Betting Hearts by Dee Tenorio Read Free Book Online Page B

armrests to stay on. “My father says the same thing.” When he talks.
    “How is your daddy?”
    Cass squinted an eye at the mirror. She is interested!
    Lola was hardly flustered, but the towel she was using to dry Cass’s hair was moving a little more vigorously than before. “Back when I first moved here from Chula Vista with my husband, he and your mama made sure everyone knew about my shop. It wasn’t so easy for a Mexican to run her own business in those days. They helped a lot. My Danny used to drive trucks. When he was gone, Lora asked your daddy to come check on us, make sure everything was okay until Danny came back. We thought it was sweet how he opened the nursery for Lora. Romantic.”
    Cass laughed. She’d never thought of the nursery as particularly romantic, but since they still sold Lora’s breed of roses, she had to admit Lola was probably on to something.
    “I never see Eddie any more. Not since my Danny passed away.” She paused in her brush selection to bless herself with the sign of the cross.
    “He doesn’t get out much these days.” Understatement of the decade.
    “Well, you tell him I asked about him.”
    Cass raised an eyebrow in the mirror.
    Lola winked back. “ Pero , we’re here for you, today. What do you say, we go red, no?”
    Cass ignored the shiver of excitement and terror coursing through her. The time had come. Everything she’d done so far had been simple and mostly unnoticeable. Shoot, most of it would grow out in a few days. This would be the first drastic change, the first step to bigger and better things. It was perfectly fine to be nervous. She shuddered a breath, closed her eyes and took the plunge. “We go red.”
     
     
    Burke walked into Shaky Jakes with a sense of dread. It wouldn’t go away. All day it hung on like a bad smell. Something in the world had gone horribly, terribly wrong. He just didn’t know what.
    He’d tried to track CB, to make sure she hadn’t gone and broken something vital, but hadn’t been able to reach her anywhere. Hayne complained about her taking the afternoon off, making his unease stronger. Figuring she was here for dinner, Burke wandered into the crowd.
    The number of people wasn’t disconcerting. There was always a crowd at Shaky Jakes. Several of them even looked familiar, former A-crowd cronies from high school. He hadn’t liked them then and usually groaned when he had to deal with them now. But there were a number of faces there he didn’t know. In a town the size of Rancho Del Cielo, it was another cause for alarm. A fast scan of the place didn’t silence the bells ringing in his head. The only woman by herself was a redhead at the bar with Ben Friedly, of all people. Burke gave her a passing glance, though the rippling auburn hair did stop him for a second. So did the soft cotton dress hugging her body. She had a 40’s flashback look to her, especially with those seamed stockings leading to sturdy black heels on the bar rail. Great legs, but not CB.
    Ten minutes later, he’d checked every booth and was back at the front door without sign of her. The party was getting rowdy and Burke noticed a number of men were pointing at the redhead. Despite being about to leave, he decided to give her another look over. The men didn’t appear all that complimentary.
    He couldn’t figure out why. She had her back to him, but her curves all seemed to be in the right place. The hair was a real bonus, the kind of rich color that made him ache to touch it. The dress was one of those short sleeve numbers, leaving long lengths of browned arms showing. Odd, a redhead browning so nicely. His eyes combed over her slim ribcage, down the length of her spine to a pair of sweetly curving hips and—
    If a man felt his heart stop and his breath still, wasn’t he was dead?
    The entire bar rattled to a stop for some reason. All heads turned his way, all except for the redhead. But, she wouldn’t, of course; the hiding, sneaking, disguised