“Cassie, I’m sorry, hon, you…surprised me is all.”
More like scared the crap out of me, but why bring up semantics?
“You have to give a guy some warning.”
“It’s that bad?”
Burke scratched the back of his head. Truth be told, it was. Dozens of oozing, blistery welts dotted her face from forehead to chin. Even her eyelids and her lips. With all the smeared colors, she looked like lumpy ice cream in the sun.
“Let me look again.” He didn’t want to look, though. In fact, he’d feel better never to see that again, but she was embarrassed and way the hell over her head. He was her best bet until May Belle came back.
Come on, May…
“I promise not to say anything if it doesn’t help.”
CB shrugged and lowered the ice, slowly this time. The welts were still there and a good number more than he realized. As she dragged the towel down, she took the worst of the make-up with it, leaving color smears, yes, but at least her features were still where they were supposed to be.
Burke breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, this isn’t bad. What we need is a way to get it off. Who put this crap on you anyway?”
“May Belle.”
Which meant it was piled on like street pavement. “Your skin probably couldn’t breathe.”
“It’s itchy,” she mewled through puffy lips.
“Well, don’t scratch.” Burke picked up the icepack and freed a corner to wipe more of the inky eyeliner off her cheek. Lipstick came next. It reminded him of when she was four or so and Hayne used to wipe her face after dinner. She’d sit like an obedient doll, the only time she stayed still at that age. At any age, really.
Before long, her lips were a rosy pink again, if reddened in a few spots. It was odd, having her stare up at him while he dabbed and wiped. Almost intimate. Suddenly, he was looking down and seeing her face, as if he’d never looked at it before.
Hell if she wasn’t pretty, even with all those bumps. Her eyes glowed, a little greener than he remembered, her cheekbones looked smooth and soft beneath his fingertips. Had she always had such a fragile jawbone, the stubborn chin jutting out until it was almost cute? He didn’t remember her that way, but it was undoubtedly CB there. Just…more.
She curled her fingers around his wrist when he ran out of things to clean but hadn’t found a reason to remove his hands yet. “Burke—”
The crowd of men roared again at the sound of the front door’s bells, making them both blink. Burke stepped back, handing her the towel and mentally shoving at the flush of heat that had no explanation. CB was pink again, but he wasn’t about to clean any more make-up off her. Ever. Unfortunately, he turned to see what was making Ben cackle like mad, finding only the old man’s bushy eyebrows waggling back at him.
“Hey, Halifax! Who’s the filly?”
Burke whirled to see Luke Hanson standing on the threshold of Shaky Jakes. He finally understood who the strangers mixed with the locals in the bar were. Luke’s friends—mostly old, some new. It was some sort of impromptu party for the schmuck, and of course, CB had to go waltzing right into it. The girl had the luck of a troll.
As he was about to tell Luke to do something unpleasant to himself, CB reached out and grabbed his arm again. Luckily, her back was still to Luke, but of course she recognized his voice. She shook her head in a staccato motion, a look as close to begging as she could get in her eyes. Didn’t she know he couldn’t take it when she looked like that?
“No one you’d know, Hanson.”
Her grateful expression was going to do him in one of these days. He hated how she cared in the slightest what a jerk like Luke thought of her. He especially hated that she cared so much she’d do all this to herself. He reached out and brushed a wet tendril of rich red behind her ear, earning himself a sheen of tears and more damn gratitude. The bitterness in his mouth was getting hard to smile through.
Someday, she’d forget Luke. She’d go back to liking who she was. But until then, he figured he should keep her from making a fool of herself over the bastard.
“We have to get you out of here,” he whispered in her ear.
She nodded, allowing him to turn her in the stool to keep her back to Luke’s curious stare. “One big problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t walk in these heels. I barely made it to the stool last time.”
“You always have to make things more difficult than they already are, don’t you?” He sighed while she laid her forehead against his chest, rubbing her face against the fabric of his cotton shirt. Momentarily distracted by the odd feeling, it took him a few seconds to see she wasn’t affectionately nuzzling him. “I said no scratching.”
Her head stopped moving.
“You gave me an idea though. Maybe we can get you out without his recognizing you if you pretend to be drunk. Think you can make it believable?”
“Sure, I’m probably still drunk from the other night anyway.”
“Whatever works.” He bent down to take the shoes off her feet. Did she always have such small ankles? Must be the nylons. CB was the sturdiest woman he knew. Shoes in hand, he righted himself, slipped an arm around her waist and tucked her head under his chin. With any luck, Luke would be too tied up with his friends to notice them. Only five more feet to the door…
“Getting them liquored up first these days, Halifax?”
Burke could see the front door close enough to touch, but Luke’s voice sounded closer. Resigned, he half-turned and found Luke right behind him, already holding a beer by the neck. His eyes had faint bruises beneath them and his nose was swollen and discolored with a small band-aid across the bridge. All in all, CB had nailed him a good one. Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten him in the mouth so the punk could still smirk.
“Go back to your friends,” Burke warned. “They came a long way to see you.”
“They’ll still be there in a few minutes. Unless you wanna get this one out of her panties before she passes out.” Only Luke could make that sound like an acceptable expectation.
“She’s a friend, Hanson. I’m getting her home safe.”
Luke grinned. “Sure.”
Burke shrugged him off and started steering CB towards the door but Luke extended his beer hand to stop them. “I saw CB at your place this morning. When did she move in with you?”
“She didn’t—” Burke flinched at the pinch to the inside of his underarm, “—mention seeing you.”
Luke looked disappointed for a second, then took a swig of his beer. “Well, I guess she wouldn’t. How long after I left did you two get together?”
“Who said we got together?” He ignored the prodding, giving her an extra squeeze to push the air out of her.
Luke eyed him curiously, tipping his head to the side in dismissal. “It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. She answers your door in your clothes after a shower, it’s kinda obvious.”
As if the obvious were really Luke’s forte.
“Isn’t it a little ironic, my finding you doing exactly what you busted my chops over last year.”
CB straightened and it was all Burke could do to keep her bent over in a semi-prone position.
“Guess you’re human after all, eh, Hallifax?” Luke laughed as he brought the beer up to his lips. “Even
you
couldn’t live with CB forever.”
Burke almost forgot to hold her down at the pithy remark. “You aren’t going to overstretch your intelligence to compare us, are you?”
“
Us?
Nah, why bother? The only thing we have in common is CB.” Luke seemed to remember his assumption that Burke was seeing her because he smiled. “But hey, if you like your women flat as pancakes, she’s the one for you. Me, I like ‘em curvy and curvier.”
Cass’s blunt nails clawed into Burke’s arm in an effort to escape. He moved his foot to cover her bare toes and pushed down until she made a muffled sound into his shirt and gave up.
“Funny, last I heard you liked them butch and butchier.”
Luke soured immediately. “You know better than anyone that rumor isn’t true.”
“Do I? I read the letter where you wrote it yourself.”
Luke stood straighter, darting his eyes to his friends before facing Burke again, his voice low and angry. “No one else was supposed to have read it, asshole.”
How lame could one guy get? “You were with her for over ten years, moron. People were going to want to know why you left her. You should have come up with a smarter lie if you didn’t want her to believe it. What
I
find ironic is how no one here seemed real surprised. Not one of those women you were always catting around with, not one of your so-called friends. In fact, everyone believed it hook, line and sinker.”
Luke scowled. It didn’t last long, must’ve hurt. The wuss. “You think I care what this Podunk town thinks of me?”
“So why bother getting married here? Everyone is nice and happy as things are.”
Lord knows I was.
“Well, I’m not. That b—” He cut himself off abruptly when Burke lurched his way. Luke might have been dumb enough to stand there and take it when Cass lit into him, but they both knew he’d need his head surgically removed from his ass if Burke took to beating on him. “She broke my nose! Humiliated me in front of my fiancée.”
Burke shrugged. “You humiliated her in front of a whole town for years. I’d say it’s fair.”
“Well, it’s
not
fair. It’s not gonna be until everyone knows the truth.”
Maybe ass-surgery would be needed after all. It’d be a kind of a lobotomy. Mindful of the bundle of Cass in his arms, Burke lowered his voice so—hopefully—only Luke would hear. “The real truth or the edited-for-television kind? Neither one paints you as the good guy, pretty boy.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t reply.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Burke backed away, shaking his head. At least this mess would be over now. “Do yourself a favor, stay the hell away from CB and take your grandstand of a wedding with you.” He moved toward the door, pulling CB’s too quiet and too obedient body with him.
“What goes on between me and CB has nothing to do with you, Halifax,” Luke sputtered, making Burke stop once more.
A glance over his shoulder showed more of Luke’s city friends had moved in to see what the deal was. That explained the sudden tiny pair of balls.
Perfect. Just perfect.
“You were always right there in our business, like some kinda watch dog,” Luke rattled on. “I didn’t like it much then and I sure as hell don’t like it now.”
“You wanna do something about it?”
Don’t I wish?
Luke Hanson might be pretty and even popular, but the likelihood of his taking the challenge—even with his friends around him—was right up there with Burke putting on a dress and doing the tango with Humphrey Bogart.
“What’s the point? CB’s nothing to me anymore. She wasn’t much to me when we were dating.” Luke shrugged, gesturing over his shoulder for his friends to see and pay closer attention. Like lemmings, they quieted to follow his cue. “I’m gonna marry Sally; show everyone in this town that I’m not what they think I am. Truth is, CB Bishop was lucky to ever have me.”
Burke wasn’t sure when it happened, but CB’s pretense of clinging to him had become real, her clench tight enough to hurt. What made it worse was that he had the feeling Luke wouldn’t have said a word different if he knew she was there. Maybe he’d said it to her all before. It would certainly explain her sudden lack of confidence. In an instant, he hated the bastard even more.
“Is that why you invited her to your wedding? To make sure she saw you marrying the better woman?” Burke asked, loud enough to silence the crowded bar. People leaned out of their booths, some concerned, most interested. Ben Friedly watched, his wrinkled face not expressing an opinion one way or the other.
Luke had one. His eyes glinted pride. “Damn straight.”
“You’ve never been a smart man, Hanson. Most have said damn stupid. You never deserved CB. You couldn’t tell what a good woman you had, not even when she was haulin’ your ass out of trouble time and again. So I’m going to put this in terms even a fool like you can understand. I’ll bet that at your wedding, when CB walks into the church, everyone in this town will be calling you an idiot for giving up the best thing you ever had.”
Nails bit into his waist but Burke wasn’t about to stop now. For once it seemed so clear. The way to show CB what a slime her ex was and if anything was ever wrong, it was that she was too good for Luke in the first place.
Luke laughed loudly, extending his arms wide. “The mighty Burke Halifax is gonna make a bet with
me
? In front of everybody?” The bar remained quiet, waiting for his response. No one ever said Luke wasn’t a showman. He nodded his curly blond head in a mock salute. Hell if the entire place didn’t exhale at the same time. “Sure, why not?” He laughed, yukking it up for the crowd. “It’s not like I can lose.”
“Name your price.” Now that he’d started this thing, Burke wanted it over in a hurry.
“You know what I want.” For the first time ever, Luke Hanson looked dangerous. The rat bastard.
Since pride was at stake—especially since it wasn’t even his own pride—Burke couldn’t back down. Not even if he wanted to. Maybe it was temper. Maybe it was simply past time someone dealt with Luke out in the open, but Burke found himself agreeing despite the nudging and gripping at his waist. “Fine. I’ll bet you the Z-28 that when she comes to that wedding she’ll be the finest looking—”