Betting Hearts (22 page)

The kid arrived with her burger, fries and frosted glass of amber salvation. Maybe if she kept her mouth full, she wouldn’t get caught saying anything she’d regret.

“Sally’s different than you, CB. She wants to talk all the time, for one. The woman has never heard of silence. You used to understand things without having to be told every little detail. Remember when we used to watch football games on Sunday afternoons and be happy?”

Yup, she did. She never thought Luke put much stock into those times.

“I miss the way my life used to be.”

“I don’t,” she said, hoping honesty might help where Luke’s fantasy was running thin. “I like myself a lot better now, without everyone staring at me wondering what the town Golden Boy saw in me. Without all the knowing looks whenever you’d take off with some girl. I like being myself, not an extension of you.”

Luke actually looked a little sad. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Cass smirked. “You miss the limelight because they worshipped you. Not everyone gets to be so lucky.” She dug into the burger, watching while Luke toyed with his mug, thinking.

“You knew about the other women, didn’t you?” he asked softly.

Honesty seemed to be working so far. “Yes and no. I expected it would happen eventually, I guess. I mean, everyone did. You said it yourself, I
wasn’t
woman enough to hold you.” It was the truth. Keeping Luke forever seemed impossible and she never even considered the possibility. Not then. She was a girl. The woman in her hadn’t even started to show. “You leaving…I learned a lot about myself. Learned I didn’t need to be in your shadow. I should probably thank you for going. The two of us married would have been a mistake.”

It was Luke’s turn to look disgusted. “Don’t
thank
me, I was more than happy to stay and get married. Hallifax is the one who decided it was time for me to go.”

There it was again, the twitch in her ears. “Sorry?”

Luke looked up from his glass, a very real spark of resentment in his eyes. “Sorry?
Now
you say sorry? I’m the one who got uprooted and made into a laughingstock in my own hometown. Sure, you got pitied, but that wasn’t nothing new to you.
I
couldn’t come home, CB. Do you know how that felt?”

She should have known all the “good times” bit was an act. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about making Burke follow me that weekend I was supposed to go up to Irvine. You knew about Taimie and you sent your goon to beat me up.”

Cass’s eyes went wide as Luke’s narrowed. “Burke beat you up?”

“Not as much as he’d have liked to. He still swears you had nothing to do with it, but I’m not stupid. I know how it happened. I mean, why else would Hallifax leave his precious garage if not to follow me? He told me to never come back or he’d finish the job and made me write that idiot letter. At the time, I figured it was better than meeting the coroner, so I did it. I never expected the two of you to hand it around town!”

Luke’s voice rose enough to be heard beyond the booth. “Admit it, CB. You guys trapped me—humiliated me—so you’d have an excuse to be together without ever having to face everyone for breaking my heart. You know this town would never have forgiven you, not the way they loved me.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” Cass asked, leaning forward with an angry whisper. “Dragging your fiancée to what she considers Backwoods, Indiana, so you can get payback for what has to be the most self-centered line of imaginary conspiracy ever invented? You think it matters to me if you marry her, Luke? You cheated on me and you get to feel wronged because you got caught?”

“I came back here because I want things the way they were!” he snapped, reaching with both hands to pull her face to his in a harsh kiss.

A kiss that did nothing at all but make her angry.

Batting his hands away, she pushed until he let go, snapping her head up and bumping the edge of the Tiffany lamp. “What the hell is wrong with you?” She wiped her mouth with her arm. Too late, she looked around and realized every eye was back on them.

Right where Luke wanted it to be. “CB, I know you want me back, but this is no way to go about it,” he said loudly, using the back of his hand to nip the corner of his own mouth. “I’m an engaged man, honey. Let bygones be bygone.”

“You unbelievable bastard,” she breathed, slumping into the cushions of the booth.

Luke slid out of the bench, his voice menacingly low. “Doesn’t make me a liar.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ask Burke. Ask him why he made up that letter. If what he says is true, that you didn’t have anything to do with it, why was he so willing to make you think you were lame enough in bed you could turn a straight man the other way. Well, unless he’d already been there with you.”

She couldn’t help it, her fist flew, but this time, Luke was smart enough to catch it.

“Ah-ah-ah,” he tsked. “You might ruin your chances at winning the bet.”

Cass ground her teeth. “Go away, Luke. Go away and leave me alone.”

“Sure, honey. You should probably get used to being alone anyway, since I doubt your new boyfriend is going to be very excited to hear about you kissing me in front of everyone. Night,
Cassie
.”

Cass didn’t bother to look around. She didn’t need to see more pitying eyes. She kept her face in her hands and hoped no one saw things the way Luke wanted them to.

But too many years of experience told her it was a futile wish.

Chapter Ten

Cass stood on Burke’s porch, hand raised to knock, unable to make her fingers rap the wood.
Why all the nerves? Why the worry? This is Burke. He knows how this town works. He won’t believe anyone’s anxious, gossip-dripping phone call without talking to me first, right?

She put her hand down.

Inaction didn’t save her. The door opened and there he was, not in the least pleased to see her. His black brows crowded together to form his familiar, pissed-beyond-reason expression. “You plan on standing there all night?”

Impudence was the only way to handle him in this mood. “No.”

“Get in here already.”

Loathe to give in to any command, but not sure what kind of point she’d make by staying on the porch, she moved past him into the warmth of his house.

The table was set for their practice dinners, but he wasn’t dressed up. Come to think of it, he looked almost frazzled—was that an empty cup on his coffee table? Without a coaster? She turned around to face him, questions already on her lips.

“We need to talk.”

Questions died. “I can explain.”

He didn’t look like he believed her. His eyes had nothing in them, just a blank emptiness more chilling than his silence.

Cass slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans, studying him for some sort of clue about his mindset. He looked awful. He had a red stain on his shirt—untucked for some reason—his jeans had lost their crease and his hand looked…blue? The other was wrapped in a white towel. She frowned. “What did you do to yourself?”

He looked down at the towel before moving his hand behind his back. “Nothing.”

“Is that blood?”

His blue eyes narrowed. He hated it when she got nosy. Well, too bad. She hated it when he shut her out. They were even.

“My hand is the last thing I’m thinking about right now.”

She opened her mouth to begin telling him what happened at the bar, but suddenly, she couldn’t think where to start. With her feelings for Luke or her feelings for
him
? Where? Her heart thumped like a hollow oil drum inside her, loud and heavy. Somehow, under his hard gaze, she felt like she was defending herself to the one person who should have understood without being told. “Who called you?”

“More like who hasn’t? It’s only been twenty minutes and I already had to unplug the phone or rip it out.”

She nodded, staring at the toes of her work boots. It had been like that when she canceled the church for her wedding. “I didn’t kiss Luke. He kissed me.”

“You expect me to believe that? With
your
track record?”

She looked up sharply, the hairs on the back of her neck pricking. “Excuse me?”

If she looked angry, Burke didn’t appear distressed about it. “You have all the spine of those garden slugs out there when it comes to Luke Hanson. He flicks his finger and there you are, ready to take him back no matter how it might destroy your life.”

“Is that what you think of me?”

“Yes!” he snapped, stealing the tirade stirring within her in a loud crackle of sound.

“I didn’t kiss him, Burke. I can’t even stand him. He only wanted to set me up so you’d think I was cheating on you.”

“Weren’t you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Let me get this straight. You practically have to be dragged into making love to me, after which you won’t even let me say good morning because you’re terrified I’m going to ask you for a commitment. So terrified, I should add, you took off and left me alone to wonder what exactly happened. At what point between what happened this morning and right this second did you make any indication we were having something other than a one-night stand? Why do you get to play the jealous lover but I don’t get to explain?”

“How the hell am I supposed to feel, Cass? Everyone is calling my phone telling me they saw you begging Luke to come back to you. I’ve seen it enough myself to know what it looks like.”

“I have never begged for anything in my life.” She could say that much and he was honest enough to look away when he couldn’t refute her.

“You’re different when it comes to Luke. You’ve loved him your entire life, he’s all you ever wanted—”

“No,
you
are.” How she found the courage to say it, she couldn’t say. Every inch of her was trembling, her soul right through to her toes.

Burke stopped, frozen in mid-sentence. Then his eyes dropped. “You’re confused, Cassie. Your thinking is twisting all over the place because of what happened this morning. You don’t want me. Not really, not for keeps.”

“Is that what you want? For keeps?”

His eyes met hers, his dark blue gaze the same she had relied on her entire life. “No.”

Time stopped. Her heart stopped. The entire world stopped.
No.
So simple to say, so horrible to hear.

“Do you want me at all? Or was this morning what I think it was for you?”

“Cass, don’t do this.”

“Do what? Make you say things you mean? Make you admit what happened this morning should have happened a long time ago? Admit myself that Luke should never have been in my life? That it should have been you? That it was
always
you? I can do it, Burke, but I’m not the one who’s too afraid to face the truth. You are.”

He stiffened, a physical rippling from his face to his boots. “What truth am I afraid of, Dr. Freud?”

“You love me.” He could be cruel if he wanted to, but she wouldn’t let him hide. “You’re scared I’m going to figure out just how much.”

“Yeah, I’m shaking, Little Miss Mud Pie.”

She moved over to stand in front of him. He had to look down but she stood there until he did it. “Yes, you are. You thought I’d come here and you could tell me it was over. Tell me this morning was some kind of fluke and I’d leave. That I wouldn’t argue with you because we all know Burke Halifax hung the moon and the stars, so he’s right about everything he says.” She took a step forward.

He took a step back.

“But when Luke pulled his little stunt, suddenly you lost your grip on the situation, didn’t you?” She pulled up his left hand, waving the blood spotted towel under his nose. “Tried to cook your way out of the irritation, I bet.” She dropped his hand and he let it fall to his side. “Were you more concerned that I’d gone back to Luke or that he finally told me the truth about the letter you made him write?”

His color sapped completely from his face. “I can explain—”

“Are you sure?” She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t think you can, Burke. There’s no way of explaining the way you cut him out of my life without explaining a hell of a lot more stuff you don’t want to talk about.” She waited, one eyebrow raised, for him to come up with something, anything, but he clamped his jaw tight.

“It doesn’t matter. Oh, we’ll talk about it someday. You can be sure of that. But what I care about right now is you and me maybe finally getting it right.

“You’ve got problems, I accept that. You never stayed with a woman because you thought she wouldn’t like you if she knew who you really were. If she knew how much time you spent cleaning your house or taking engines apart in your head. If she knew how much you like daytime TV or how you tune her out when she’s saying things you don’t give a rat’s ass about.”

She kept after him and he kept retreating.

“I already know all about you, Burke,” she said softly, knowing this was a little too much for him, but unable to hold back. “I know where you have your baseball cards and when you got them. I know how you like the bed made and what color sock you wear on Thursdays. There’s nothing about you I don’t know.

“I’ve been thinking about it all day, trying to figure out why you left like you did this morning. At first, I didn’t worry about it. I thought you had to get to work. But it wouldn’t go away, the thought that maybe you ran away instead. You ran away from me, from what happened, because you were terrified that I saw something I wasn’t supposed to.”