Fast & Loose

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  That surprised her. “No way. You’re from the South?”

  He nodded. “When I left Virginia, I stopped saying y’all. I thought it made me sound like a hick. But coming back here and hearing everyone use it so matter-of-factly, I realized saying y’all doesn’t make you sound like a hick. It makes you sound like…”

  “What?”

  “Charming,” he told her. “At least it is when you say it.”

  He took the two steps necessary to close the space between them, tucked his hand under her hair and curled it around her nape in the way she loved so much. Then he dipped his head to kiss her, also in the way she loved so much. Not too hard, not too soft. Not too passionate, not too chaste. Just right. The way she felt whenever she was with him. The way she was going to miss feeling after he was gone.

  He pulled away, but didn’t let go of her, his gaze fixing on hers. “But then, I think everything you do is charming,” he said softly. And before she had a chance to respond, he tilted his head back toward the house and added, “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

  The hand cupping her neck slid over her shoulder, dawdling long enough on the spaghetti strap of her dress for him to murmur, “Pretty,” before skimming down her arm to tangle his fingers with hers. The cicadas kicked up a fuss as they walked, their chatter swelling to a loud crescendo before falling back to a manageable volume. The breeze ruffled the leaves of a huge maple tree in the front yard, and somewhere in the distance, a tiresome woodpecker tap-tap-tapped for his dinner. Something warm and contented settled around her heart, and she closed her eyes for a second, inhaling a deep breath and holding it inside, thinking maybe by doing so she’d keep a little bit of the moment inside her forever, too.

  Then she opened her eyes again to see Cole looking at her, a soft smile playing about his mouth. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” he murmured.

  She nodded, but said nothing.

  “It reminds me a lot of the farm where I worked when I was a teenager.”

  “In Virginia?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I never would have guessed that’s where you’re from.”

  He stopped walking, even though they hadn’t yet reached the walkway leading up to the house. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Lulu. Which was why I wanted you to come here tonight. So you could see the real Cole Early.”

  “I’ve spent the last week with Cole Early,” she said softly, sobering a little. “I think I’ve seen the real him by now.”

  He started to shake his head, then hesitated. “Once,” he told her. “You saw the real me once. When I made love to you.”

  She felt her face flame at the reminder. “Cole…”

  “You saw more of the real me that day than I show anyone,” he interrupted. “But you haven’t been spending your time with Cole Early for the past week, Lulu. You’ve been spending it with…” He blew out an exasperated breath. “With King Cole. The guy that the fans and the press like to see. Tonight, that won’t be the case. Tonight, you’ll be seeing the real me again.”

  She straightened. “Don’t you think you’re presuming a lot here? I mean, just because of what happened in my studio…”

  He grinned. “I’m certainly not ruling that out, but that’s not what I meant. I meant that this”—he swept his arms wide and did a slow three-sixty, encompassing the entire farm as he went—“is a lot like the place I call home in California. Yeah, the flora, fauna, and landscape are different, and we don’t have these damned cicadas—” As if insulted by his words, the cicadas’ prattle swelled loudly for a moment, then receded, making him smile. “But for the most part,” he continued, “Mayhew Farms of Shelby County is like Early Farms in Temecula.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “This is much more my life than what you’ve seen this week.” He tilted his head toward a long stable a few hundred feet to the left of the house. “Let me introduce you to the boys and girls, and then we can work our way gradually back to the house.”

  The boys and girls turned out to be horses, of course, but no Mr. Eds were these. Some of them, Cole told her, had been insured for millions of dollars. That was because some of them had already earned millions of dollars and still had quite a bit of racing time left. Lulu had never been a big fan of horses, though she did always catch her breath whenever she was driving somewhere near a farm and saw some of the majestic beasts running over hill and dale. Up close like this, she realized they were even bigger than she’d thought. They were enormous, powerful animals, all muscle, muzzle, and shimmering coat…with lovely brown eyes and long, long lashes that tempered her fear a little. Cole was completely relaxed with them, rubbing their noses and talking to them in gentle tones, chuckling when one of those big muzzles nudged his hand, and laughing outright when their heads bumped his.

  Lulu could never be that comfortable with them, but neither was she quite as intimidated seeing how affectionate they were with him.

  “Ready to saddle up?” he asked when he saw her watching one of the larger creatures.

  She wondered if the blood actually drained from her face as quickly as it felt like it was fleeing. “What?”

  He laughed even harder at her expression. “Don’t worry, Lulu, I won’t make you ride if you don’t want to. Besides, I sure as hell wouldn’t start you on one of these guys.”

  “I don’t want to start on any of your guys,” she told him. “They’re beautiful, but I’m not a horse person.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “I’m not an art person.”

  Well, she didn’t know about that. She’d been thinking he was a work of art since the moment she met him.

  He buried his hand in the big animal’s mane, and it turned its head toward him in a way that was clearly playful. “Maybe someday you’ll want to learn to ride,” he said a little absently.

  Maybe. But she doubted it. “Maybe someday I’ll try my hand at equestrian art,” she said instead. “Or maybe someday you will.”

  He smiled at that. “Maybe I will.”

  From the stable, he took her on a quick tour of the grounds closest to the house, explaining how a working horse farm operated, starting with the predawn waking to early morning exercising to feeding, grooming, breeding, boarding, and every other thing that happened on a place like this. Lulu learned everything a person could learn about Cole’s line of work in a couple of hours’ time, and it was enough to make her head spin. It was demanding, time-consuming work. But he obviously loved it, and it was obviously what he was meant to do. Like her art was to her, raising and training Thoroughbreds was a part of him. Without her art, she wouldn’t be Lulu Flannery. And without his horses, he wouldn’t be Cole Early.

  He was right, though, that the man she was with tonight was different from the man she’d accompanied to the Brown Hotel, the man she’d had drinks with at Felt, the man she’d run into at Eddie’s office two weeks ago. As they sat down to dinner on the veranda—a meal he told her the Mayhews’ cook had prepared earlier, but which Cole put the finishing touches on now, since everyone else was off and gone for Derby Eve events—he was more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. Even though he had the biggest race of his career the next day, he wasn’t edgy or anxious or tense. Instead, he seemed…happy. Untroubled. Content.

  By the time they carried their dishes back into the house, the sun had set completely. Cole poured them each another glass of wine and led her back out to the veranda, and, as if by mutual agreement, they took their seats in a white wicker swing at one end. The crickets had taken up the chorus from the cicadas, accompanied by the occasional croak of a frog and the leathery flutter of bat wings. The moon crept over a trio of oak trees in the distance, and one by one, stars winked on overhead, until the black velvet sky was lit by diamonds. Cole toed the swing into slow motion, its leisurely creaking and the occasional jangle of its chain backing up the crickets nicely. When he stretched an arm along the back and dropped it over her shoulder, what else could Lulu do but lean into him, tucking her head into th
e curve of his neck and shoulder, and feel like she was right where she was supposed to be?

  All over Louisville, to celebrate Derby Eve, his colleagues were carousing like Vikings and running amok at any number of nightspots and parties. But Cole Early, splashily dressed, larger-than-life media darling, the man everyone was probably looking to interview at those parties and nightspots, was tucked away on a quiet farm in Shelby County with Lulu. Didn’t that tell her everything she needed to know? If he really was brassy, brash, arrogant King Cole, he’d be out running amok himself right now. Or, if he were stuck here with her, he’d be anxious and nervous because he’d feel so out of place, and he’d want to be out carousing like a Viking and running amok.

  Beneath his surface, he wasn’t arrogant, brassy, or brash. Beneath his surface, he was actually a very sweet guy. But then, on some level, Lulu had already known that about him. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here with him right now. In fact, she never would have been anywhere with him. Because she never would have had anything to do with a brassy, brash, arrogant guy in the first place.

  At some point after meeting him—maybe even the minute she did meet him—she’d seen beneath his surface to the sweet guy underneath. The same way he, at some point—maybe even before he started reading her journal—had seen beneath hers. And when people were able to do that with each other, when they were able to see beyond the outer trappings and fall for what was underneath, it wasn’t something to be taken lightly. Rather, it was something to celebrate. Something to pull close. Something to hold on to. Maybe forever.

  “So do you like Mayhew Farms?” Cole asked beside her.

  She listened to the crickets, looked up at the night sky, and snuggled a little bit closer. Then she nodded. “It’s beautiful, Cole.”

  His body went lax beside her when she said it, and he exhaled a long sigh of what sounded very much like relief. “Good,” he said softly. “Because I bought the place this afternoon.”

  She tilted her head back to look at him, certain she must have misheard, certain she must have only imagined what he said, because it was something she would have loved so much to hear. “You did what?” she asked, just to be sure.

  “The place was going to go on the market next month. So I made an offer to the Mayhews this afternoon, and they accepted it.”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “Just like that?”

  He looked down at her and smiled. “Just like that.”

  “Why?”

  He gave a little shrug, but there was nothing casual in the gesture. “I’m branching out my business,” he told her. “Bringing some of it East. Like you said, Kentucky horses are some of the best.”

  “I said they’re the best,” she corrected him.

  “Right. Some of the best,” he repeated, grinning. “I’ve been thinking for a while now that it might be nice to have a second location for Early Farms.”

  “How long have you been thinking about that?” she asked.

  “Oh, man, for a while. At least two days.”

  She laughed at that.

  “Anyway, the Mayhews mentioned over dinner last week that they were going to retire and put the place up for sale next month, because both their kids pursued careers outside the Thoroughbred business. That got some wheels turning in my head. Expanding my business here makes sense. This farm has been producing champions for almost a century. The Thoroughbred heritage here in Kentucky is incomparable. The state is gorgeous.”

  “Commonwealth,” she corrected him.

  “What?”

  “Kentucky isn’t actually a state. It’s a commonwealth.”

  “Now, see, that’s the kind of thing I need to know if I’m going to be living here six months out of the year.”

  Something that had been squeezed tight in Lulu’s chest for much of the evening eased up at hearing that. Too fearful to even hope, she asked softly, “You’re moving here?”

  “Part-time,” he told her. “I don’t think I could handle your winters after being in southern California for so long, but I figure April through October has got to be pretty pleasant—”

  “Well, we do have pretty humid summers,” she felt obligated to tell him. “And the temperatures can hit the nineties fairly regularly.”

  “Which is why the HVAC gods created central air-conditioning.” He grinned. “And an April arrival will ensure that I’m here for all those wacky Derby events,” he added.

  “You really want to relocate here?” she asked, still afraid to believe it was true. Seeing him six months out of the year was better than no months out of the year. “Even part-time?”

  He nodded without hesitation. “Yeah,” he said. “I really do. I like Kentucky. I don’t think I could leave it behind if I tried. Louisville and Lexington are two of the nicest cities I’ve ever visited. And the people here…” He covered his heart with his free hand and splayed his fingers wide. “Lulu, I just love the people here.”

  The pressure around her heart eased some more. “Do you?”

  He nodded. “I do.”

  She scooted a little closer to him on the swing. “Well, you know, I think a lot of the people here have grown pretty fond of you, too.”

  He scooted a little closer to her, too. “Actually, there’s one person here whose feelings I’m more interested in than others.”

  Still looking up at him, her head settled against his shoulder, she asked, “Anybody I know?”

  “You know her now,” he said, moving his hand to her face, cupping her jaw in his palm. “And she…you…” He smiled. “You’re the reason I want to spend half the year here.” He hesitated a telling moment before adding, “And maybe, someday, you might want to spend the other half of the year in Temecula with me.”

  By now, the pressure in Lulu’s chest had evaporated, letting her heart race free. And race it did at the thought of maybe—probably…definitely?—spending every day of every year with Cole. It was a huge, unspoken commitment he had just made, buying a farm here. He had pretty much just said he wanted to begin work on a future that included both of them, a future that was far-reaching and potentially permanent. He was telling her she was massively important to him. The way he had become massively important to her. It didn’t matter where they were—Kentucky, California, or Timbuktu. As long as she was with Cole, Lulu was where she wanted, needed, to be. Of course, it helped that she could take her art with her wherever she went. It was, after all, a part of her. The same way Cole had become a part of her, too.

  He must have thought her silence was the result of indecision, because before she had a chance to tell him she rather liked his idea, he hurried on. “I know it’s a lot to presume,” he said, “but at least think about it. I have a small barn on my property that you could turn into a studio. And the arts scene in southern California, Lulu, is huge. Huge. And I’m not far from the ocean. Lots of artistic inspiration there. I mean, how many poets have compared the ocean to glass? Or vice versa? And I’m close to the mountains, too. And Mexico’s not that far away. There’s inspiration everywhere. And if you don’t like the ocean, or the mountains, or Mexico, we can spend our weekends in Santa Fe sometimes. Now there’s a place that’s just—”

  She halted him by placing her fingers lightly over his mouth. And she smiled as she told him, “You had me at ‘Sorry about that, sweetheart.’”

  He looked confused for a minute, then he smiled, too. “And you had me at ‘Don’t forget your sunscreen and Mardi Gras beads.’” He hesitated another moment, and when he spoke again, his fear was almost palpable. “So does this mean you’re interested?”

  She nodded. “Anywhere you are, Cole, that’s all the inspiration I need.”

  His body went even more relaxed beside her, as if hearing her agreement finally chased away whatever was left of his fear. “It’ll mean shouldering the mantle of Queen Cole from time to time,” he cautioned.

  She shook her head. “No, it won’t. I’ll be shouldering the mantle of Queen Lulu.”

  He smiled. �
��And that’ll be okay?”

  She nodded. “Now that you’ve put me in touch with my inner hedonist, not only do I know just what to do, but I think I’ll probably have fun doing it. As long as we have nights like this, too.”

  He curled his arm more securely around her. “Oh, I promise you, Lulu, there will be many, many nights like this in our future.”

  And that, Lulu thought, was about as good as a life could get.

  Epilogue

  HAD COLE PUT IN A SPECIFIC ORDER FOR DERBY DAY weather, he didn’t think the meteorologists could have filled it more perfectly. Lulu had told him she recalled Derby Days that had anything from ninety-plus humidity-dripping degrees to near-freezing sleet. Springtime in Kentucky, she told him, was always an adventure. Today, however, the sky was a crisp, perfect blue with just enough gauzy wisps of cloud stretched here and there to break the glorious monotony. The temperature hovered at around seventy-two degrees, and the humidity had taken a vacation. As he stood in the clubhouse of Churchill Downs staring down at the crowd below, he almost felt like he was home in California.

  He smiled as the thought unrolled in his head. He was home. Just not the one in California at the moment.

  But that had nothing to do with where he happened to be standing and everything to do with the woman standing beside him. For Derby Day this year, Lulu had gone all out. Her dress was a blue and yellow print that hugged her curves, showcased her legs, and doubtless would have brought out her eyes beautifully if it weren’t for the big yellow sunglasses she was wearing. She’d bought her hat from Louisville’s premier milliner, Audrey Fine, who ran her shop on the first floor of an old brick Victorian on Third Street that was reputed to be haunted. Audrey and her shop, Finery, had both lived up to their names. Within minutes of walking through the door, the milliner had had Lulu, ah, millined in a hat whose colors were identical to her dress, with a broad blue straw brim and a crown covered with yellow silk roses.

  It was actually a conservative hat compared to the hot pink, chartreuse, and orange number her friend Bree was wearing on the other side of Lulu. The brim on hers was so wide, it covered half of her back, and there were enough feathers atop the damned thing that she was going to take flight if the breeze picked up even the slightest bit. Still, it suited Bree and her hot pink minidress perfectly. Her husband, Rufus, seemed to think so, too, because the guy hadn’t taken his eyes off her since Cole and Lulu picked them up at their house that morning in the stretch limo they’d rented for the day.