“You almost look like her, with your hair like that, ‘cept you got a little too much Bishop on the nose.” He pulled away, looking down at her with deeper assessment. “Hey, what happened to your face?”
Cass felt her cheeks flame. “Allergy, remember?”
Eddie nodded. Then he smacked her shoulder the way he would have on any other night. “Where’ve you been?”
Just like that, back to normal. Cass wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or relieved. She headed for the stairs, hoping to put on something a little more comfortable and with a lot less draft, but Hayne answered for her and stopped her dead in her tracks.
“She’s been hiding out at Burke’s. Don’t worry, she was safe.”
Turning around, she watched her father settle back into the chair and the Wheel and Hayne go back to stinking up the kitchen by over-spicing the food. “What do you mean
safe
?”
Hayne didn’t bother to turn away from his giant pot. “What do you mean, what do I mean? I mean safe. You were at Burke’s, for Pete’s sake. What could have happened to you there?”
Cass wrinkled her nose. Geez, how dumb
were
they? “You heard yourself, I was three sheets to the wind the other night. Anything could have happened.”
“Yeah,” Hayne laughed, his annoying older-brother, I-know-everything laugh. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something!” She thought about Luke’s assumption. “I…I could have slept with him. We could be having a wild, rampaging affair!”
Eddie turned up the volume on the television. Cass spared him a look while he positioned his glasses on the end of his nose so he could see Vanna a little clearer.
“I could be wickedly having my way with him. I could have done a lot of things, you know.”
“Yeah,” Hayne said, stirring his sauce and all but ignoring her. “But you aren’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re talking about Burke and we’re also talking about
you
. ‘Nuff said.”
Stomping into the kitchen, Cass poked him in his ticklish rib. And not lightly. “No, not enough said. I could seduce him. I could seduce anyone in this town if I wanted to. In fact, how do you know I haven’t?”
Her brother squirmed away from her invading index finger, guarding his weakness with one of his too big biceps, frowning at her like she’d lost her mind. “I know because Burke wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot sewer pipe. As for you screwing around with anyone else, I know because all you’ve ever done is come home and fall in your bed with your boots on. In this town, we’d have heard about it before your undies were done twisting. Face it, you’re too tired for men.”
“I wasn’t too tired for Luke.”
“Look where
that
got you.” Hayne raised a superior dark eyebrow while gesturing with his stirring spoon. “Living with a guy who didn’t know which end was up. I told you he was no good. Burke told you a thousand times. Even Dad told you and when was the last time he noticed who we were dating?”
Cass rolled her eyes. “Who
you
were dating, you mean.”
Hayne
barely knew half the time.
“Either way,” he continued, “we all know you haven’t been with anyone since Luke. You might as well go upstairs and get out of that outfit. You look funny that way.”
“You better get used to it, because I’m staying this way.”
Hayne scoffed. “Yeah, right. I bet you didn’t even know how to put that dress on without May Belle to figure it out for you.”
“Well, I’m learning, okay? And while we’re having this little conversation, it’s about time you stopped calling me CB. My name is Cassandra. Or call me Cass. I’m not responding to CB anymore.”
Hayne shrugged, seeing to his food. “Sure, whatever, CB.”
She slugged his arm, nearly bumping him off balance. “I mean it. I’m going to be treated like a girl around here, do you understand, you over-muscled schmuck?”
He laughed. “Well, you hit like a girl.”
“At least I don’t scream like one.” She turned on her heel and went out to the living room for her bags of movies. As she stomped up the steps, determined to make enough noise to annoy even her father, she heard Hayne’s voice call after her.
“If you’re the resident girl, does that mean you’re doing all the cooking and cleaning from now on?”
Rather than dignify that with an answer, she slammed her door to show her irritation. Twice.
It was official. Burke was off his rocker. And he had a bad thing for blondes. Real bad.
Three in the morning and Cass was staring one-eyed at the small television on her five-drawer dresser. The other eye was sleeping, along with her cold feet and the hand she was laying her face on. She wanted to sleep so badly. No, she wanted to put on a pair of sweats and eat some food—whose smell permeated her bedroom hours ago.
She had refused to change her dress simply out of stubbornness. Refusing to come down and eat dinner was sheer stupidity. They all knew she had to eat. She had the metabolism of a moose, according to her father. She’d stopped paying any attention to Lauren Bacall’s plan to bag a rich, old guy a long time ago, instead imagining thick chunks of beef, soft, flavorful vegetables and hearty brown sauce.
She couldn’t take anymore. Getting up and walking as softly as possible down the hall to the stairs, she made it to the kitchen where everything was clean and put away. Her father’s snores from the recliner covered the smacking sound of the refrigerator’s seal breaking while she opened the door. Surprised, she stared inside at the bowl covered with cling wrap, a piece of paper on top of it:
“Knew you’d be hungry.”
Smirking and grateful without wanting to admit it, Cass pulled out the large bowl and transferred it to the microwave. After setting the time, she leaned against the fridge and sighed.
In only one day, she’d heard four different opinions on what made a woman feminine. Five, if you counted what Burke said
wouldn’t
. May Belle seemed to think femininity was found in using a beautiful surface to compete with men. Lola thought it was using beauty to seduce them. The video girl apparently thought it was in speedy repartee and high glamour. Hayne… Cass snorted while the microwave dinged. Hayne thought femininity was either the inability to take care of oneself or an undying urge to take care of everyone else by cooking and cleaning. But Burke…
She dipped her fork into her bowl.
What would draw
him
to a woman? What did he find irresistible? She tried to think back on any of the women he dated, but none stuck in her mind. All that really came to mind was a haze of big hair and big eyes. He didn’t have too much of a type except slightly easy. Never anyone particularly skeevy, but not anyone you’d mistake for a brain surgeon, either.
How could she be his best friend and not have a clue what he looked for in a woman? Somehow, she knew if she were going to get through this, she’d have to figure it out.
Chapter Five
Morning came in haze of voices and light, neither of which Cass was happy to have in her bedroom. She lifted her face from the flannel-encased pillow and looked over at the television. When the dance scene between Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astaire in roller skates made itself clear to her foggy eyes, she realized the built-in VCR was set to rewind and repeat. Wondering how many times the film had done it while she slept, she checked her watch and groaned. Only once!
Since raising her hand to find the remote was too much energy to waste, Cass buried her face back in the pillows and ignored it. At least, until the heavy pounding on her door signaled Hayne was awake.
“Hey, CB, move it or lose it! You got ten minutes to eat breakfast before we head out to the Wild Oaks property!”
God, to not work with her family would have been such a blessing. For precious seconds, Cass fantasized about working a late shift at Enterprising Ernie’s instead of doing the early one for Bishop Landscaping and Nursery. No Hayne waking her up at the crack—she checked her watch again—no, the
inception
of dawn. No Dad asking her to do the bookkeeping because he wouldn’t hire an accountant. No creating floral arrangements for other people’s weddings even if it did bring in a lot of revenue. No one calling her Little Miss Mud Pie.
“I quit!” she yelled as loud as she could through her pillow.
Hayne laughed. “See you in five!”
Unwillingly, she pried herself out of the warm blankets and stumbled into the bathroom her father had built when she was fourteen. It was the one concession to her sex in the Bishop household. Fact was, when her breasts finally decided to show up, it was pretty disconcerting to have her brother walk in on her shower. Worse, her father. The Bishop men weren’t quite known for their ability to knock.
She stripped out of the sweats she finally allowed herself after eating last night and climbed into the stall, moaning at the warmth of the hot water pouring over her. It took all her strength not to stay in there for more time than it took to get clean. When she stepped out, wrapped in a towel, it was to face her unfamiliar reflection in the mirror.
She stopped dead, blinking at the stranger before her. Who
was
that? Long, auburn hair slicked back from her face, tanned with a few freckles here and there. With steam still wisping around her, Cass stepped closer and peered at her face. The welts were gone, thank God, leaving her fresh and rosy from the heat of the water. Her own eyes glowed back at her, more vivid now with her hair brighter.
Curious, she leaned away from the glass and allowed her towel to slide away. Truthfully, not much had changed in respect to her body, but something looked different in a major way. Her gaze traveled over her slim build, studying the curves she often forgot about. True, she wasn’t the bustiest pers—
woman
in town, but she wasn’t tiny. Bigger than a couple of others she knew, now that she really looked. The shape wasn’t bad, either. They didn’t sag, anyway. There were women who’d kill for that much. She’d seen the surgical shows her brother watched when he was hard up to see a boob or two.
All the physical work she did pruning trees, carrying and laying sod, not to mention the demands made in the nursery at least had the benefit of keeping her fit. She was toned quite well; if someone slicked her up she’d look like one of those fitness magazine cover girls. She hadn’t thought much about it because those girls wore as close to nothing as they could get away with and most of her clothes were T-shirts and jeans. Sometimes she wore shorts, but not often.
Picking up her towel, she wandered out of the bathroom and over to her closet. Looking from hanger to hanger, there wasn’t a single thing in there she wanted to be. The clothes screamed “Ignore me!” as loud as they could. All her shirts were too big, chosen for opportunity rather than taste. In the back was a church dress she wore to a funeral a few years ago. It was simple, black and shapeless. It was right next to the still shrouded wedding dress she never got to wear. That thing would be the first to go. Come to think of it, the first chance she got,
all
of this was going to Goodwill or to the trash. Maybe a few things tossed into the incinerator at the nursery, for kicks.
Getting dressed simply because she had to, she put on the essentials, a standard set of jeans and an old T-shirt. Grabbing a hat, she stuffed her hair into it and pulled her checkbook from her dresser drawer. She needed to find clothes screaming something she
did
want to be. It was time for a change.
“What do you mean you’re not coming in today? Who’s gonna come with me to Wild Oaks?” Hayne stared at her while the truck warmed up.
She sipped at a mugful of coffee. “I have some errands to run and they can’t be put off anymore.”
“Why not?”
She turned to him with an expression of exasperation. “Because I’ve put them off all my life and they’re getting done today, okay? In fact, I’m taking my vacation.”
“
What
?”
“Vacation. You know, when you don’t come into work for two weeks because you’ve earned time off slaving for your family?”
“Is this about the hair thing?” Hayne wasn’t mean. To anyone else, he was a reasonable, thoughtful person. Probably. But they’d spent their lives pretending they were still twelve-years-old and he didn’t have the first clue how to be tactful with her. He especially had no idea what it felt like to be uncomfortable in his skin. Black hair falling forward over his forehead, hazel eyes with short dark lashes, a kind of all-day stubble that never went away, he fit in everywhere he went, in whatever company. He would never understand how important these changes would be to her. The thought of trying to explain it made her head hurt.
“Partially. Please, Hayne. I know you’re going to hear about it later from someone, and you deserve to know but I don’t want to go into it right now, okay?”
He stared at her, his mouth tight, jaw working left to right, reminding her of all the times when they were kids and the other girls didn’t want to play with her. Once a big brother, always a big brother. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t try to bully her. “You’re gonna tell me some time, though, right?”
Cass nodded. If it wouldn’t result in more hives, she’d hug him.