Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

only a result of indigestion, anyway. What did he care if he never saw her again?

Nevertheless, for whatever reason—probably the aforementioned indigestion, or maybe jet lag, or, hell, it was probably from the damned concussion he got every night banging his damned head on the damned ceiling in the damned bedroom—seeing Craggedy again felt a little bit like good luck. And like everyone else in the Thoroughbred business, Cole was just superstitious enough to believe he needed all that he could get.

He inched forward again, smiling and shaking hands and replying as quickly and politely as he could to everyone who wanted a piece of him. Just when he was within inches of being able to call out—or better yet, reach out—to her, Craggedy turned away and melted into the crowd. He lunged forward in the direction into which she’d disappeared, pushing aside a man who stepped in front of him without even caring how rude the action may have been interpreted. But he was immediately encircled by throngs of people again. He pushed himself up on tiptoe, and since he was already taller than the majority of people there, was able to see a good many of the heads surrounding him. But none sported a crop of ragged red curls that invited a man’s finger to loop itself inside one.

As quickly as she had appeared, Craggedy Ann was gone. And so, Cole realized, was the last of anything that might have resembled a good mood.

“HE’S NOT HERE, EITHER, BREE,” LULU SAID AS SHE curled a finger through a belt loop of her friend’s jeans so she wouldn’t get separated from her amid the crowd at the Maker’s Mark Lounge. Heavens, if this was what Fourth Street Live was like on a Monday night, Lulu would continue to confine her visits to Borders. The only thing that made her more anxious than being the center of attention was being in a huge crowd. What kind of person actually enjoyed this kind of lifestyle?

“He has to be here,” Bree replied, surging forward through a trio of men who were nearly twice her size, and who each gave her a thorough once-over as she passed. She was completely oblivious to their once-overs, since they didn’t look like their net worth collectively was more than a buck-and-a-half. “He wasn’t in Felt or Sully’s or the Hard Rock. This is the only place we haven’t checked yet. He’s here, I tell you.” She swiveled her head first right, then left, then right again. “Somewhere.”

“We missed him,” Lulu assured her friend. “He was probably getting into his car just as we were getting out of yours.” She looked at her watch, then thrust her arm forward, in front of Bree’s face. “It’s almost one o’clock. Who in their right mind stays out this late at night?”

Bree glanced over her shoulder at Lulu and made a big production of looking at the scores of people thrashing around the place.

“Okay, okay,” Lulu conceded as the music pumped louder and the pulsating of the crowd notched upward. She raised her voice accordingly, fairly shouting as she added, “Lots of people stay out this late. I bet Cole Early’s the early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. Don’t those horse people get up at the crack of dawn to exercise their pets?”

“Thoroughbreds aren’t pets,” Bree yelled back. “They’re worth millions of dollars, a lot of them.”

“They still get their owners up early to take them outside.”

This time when Bree looked over her shoulder, she was gritting her teeth. “Not their owners. And not their trainers, either, necessarily. They get their exercisers up early.”

“Maybe Cole Early likes to—”

“Cole Early is not an early-to-bed type,” Bree interrupted her. “Trust me. He may not be on the short list of Rich Guys I Want to Bag, but I’ve read enough about him since he won Santa Anita a couple weeks ago to know he’s as sure a thing as I can get right now. So I’m not gonna hedge my bets.”

Honestly, sometimes Lulu just wanted to smack her best friend. Bree talked about men as if they were…Well, in this case, racehorses. But she also talked about men as if they were commodities. Or investments. Or possessions. Or careers. Or prey. She almost never talked about men as if they were human beings.

If she were anyone but Sabrina Calhoun, Lulu wouldn’t tolerate it. But she knew Bree well enough to understand her friend’s shortsightedness in this, even if she didn’t condone it. Bree had even better reasons as an adult to want to marry well than she’d had as a kid. And anyway, deep down, Bree was capable of deep and abiding loyalty and affection—just look at her friendship with Lulu. The whole man-woman thing, though…Bree just hadn’t ever had the opportunity to witness what a healthy adult relationship was like. Someday she’d meet a man who dropped her in her tracks, a man she’d fall for heart and soul, and then she wouldn’t care what he did for a living, or what kind of car he drove, or how fat his investment portfolio was, or if he even had an investment portfolio.

“Man, I hate it when they slip the snare this way,” Bree grumbled. “It takes forever to set up a trap the right way.”

Okay, probably she would meet a guy like that someday, Lulu reluctantly amended.

“Oh, no,” Bree muttered then, barely loud enough for Lulu to hear.

“What?”

“Rufus is here.”

Lulu smiled. Speak of the devilishly handsome. Or, at least, think of the devilishly handsome. Because even if she hadn’t been thinking about Rufus Detweiler by name, she’d certainly been thinking about him in spirit. As far as she was concerned, Rufus was exactly the man Bree should be looking at for potential happiness. And not just because the guy was already head over heels in love with her, either.

Lulu followed Bree’s gaze to the bar on the other side of the room and, within seconds, she had identified him. It was strange to see him