Free Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly Page B

them.”
    “They still get their owners up early to take them outside.”
    This time when Bree looked over her shoulder, she was gritting her teeth. “Not their owners. And not their trainers, either, necessarily. They get their exercisers up early.”
    “Maybe Cole Early likes to—”
    “Cole Early is not an early-to-bed type,” Bree interrupted her. “Trust me. He may not be on the short list of Rich Guys I Want to Bag, but I’ve read enough about him since he won Santa Anita a couple weeks ago to know he’s as sure a thing as I can get right now. So I’m not gonna hedge my bets.”
    Honestly, sometimes Lulu just wanted to smack her best friend. Bree talked about men as if they were…Well, in this case, racehorses. But she also talked about men as if they were commodities. Or investments. Or possessions. Or careers. Or prey. She almost never talked about men as if they were human beings.
    If she were anyone but Sabrina Calhoun, Lulu wouldn’t tolerate it. But she knew Bree well enough to understand her friend’s shortsightedness in this, even if she didn’t condone it. Bree had even better reasons as an adult to want to marry well than she’d had as a kid. And anyway, deep down, Bree was capable of deep and abiding loyalty and affection—just look at her friendship with Lulu. The whole man-woman thing, though…Bree just hadn’t ever had the opportunity to witness what a healthy adult relationship was like. Someday she’d meet a man who dropped her in her tracks, a man she’d fall for heart and soul, and then she wouldn’t care what he did for a living, or what kind of car he drove, or how fat his investment portfolio was, or if he even had an investment portfolio.
    “Man, I hate it when they slip the snare this way,” Bree grumbled. “It takes forever to set up a trap the right way.”
    Okay, probably she would meet a guy like that someday, Lulu reluctantly amended.
    “Oh, no,” Bree muttered then, barely loud enough for Lulu to hear.
    “What?”
    “Rufus is here.”
    Lulu smiled. Speak of the devilishly handsome. Or, at least, think of the devilishly handsome. Because even if she hadn’t been thinking about Rufus Detweiler by name, she’d certainly been thinking about him in spirit. As far as she was concerned, Rufus was exactly the man Bree should be looking at for potential happiness. And not just because the guy was already head over heels in love with her, either.
    Lulu followed Bree’s gaze to the bar on the other side of the room and, within seconds, she had identified him. It was strange to see him sitting on the patron side of the bar, when he was usually behind one working alongside Bree. But he seemed perfectly at home with all the people surrounding him, even if he stood a good two or three inches taller than even the tallest guy. He was leaning back against the bar, one elbow propped nonchalantly on its surface, the other tipping a longneck bottle of beer into what Lulu had remarked on many occasions was a thoroughly sexy mouth. The tiny halogen light fixed in the ceiling above him sent a wash of light cascading down over him like an inverted V, lighting dark amber highlights in his near-black hair and chiseling even finer what were already very well-honed cheekbones. His white pin-striped oxford shirt was untucked over faded jeans that hugged his lean legs, enhancing the innate grace of his spare frame.
    He looked like a poem, Lulu thought wistfully. A tragic sonnet of unrequited love written from the deepest recesses of the heart. He was just a gorgeous, gorgeous man, and totally not her type. Which was just as well since, in case she hadn’t mentioned it, the guy was totally sprung on Bree.
    “Rufus!” Lulu called out, jumping up and down and waving her hand to get his attention.
    Immediately, Bree spun on her and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Are you crazy ?” she hissed. “The last thing I want when I’m looking for Cole Early is a guy like Rufus anywhere in my