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

UNTIL COLE WAS ALMOST AT THE FRONT door of his rented house that he realized something was wrong. He hesitated before inserting the key in the lock, trying to figure out what had set off his always reliable internal alarm system. The street behind him was silent, and the front door was locked. But something niggled at the back of his head, just out of reach…

The bedroom light, he realized. It had been on when he pulled in the driveway. But he distinctly remembered turning it off before he left. Living in California—or, more accurately, paying electric bills in California—a person got used to never leaving things on frivolously. Habits weren’t broken just because one was out of town, so he was no different with a house he was renting than he was with his own. Just as he did at home, he always left on a living room light and a kitchen light when he went out, because he was never sure which door he’d come in when he returned.

Just to make sure he hadn’t been seeing things, Cole silently descended the porch steps and looked up at the bedroom window from the front walk. Yep, the light was on. Not only that, a shadow moved in front of the closed curtain as he was looking at it, telling him someone was up there poking around.

He started to reach for his cell phone to call the police, but the light in the bedroom went off, indicating whoever was up there might be on their way out. Instinctively, he made his way around to the back of the house and saw a finger of timid light filtering through a crack in the back door, an indication that it was ajar. Whoever was inside had entered through there, so it was a good bet that was where the intruder would be exiting, too. Quickly, Cole darted into the kitchen and pushed the door back the way he’d found it. Then he moved to the stove and switched off the light there and pressed himself into a dark corner, just in time to hear footfalls coming down the stairs that lay behind the door opposite him.

His heart rate doubled when that door swung open and a shadowy figure emerged, hesitating before moving forward, clearly uncertain what had happened to the light. Cole didn’t waste any time. Lunging forward, he tackled the shape and knocked it to the floor in the hallway. In the handful of seconds it took to complete the action, he registered a surprising number of things.

First, that the figure was a lot smaller than he’d initially thought. Second, that because of that first thing, both he and the figure landed on the hallway runner a lot harder than he’d planned. Third, that because of that second thing, he discovered the figure was a lot less masculine than he’d realized. And fourth, that because of that third thing, he would be going straight to hell, since, in an effort to subdue the previously-thought-to-be-masculine figure, he accidentally cupped the man’s, uh, woman’s, breast and was, for the briefest of moments—but still a hell-worthy amount of time—just the tiniest bit grateful and just the tiniest bit aroused.

He had just enough time after marveling at the fact that he had been turned on by a common criminal trying to steal his stuff—and after making a mental note to go out and get himself laid as soon as he got back to California—to form the words What the hell? Unfortunately, the words never quite made it out of his mouth, because they were cut off by the way the figure freed an arm and belted Cole in the mouth—hard. It surprised more than hurt him, but it made him reel backward just enough to give the figure leverage that allowed her to pull herself up and shove him backward—hard.

Then she was on all fours, scrambling to get up and run, something she was almost able to do. But Cole regrouped quickly enough to grab her around the waist and pull her backward and upward, off the floor and against his body.

Man, for someone who didn’t weigh anything and fought like a girl, she was one tough, tenacious dame.

He dodged her fists as well as he could as he felt along the wall for the light switch, but he still got socked a few times. She kicked, too, landing her heels again and again in his shins, his calves, and his knees. It was because of that last that, just as he found the light switch and flicked it on, his legs buckled beneath him, then both he and his captive went tumbling onto the hallway runner again. He caught himself on his forearms before he would have squashed her, but pressed his body hard on top of her to keep her from wriggling free again.

The sudden eruption of bright light into the hall blinded him momentarily, but it also halted her fists—momentarily. Nevertheless, it was long enough for him to grab both her wrists in his hands and push them high above her head, pinning them to the floor as effectively as her body was pinned beneath his. She began to jerk wildly when she realized how thoroughly he’d incapacitated her, but her slight build was no match for his. In the chaos, he couldn’t get a bead on her features, but her scent he recognized immediately. And that faint hint of patchouli brought his gaze to her face pronto. When he saw that that face was obscured by a riot of auburn curls, he knew without question that he was indeed the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.

Good things came in threes. Three times lucky. Third time’s a charm.

On three occasions now he had encountered her, through nothing but sheer dumb luck. That had to mean something, he told himself. If he could just figure out what…

“Hortense?” he said softly in disbelief. What was she doing breaking into houses? Or, more