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

closest to the house, explaining how a working horse farm operated, starting with the predawn waking to early morning exercising to feeding, grooming, breeding, boarding, and every other thing that happened on a place like this. Lulu learned everything a person could learn about Cole’s line of work in a couple of hours’ time, and it was enough to make her head spin. It was demanding, time-consuming work. But he obviously loved it, and it was obviously what he was meant to do. Like her art was to her, raising and training Thoroughbreds was a part of him. Without her art, she wouldn’t be Lulu Flannery. And without his horses, he wouldn’t be Cole Early.

He was right, though, that the man she was with tonight was different from the man she’d accompanied to the Brown Hotel, the man she’d had drinks with at Felt, the man she’d run into at Eddie’s office two weeks ago. As they sat down to dinner on the veranda—a meal he told her the Mayhews’ cook had prepared earlier, but which Cole put the finishing touches on now, since everyone else was off and gone for Derby Eve events—he was more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. Even though he had the biggest race of his career the next day, he wasn’t edgy or anxious or tense. Instead, he seemed…happy. Untroubled. Content.

By the time they carried their dishes back into the house, the sun had set completely. Cole poured them each another glass of wine and led her back out to the veranda, and, as if by mutual agreement, they took their seats in a white wicker swing at one end. The crickets had taken up the chorus from the cicadas, accompanied by the occasional croak of a frog and the leathery flutter of bat wings. The moon crept over a trio of oak trees in the distance, and one by one, stars winked on overhead, until the black velvet sky was lit by diamonds. Cole toed the swing into slow motion, its leisurely creaking and the occasional jangle of its chain backing up the crickets nicely. When he stretched an arm along the back and dropped it over her shoulder, what else could Lulu do but lean into him, tucking her head into the curve of his neck and shoulder, and feel like she was right where she was supposed to be?

All over Louisville, to celebrate Derby Eve, his colleagues were carousing like Vikings and running amok at any number of nightspots and parties. But Cole Early, splashily dressed, larger-than-life media darling, the man everyone was probably looking to interview at those parties and nightspots, was tucked away on a quiet farm in Shelby County with Lulu. Didn’t that tell her everything she needed to know? If he really was brassy, brash, arrogant King Cole, he’d be out running amok himself right now. Or, if he were stuck here with her, he’d be anxious and nervous because he’d feel so out of place, and he’d want to be out carousing like a Viking and running amok.

Beneath his surface, he wasn’t arrogant, brassy, or brash. Beneath his surface, he was actually a very sweet guy. But then, on some level, Lulu had already known that about him. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here with him right now. In fact, she never would have been anywhere with him. Because she never would have had anything to do with a brassy, brash, arrogant guy in the first place.

At some point after meeting him—maybe even the minute she did meet him—she’d seen beneath his surface to the sweet guy underneath. The same way he, at some point—maybe even before he started reading her journal—had seen beneath hers. And when people were able to do that with each other, when they were able to see beyond the outer trappings and fall for what was underneath, it wasn’t something to be taken lightly. Rather, it was something to celebrate. Something to pull close. Something to hold on to. Maybe forever.

“So do you like Mayhew Farms?” Cole asked beside her.

She listened to the crickets, looked up at the night sky, and snuggled a little bit closer. Then she nodded. “It’s beautiful, Cole.”

His body went lax beside her when she said it, and he exhaled a long sigh of what sounded very much like relief. “Good,” he said softly. “Because I bought the place this afternoon.”

She tilted her head back to look at him, certain she must have misheard, certain she must have only imagined what he said, because it was something she would have loved so much to hear. “You did what?” she asked, just to be sure.

“The place was going to go on the market next month. So I made an offer to the Mayhews this afternoon, and they accepted it.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “Just like that?”

He looked down at her and smiled. “Just like that.”

“Why?”

He gave a little shrug, but there was nothing casual in the gesture. “I’m branching out my business,” he told her. “Bringing some of it East. Like you said, Kentucky horses are some of the best.”

“I said they’re the best,” she corrected him.

“Right. Some of the best,” he repeated, grinning. “I’ve been thinking for a while now that it might be nice to have a second location for Early Farms.”

“How long have you been thinking about that?” she asked.

“Oh, man, for a while. At least two days.”

She laughed at that.

“Anyway, the Mayhews mentioned over dinner last week that they were going to retire and put the place up for sale next month, because both their kids pursued careers outside the Thoroughbred business. That got some wheels turning in my head. Expanding my business here makes sense. This farm has been producing champions for almost a century. The Thoroughbred heritage here in Kentucky is incomparable. The state is gorgeous.”

“Commonwealth,” she corrected him.

“What?”

“Kentucky isn’t actually a state. It’s a commonwealth.”

“Now, see, that’s the kind of thing I need to know if I’m going to be living here