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One NOTHING BROUGHT MORE JOY TO COLE EARLY’S heart than watching the day dawn from the railing of a racetrack. As he sipped strong black coffee from the cardboard cup in his hand, it occurred to him that Santa Anita was one of the most glorious tracks for doing just that. At barely six A.M., the crisp yellow sun was cresting the Saint Gabriel Mountains in the east, spilling over the shallow green peaks to limn them with gold. A trio of tall date palms stretched high over the grounds of the track between Cole and the foothills, black silhouettes against the young sunlight, their broad fronds fluttering in the cool, early April breeze.It was that magical moment between darkness and light, nighttime and day, when anything—anything—seemed possible. Closing his eyes, he inhaled the mixed aromas of damp dirt and expensive equine, a fragrance found nowhere else in the world but at the track. His chest filled with something big and indefinable, a sensation he’d never quite been able to identif
Two LULU FLANNERY SCRIBBLED ANOTHER INSTRUCTION ON a hot pink Post-it note and slapped it onto her cable remote control, trying again to recall the precise moment when she’d lost her mind. Oh, right. Now she remembered. It had been the second her friend Eddie told her she could get five thousand dollars for renting out her house the two weeks before Derby. It had been bad enough that she’d succumbed so quickly—and easily—a few months ago when he told her she could get fifteen hundred renting her place out for three days. Now she was agreeing to do it for two weeks.Greed. It was a heinous little bugger.However, at some point during the frenzy of housecleaning she’d performed over the last two days to leave the place spotless for whoever would be staying here for the next two weeks, she’d begun to have second thoughts. And then third thoughts. And then tenth thoughts. And then one hundred and fifty-seventh thoughts.Everything she owned was in her little Highlands bungalow. All her person
Three COLE WATCHED THE YOUNG WOMAN WITH THE WILD red hair and disheveled clothes—and really nice ass—push through the door to the Realtor’s office. Then he continued to watch her—and her ass—as she strode down the front steps without a backward glance. Then he watched her—and her ass—some more as she waited on the sidewalk by the street, again without turning around once, until another young woman in a very disreputable-looking car pulled to a stop to let her in. The redhead did look back at him then, lifting a hand in farewell and smiling in a way that said, “I got the last word, sucker. Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.” Usually, Cole hated it when people looked at him that way. With her, though…He still hated it.Man, what an unpleasant, unhappy, unaccommodating harpy. So much for southern hospitality and southern belles. With that riot of unruly red hair, those icy blue eyes, and the battered clothes, she’d looked more like Raggedy Ann’s evil twin. Craggedy Ann. And she’d been about as
Four BREE’S APARTMENT WAS BARELY A MILE AWAY FROM Lulu’s house, but where Lulu lived on a quiet, tree-lined, seldom-traveled little byway, Bree lived right on Bardstown Road, at the very hub of Highlands action, above a bar—nightclub was just too uppity a term for Deke’s—whose claim to fame was launching local bands. As a result, rarely did an evening at Bree’s pass without the steady accompaniment of thumpa-thumpa-thumpa from the drums of whoever was the featured act below. By Monday night, Lulu had been slammed by the all-girl punk ensemble WMD (Women of Mass Destruction), twanged by the southern fried rock band Finger Pickin’ Good, and rapped by the hip-hop group Da Streetz. Never let it be said that Deke’s taste in music was anything but eclectic. Needless to say, her sleep every night had been cluttered by raucous dreams, everything from the banjo-picking mutant in Deliverance to overweening low-riders to marauding giant tampons.But Monday night, thankfully, Lulu lucked out, becau
Five 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 R
Six COLE ARRIVED BACK AT HIS RENTED HOUSE A LITTLE after two, fumbling for a good five minutes with his key ring because he’d forgotten to leave on any exterior lights, and because he’d slipped the house key onto his own key ring and couldn’t find it amid the jumble of keys he always carried on his person. Let’s see, that first was the key to his Maserati, the second was the key to the Merc, the third was the key to the SUV…no, that was the fourth key. The third was to the truck he drove at the stables. Then came the key to the big house on the farm, then to the main stable, then to the tack room, then the shed…He counted out a few more and ticked them off mentally as he went. The penthouse in LA, the condo in Miami, the cabin on Lake Arrowhead, the sailboat, the runabout, the Jet Ski, the snowmobile… Ah. There it was. The key to his rented house in Louisville.He sighed with much fatigue as he pushed it into the front door and turned it, fighting with it a little to make it work and te
Seven AS HER TUESDAY NIGHT SHIFT DREW TO AN END, Bree was doing what she always did about this time: evaluating the guys sitting alone in the bar and trying to figure out which one was worth the most. The main reason she’d sought a job at the Ambassador Bar was because it belonged to the most expensive hotel in town. Anyone who was staying here any time of year had to be banking some serious net worth. During Derby, when hotel prices all over town went through the roof, there was no question anyone staying here was worth buckets of cash.And finding a man with buckets of cash was the reason Bree was here. Why else would a woman with an advanced degree in English spend the last six years performing manual labor?Okay, so anyone with an English degree was probably used to doing manual labor. In fact, people with degrees in English were doubtless more employable than anyone else. There were tons of jobs you could get with an English degree, including—it went without saying—bartending. Bree
Eight ONE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT BY THE TIME COLE found himself surrounded by a bevy of admirers again on Wednesday night—when all he wanted was to enjoy a meal alone—he would have learned that the only way to do that was to go to the grocery store, buy provisions, and cook something for himself in the privacy of his rented home. But the only thing Cole hated more than not being able to enjoy a meal in peace was having to prepare that meal himself. At home in Temecula, he employed a full-time housekeeper who also cooked his dinner before she left at day’s end. On those days he was working at the ranch, she also left something in the fridge for his breakfast and lunch the following day. Whenever he was away from the ranch, he ate out.He had been delighted to discover that Louisville, when it came to restaurants, was a major buried treasure. Susannah had visited the city on a number of occasions and listed enough recommendations that Cole could eat someplace different every morning, noo
Nine IF SHE LIVED TO BE A HUNDRED AND FIFTY, LULU would never be able to figure out how she came to be sitting at a table not far from the jellyfish in Felt with her best friend since childhood and the Bad Boy of the Thoroughbred Set.Just how did one get to be the Bad Boy of the Thoroughbred Set, anyway? she wondered as she reached for the club soda she’d begun drinking when Bree and Cole ordered round number four. Probably, she thought further, she didn’t want to know. Because even if she didn’t know how a man came by such a distinction, she’d witnessed what it meant to assume it, not the least of which was signing lots of autographs for lots of women, some of whom seemed to lose control of both their spines and their clothing whenever they came within autograph distance of the Bad Boy of the Thoroughbred Set. Lulu knew that because a couple of them had come up to their table at Felt to ask for autographs, and each of them had had to lean forward waaaaaay more than was actually necess
Ten BREE TURNED THE KEY IN HER IGNITION FOR A fourth time, listened to the engine of the dilapidated Honda grind ineffectively—for a fourth time—and pressed her forehead to the steering wheel.“Dammit,” she said eloquently.“Let me take a look under the hood,” Rufus said, striding to the front of the little red car.When no one else had been ready to head out to the parking garage that night, Bree had had no choice but to ask Rufus to do the honors, a request she hated to make. Not just because she didn’t want to have to rely on the guy for anything, but she didn’t want to encourage him in his romantic pursuit of her. That sounded so incredibly egotistical, she knew, but Rufus had made no secret about his feelings for her, so there was no ego involved—only fact. She just didn’t want to do anything that might give the guy false hope when she just wasn’t interested. So she tried to avoid him whenever she could, even when they had to work shoulder to shoulder.Especially when they had to work
Eleven IT WAS A RARE FRIDAY NIGHT WHEN BREE WAS OFF from work and Eddie wasn’t performing as Liza Minnelli. So Lulu and her friends took advantage of the anomaly by doing their most favorite thing in the world—congregating at Bree’s apartment to watch Orlando Bloom in high def. On this particular Friday night, it was Lulu’s turn to choose the movie, and she naturally selected Elizabethtown, because she’d seen part of it being filmed while the crew was on location in Louisville. In fact, she’d watched them set up for a scene that included Orlando Bloom. Unfortunately, she’d seen Orlando Bloom’s stand-in instead of Orlando himself, but by squinting her eyes just so, she had been able to pretend it was him and so had been content.“I still think they should have filmed the hotel scenes at the Ambassador instead of the Brown,” Bree said as the credits scrolled past at movie’s end. But then, she always said that as the credits scrolled past at movie’s end. The only difference tonight was tha
Twelve IT WASN’T UNTIL COLE WAS ALMOST AT THE FRONT door of his rented house that he realized something was wrong. He hesitated before inserting the key in the lock, trying to figure out what had set off his always reliable internal alarm system. The street behind him was silent, and the front door was locked. But something niggled at the back of his head, just out of reach…The bedroom light, he realized. It had been on when he pulled in the driveway. But he distinctly remembered turning it off before he left. Living in California—or, more accurately, paying electric bills in California—a person got used to never leaving things on frivolously. Habits weren’t broken just because one was out of town, so he was no different with a house he was renting than he was with his own. Just as he did at home, he always left on a living room light and a kitchen light when he went out, because he was never sure which door he’d come in when he returned.Just to make sure he hadn’t been seeing things,
Thirteen THE NURSING HOME BREE’S MOTHER HAD CHOSEN for herself when she still had the presence of mind to do so was the best Rosie Calhoun had been able to afford. It was pretty no-frills, but it was clean, and the nursing staff were as attentive and caring as they could be for people who were underpaid and overworked. One of the nurse’s aides had gone to high school with Bree, and she relied on her former classmate to report anything that might cause concern. After nine months in the place, though, Rosie Calhoun was reasonably happy.Of course, after nine months in the place, Rosie Calhoun’s already meager savings were about half what they used to be. At this rate, in less than a year, Bree was going to have to find another home for her mother. One that cost a lot less and was a lot more no-frills. One that had a staff even more overworked and underpaid. One where Bree didn’t know a soul who could keep an eye on her mom when she couldn’t be here. And at that point, her mom was going to
Fourteen LULU OVERSLEPT MONDAY MORNING, SOMETHING that made her have to scramble to get to work on time. Not that she had to punch a time clock—it was one of the perks of a job where one was self-employed—but she had a lot to do that day, and she’d wanted to get to her studio by eight at the latest to ensure she had time to complete it all. The Mell-wood Arts and Entertainment Center, where she sold her glass in one of the shops, was taking advantage of all the tourism the week before Derby and hosting a huge art exhibit and sale that was opening Wednesday. Lulu wanted to have as many pieces to show as she could, and a couple weren’t finished yet. And since Bree was still blissfully asleep and doubtless would be ’til noon—one of the perks of her job—Lulu had to scramble in silence so as not to wake her friend up.As a result, she was a bit frazzled when she dashed down the stairs juggling a travel mug of coffee in one hand and her oversize, overfull backpack in the other. That frazzleme
Fifteen LULU REALIZED THERE WAS A SLIGHT PROBLEM with agreeing to Cole’s offer of employment less than twenty-four hours after conceding to it. In fact, she’d realized there was a problem within minutes of agreeing to it, but it was only now, as she stood in Bree’s bedroom looking at the clothes she’d brought with her from home, that it wasn’t actually a slight problem. It was, in fact, a great, hulking, gargantuan problem that was roughly the size of Canada. He’d told her as they’d parted ways last night that most of the events for which he’d need her to join him this week would require the sort of attire Lulu hadn’t brought with her. More to the point, it was the sort of attire she didn’t even own. Which meant one thing.She was going to have to borrow something to wear from Bree.Hence the great, hulking, gargantuan problem—even though the two of them wore the same size, and even though Bree had a number of cocktail dresses she’d collected over the years, due in large part to her freq
Sixteen BREE LEANED BACK AGAINST HER FRONT DOOR AFTER Lulu and Cole left, staring at her empty apartment and thinking it somehow seemed even emptier than usual. But even more than that, she was thinking that Cole Early was Lulu’s for the taking, if she wanted him. But Bree could tell her friend didn’t even realize she had him eating out of the palm of her hand. God knew how that had happened, but Bree had seen that look on a man’s face often enough to know what it meant. It was, after all, exactly the sort of look she’d always wanted to win for herself. A look that went beyond the superficial recognition of physical beauty to the realization that there was something massively special underneath it.Of course, Bree already knew there was something massively special under Lulu’s physical beauty. She’d known that since they were kids, and she knew it better than Lulu, who, for some reason, had never recognized her own potential for anything other than her art. But how Cole Early had discov
Seventeen WHEN COLE TOLD LULU HE WANTED TO GO DO something fun, this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. Not that he hadn’t been to artsy functions before, but this one was a little weird, even by southern California standards.He looked at the four…Well, he supposed artists would be the right word, since they were four people and Lulu had told Cole this was an art gallery. But at the moment, he was hard-pressed to be able to actually identify them as people. Certainly, he wasn’t able to tell what any of their genders were, even though they were all stark naked. In fact, the only way he knew there were four people on the platform in a corner of the tiny darkened gallery was because each was painted a different color. A different Day-Glo color. None of which complemented the others. One was sort of pink. One was kind of orange. The third was in the green family—barely. And although Cole had never actually seen the color puce before, he was pretty sure that was what the last color was. Up
Eighteen BREE MADE IT ALL THE WAY HOME BEFORE CALLING herself an idiot. But that was only because she’d spent the rest of her driving time calling herself a fool, moron, dummy, imbecile, ignoramus, simpleton, dunce, dolt, jerk, dumbass, bonehead, blockhead, dimwit, half-wit, nitwit…Well, suffice it to say she talked to herself a lot on that particular drive home.And when she turned onto the side street by her apartment building and saw Cole Early’s Town Car parked at the curb, she halted her own car, folded her arms over the steering wheel, rested her forehead against them, and did her best not to cry.She just wanted to go home. She’d held herself together all the way back to her apartment, and now she wanted to lock herself in her bedroom and fall apart. She wanted to put on her pajamas, get the gallon of Neapolitan ice cream out of the freezer and the lasagna spoon out of the drawer, and she wanted to eat and cry until she was sick. She wanted to remember what it had been like to kis
Nineteen IT TOOK COLE A FEW DRIVE -BYS BEFORE HE FINALLY saw the numbers of the address Lulu had given him as her studio’s, stenciled above the door of a narrow limestone-fronted building on Main Street. She’d told him if he came at four, she’d be ready for him, which was why he had arrived at quarter to three. He didn’t want Lulu to be ready for him. Lulu was much more herself when she was unprepared.He had replayed the episode in the car the night before a dozen times after he’d gotten home, and he still wasn’t able to figure out exactly what had happened. He really hadn’t intended for things to go as far as they had—at least not in the park. He’d thought they could neck like teenagers for a while, and then, if things went well enough, they could go back to Lulu’s house and spend the night together. If things didn’t go well enough, then at least they could have enjoyed some great necking.But almost immediately into that first kiss, something had taken hold of both of them. Kissing Lu
Twenty LULU FOUND THE FARM JUST OUTSIDE SHELBYVILLE with no trouble at all. Nothing in Shelby County was very far from anything else, and virtually everything was off Highway 60, which ran right through the middle. Mayhew Farms was only a few miles past Claudia Sanders Dinner House, a local landmark for decades and host to one of the most exuberant wedding receptions Lulu had ever attended. The narrow asphalt lane down which she turned wound first one way, then another, then seemed to double back on itself before straightening out again. The landscape around her was rolling green hills broken up by ponds and copses of poplar and redbud, the bright blue bowl of the sky arcing cloudless and perfect over all of it.She slowed when she saw a groundhog up ahead poking his nose from some brush at the side of the road, then stopped completely when he took his time waddling across. As she waited, she listened to a swaggering blue jay argue with a more pragmatic cardinal, inhaled a great gulp of
Epilogue
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