Fast & Loose (10 page)

Funny thing, though. When he turned to look at her again, he couldn’t think of a single interesting thing to say.

LULU COULD NOT BELIEVE HER BAD LUCK. BEING IN
the same place, at the same time, as Cole Early, not once, not twice, but
three
times in less than a week. Okay, so granted, the first time was a complete accident, and the second time she and Bree had gone out specifically to look for him. And okay, so it was a safe bet that the guy would eventually show up at the Ambassador Bar, since it was the sort of place tourists always flocked to, and Lulu spent almost as many nights here as Bree did when she was waiting for her friend to finish her shift. Still. It showed a remarkable abundance of bad karma on Lulu’s part to encounter him again, and she couldn’t remember doing anything lately that would warrant that.

On the contrary, she was always careful to do whatever she could to bank up
good
karma. She always held the elevator door for whoever was running to catch it. She always dropped her spare pennies in the leave-a-penny tray at the Circle K. She always tipped 20 percent, even when the service was only worth eight. She always stopped to provide a break in the traffic to let people turn left in front of her. Anything she could do to ward off things like…like…

Well, like the Cole Earlys of the world.

She reminded herself how arrogant and obnoxious he’d been at Eddie’s office on Friday, and was doing a pretty good job of remembering that when he moved in close enough for her to inhale the scent of him. He didn’t smell like any man she’d ever met, an eclectic—and not altogether unpleasant—mix of crisp man cologne, sweaty horse, and track dirt. And sunshine, she noted. He had that sort of full-day-outdoors-in-the-sun fragrance about him. The kind that made her reminisce about beaches and tropics and peel-and-eat shrimp with an ice-cold beer. He smelled like both indoors and out. Like work and play. Like business and pleasure. She liked it.

No! She didn’t like it!
she immediately contradicted herself. Not only was Cole Early
not
the kind of guy she wanted to get involved with—flashy and self-important and in town only temporarily—Bree had dibs.

Not that Lulu thought for a moment that a man—any man, but especially one like Cole Early—would even give her the time of day when he could give that, and more, to Bree. But Bree was on the clock ’til her relief bartender showed up, and that was still a half-hour away. This was Bree’s chance to finally meet a guy who could give her what she’d always wanted—the shallow, mind-numbing, thoroughly demoralizing existence of a woman who received glittering gems and cases of champagne and carte blanche on Fifth Avenue in exchange for mind-blowing sex with a guy who smelled of business and pleasure and was probably hung like the stallions he trained. No way would Lulu ever trade her safe, quiet, no-glittering-gems-or-stallions-for-me-thankyouverymuch life for that. Gosh, that would just suck.

Somewhere in the BFF Handbook there had to be a provision for ensuring that, if a situation arose that offered an opportunity for you to make your Best Friend Forever’s dream come true, then you had a sacred charge to do whatever you could to make it happen. Which meant chatting up Cole Early until Bree was free to do that herself, but not being so interesting that she compromised Bree’s chances to catch him. Lulu was confident that if the situation were reversed, if it were Bree in the position of making Lulu’s dream come true—whatever that dream was, and someday, Lulu was going to have to figure that out—then Bree would do whatever she could to ensure it happened.

So Lulu was honor-bound to keep Cole Early here until Bree finished her shift and could ensnare him with her feminine wiles—which, judging by past experiences, would take Bree about a minute and a half. And Lulu was also honor-bound to make sure she didn’t do or say anything that would make her look more attractive than Bree. Hah. Like that would be a problem. Even if Bree didn’t have a million times more sex appeal than Lulu, Lulu wasn’t interested in doing the feminine wiles thing on Cole Early anyway. Not that she had a feminine wile with her at the moment anyway. Or, you know, ever. She still told herself to watch what she said and how she said it.

Her resolve faltered a little, though, when someone behind Cole jostled him and sent him careening forward, right into Lulu. He didn’t bump into her as hard as he had in Eddie’s office, just pressed against her in a way that made her aware of him from her breasts to her hips, thanks to the way his body came into contact with hers in both of those places, long enough to make her wonder what it would be like to come into contact with both of those places on him without the burden of…oh, she didn’t know…clothes.

No! She didn’t wonder that at all! That was for Bree to wonder about!

“Sorry,” he murmured in a voice that was once again bereft of apology. And when her eyes met his…

Oh, damn. What had she been thinking about? For some reason, she suddenly couldn’t remember…

He took a step backward when he could, something that allowed her to think again. Unfortunately, mostly what she was thinking was that she wanted him to bump into her again. Only this time, without the inconvenience of…oh, she didn’t know…being vertical.

No! She didn’t want to be horizontal with Cole Early! Bree did!
Lulu actually much preferred a different position, one that required the man to be standing behind her while she…

Well, this probably wasn’t the best place to be thinking about that right now.

“So who
is
the friend?” Cole asked, bringing Lulu back to the matter at hand—and, coincidentally, hands played a big role in her favorite position, which was…

Where was she? Oh, right. Remembering that Bree hadn’t had a chance to introduce her and Cole. Which was just as well, since Bree would have introduced Lulu with her real name, and something about Cole Early knowing her name didn’t sit well with Lulu just then. Once a person had your name, they had ways of finding out other things about you, and she just didn’t want a man like Cole having that kind of access to her. So maybe, since she wasn’t going to have anything more to do with him after tonight, she’d just give him a phony name. An unattractive phony name at that. Anything to make Bree look better and put her at the center of attention.

Hah. Like Bree wouldn’t be the center, right, left, front, and back of attention the minute she walked into any room.

“I’m, um…” She scrambled to think of an unattractive name, but all she could come up with was her aunt Hortense, who lived in Waddy and would likely smack Lulu upside the head if she ever found out Lulu had used her name because she thought it was, um, unattractive.

“Hortense,” she said anyway.

Cole’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Hort…ah, Horten…uh, Hortense?”

“Hortense,” Lulu repeated. “It’s an old family name.” She bit back a smile. He was trying so hard to be polite about the fact that he thought her name was hideous. That was actually kind of adorable.

No! Not adorable!
she told herself. Rude. How rude to not cover that immediately. Miss Manners would be appalled.

“Hortense Waddy,” she said further.

He looked flummoxed for a moment, then stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Hort…ah…tense Wad…dy. I’m Cole Early.”

Lulu took his hand, thinking she’d give it a good, hard, unladylike shake. Instead, she melted a little at the way his fingers closed so confidently over hers and held them. Not shaking. Not moving at all. Just holding. And feeling really good.

No, not good! Intrusive. Yeah, that was it.

“It’s nice to meet you, too…ah…” Strangely, Lulu realized she was having trouble saying his name aloud, too. Which was weird. Hey, it wasn’t like he had a name like Hortense Waddy or something.

“Cole,” he said, helping her.

“Cole,” she finally managed to get out.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.

Before Lulu could think about it, she said, “A beer. They have Bass on draft here.”

Cole lifted a hand to signal…Oh, God, Bree, who looked at Lulu like she’d just betrayed the most sacred trust in the BFF Handbook. In spite of that, she returned to their end of the bar. “A Bass Ale for the lady,” he said. “And for me…” He hesitated for a moment, then smiled. “I’ll have a Bass, too,” he finally told Bree.

Lulu did her best to convey through her expression that she was standing at the bar drinking with Cole Early for Bree’s benefit. Her friend must have gotten the message, because she smiled in relief and said, “Coming right up, Mr. Early,” and turned to pull a couple of drafts. When they were sitting on the bar, tall and frosty, Cole told her to start a tab and then handed one to Lulu.

“What should we drink to?” he asked.

Lulu started to say,
To panties and silver platters,
but stopped herself in time. Instead, she said, “To your horse winning the Derby.”

He smiled in response, and she thought it was because he liked the toast. Then he asked, “Do you know the name of the horse I’m running in the Derby?”

Lulu opened her mouth to tell him what it was, then realized she couldn’t remember. “Um, no,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t.” But that was good, right? she asked herself. The fact that she had no idea who his entry in the race was would just make her look like an idiot, something that would only serve to make Bree look better, since Bree had learned everything she could about Cole since his arrival and would surely make that clear once her shift ended and she joined them.

“Do you know anything about me at all?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not really. I mean, I’ve seen you on the news and everything, but, uh…” Might as well be honest, she told herself. “I haven’t really paid attention.”

Oh, right. Like that was honest. She’d heard every word he uttered when she’d seen him on the late news nearly every night since his arrival. But only because Bree turned the volume up so loud. And after the news went off, Lulu had replayed every moment of their encounter at Eddie’s office. And then she’d been offended all over again by his behavior.

Really. She had. She
had
.

Instead of being put off by her admission, Cole smiled even more broadly. “Silk Purse,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“That’s the name of the horse I have running in the Derby. Silk Purse.”

“Oooooh,” she said. “Gotcha. Well, I promise to bet on him.”

“Her.”

“What?”

“Her,” he repeated. “Silk Purse is a filly.”

“Oh, well, I’ll definitely bet on her,” Lulu said. “I always root for the women.”

Although she wouldn’t have thought it possible, his smile grew even more, something she found confusing in light of his next question. “You know absolutely nothing about Thoroughbred racing, do you?”

“Um, no. Not really. I love to watch the Derby every year—I keep the TV tuned to local coverage all day, in fact. I like to see the hats and find out which celebrities are in town. And I go to a lot of the Festival events the two weeks before the race. But no, I guess I’m not what you’d call a race fan. I don’t really follow the horse statistics or anything like that.”

She would have thought that fact would have put him off, but he seemed almost delighted that she had no interest in what had to be more than just a job to him.

He opened his mouth to ask her something else, but a woman suddenly appeared behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and asked if she could have his autograph. With an apologetic look for Lulu, he turned and greeted the woman, then dashed his name across the cocktail napkin she thrust at him. She tried to engage him in conversation, but he excused himself, politely pointing out to her that he was already having a conversation with someone else. The woman looked past him at Lulu, clearly seeing her for the first time, and frowned. Then she looked puzzled, obviously surprised to find someone of Cole’s caliber mingling with someone of Lulu’s mediocrity. Lulu lifted a hand and wiggled her fingers in greeting, and somehow refrained from saying,
Nanny-nanny-boo-boo
.

Cole turned back to her with another apologetic smile, reached for the beer he had set on the bar, and opened his mouth to say something…only to be prevented by a different woman who suddenly appeared behind him, asking for his autograph again. The look he gave Lulu this time was one of irritation, though the feeling was clearly not meant for her. Again, he spoke warmly to the woman as he scrawled his name on what appeared to be a bank deposit slip, fielded another attempt to compromise his time, and turned to Lulu again. Unfortunately, the two autograph requests triggered a half-dozen more, and for the next five minutes, Lulu watched while Cole interacted with his fan base.

It was a fascinating thing to observe. Lulu had never had a brush with celebrity before. The closest she’d come was having a classmate in third grade named Ronald McDonald. She knew Louisville was overrun by famous people this time of year—at least, when it got closer to Derby Day—but she’d never met any. Friends of hers who worked with the public or who lived close enough to the Barnstable Brown house to ogle the guests at their annual Derby Eve party had caught several glimpses of—or had even talked to—movie stars, athletes, politicians, and such. Bree herself, working at the Ambassador, had waited on dozens of famous people in her day. But Lulu had only heard about such encounters secondhand. She’d never seen the cult of celebrity in action. And now that she did…

Well, actually, it looked kind of annoying. It was like all the people coming up to Cole felt perfectly comfortable interrupting a man’s evening out just to get him to write something illegible on a piece of paper they’d probably go home and put in a drawer and forget about. Not one of the people who approached him acknowledged Lulu in any way, even though they’d all had to interrupt his attempt at conversation with her and clearly knew he was talking to someone, otherwise they wouldn’t have had to preface their demand on his time with “Excuse me, but…” When she was halfway finished with her beer, he’d barely had two sips of his. No sooner did he turn around to say something to her than did someone else come up to him and want something.