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

Rufus shrugged. “Sure.”

“The girl you were working with tonight. Bree?”

Immediately wary, Rufus replied, “Yeah?”

“Is she single?”

Reluctantly, he nodded. “She is.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

Even more reluctantly, Rufus shook his head. “She does not.” He didn’t bother to add that the price of her affections was steep, however. He was confident this guy could afford her. He just didn’t deserve her.

The guy smiled in a bland, benign, insurance-salesman kind of way. “Just wanted to be sure. I’m going to be in town for another week, and she and I hit it off pretty well, but I wasn’t sure if that was because she might be interested or if she was just doing her job, making nice with the customers.”

Rufus grinned now and waved a hand airily before himself in a theatrical pshaw kind of way. Then he said, “Pshaw. It was definitely because she was interested. Bree’s genuinely interested in every customer who sits down at this bar. She’s doing so much better since they doubled up on her medication. She’s even stopped bringing her gun to work every day.”

The guy’s smile fell. “She brings a gun to work?”

“Only sometimes.”

“Was she, uh…packing today?”

“I doubt it. When she’s carrying, you can usually see the bulge in her pocket.” He looked right and then left, then lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “But, look, don’t say anything to the manager, all right? She’s in a temporary release program, and I’d hate to see her go back to doing hard time.” He pretended to waffle over whether he should say more, then added, “Not to mention, she has a nasty temper when she forgets to take her meds. I mean, if she found out someone had reported her…” He did the right-left look again. “Well, let’s just say I sure wouldn’t want her gunning for me.” He smiled. “No pun intended.”

The guy nodded enthusiastically. “Uh, right. I won’t say a word.”

Rufus patted his arm comfortingly. “You’re a good guy.”

As he made his way to the exit, Rufus wondered how much longer he was going to be able to get away with this…this…Okay, this deliberate demolition of Bree’s efforts to bag herself a rich man. She had to be losing sleep at night, puzzling over why a woman as beautiful, funny, smart, and charming as she was had so much trouble landing what had, over the years, been dozens of potential Sugar Daddies here at the bar. If she ever found out it was because Rufus had purposely and with malice aforethought sabotaged every viable liaison by putting the right—or rather, wrong—idea into the potential Sugar Daddy’s head about her, she’d kill him. Purposely and with malice aforethought. Probably with her bare hands. Someday, he thought, that was going to happen.

But not today.

Today, Rufus had lived to crush Bree’s visions of Sugar Daddy Fairies again. Next time, however…

Well. He’d just do like Scarlett and think about that tomorrow.

Oh, man, that gave him an idea for another drink. Gone with the Seabreeze. He’d make sure to think about that tomorrow, too. In between thoughts about Bree Calhoun. And thoughts about how he could get her to realize that what a man carried in his pockets was of no consequence compared to what a man carried in his heart.

Eight

ONE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT BY THE TIME COLE found himself surrounded by a bevy of admirers again on Wednesday night—when all he wanted was to enjoy a meal alone—he would have learned that the only way to do that was to go to the grocery store, buy provisions, and cook something for himself in the privacy of his rented home. But the only thing Cole hated more than not being able to enjoy a meal in peace was having to prepare that meal himself. At home in Temecula, he employed a full-time housekeeper who also cooked his dinner before she left at day’s end. On those days he was working at the ranch, she also left something in the fridge for his breakfast and lunch the following day. Whenever he was away from the ranch, he ate out.

He had been delighted to discover that Louisville, when it came to restaurants, was a major buried treasure. Susannah had visited the city on a number of occasions and listed enough recommendations that Cole could eat someplace different every morning, noon, and night and still have places left over for after-hours. What she hadn’t warned him about was how crowded many of them would be during the week this time of year. Nor had she cautioned him about the plethora of horse-crazy—and trainer-crazier—fans he would encounter.

He told himself he shouldn’t be surprised. He’d also discovered that the two weeks prior to the Derby in Louisville were a veritable mini Mardi Gras of goings-on. But the festivities, as delightful—if sometimes odd—as they were, often hindered Cole’s ability to just read the daily racing forms and newspaper, which was what he generally liked to do when he ate alone.

He also liked eating when he ate alone. As in, not being hassled by fans as he shoveled food into his mouth. That was why he’d taken to eating at bars the last couple of nights—literally. At the bar part of the bar, an act of clearly intended I-want-to-be-alone behavior that should have dissuaded anyone from coming up with the request to join him. Especially since he’d been trying for the past couple of nights to wedge himself in on a solitary seat between two men.

And that was how he came to find himself seated at the bar in the utterly gorgeous Ambassador Hotel in downtown Louisville—number four on Susannah’s “List of Places You Have GOT to Visit While in Town.” Granted, Susannah had suggested it as a nightspot. All the more reason, Cole had concluded, to have dinner there. If it was a nightspot, it shouldn’t be too busy at the dinner hour, right?

Wrong.

The place had been