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glass, keeping her head down and her hair between them.
    Jake nodded before realizing with her curtain of auburn strands between them she could not see the response. “I thought maybe you hadn’t recognized me,” he said with a slow shake of his dark hair. He pushed the tangled curls from off his forehead and offered her one of his signature smiles. She didn’t look up at him but lifted her head to focus into the distance again.
    “From what I have heard about you,” she said turning toward him. “You are easy to recognize.”
    Jake grinned and ran his hands through his hair with a tilt of his chin and a silken quality to his voice. “You’ve been asking about me?”
    Cassie shook her head and frowned at him. “No Jake, but there are a lot of people around here who seem to see something in you that, for the life of me, I just don’t see.”
    He was the recipient of one of her icy glares, and she turned her back on him for the second time since he had met her.
    Jake picked up his drink, feeling suddenly trapped with this girl. “Maybe that just means you should have your eyes checked.”
    Cassie shook her head helplessly, and then laughed at him. “Maybe I just see through the masks most people can’t see through. Maybe if you really were the man you pretend to be instead of just looking like him, I wouldn’t need to see anything at all.”
    Jake’s expression became stony as she turned on him again, her pale blue eyes seeming to look right through him. He suddenly felt a sharp pang of fear strike him in the chest. Her fathomless eyes were piercing, as if she really could see past the charm, the silken words, and the magic of his deep blue eyes. Looking at her now, he believed her, she really couldn’t see it.
    Jake pushed his chair back into the corner and stood, holding a hand out to her. “Come dance with me, Cassie,” he said the gruff quiet cowboy drawl sure to convince her she was wrong about him. “I think you should spend more than a couple of minutes judging me before you know what kind of a man I am.”
    Cassie frowned and then looked as if she might turn her back on him again. “All right, Jake,” she agreed putting her hand out and forcing him to reach out and take it. “If you really think my sight problems can be cleared up after one dance, then I have two rules.”
    As she stood, Jake shoved her chair aside and began winding toward the floor to break through the crowd. Cassie stood still, her feet planted, and he dropped her hand at her defiance.
    “Rules?” he said, coming back toward her. Crossing his arms over his chest, he met her eyes with his best repentant little boy smile, trying to soften her unfaltering gaze. She looked through him again, not even a flick of her lip or twitch of her cheek giving her away.
    Jake took a broken breath, “Okay, tell me the rules.”
    Cassie grimaced now, as she was shoved and jostled by the pressing crowd. A panicked glint caught in her deep eyes, and Jake felt its flash of fear along with her. He stepped toward her placing his hands at her elbows to steady her as she held up one finger. “First, you hold onto me until we get on the dance floor. You can’t get tired of me halfway across the floor and just walk off.”
    Jake grinned; she was not as unaffected by him as she pretended to be.
    “Second, you take me back to the same chair I was just sitting in when it’s over.”
    Jake’s face crumpled in confusion. “That’s it?” he asked, taking her hand and uncrossing her arms. “No bloodletting or fight to the death with an alligator? Just take you on and off the floor?”
    Cassie nodded her head as he looked back at her over his shoulder. “That’s all I need from you,” she murmured.
    Jake found an open place on the dance floor and pulled her into his arms.
    “Deal,” he said, letting his voice drop low and gruff, pressing his mouth against her ear.
    She pulled back from him, making sure she was only touching him with the palms of