit that . “Okay, maybe I don’t see you that way, but I don’t think changing my perception is a good idea.”
    “Too bad.”
    Burke finally understood why cavemen hit women over the head with logs.
    “Let’s start with my name.”
    “What’s wrong with your name?” Good Lord, if she wanted to change it to something debutantish, like Muffy, Buffy or some such crap, this bet was already lost.
    “Nothing is wrong with it. You never use it. No one does. CB is sexless.”
    “Are we back to the Cassandra thing?”
    She frowned, tilting her head to the left. Great, he forgot she didn’t remember her drunken night. “What Cassandra thing?”
    “It was nothing.” Actually, it was a big fat something only now starting to come into focus for him. Was the whack job Luke did on her self-esteem worse than what she did to his face? “You want me to call you Cassandra now?”
    “Cass will do fine. What Cassandra thing?”
    Dog. Bone. CB.
    “It was nothing.” He smiled his most winning charmer. “How about I drive you home? We can get started tomorrow.”
    She frowned harder, furrowing her brow into three deep grooves, her eyes turning the dark ivy color he associated with her extreme displeasure. Good, he hated being the only one without pleasure. “Why are you suddenly so accommodating?”
    He’d have to think up some way to train the suspicious nature out of her. It wouldn’t be easy, her radar on lies and deflections was almost never wrong. Except with Luke. “Because your face is breaking out a little more and you probably don’t want me seeing you like this. Most women wouldn’t,” he added for effect. She seemed to be waiting for something else. “Cass?” he guessed and she smiled.
    Damn. The name felt awkward on his tongue, but if it got her out of his hair for a little while, he’d call her whatever she wanted.
     
     
    Cass went pretty willingly if she said so