Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (best classic books to read txt) 📗

Lots of men smelled good. He probably didn’t fit any of her other criteria for what made a man attractive. To prove that to herself, she moved to the refrigerator and opened it, then pulled out the drawer of the meat keeper, which usually held only cheese. Yep. There was a package of roast beef from Kroger and a package of bacon, though that latter had yet to be opened. He clearly was not a vegetarian. And—just a shot in the dark—she bet he didn’t bake bread, either.

She noticed a few other additions to her refrigerator that weren’t normally there—a six-pack of imported beer, eggs, doughnuts—but nothing that would endanger anything more than someone’s weight or cholesterol level.

Little by little, Lulu made her way through her house, double-checking to be certain Cole Early hadn’t used anything he wasn’t supposed to, and making note of any missing possessions. She only noticed one, however—a glass vase on the marble-top table by the front door that had been one of her first completed pieces, and she hadn’t been all that crazy about it anyway. She’d only had it on display to remind herself of how far she’d come as an artist. Still, she was curious to know what had happened to it. Then she saw a ding in the plaster on the wall beside the front door that was about knob size, and she made an educated guess. Door opened too hard, slammed with enough vigor to shake the vase free. Still, as damage went, it would be easy enough to fix. Certainly easier than sobering up drunken debutantes or disposing of drug paraphernalia and appalling—if somewhat interesting—sex toys.

The rest of the house, she noted as she passed through it, looked just the way she’d left it…until she climbed the stairs to her bedroom and switched on the light. Here, Cole Early had clearly made himself at home. The bed was barely made; he’d done nothing more than toss the sheets and spread up over the pillows. Clothes were draped over it and the chair, and her computer had been pushed to the far side of the desk to make room for his briefcase. She checked to be sure the note was still attached and the computer was still off—yes to both—then wondered why she bothered. Even her untrained eye could see that the guy’s laptop on a nearby chair was state-of-the-art and couldn’t possibly lack anything her desktop might have on it. There was a scattering of papers on the desk, too, topped by that day’s racing form, and some phone numbers scribbled onto a scratch pad she recognized as her own.

Okay, so the guy wasn’t the tidiest person in the world, and he didn’t think twice about appropriating someone’s scratch pads. He hadn’t done anything to her house that wouldn’t be fixed by his vacating it. There was no reason for her to hang around.

Except that, for some reason, she wanted to hang around.

Her hand hovered over the papers by his briefcase, and she had to halt herself from sorting through them. Snooping like that would be tantamount to his having turned on her computer and rifled through her files, and no way would she tolerate an invasion of privacy like that. So she turned and started to make her way out of the bedroom and back downstairs. From the corner of her eye, however, she saw something else that was different from the way she’d left it, something that halted her in her tracks. The photograph of herself and Bree and three of their friends from high school who lived elsewhere now, but with whom they vacationed every summer, had been moved from her dresser to the nightstand.

Huh. That was odd. Why would he move a photograph? Then she gave herself a mental smack. Because it was a photo of five women in bathing suits, that was why. Well, four women in bathing suits and Lulu in one of the oversized T-shirts and ball caps she always wore to the beach to keep herself and her fair complexion from spontaneously combusting. She waited for the disdain she told herself she should feel at his having appropriated her memories for his own salacious enjoyment. Instead, what she felt was a tiny thrill of something that felt suspiciously like pleasure.

You’re nuts, Lulu. Absolutely nuts.

She stood there looking at the photo for as long as it took to work up the righteous indignation she knew she must be feeling. But that, unfortunately, took way more time than she would have liked, so she finally gave up on feeling it. Not certain why she did it, she moved the photograph back to her dresser. There. Let him make of that whatever he wanted. It was time for her to go. Past time, really.

Oh, hell. She never should have come here at all. Because instead of reassuring herself that Cole Early wasn’t turning her little bungalow into a brothel, all she’d done was magnify her curiosity about Cole Early even more than before. And the guy was already using up way too much of her mental energy, popping into her head at inopportune times, even invading her dreams from time to time at night. She barely knew the guy, but there had been times when he commanded more of her attention than she gave even to her work.

She really was nuts.

She turned to look at the stack of papers sitting next to his briefcase again. They were right out there in the open, she rationalized. So it wouldn’t really be snooping. Never mind the fact that they’d been left in the open because Cole Early hadn’t thought anyone would be breaking into his house.

But it wasn’t breaking in, she reminded herself. And it wasn’t his house. And it would only be a few minutes. And he’d never know.

Rationalization—however lame—completed, Lulu made her way back across the room to her desk.

Twelve

IT WASN’T