Fast & Loose (5 page)

“Oh, now, you’re reaching for that one.”

“…that masterpiece of manhood and monument for moolah…How could you mistake that for
some jerk guy
?”

Lulu fidgeted on her seat a little. Bree did sort of have a point. “Well, he acted like kind of a jerk guy when I talked to him.”

“You
talked
to him?” Bree squealed.

“And he did knock me down,” Lulu told her. “And he barely apologized when he helped me back up.”

“You
touched
him?”

“He knocked me down!”

“You
touched
him?”

“Bree!”

Bree expelled a sound that was a mix of impatience and intrigue. And then she said, “Oh, Lulu. What have you done?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Lulu protested. “Except maybe, you know, talk to him like I thought he was, um, an idiot.”

The sound Bree expelled then wasn’t a mix of anything. It was totally, crystal clear in its meaning. That meaning being,
Oh, dammit.
But all she said was, “Tell me what happened.”

Lulu replayed the incident at Eddie’s office for her friend as quickly as possible, leaving out the panties-shimmying part and focusing instead on Cole Early’s obnoxious arrogance. But somehow, through the telling, Cole Early’s obnoxious arrogance came out sounding really suave and charming. She had no idea how that happened. Lost in translation and all that. Anyway, Lulu concluded the story with, “Probably, he won’t have to watch the race from the infield after all. Probably, he’ll be standing in Millionaire’s Row.” She shrugged a little and did her best to smile. “My bad.”

Bree shook her head slowly. “This close,” she said, holding up her thumb and index finger about two nano-millimeters apart. “I was
this
close to finally meeting my meal ticket. I could have been on Millionaire’s Row right beside Cole Early, watching the race with him.”

Not that Bree would have been watching the race, Lulu knew. Or even Cole Early, for that matter. No, Bree would have been too busy waving down the vendor selling those thousand-dollar mint juleps with the ice imported from Antarctica and the sugar flown in from Aruba. And flaunting her Derby hat by Gabriel Amar for Frank Olive, since she did have a soft spot for the designer who donated the proceeds of his hat sales to local charities.

Lulu patted her friend’s shoulder with almost genuine sympathy. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be Pandarus to your Cressida and Cole Early’s Troilus. But, hey, look how that turned out. I mean, Troilus and Cressida lived, but they didn’t get catharsis. What’s up with that?”

Bree brightened, but Lulu doubted it was because she was up for a rousing discussion of the Bard. “Wait a minute,” she said. “If you ran into Cole Early at Eddie’s office, then he must be renting a house from Eddie, right? Eddie can tell me where he’s staying.”

“Well, except for that pesky confidentiality of clients thing that Eddie embraces,” Lulu reminded her. “He won’t even tell me for sure who’s renting my house.”

Bree waved a breezy hand. “A small matter. Eddie will divulge anything for the right price.”

“Which you can’t afford.”

“I’ll figure something out. Maybe I can blackmail him.”

“Gee, Bree, I’m thinkin’ that a man who dances in public dressed as Liza Minnelli probably doesn’t have a lot of dirty little secrets he fears someone might expose.”

Bree looked unconcerned. In fact, Bree looked like she was making plans. Plans that might even include Cole Early in a Speedo. She grinned slyly as she said, “That reporter on TV just now said she was reporting from Fourth Street Live, right?”

Lulu nodded, not sure she liked the look on Bree’s face.

“Could you tell which bar they were in?”

Lulu shook her head. She’d been to Fourth Street Live exactly two times. And both times, she’d been visiting the bookstore, not one of the numerous bars the entertainment complex boasted.

Bree deflated some. “Me, neither.” Then she brightened again. “But how many bars could there be at Fourth Street Live?”

Lulu shrugged. “Just a shot in the dark, but I’d say about twelve hundred.”

Bree waved a negligent hand. “No way. There couldn’t be more than ten or fifteen.”

Which was about ten or fifteen more than Lulu wanted to visit, if she was reading Bree’s expression right—and she was reasonably sure she was.

Bree eyed the last few swallows of her beer, as if trying to decide whether or not it was worth spending the extra couple of minutes necessary to finish it. Then she pushed the glass away and stood.

“C’mon, Lulu,” she said as she grabbed her purse from the barstool beside her. “We’re going downtown. And when we find your good buddy Cole Early, you’re going to introduce us.”

Interfering with her friend’s life quest wouldn’t cost Lulu her friendship with Bree, she knew. But it might cost her a limb. So Lulu swept up her own purse and followed Bree to the exit. She told herself to tell Bree she was going back up to the apartment, that her friend was on her own when it came to hunting down Cole Early, because tycoon trapping expeditions weren’t Lulu’s thing at all. But Bree had a bad habit of biting off more than she could chew when it came to achieving her life’s ambition—never mind the fact that Cole Early was an infinitely tastier morsel than some of the other “bites” Bree had hooked up with for brief spells in the past. Someone had to keep an eye on her and keep her out of trouble.

Which was the
only
reason Lulu was going along with her now. It had nothing to do with the memory of Cole Early’s smile or the way he called her “sweetheart.” Or the thrill of heat that had shot up her arm when he’d taken her hand at Eddie’s office. Or the stupid, unfounded fear that Bree might just wind up on Cole’s arm at the Derby, leaving Lulu to watch the race on TV alone.

It was because she wanted to make sure Bree stayed out of trouble.

Nevertheless, she had to battle a ripple of apprehension as the door to Deke’s swung closed behind them, and Bree said, “You know, Lulu, this just may be our best Derby yet.”

COLE WAS HAVING TROUBLE REMEMBERING THE
name of the nightclub—or was it a restaurant?—into which he had wandered. Even after three full days in Louisville, he hadn’t yet acclimated himself to the Eastern time zone and kept getting ravenous around ten o’clock, which was dinnertime in his part of the world. Tonight was no different, and, finding nothing to eat in his rented house—mostly because he hadn’t bothered to stock it with anything other than essentials like brandy and Scotch—he’d called a cab and asked the driver to take him someplace where he could get a decent meal, a decent drink, and some decent music.

Of course, he’d done that his other nights here, as well, only to have the driver drop him a few blocks from the house and charge him outrageously for the trip. So tonight, Cole had specifically said he wanted to go somewhere
besides
Bardstown Road, and the driver had dropped him here, in a monstrous entertainment complex filled with nightspots, only one of which—the Hard Rock Café—he recognized. He’d chosen the nearest door and walked through it, barely noticing the name of the establishment. The place was nice—if a little more into Bourbon than he was himself—but it wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind.

In spite of being three hours ahead of everyone here, he was sure he felt three times as exhausted, and he just hadn’t had it in him to look around for something else. Besides, the music playing
was
decent, and, even more important, there had been plenty of seats at the bar when he entered. So he’d loosened his necktie spattered like a Jackson Pollock painting and unbuttoned both the amber suit jacket and top two buttons of the plum-colored dress shirt he’d had on since before dawn, and he’d claimed one of the empty seats for his own.

They hadn’t stayed empty for long, however, because within minutes of sitting down, the seats on each side of Cole had been occupied, by women whose names, like the nightclub/restaurant/bar’s, he could also no longer remember. Nor could he recall the name of the woman standing behind him who had crossed the room immediately behind the other two to press her spectacular breasts into his back—
those
Cole did remember. And probably would for some time. They’d chatted him up while he ate his dinner—making the enjoyment of it pretty much impossible—and consumed three drinks for his every one. Although he’d made numerous—polite—attempts to make clear his desire to be left alone, they were either too inebriated or clueless to take the hints. The same way the women just like them at a restaurant the night before had been. And the same way the women just like them at yet another bar the night before
that
had been.

What a jerk he’d become, he thought. He was a disgrace to his gender. Whining about an overabundance of beautiful women who wouldn’t leave him alone. At this rate, he was going to have to trade in his membership card to Studs Unlimited for one from Sissies Anonymous instead.

Within hours of his arrival in Louisville, though, the vultures had begun circling. And not just the fans, like the trio of beauties smothering him now, but the press, too. Not a single night had passed since he’d come to town that he hadn’t been spotted by someone from the local news and pressed for an interview—TV, newspapers, periodicals, websites, it didn’t matter. All of them wanted to talk to Cole. And Cole, mindful that publicity was always—
always
—a good thing, had happily talked to all of them. Or, at least, he had pretended it was happily. He just hoped he could keep it up. If the next two weeks were like the last three or four days had been, however, he was going to be stretched too thin to be good to anyone. Including Susannah and Silk Purse.

Not that he wasn’t used to being recognized and courted by the press. No matter where he found himself, Cole was always surrounded by admirers. But he’d hoped his reputation hadn’t preceded him to Louisville yet. He had wanted his time here to be fairly anonymous for a while, so that he might enjoy a gradual immersion into the adventure that would become the Kentucky Derby Experience. Simply put, he’d wanted to be himself for a little while before shouldering the mantle of King Cole.

He should have known better. Rock ’n’ roll had groupies for its bands. Major League had Baseball Annies for its players. NASCAR had Track Bunnies for its drivers. Thoroughbred racing had something similar for its trainers that no one had yet formally christened. So for lack of a better phrase, Cole had always dubbed such women—because they were overwhelmingly female—Trainer Hangers. Of course, his profession wasn’t the only one in the industry that had its overly enthusiastic fans. He’d also found names for Owner Followers, Horse Nuts, and Jockey Junkies. But, all modesty aside, the trainers were the elite members of Thoroughbred society, often better known and more recognizable even than the owners. Certainly they were the most flamboyant members of the horse world. And just like rock stars and pro athletes, many of them commanded, whether actively or not,
a lot
of attention from—mostly female—admirers.

Cole was one of those many. And, truth be told—at least early on in his career—he had actively courted the limelight. But now that the limelight dogged him wherever he went, he was starting to wish for a little more shadow time. During racing’s off-season, he had more success deflecting the unwanted attention—not that it was
always
unwanted, mind you, even now—but it never went away entirely. And during race time, in racing cities like Louisville or Mar or Saratoga or Baltimore, trainers were treated like royalty. Usually, that didn’t bother Cole at all. Usually, he welcomed the attention. Usually, he reveled in the way women pursued him. Usually, he let the women catch him.

But there were times, infrequent though they may be, when he just wanted to be left alone, to enjoy himself without the added distraction of being King Cole. Especially when he was facing the biggest race of his career.

He glanced down at his watch for perhaps the tenth time in as many minutes and sighed loudly enough that he hoped the blonde on his left—Randi? Rhonda? Renee?—would get the hint. Naturally, she didn’t. Instead, she wrapped her perfectly manicured fingers around the premium Bourbon Cole had just ordered and hadn’t yet had a chance to taste and lifted it to her own mouth for a sip.

She grimaced after sampling it. “Even though I grew up in Kentucky,” she purred in a voice he was reasonably certain she had altered for effect, “I absolutely loathe Bourbon.”

Cole was about to ask her why she’d felt compelled to drink his then, but refrained. “Let me order you something else,” he offered magnanimously. To himself, he added,
And then go away
.

Before Randi/Rhonda/Renee had a chance to reply, the brunette on his right piped up, “I’ll have a screwdriver.”

Cole shuddered. How could anyone do something as heinous as adding juice to a perfectly good spirit like vodka? In spite of his revulsion, he started to lift a finger to signal the—female—bartender. But she was there before his hand was even fully in the air, ignoring the people who had clearly summoned her before he had, slapping a cocktail napkin down on the bar in front of him.

“What can I get you, Mr. Early?” she asked.

He turned to look at the brunette, wishing like hell that he could remember her name. Susie? Cindy? Sally? “Sarah,” he finally said out loud when he recalled it, relief washing over him, “would like a screwdriver.”

“Vicky,” she corrected him. “Vicky would like a screwdriver.”

Damn.
He hadn’t even been close.

“But I can be Sarah if you want,” she offered, leaning in even closer to curl her own perfectly manicured fingers over his thigh and give it a gentle squeeze. “In fact, for you, Cole, I can be anybody—or anything—you want.”

“So can I,” Randi/Rhonda/Renee said from his left.

The redhead behind him—Barbie? Bobbie? Belinda?—pressed more intimately against him. “Me, too,” she joined in, her voice sultry in his ear, her breath hot on his neck.

Randi/Rhonda/Renee slipped her arm over his shoulders, threw a very suggestive look at the other two women, leaned in very,
very
close to his other ear and added, “If you’d like, we can
all
be anyone and anything you want…together.”

Hello.
A part of Cole’s anatomy that didn’t normally misbehave in public suddenly jumped to attention with a rousing chorus of
Hoo-ah!
What Randi/Rhonda/Renee, Barbie/Bobbie/Belinda and Whatshername were offering was an opportunity the average man only dreamed about, then lied about in a letter to
Penthouse
. He didn’t kid himself that if he’d been any regular working stiff—if one could pardon the crassness of the pun—the three women wouldn’t have given him the time of day. It was only because he was Cole Early that such offers ever came his way. Not that he’d ever been offered a four-way before—just how did that work, anyway?—so this was a bit of a treat, even for Cole.

Which was why he was so surprised when he heard himself say, “I appreciate the offer, ladies, but I’m kind of waiting for someone.”

Their disbelief was almost palpable. As was their disappointment. As was the seemingly fifty-degree drop in temperature as they removed their hands from his various body parts, collected their drinks, and walked away. Cole was about to breathe a sigh of relief and reach for his own drink, but he was immediately surrounded by a new batch of women, each of whom draped herself over him in much the same way as the ones who had just left.

It was going to be a
looooooong
two weeks, he thought morosely. How was he supposed to guide Silk Purse to the finish line when his attention span was being hindered at the starting gate?

The thought had just wrapped itself around his brain when, in an effort to deflect one of the new women’s sultry, hot, lascivious, yada-yada-yada looks, he shot his gaze across the crowded bar and saw a familiar face. It took a moment for him to recognize it as belonging to the woman he’d met Friday afternoon at the realty office, the one whose laughing eyes and smug grin had stayed with him long after she’d gone—mostly as an irritant in his belly. Something erupted in his belly again at seeing her now, but, surprisingly, it wasn’t irritation this time. In fact, it was kind of…sort of…

Nah. It couldn’t be happiness. That would be nuts. But he was…relieved—yeah, that was it—to see Craggedy Ann standing on the other side of the room. Because now he had a legitimate someone to be waiting for/know/halfway-recognize that would fend off any future groups of luscious women who might want to press their bodies into Cole’s and offer to, um, do the, ah, remarkable thing that Rosina, Betina, and Samantha had just offered to do.

Craggedy was wearing pretty much the same thing she’d worn on Friday, and her plain jeans and white T-shirt looked completely out of place amid the colorful cocktail and dance club attire of the other patrons. Out of place, too, was her obvious lack of makeup and the fact that she didn’t seem to have even run a brush through her unruly mop of russet curls since he’d last seen her. But what was most out of place was his reaction to her. Because as he observed Craggedy Ann looking so uncomfortable and alien in her festive surroundings, Cole found himself sympathizing with her. Maybe because he’d been feeling so uncomfortable and alien in his festive surroundings, too.

Without even thinking about what he was doing, he stood and began to make his way across the room. But it was so crowded—and so many people wanted to greet him, or congratulate him, or ask him who he liked for the Derby, as if that wasn’t the dumbest question in the world—that his progress was constantly impeded. He started to feel like he was in one of those dreams where the thing he was struggling hardest to get to kept getting farther and farther away, and the faster he tried to run, the more unattainable it became. Then he realized Craggedy Ann was craning her neck and looking around the room, as if she were searching for something—someone—too. And then his anxiety rose, because what if she found that person before he had a chance to get to her? He might never see her again.

Then he realized how foolish he was being. He didn’t even know the woman’s name, had exchanged maybe two dozen words with her, none of which had been especially warm. Hell, he didn’t even
like
her, weird sympathizing notwithstanding, which was probably only a result of indigestion, anyway. What did he care if he never saw her again?

Nevertheless, for whatever reason—probably the aforementioned indigestion, or maybe jet lag, or, hell, it was probably from the damned concussion he got every night banging his damned head on the damned ceiling in the damned bedroom—seeing Craggedy again felt a little bit like good luck. And like everyone else in the Thoroughbred business, Cole was just superstitious enough to believe he needed all that he could get.

He inched forward again, smiling and shaking hands and replying as quickly and politely as he could to everyone who wanted a piece of him. Just when he was within inches of being able to call out—or better yet,
reach
out—to her, Craggedy turned away and melted into the crowd. He lunged forward in the direction into which she’d disappeared, pushing aside a man who stepped in front of him without even caring how rude the action may have been interpreted. But he was immediately encircled by throngs of people again. He pushed himself up on tiptoe, and since he was already taller than the majority of people there, was able to see a good many of the heads surrounding him. But none sported a crop of ragged red curls that invited a man’s finger to loop itself inside one.

As quickly as she had appeared, Craggedy Ann was gone. And so, Cole realized, was the last of anything that might have resembled a good mood.

“HE’S NOT HERE, EITHER, BREE,” LULU SAID AS SHE
curled a finger through a belt loop of her friend’s jeans so she wouldn’t get separated from her amid the crowd at the Maker’s Mark Lounge. Heavens, if this was what Fourth Street Live was like on a Monday night, Lulu would continue to confine her visits to Borders. The only thing that made her more anxious than being the center of attention was being in a huge crowd. What kind of person actually
enjoyed
this kind of lifestyle?