Fast & Loose

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  She started shaking her head before he even finished asking the question. “Rufus, I—”

  “It’s just dinner, Bree,” he said. “Dinner between two friends. You look like you could use a night off.”

  He thought she was going to decline, and if she did, he wouldn’t push it. He prepared himself to hear no, and he told himself he was okay with it. And he was. He loved Bree Calhoun. He would always love Bree Calhoun. And even if she never felt the same way toward him, loving her the way he did was enough to keep him happy.

  “Okay,” she said, surprising him. “Dinner between two friends. I’ll bring dessert.”

  He hoped his grin didn’t make him look as goofy as he felt. “That’s a deal.”

  Fourteen

  LULU OVERSLEPT MONDAY MORNING, SOMETHING that made her have to scramble to get to work on time. Not that she had to punch a time clock—it was one of the perks of a job where one was self-employed—but she had a lot to do that day, and she’d wanted to get to her studio by eight at the latest to ensure she had time to complete it all. The Mell-wood Arts and Entertainment Center, where she sold her glass in one of the shops, was taking advantage of all the tourism the week before Derby and hosting a huge art exhibit and sale that was opening Wednesday. Lulu wanted to have as many pieces to show as she could, and a couple weren’t finished yet. And since Bree was still blissfully asleep and doubtless would be ’til noon—one of the perks of her job—Lulu had to scramble in silence so as not to wake her friend up.

  As a result, she was a bit frazzled when she dashed down the stairs juggling a travel mug of coffee in one hand and her oversize, overfull backpack in the other. That frazzlement only compounded when she blasted out of the side of the big brick building and into the morning sunlight and saw Cole Early leaning against a car parked at the curb.

  At first, she thought maybe she was dreaming, that the whole running-late-for-work thing was just an annoying by-product of her restless sleep—the band at Deke’s last night had been an electronic funk ensemble called Venus Rising that had made her dream she signed up for a computer dating service, not realizing that it specialized in men who needed redheads to sustain intelligent life on the planet X12. She’d hoped maybe Cole’s appearance was an extension of that—not that she necessarily thought he was from the planet X12 or anything—and that the alarm would go off any minute at the time it was supposed to have gone off, and she’d have plenty of time to get ready for work.

  Then she realized that no, she was indeed wide awake and running late, and that was indeed Cole Early, and he did indeed look much fresher and more dapper in his slate blue suit and slater blue shirt and slatest blue necktie than she did in her usual work clothes of white tank top and denim overalls and heavy work boots—glassmaking was a hot, messy activity—her hair caught loosely atop her head to keep it out of her way while she toiled in her hot, messy studio.

  “Good morning,” he said, frazzling her thoughts even more thanks to the way he said it, all familiar and friendly and soft and sexy. No way did aliens from the planet X12 have voices like that.

  “Hey,” she replied absently, hoping she didn’t sound as confused as she felt. How had he known where she was staying? More to the point, why had he cared where she was staying? What was he doing here anyway? Considering the way they’d parted Friday night—with him looking at her as if she were a complete moron who’d broken into her own home, which, okay, maybe only a moron would do—she would have thought the last thing he wanted was to run into her again. Especially on purpose.

  Just as he had before, he seemed to hear her mental questions as if she’d spoken them aloud. “I needed to see you,” he told her. Then, as if he’d said something he shouldn’t, he rushed on, “I mean, I need to talk to you about something.”

  “How did you know where to find me?” she asked.

  He kind of made a face in response to that, one that indicated he wasn’t all that happy to have to respond. “I figured if I was renting your house, you had to be staying with someone. Since you and Bree seem joined at the hip, I took a chance it was her.”

  “Bree’s not listed in the phone book,” she pointed out.

  His gaze glanced off of hers. “No, but she’s in your phone book.”

  It took a moment for that to register. She hadn’t exactly gone out of her way to hide her address book, but neither had it been lying out in the open. It was in her office closet, on the top shelf, in a basket she used for a catchall. She hadn’t used her address book for some time, either. Meaning it was probably close to the bottom of that basket.

  “You went through my office closet?” she asked.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “It was an emergency.”

  “Jeez, what else have you gone through while you were there?”

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “What kind of a guy do you think I am?”

  He sounded genuinely stung when he replied. And really, she supposed the question had been unfair. Even a guy like Cole Early wouldn’t rifle through a woman’s personal things. If nothing else, he didn’t have the time. And anyway, there were women lining up in every bar in Louisville just begging to show him their personal things. What would he need with hers?

  And, hey, hadn’t she gone through some of his personal things at her house Friday night? Granted, the stack of papers on her desk had mostly been e-mail and records related to a horse farm he evidently owned and operated in California and had ended up being not personal at all. But she hadn’t known that when she started glancing at—okay, voraciously reading—them. They could have included all kinds of personal stuff about him. They just hadn’t. Dammit.

  “I didn’t want to wake anyone ringing the bell,” he continued. “So I figured I’d just wait until you came out.”

  “Okay, so here I am. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” he offered.

  “I take the bus to work,” she said.

  His smile fell. “You don’t own a car?”

  By his tone of voice, he might as well have just asked, You have a body buried in your backyard?

  “I own a car,” she told him. “But I don’t use it unless I have to. My work is right on the bus line, and taking the bus is better for the environment.”

  She could almost see the mental roll of his eyes. Fine, she thought. He could just be that way. It was no skin off her nose if he wanted to be environmentally irresponsible. Just see how he liked it when the only glacier left in the world was the limp ice cube melting in the virus-ridden water that accompanied his bland, genetically engineered burger he enjoyed al fresco in one-hundred-and-twenty degree temperature while his melanoma slowly killed him.

  Not that Lulu wanted to paint a bleak picture of the future or anything. But such thoughts did inspire her to take the bus to work.

  “Then let me give you a lift,” he said.

  “Thanks, but I can’t accept,” she told him. “I do a lot of my work on the bus, and today’s one of those days where I really need the extra time.” Which was true. She was still making sketches for one of the pieces she was working on.

  “I promise not to say a word in the car once I tell you why I need to see you.”

  “I can’t, Cole, I’m sorry. Thank you anyway.” Hoping to appease him long enough to make her escape, she added, “Maybe another time.”

  She lifted a hand in farewell and started toward the bus stop, three blocks away. She’d missed the 8:05, but if she hurried, she might make the one at 8:20.

  “Then meet me after work somewhere,” he called after her, his voice close enough that she knew he was following her.

  She turned, but kept walking backward, casting a glance over her shoulder every few seconds to make sure she wasn’t going to run into anyone on the busy sidewalk. She was tired of wondering what the hell was going on, so she asked him flat out, “Why? Why were you waiting for me this morning? What could you possibly have to tell me?”

  He hes
itated for a second, then doubled his pace to catch up with her. When he did, she turned to walk forward again, increasing her own speed.

  “I just need to talk to you,” he said. Then he hesitated, as if he were reluctant to say more.

  “About what?”

  Instead of answering, he expelled an exasperated breath and said, “Just meet me someplace where we can talk. Please, Lulu? Please?”

  There was something in the way he voiced that last word that made her go all hot fudge sundae inside, so warm, gooey, and sweet did she suddenly feel. She sensed please wasn’t a word he used often, but he’d used it twice for her, and somehow, it sounded heartfelt. The fact that a man she’d thought so arrogant and ostentatious before could be so solicitous and diffident now made her do something she told herself she really should know better than to do.

  She stopped walking and turned to look at him fully, having to crane her neck back to meet his gaze. Man, he was tall. His green eyes reminded her of the deepest part of the ocean, where it was dark, mysterious, and intense, and her heart hammered hard in her chest the same way it would had she just fallen overboard into them and was drowning in their depths.

  She inhaled a deep breath, hoping the extra oxygen might slow her heart rate. Instead, it only filled her nose and lungs with the scent of him, that work-play, inside-outside, business-pleasure smell that made her heart beat faster still. “There’s a Heine Brothers Coffee shop a couple of blocks down Bardstown Road in the opposite direction we’re walking in now,” she said, blaming her breathlessness on the fast pace she’d been trying to keep as she walked. “I should be done at work by around seven. Meet me there at eight. We can talk then.”

  “Eight o’clock,” he echoed. He jutted a thumb over his shoulder. “Coffee shop back that way. I’ll see you then.”

  Yeah, he would, Lulu thought as she started walking forward again—alone this time. More to the point, though, she would see him. Looking gorgeous, sexy, and tempting. And way, way out of her league.

  COLE TAPPED HIS FINGERS RESTLESSLY ON THE SIDE of his cardboard coffee cup and glanced at his watch again. Two minutes ’til eight. She wasn’t late, he told himself. So why was he so anxious?

  He blamed it on the day he’d had. After he’d made the date with Lulu—ah, agreed to meet Lulu, he hastily corrected himself—this morning, he’d had to meet Susannah and a handful of local Thoroughbred owners and trainers for breakfast. Then he and Susannah had attended a meeting with some of the Kentucky Derby Festival officials to see about their participation in—or, at the very least, presence at—some of the local events. He’d spent the rest of the day at Churchill Downs working with Silk, Esteban, and Jason. He’d barely had time to wolf down bad fast food from a drive-thru before heading back to his rented neighborhood—whose traffic at rush hour, he’d discovered, was brutal—to shower and change into a fresh suit, this one as coordinated in shades of tobacco as the other had been blue.

  In spite of all that, he’d arrived at the coffee shop ten minutes early and had immediately begun checking his watch. Like he did just now. Again. And this last time—like all the other times he’d checked his watch in the past nine and a quarter minutes—wasn’t because of the day he’d had, either, he made himself admit. It was because he was afraid Lulu wasn’t going to show.

  Unbelievable, he thought. He was never afraid of something like that. People always wanted to see him. No one ever tried to avoid him. But Lulu Flannery had been uncomfortable around him since day one. Uncomfortable enough that she might very well stand him up. And then where would he be?

  He still hadn’t reconciled the fact that she was the woman he’d come to think of as Delilah over the last week, still couldn’t imagine her doing or saying any of those things she’d said or written about doing in her journal. He still couldn’t imagine her wearing the brightly colored clothes or the glittery cosmetics. Hell, he couldn’t even imagine her executing any of the artwork he’d seen in the house. The more he’d thought about her, the more intrigued he’d become. And the more determined he’d been to prick the surface of Lulu and release her inner Delilah. He just wished he knew how to do that.

  Before he had time to ponder that further, she was coming through the coffee shop entrance, the last of the evening sun streaming in behind her like some cosmic goddess whose celestial aura traveled perpetually in her wake. Cole smiled at the uncharacteristically whimsical thought. Or maybe it was just seeing Lulu again that made him do that.

  She scanned the crowded room and found him quickly, then held up a finger in one of those I’ll-be-right-there gestures, and went to the counter to order something to drink. By the time she picked up her cup, a table by the window had opened up, so Cole grabbed it. When she joined him, she was blowing on her beverage, some kind of tea that was the color of weak beer. She was still dressed in her attire of that morning, something he’d thought reminiscent of a construction worker. But she’d added an accessory to the mix, a faded blue bandanna that was tied over her head, pirate style, something that only enhanced the deep blue of her eyes. The previously tidy overalls and tank top were grimy and stained, and her face was pink with the remnants of hot labor. Even that, though, couldn’t detract from her beauty.

  Prettiness, he corrected himself. She was too wholesome and girl-next-door for beauty. Still, the look suited her somehow. Another puzzle, he thought, because it wouldn’t suit Delilah at all.

  “Hey,” she said as she took her seat across from him. She sounded a little winded, though, as if she’d run from the bus stop. She took in his fresh suit and necktie and ran a hand self-consciously over an especially nasty streak of dirt on the bib of her overalls. Apologetically, she added, “I didn’t have time to stop by Bree’s and clean up. I’m sorry.”

  She concluded the statement by lifting her hand to a stray curl that had escaped onto her forehead and tucking it back beneath the bandanna. It was a gesture that was totally unnecessary, because she’d looked great with the errant corkscrew falling over one eye.

  He smiled. “No apology necessary. You look terrific.”

  Funny, but he wasn’t lying when he said it. She should have looked terrible. Any other woman wearing grimy overalls and work boots who’d been sweating all day would have. But she really looked good enough to—

  Well, she looked terrific.

  She laughed at the compliment, clearly convinced he was lying, still sounding self-conscious. But she stopped fiddling with her appearance and curled both hands around her tea, lifting the cup to her mouth to blow on it some more. Somehow, though, he suspected it was less because the beverage was so hot and more because she wanted to avoid his gaze.

  In spite of that, she said, “So you need to talk to me about something.” Into her tea.

  All day he’d rehearsed different ways to say, “I need a buffer and you’re it,” but he still hadn’t come up with anything that didn’t make it sound, at best, like he was desperate for a date with anything that breathed and, at worst, like he was looking to hire the services of a—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—escort. So he said, flat out, “I’d like to hire you to go out with me for the rest of the week.”

  Oh, great job, he congratulated himself after hearing what he’d just said. That had made it sound like he was desperate for a date with anything that breathed and looking to hire the services of a—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—escort.

  Lulu seemed to think so, too, because her eyebrows shot up and her mouth dropped open, and she started making a noise that reminded Cole of the sound of his clutch going bad on the old Ford Fairlane he drove as a teenager.

  Then she said, “I…I…I…What?”

  He sighed heavily and tried again. “I need an escort…but not that kind of escort,” he hastened to add when her eyebrows shot even higher. “I need, like…like a real escort. A woman to go out with me for the rest of the time that I’m in town. To restaurants, to parties, to different race-related functions that are going to require my presence. Hell, to the Derby, for
that matter.” When she narrowed her eyes and continued to stare at him in openmouthed silence, he continued, “You’re the only person I know in town, and from what I gather, you’re not dating anyone, so—”

  She flushed at that. “How do you know I’m not dating anyone?” she asked.

  Oh, crap. He knew that from reading her journal. But the passage that had indicated that was two months old. What if Lulu had a boyfriend? A steady boyfriend? A fiancé, even? And why did the prospect of something like that bother him even more than the prospect of her not showing up tonight? In a way that had nothing to do with having to find someone else to be his date/escort/damn-he-wished-there-was-a-better-word-for-what-he-needed.

  “Uh…” he began, scrambling for a good answer to her very good question. “I just always see you with Bree, that’s all. Are you dating someone?”

  With clear reluctance, she told him, “No. Not at the moment.”

  The relief that washed through him on hearing that was way stronger than it should have been. He shrugged the feeling off.

  “Look,” he tried again, “here’s the thing. I don’t know if you noticed the other night, but I have a little trouble when I’m out in public with people wanting to talk to me.”

  Lulu was still sitting rigidly in her chair, but she closed her mouth and met his gaze, however warily. “I did notice that, yes.”

  “Usually,” he continued, “I don’t mind so much when that happens.”

  She muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “I bet.”

  He pretended not to notice. “But in a matter of days, I have a horse running in the most important race of my career, so I’m feeling a little more stressed out than I normally do, and I’m not my usual magnanimous, gregarious self.”

  This time what she muttered sounded like, “Oh, please.”

  Again, Cole ignored the remark. Not that that kept it from wedging under his skin anyway. He folded his elbows onto the table and leaned forward, lowering his voice a little. “Look, it’s just that I’m a little tense this week, and I can’t be Mr. Easygoing. I can’t handle all the demands put on me by the race fans and the groupies. I need to focus on Saturday, and I can’t do that if every time I go out anywhere, I have to be…on all the time. Does that make sense?”