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

“Rufus, you’re trying too hard,” she told him, her voice softer than she had meant it to be, making her sound as if she didn’t mean what she was saying. “Like I’ve said a million times, unless you’ve got the cash—”

“I’m not interested,” he finished for her. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and quickly corrected himself, “I mean, you’re not interested. Because, me, Bree…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. Rufus had made it no secret over the two years they’d been working together that he was very interested in Bree, an interest she’d done her best to keep at bay. And not just because Rufus’s net worth on any given day could fit into the tip jar, either. But because there were times when Bree found herself not wanting to keep his interest at bay. And, even worse, not caring what his net worth on any given day might be.

It really was as easy to love a rich man as a poor one, she knew. Provided one met a rich man who was a lot like Rufus.

He held her gaze for a moment, his dark eyes earnest. “Maybe the problem isn’t that I’m trying too hard,” he said quietly. “Maybe it’s that I’m not trying hard enough.”

Bree ignored the shudder of pleasure that wound through her at the frankly offered declaration. “Rufus…” she began, stringing his name out across several time zones. But all she added was, “I gotta go.” She scooped up her purse from where she’d stowed it beneath the bar, started to extend a hand to pat his shoulder again, then remembered what had happened the last time she did that and drew her hand back. “You’re a good guy, Rufus,” she said again. “But I really do have to go.”

“You need me to walk you to your car?”

She shook her head. “Not tonight, thanks. I didn’t have to park in the garage. I found a place on the street.”

“Next time then,” he told her.

She nodded. “Next time.”

RUFUS DETWEILER WATCHED AS BREE CALHOUN—THE light of his life and the woman he loved, the cream in his coffee and the jam on his bread, the Mc in his McMuffin and the oo oo in his Froot Loops, the…the…

Dang. He was getting hungry.

Anyway, he watched as Bree Calhoun, his reason for living, walked out of the bar without him. Again.

Of course it wasn’t that she was always walking out of the bar without him. Again. A couple of nights a week, when she didn’t have anyone else to walk out to her car with, she was driving out of the parking garage without him. Again. And there had been a handful of times when he’d walked her as far as the hotel lobby, and then she’d strode out the front entrance without him. Again. And on one especially memorable night, when Lulu was supposed to have picked her up but had to work late, Rufus had driven Bree all the way to the intersection of Bardstown Road where she lived, and she’d exited the car without him.

Ah, good times. Good times.

You’re a good guy, Rufus.

How many times had she said that to him over the past twenty-seven months, eight days, nine hours, thirty-seven minutes and—he glanced at his watch—forty-two seconds since he met her? After working together for more than two years, he knew Bree was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, and she thought he was—he bit back a grimace—a good guy.

What the hell was wrong with him that she thought he was a—he swallowed his revulsion—good guy?

And it wasn’t like Bree was one of those weird women who went for the dark and dangerous type. On the contrary, the woman craved security and stability more than any human being Rufus had ever met. He knew her well enough to realize that was the reason—and not because she was shallow and only craved creature comforts—why she was so dead set on bagging herself a rich guy. Of course, it helped that she had spelled that out to him in no uncertain terms the first time he asked her out. Bree, he’d said, you want to go to a movie sometime? Maybe have dinner and a beer afterward? To which she had pointedly replied, Rufus, you’re a good guy, so I’ll tell you this up front. Unless the reason you’re working here is to commune with the common man after a long day of counting your money, I won’t go out with you. Any guy I go out with has to have reeking piles of filthy lucre at home. The currency for my affections is currency. The only thing tender I want out of a man is legal tender. Unless you’ve got the cash, I’m not interested.

Never in his life had he heard a woman use so many different words for money in one breath. Rich guys, not good guys, that was what Bree Calhoun wanted. Correction: rich guy. She’d settle for one. Provided he had seven figures at his disposal. And although Rufus Detweiler might be many things—a hard worker, a man of his word, a literary mixologist, a reasonably gifted musician, an art lover provided the art in question wasn’t too abstract—rich guy had never been, nor would ever be, listed on his curriculum vitae.

He swiped a cloth over one last bottle ring on the bar before tossing in the towel—literally, if not figuratively, since he’d never give up on Bree—then called out a halfhearted farewell to the bartender who had relieved him. Then he exited the bar on the side where sat the most recent object of Bree’s financial affections. The young woman with him had disappeared, he noticed. Probably needed to do some major lipstick repair after that…that…gak…that exchange of bodily fluids she’d performed with the guy.

The moment Rufus slipped under the bar and appeared on the other side, however, the guy said, “Excuse me. Can I ask