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

I have some things upstairs in my bedroom that will prove I’m telling the truth.”

She was halfway up the stairs and rounding the landing before she finished talking, so Cole gave up and followed her. She strode easily into the room, which made him forget, again, that he needed to duck or else he’d bump his head on the ceiling, again, which he did, again. When he muttered a ripe oath at having done so, again, she spun around to look at him. When she saw him rubbing his forehead, she must have realized what had happened, again, and she bit back a smile.

“Guess it’s not exactly built to your specifications, is it?” she asked.

“Usually I remember to duck,” he lied.

“Mm,” she said, the sound telling him nothing of what she might be thinking.

He was about to say something else, but she chose that moment to drop to her knees by the side of the bed and pull up the spread, then lean forward even more to look for something underneath it. Cole’s mouth went dry at the sight, because her T-shirt rode up and her already low-riding jeans rode lower, giving him an incredible glimpse of twin dimples at the base of her spine and the top of her rump. He’d noticed that first day what a nice ass she had. Seeing her in this position…

Well, it wasn’t just the reaffirmation of what a nice ass she had going through his head just then. Her position just brought forth all kinds of intriguing possibilities. Starting with how much he wanted to flick the tip of his tongue against each of those dimples, then trace the line of her spine upward, pushing her shirt higher as he went, until he could—

“Here it is,” she said, scattering what had promised to be a really nice little fantasy. Too nice, he thought, when he realized his brain wasn’t the only organ her position had stimulated.

He gave his head a good shake, as if that might physically dislodge the errant—and none too appropriate—thoughts from his mind, and tried to focus on what Lulu was doing instead. She withdrew a flat metal box with a combination lock on it that she proceeded to twist first right, then left, then right again. With a final click of the dial, she folded the lid back to reveal a stack of manila folders inside. She dug down to the bottom of them and pulled out a passport, which she then handed to Cole.

“Proof of my identity,” she said.

He opened it to find the requisite lousy photograph, but it was good enough that it resembled her perfectly. He flipped a page to read her personal information and found that her name was indeed Lulu Flannery and that she did indeed live at this address. Then he flipped some more pages and noticed a few other things.

“It’s expired,” he said.

“It still proves I’m who I say I am.”

“There are no stamps in it,” he pointed out.

In response to that, she covered the short distance between them on her knees and snatched it out of his hand. “I just never got around to using it, that’s all,” she said. Then she kneed her way back to the metal box and dropped it inside, slamming the lid shut and giving the combination a good spin.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she told him. “Everything in here is just personal fluff. There’s nothing valuable or anything.”

“I wouldn’t dream of intruding,” he replied. Since, hey, he’d found way more interesting stuff on her computer than he’d ever find in that box.

Then another thought hit him. The journal. It was Lulu’s journal he’d been reading all this time? All that passionate rambling and all those erotic fantasies…They’d been Lulu’s? The woman he’d once dubbed Craggedy Ann was the same woman who’d written about making love on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the Kentucky State Fair? The woman who’d blushed at the merest contact of her body with his was the same woman who’d written about petting herself to multiple orgasms while listening to Barry White’s “Love’s Theme”? Parts one and two? The woman who wore Birkenstocks and blue jeans was the same woman whose lingerie drawer was filled with lacy confections in dreamy colors, some of them seeming too small to even cover what they were supposed to cover? That was Lulu? Lulu?

Lulu?

Holy cow.

He watched as she bent over again to push the box back under the bed, trying to jibe the flesh-and-blood Lulu with his fantasy Delilah. There was no way. There was just no way the two women could be the same person. He’d never seen Lulu in anything but jeans, T-shirts, and ugly shoes. No way was she the owner of the rich colors and textures hanging in the closet, and no way was there pale lace or dark silk under such practical, no-frills clothes. She’d been uptight about something every time he encountered her. No way could she write about sensual and sexual pleasures with such a massive lack of inhibition.

Everything in this house pointed to someone who was vivacious, effervescent, and unreserved. Someone who enjoyed every moment of life and never sweated the small stuff. Someone who raced headlong into whatever came her way and relished it. Not…

Not Lulu.

“Look, I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said as she pushed herself up from the floor and rose to standing.

Cole studied her for a long time in silence, taking in her face, her clothes, her posture, herself, looking for something—anything—that might hint at the fun-loving, self-indulgent hedonist who called this house home. But all he saw was a wholesome, responsible, serious-minded woman. A woman who could never in a million years be his Delilah.

The realization of that hit him harder than he would have thought it would. It was almost as if something inside of him that had been full and content a moment ago was suddenly empty and alone. As if someone who’d become very special to him was now lost to him forever.