  Neutron star constraints and {\it ab initio} pQCD evaluations require the EoS
representing cold quark matter to be stiff at intermediate baryonic densities
and soft at high-$n_B$. Here, I suggest that the three flavor NJL model with a
density dependent repulsive coupling, $G_V(\mu)$, can generate an EoS which
interpolates between these two regimes. Such an interpolation requires
repulsion to start decreasing with the chemical potential just after chiral
transition takes place. The conjecture behind this mechanism is that repulsion
should be necessary only as long as the quark condensates, which dress the
effective masses, have non-vanishing values. This assumption guarantees that an
initially hard EoS suffers a conspicuous change of slope at ${\cal E} \simeq
0.7 \,{\rm GeV fm^{-3}}$ converging to the pQCD results at higher energy
densities. Then, the speed of sound naturally reaches a non-conformal maximum
at $n_B = 3.23 \, n_0 = 0.52 \, {\rm fm}^{-3}$ while the trace anomaly remains
positive for all densities, in agreement with recent investigations. These
non-trivial results {\it cannot} be simultaneously obtained when $G_V$ vanishes
or has a fixed value. Therefore, the simple model proposed here is able to link
the (non-perturbative) region of intermediate densities to the region where
pQCD becomes reliable.
