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

Something that had been squeezed tight in Lulu’s chest for much of the evening eased up at hearing that. Too fearful to even hope, she asked softly, “You’re moving here?”

“Part-time,” he told her. “I don’t think I could handle your winters after being in southern California for so long, but I figure April through October has got to be pretty pleasant—”

“Well, we do have pretty humid summers,” she felt obligated to tell him. “And the temperatures can hit the nineties fairly regularly.”

“Which is why the HVAC gods created central air-conditioning.” He grinned. “And an April arrival will ensure that I’m here for all those wacky Derby events,” he added.

“You really want to relocate here?” she asked, still afraid to believe it was true. Seeing him six months out of the year was better than no months out of the year. “Even part-time?”

He nodded without hesitation. “Yeah,” he said. “I really do. I like Kentucky. I don’t think I could leave it behind if I tried. Louisville and Lexington are two of the nicest cities I’ve ever visited. And the people here…” He covered his heart with his free hand and splayed his fingers wide. “Lulu, I just love the people here.”

The pressure around her heart eased some more. “Do you?”

He nodded. “I do.”

She scooted a little closer to him on the swing. “Well, you know, I think a lot of the people here have grown pretty fond of you, too.”

He scooted a little closer to her, too. “Actually, there’s one person here whose feelings I’m more interested in than others.”

Still looking up at him, her head settled against his shoulder, she asked, “Anybody I know?”

“You know her now,” he said, moving his hand to her face, cupping her jaw in his palm. “And she…you…” He smiled. “You’re the reason I want to spend half the year here.” He hesitated a telling moment before adding, “And maybe, someday, you might want to spend the other half of the year in Temecula with me.”

By now, the pressure in Lulu’s chest had evaporated, letting her heart race free. And race it did at the thought of maybe—probably…definitely?—spending every day of every year with Cole. It was a huge, unspoken commitment he had just made, buying a farm here. He had pretty much just said he wanted to begin work on a future that included both of them, a future that was far-reaching and potentially permanent. He was telling her she was massively important to him. The way he had become massively important to her. It didn’t matter where they were—Kentucky, California, or Timbuktu. As long as she was with Cole, Lulu was where she wanted, needed, to be. Of course, it helped that she could take her art with her wherever she went. It was, after all, a part of her. The same way Cole had become a part of her, too.

He must have thought her silence was the result of indecision, because before she had a chance to tell him she rather liked his idea, he hurried on. “I know it’s a lot to presume,” he said, “but at least think about it. I have a small barn on my property that you could turn into a studio. And the arts scene in southern California, Lulu, is huge. Huge. And I’m not far from the ocean. Lots of artistic inspiration there. I mean, how many poets have compared the ocean to glass? Or vice versa? And I’m close to the mountains, too. And Mexico’s not that far away. There’s inspiration everywhere. And if you don’t like the ocean, or the mountains, or Mexico, we can spend our weekends in Santa Fe sometimes. Now there’s a place that’s just—”

She halted him by placing her fingers lightly over his mouth. And she smiled as she told him, “You had me at ‘Sorry about that, sweetheart.’”

He looked confused for a minute, then he smiled, too. “And you had me at ‘Don’t forget your sunscreen and Mardi Gras beads.’” He hesitated another moment, and when he spoke again, his fear was almost palpable. “So does this mean you’re interested?”

She nodded. “Anywhere you are, Cole, that’s all the inspiration I need.”

His body went even more relaxed beside her, as if hearing her agreement finally chased away whatever was left of his fear. “It’ll mean shouldering the mantle of Queen Cole from time to time,” he cautioned.

She shook her head. “No, it won’t. I’ll be shouldering the mantle of Queen Lulu.”

He smiled. “And that’ll be okay?”

She nodded. “Now that you’ve put me in touch with my inner hedonist, not only do I know just what to do, but I think I’ll probably have fun doing it. As long as we have nights like this, too.”

He curled his arm more securely around her. “Oh, I promise you, Lulu, there will be many, many nights like this in our future.”

And that, Lulu thought, was about as good as a life could get.

Epilogue

HAD COLE PUT IN A SPECIFIC ORDER FOR DERBY DAY weather, he didn’t think the meteorologists could have filled it more perfectly. Lulu had told him she recalled Derby Days that had anything from ninety-plus humidity-dripping degrees to near-freezing sleet. Springtime in Kentucky, she told him, was always an adventure. Today, however, the sky was a crisp, perfect blue with just enough gauzy wisps of cloud stretched here and there to break the glorious monotony. The temperature hovered at around seventy-two degrees, and the humidity had taken a vacation. As he stood in the clubhouse of Churchill Downs staring down at the crowd below, he almost felt like he was home in California.

He smiled as the thought unrolled in his head. He was home. Just not the one in California at the moment.

But that had nothing to do with where he happened to be standing and everything to do with the woman standing beside him. For Derby Day this