Betting Hearts Read Online Free PDF

to always be Little Miss Mud Pie, Burke’s good-buddy-good-pal, Hayne’s not-so-little sister, champion of the Annual Beer Guzzling Contest three years running. She couldn’t sing, couldn’t dance, couldn’t date, couldn’t cook, couldn’t do her hair or her makeup, wouldn’t know what to do at a baby shower—much less with a baby—and had never worn a pair of high heels in her life. She was going to spend eternity knowing the best she’d ever been able to scrounge as a boyfriend was Luke Hanson. That alone was depressing. The rest was gravy to boil in.
    Busy dwelling in the bleak abyss of her future she didn’t notice Burke picked up the invitation until he was reading it.
    “This guy has no class at all,” he grumbled.
    “What, you don’t think it’s acceptable to cross out the vital information on your engraved wedding invitation to scribble corrections in the borders?” she asked through swollen sinuses. “I thought it was the in thing this year.”
    “He’s only doing this to get back at you for breaking his nose.”
    She tossed him a sour look. “Thanks, Burke. Where would I be without you to point out the obvious?”
    He shrugged, back to his reading. The next part was the real kicker. It was what sent Cass out to the backyard in the first place.
    “CB—we’ll understand if you can’t make it. We know how hard it would be to find a tux in your size.” Burke read, monotone, then inspected her from head to toe. “Why would a woman need a tux?”
    “I’m only a technical woman.” Cass held her still cold hands over her puffy eyes, sighing with relief. “I’ve got the equipment, I don’t have a clue how to use it.”
    “Is that what he said?”
    She appreciated his burgeoning anger, but really, who was he kidding? “Basically.” She’d never tell him what Luke actually said.
    “CB—”
    She turned her head to face him. He had the scrunched frown on his face that didn’t belong there this time and they both knew it. “He’s right, Burke. Even Luke gets to be right once in a while. Everyone knows it. I’m an utter failure in the girl department. I don’t deserve what little breast I have.”
    “Uh—”
    She looked down at the slopes barely denting the shirt on her chest. “No one notices them anyway.”
    “Hon—”
    “I mean, when was the last time you ever looked at them?”
    Burke blinked at her as if she had pointed a loaded shotgun at his head.
    She sighed. She probably had. Poor guy, he didn’t deserve this. “Never mind.”
    At least he breathed again.
    “I just…I wish I had something to offer a man.”
    “You have plenty to offer,” he practically choked out. God, the only thing he did worse than bluffing was out and out lying.
    “My landscaping business? Yeah, men fall all over themselves for women with green thumbs.”
    “You’re being too hard on yourself.” He tossed the card back on the table with disgust. It lay face up, the feathered edges catching her eye. What would it have been like, to mail some of those instead of the plain beige cards printed from her own computer? Put one in a photo album? Or let your kids touch it with gentle awe years and years later? She’d never find out. She’d never know what she was missing. Didn’t that make it worse?
    “I’m facing facts. I’m not girl material. I’m not wife material. I’m exactly what Luke said I was—one of the guys.” So much of a guy he felt gay for being with her. Her chest tightened painfully, stomach clenching until she swore under her breath. “I need to accept it and move on.”
    “Cassie, the last thing on earth you should accept is the opinion of an ass like Luke Hanson. The man couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You really think he can make a judgment on what makes you a woman?”
    Probably not, but it didn’t take a genius to know she wasn’t going to find a man interested in spending the rest of his life with her. Why would he bother? She