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

unnecessary, because she’d looked great with the errant corkscrew falling over one eye.

He smiled. “No apology necessary. You look terrific.”

Funny, but he wasn’t lying when he said it. She should have looked terrible. Any other woman wearing grimy overalls and work boots who’d been sweating all day would have. But she really looked good enough to—

Well, she looked terrific.

She laughed at the compliment, clearly convinced he was lying, still sounding self-conscious. But she stopped fiddling with her appearance and curled both hands around her tea, lifting the cup to her mouth to blow on it some more. Somehow, though, he suspected it was less because the beverage was so hot and more because she wanted to avoid his gaze.

In spite of that, she said, “So you need to talk to me about something.” Into her tea.

All day he’d rehearsed different ways to say, “I need a buffer and you’re it,” but he still hadn’t come up with anything that didn’t make it sound, at best, like he was desperate for a date with anything that breathed and, at worst, like he was looking to hire the services of a—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—escort. So he said, flat out, “I’d like to hire you to go out with me for the rest of the week.”

Oh, great job, he congratulated himself after hearing what he’d just said. That had made it sound like he was desperate for a date with anything that breathed and looking to hire the services of a—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—escort.

Lulu seemed to think so, too, because her eyebrows shot up and her mouth dropped open, and she started making a noise that reminded Cole of the sound of his clutch going bad on the old Ford Fairlane he drove as a teenager.

Then she said, “I…I…I…What?”

He sighed heavily and tried again. “I need an escort…but not that kind of escort,” he hastened to add when her eyebrows shot even higher. “I need, like…like a real escort. A woman to go out with me for the rest of the time that I’m in town. To restaurants, to parties, to different race-related functions that are going to require my presence. Hell, to the Derby, for that matter.” When she narrowed her eyes and continued to stare at him in openmouthed silence, he continued, “You’re the only person I know in town, and from what I gather, you’re not dating anyone, so—”

She flushed at that. “How do you know I’m not dating anyone?” she asked.

Oh, crap. He knew that from reading her journal. But the passage that had indicated that was two months old. What if Lulu had a boyfriend? A steady boyfriend? A fiancé, even? And why did the prospect of something like that bother him even more than the prospect of her not showing up tonight? In a way that had nothing to do with having to find someone else to be his date/escort/damn-he-wished-there-was-a-better-word-for-what-he-needed.

“Uh…” he began, scrambling for a good answer to her very good question. “I just always see you with Bree, that’s all. Are you dating someone?”

With clear reluctance, she told him, “No. Not at the moment.”

The relief that washed through him on hearing that was way stronger than it should have been. He shrugged the feeling off.

“Look,” he tried again, “here’s the thing. I don’t know if you noticed the other night, but I have a little trouble when I’m out in public with people wanting to talk to me.”

Lulu was still sitting rigidly in her chair, but she closed her mouth and met his gaze, however warily. “I did notice that, yes.”

“Usually,” he continued, “I don’t mind so much when that happens.”

She muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “I bet.”

He pretended not to notice. “But in a matter of days, I have a horse running in the most important race of my career, so I’m feeling a little more stressed out than I normally do, and I’m not my usual magnanimous, gregarious self.”

This time what she muttered sounded like, “Oh, please.”

Again, Cole ignored the remark. Not that that kept it from wedging under his skin anyway. He folded his elbows onto the table and leaned forward, lowering his voice a little. “Look, it’s just that I’m a little tense this week, and I can’t be Mr. Easygoing. I can’t handle all the demands put on me by the race fans and the groupies. I need to focus on Saturday, and I can’t do that if every time I go out anywhere, I have to be…on all the time. Does that make sense?”

Slowly, she nodded. But she didn’t say anything in reply.

“The other night, when you and Bree and I were out, people didn’t bother me the way they do when I’m alone. And the only reason I can figure why they left me alone when I was with you and Bree was because I was with you and Bree. You two were a nice”—there was no way around the word, so Cole just spit it out—“buffer for me.” He paused to see what her reaction would be. Mostly, he noted, it was just a slight squinting of her eyes that could have meant anything. “So that’s what I’d like to hire you to be for the rest of the time that I’m in town,” he concluded. “A buffer. Any chance you’d be interested?”

LULU WAS HAVING TROUBLE HEARING IN THE LOUD, crowded coffee shop. Because first, she could have sworn Cole Early said he wanted to pay her to go out with him for a week. Then she thought she heard him say he wanted her to be a buffer for him.

Just to be sure, she repeated, “A buffer?”

Instead of laughing and saying, Oh, God, no, of course he hadn’t asked her to be that, that wouldn’t exactly be flattering, would it? No, what he wanted was for her to go golfing with him and be a duffer. Or maybe he wanted her to play charades with him and be a bluffer. Perhaps he needed a