Home at Last Chance

by Hope Ramsay

What would happen if she took the dare?

  A whole range of emotions seized her. Excitement. Dread. Fear. Anticipation. Every cell in her body sprang to life.

  “Okay,” she said, raising her chin and squaring her shoulders. “I’m in.”

  The stunned look on Tulane’s face told her she had just surprised the heck out of him.

  Good.

  The dashboard lit up Tulane’s face in green. He focused on the road and floored the accelerator. Stone Rhodes’s Ford pickup might be beat-up on the outside, but there wasn’t anything wrong with the engine. It roared to life and took off, pressing Sarah back against the headrest.

  A stretch of two-lane road spooled ahead of them, ruler straight but undulating over a series of three small hills like a piece of Christmas ribbon candy.

  As the truck accelerated, Sarah fought her instincts and kept her eyes fixed open, taking in every terrifying moment. This was rule-breaking at its finest, because the green needle on the dash said they were going ninety by the time they hit the rise of the first hill.

  The truck went airborne and gave her a spine-tingling jolt as it hit the pavement on the downside, only to accelerate again up the next hill and down, and then the next.

  Tulane hit the brakes, and the tires squealed, and she could smell burning rubber. The truck wobbled sideways. She was pretty sure it would flip over and she would die right there. But it didn’t happen.

  She lived to tell the tale. The truck slowed as the road curved left. Tulane glanced over at her. He said nothing. He didn’t need to say anything.

  He slowed the truck to a near creep and doused the headlights. A second later, he turned left onto a dark, unpaved road that rolled past a couple of brick gates bearing a sign that read Edisto Country Club.

  “The country club?” she asked.

  “Yes’m. No finer place for breaking the rules and raising hell than the country club.”

  “Are we going to play golf?”

  “This ain’t that kind of country club.”

  “Then what kind is it?”

  “The kind that doesn’t allow any of Elbert Rhodes’s kids as members. And since you already know about Golfing for God and the whole angel scenario, I reckon you have a handle on why.”

  “I see. So this is about social justice, then?”

  He laughed out loud. “Lord a’ mercy, you are funny. No, ma’am, this is about trespassing.”

  “Uh, after last night I would have thought that you would be—”

  “Honey, we are out breaking the rules and raising hell. Do you want me to stop?”

  She shook her head no.

  The road widened, and Tulane pulled the truck into a gravel parking area. Moonlight gleamed on the tin roofs of a row of bungalows to the left and sparkled in a body of water to the right.

  Tulane killed the engine. “That,” he said, pointing to the water, “is the Edisto River. It’s the longest blackwater river in America. And this country club is an old-fashioned Southern swimming hole—a place where the high and mighty of Allenberg County stay cool on hot summer days.”

  “Oh.” The bottom of her stomach dropped to her knees. If they were here this late in the evening, it could mean only one thing: Tulane intended to go swimming. And neither of them had swimsuits, unless, of course, you counted their birthday suits.

  He chuckled in the darkness. “You up for a swim?”

  “You’re talking about skinny-dipping, aren’t you?”

  “Yes’m, I surely am. I dare you to take off your clothes and get wet.”

  “You dare me?” She was in so much trouble, because she wanted to take off her clothes.

  “C’mon,” he said, opening the truck door. “Let’s take a walk up to the pier.”

  Sarah got out of the truck and followed Tulane up a narrow concrete pathway to a dock that jutted into the river. The Edisto was only about fifty feet wide at this juncture. Moonlight glinted off its black surface, like little silver fish dancing in darkness. The air hung heavy and damp, laden with the scent of copper. A forest of unfamiliar trees stood at the water’s edge like dark sentries, their branches trailing long beards of Spanish moss.

  This was sultry and alien and seductive. Something wicked awakened inside her, beating to the rhythm of her heart and the blended song of the tree frogs and crickets.

  They walked out onto the pier, their footsteps sounding hollow on the wooden planks. Tulane turned for a moment, his head cocked and eyes unreadable in the darkness. He wavered for an instant as if considering his next move. She silently prayed, Please, God, don’t let him change his mind. Please. She wondered whether God listened to naughty requests from good girls, and then told her inner Puritan to take a hike.

  In the next instant, Tulane pulled off his golf shirt. Sarah had only a moment to marvel at the pale moonlight on his chest before the man shucked his loafers and unbuckled his belt. He was naked about thirty seconds after that and dived into the water no more than five seconds later. She hadn’t had more than an instant to get a good look at him in the wan light. But what she had seen was enough to make a woman’s insides go completely haywire. Maybe stock car racing was a bona fide sport, because Tulane was built like an athlete.

  His head emerged from the water a minute later. “C’mon in, the water’s great,” he called in a low-pitched voice.

  She pulled the banana clip out of her hair. Her tresses tumbled down past her shoulders, creating a veil where she could pretend to hide.

  She started shucking the pieces of her black tropical-weight worsted, which had been required attire this time, since someone had died. Cool, humid air touched bare skin, and her arms and backside pebbled with gooseflesh. She moved fast, completely aware that he watched from the water. When she was as bare as Lady Godiva, she took three steps to the edge of the pier and dived into the dark river below.

  Her entire system went into shock the minute she hit the water. Her feeble brain registered two facts: The Edisto River was about the temperature of the Arctic Ocean, and it had a swift current that the night had hidden from view.

  She broke the surface almost paralyzed with cold, only to realize that if she didn’t swim hard, the current would sweep her away into the darkness. She shrieked Tulane’s name, suddenly both furious and terrified.

  He was beside her in the next instant, treading water, his voice an island of calm. “Relax, just float. Let the current take you.”

  She tried to relax but suddenly the night seemed exceptionally black, and the water seemed potentially dangerous and probably infested with all kinds of creepy crawlies. Why had she wanted to break the rules? Someone should examine her head.

  “See the big float over yonder?” he said. “Just float on down to it and grab hold of the chain.”

  The current sucked at them and propelled them forward. A wooden platform built over plastic drums floated in the middle of the channel. Chains connected it to a cable suspended across the river.

  Tulane took off in the direction of the float, and she followed, allowing the current to propel her forward toward the looming object.

  Tulane reached the float before her, grabbing the chain with his right hand and reaching out with his left arm to haul her close. He snaked his arm around her waist like a fisherman drawing in a purse seine net.

  She came to rest against him, chest to chest, her hands suddenly finding an anchor around his neck. He held them both against the current, which sluiced around them and dragged at their feet, pulling them upward in its frenzy to sweep them away downriver.

  Her breasts pressed against the surprising warmth of his chest while her legs bumped and slid against his as the current tugged at them. She was completely at his mercy. If he let her go, she would drown. She didn’t know whether to trust him or to scream.

  “Well now, this is an interesting development. It’s a darn shame the water’s so cold.” Even in the darkness, humor glinted in his eyes. “On the other hand, maybe it’s a good thing the water’s cold,” he con
tinued. “I’m thinking cold water is precisely what we needed to clear our heads.”

  He had a point. Her mind was definitely distracted by the strength of his arms, the warmth of his chest, and the texture of his buzz-cut hair against the palm of her right hand. The water wasn’t nearly as icy as it had been a moment ago.

  They hung there for an instant, their eyes meeting, even in the darkness. Intimacy bloomed.

  She moved her right hand upward along his skull, indulging her curiosity about his short-cropped hair.

  He pressed into her touch, cocking his head.

  She stretched up toward him.

  He leaned down toward her.

  And then he slanted his lips across hers in a kiss so hot that it should have made the cold waters of the Edisto boil.

  Her brain took the brunt of the kiss’s shock wave. Her brain cells pretty much stopped functioning after that, except to record the man’s technique. Tulane didn’t seem too interested in invading her mouth. He was too busy taking little nibbles at her lower lip, sucking it into the warmth of his mouth, running his tongue over the inside of it.

  His kiss was an invitation, soft and sultry, but also distressingly polite. She didn’t want polite. She was tired of polite.

  He opened his mouth a little, and she moved in on him. He met her tongue with his. Tulane didn’t intend to lead this dance. He seemed a whole lot more interested in following where she wanted him to go. And she wanted to know every square millimeter of his mouth. And when she was finished with that, she wanted to explore the rasp of his beard and know the planes of his chest and touch him everywhere.

  Her body exploded with sensations that shouldn’t have been possible while floating in freezing water. She found herself fighting against the current, wanting to press herself against him, only to have the river suck him away as if it were trying to pull them apart before they even got together.

  And then, just as she was about to suggest that they climb up on the float, she was blinded by a light so bright and piercing she thought for an instant that God had sent a lightning bolt down to strike her dead.

  Tulane pulled his lips away just as a disembodied voice said from the shoreline, “Okay, y’all, why don’t you take this to a no-tell motel. But don’t you dare take it to the Peach Blossom Motor Court, you hear? There’s a place over in Bamberg where Lillian Bray is unlikely to catch you.”

  “Shoot, Stony, why don’t you just turn that damned flashlight off. I know you’re angry at me, but trust me, it’s not my fault. I can’t help what Pete put in that letter,” Tulane hollered at his older brother, just as something downshifted in his head.

  The light disappeared, leaving a night that seemed darker than before. “Tulane, this has nothing to do with Pete’s letter,” Stone said from the shoreline. “Miz Bray is sure there’s an orgy going on out here, and near as I can tell, that isn’t too far from the truth. She made a call into the county, and I was dispatched to check things out. I guess the old biddy is spending the night at her river house tonight, instead of in town.”

  Oh, crap. If Lillian Bray figured out that he and Sarah were out here naked on the eve of Pete’s funeral, Momma was likely to wear out his backside. Lillian would be disappointed about the whole Reverend Ellis–Sarah Murray matchup. Even worse, the church ladies would start getting all kinds of ideas about Sarah and him. And that would not be good.

  Sarah took that moment to tuck her head under his chin, and the intimacy of it felt both wonderful and scary.

  Whoa… wait one minute there, boy. Sarah sure did have a nice little curvy body, and an even more twisted mind, but he wasn’t interested in anything long-term. And Sarah was the kind of woman you did long-term with.

  “What the hell is the matter with you, anyway?” Stone said, like he had come for the express purpose of pointing out the error of Tulane’s ways, which wasn’t far from the truth of it. “Uncle Pete is dead, and you’re out here acting like an out-of-control teenager. When, exactly, are you planning to grow up?”

  It was a rhetorical question, which was why Tulane didn’t bother to answer it. Stone asked this question with distressing regularity, so he just forged ahead in true big-brother fashion.

  “Get your clothes on, you hear? If you aren’t out of here in ten minutes, I swear I’m going to cuff and stuff you, take you down to the county lockup, and charge you with trespassing and indecent exposure and anything else I can think up. I wonder what Pete would think about that, especially since you’d be missing his big send-off.”

  Stone paused for a long moment and then spoke again. “And Sarah, you, of all people, ought to know better.”

  Sarah made a little noise that didn’t exactly sound remorseful.

  “Well?” Stony said. “Did you hear me or not?”

  “You wouldn’t put me in jail, Stony. I’m kin.”

  “Ha, just try me. It’s about time someone kicked some sense into you. I’ve had reports from all over the county about you running my truck like it was some kind of dragster all up and down the back roads around here. You know, Tulane, it’s the only truck I have. Did you think of that before you drove it like a maniac?”

  “I could buy you a new truck, Stone.”

  “Just like you could buy Golfing for God. Tulane, there is more to life than money. It’s not about the truck. Get your butt out of that river and try for once in your life to act your age.”

  Tulane’s brain switched on. Sarah had pretty much succeeded in turning his brain off there for a little while. Wow, that woman could kiss.

  “You hear me?” Stone said.

  “Yeah, I hear you.”

  “Good.”

  Tulane heard the sound of Stone’s footsteps along the bank, followed by the sound of his Crown Vic cruiser crunching down the gravel road. Stone would be waiting right outside the gates to ensure they actually left within the allotted time. And he would probably escort them back into town, too, which would be embarrassing.

  Stone was always doing stuff like that, on account of the fact that he was a grown-up and had been a grown-up from the time he was seven. Tulane needed to listen to his brother. Shoot, he needed to become his brother.

  That was a depressing thought.

  “Well, honey, I reckon our night of raising hell has come to an ignominious end,” Tulane said as he released the chain. They began to drift downriver.

  He ducked under the water, shaking free of Sarah’s death grip around his neck. He resurfaced a little ways downriver. “Over here, Sarah, follow me. There’s a shallow spot where you can get out,” he called quietly before the woman completely panicked.

  Sarah followed him toward the shoreline and stood up, the water coming up to her collarbone, the moonlight shining on the droplets that clung like quicksilver to her shoulders and eyelashes. She resembled a sea goddess, and he wanted her in an entirely carnal way.

  She waded toward him, the water coming up just to the level of her nipples. He gazed down at her, and desire tugged at his body. But the minute his body stiffened, he looked up, training his gaze on her face. The moonlight glinted in her eyes, seductive and heavy with the promise of heat. She resembled a starry-eyed kid, drunk on the possibilities laid out before her. It would be so easy to take advantage of that. He was sad and angry enough at Pete to be fully capable of it.

  But tonight was a terrible night to do something stupid like this with a woman like Sarah. He probably would have stopped things before they got too out of hand, anyway. But, of course, Stone got there first.

  “So where exactly is the Peach Blossom Motor Court?” Sarah asked.

  Tulane squeezed his eyes closed, shutting out her soft, unfocused gaze and the promise it offered.

  “We aren’t going to the Peach Blossom Motor Court, so you can put that right out of your mind. I know you want to break the rules, but we aren’t going to break that one. You’re spending the night alone at Miz Miriam’s.”

  Something changed in her gaze, and he could almost see how his
rejection had hurt her. “This was a big mistake,” he said into the charged silence.

  “But—”

  “Look, Sarah, this is just me being depressed about Uncle Pete, okay? I wasn’t thinking…” His voice faded out. That was the absolute truth. He’d been on autopilot most of the day, since the will reading.

  But he was thinking now. Sarah and the Peach Blossom Motor Court were things that didn’t go together.

  She crossed her arms across her breasts, and he read the gesture for what it was. Her defenses were coming up, and he was halfway glad of it. She needed to defend herself. She needed to get angry at him. If she were angry, then he wouldn’t have to feel like such an a-hole for pushing this thing way beyond the limits of reason.

  “What did I do wrong?” she asked.

  The question jolted him. That wasn’t exactly what he expected her to say. “What did you do…? Honey, you didn’t do anything wrong. This is just not a good idea.”

  “But—”

  “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I should never have brought you here or suggested getting naked. That was pretty stupid on my part. And as Stone points out all the time, I usually act first and think about it later. It’s my signature fault.

  “From now on, I plan to do a lot more thinking before I act. NASCAR wants me to do that, Stony wants me to do that, Momma wants me to do that, and, to tell you the truth, Uncle Pete used to tell me that all the time. I’ve decided I’m going to listen to authority for once in my life.”

  “Oh please, do not give me this claptrap. Was it the way I kissed?”

  Oh boy, he was such a fool. He should have expected this when he suggested skinny-dipping. He should have known that little, inexperienced Sarah wanted something that she thought she needed in order to be grown-up.

  Well, he didn’t want to be the one to teach her about how casual some men could be about sex. He could almost imagine the regret in her pretty face tomorrow morning. This stupid thing that he’d almost done would change everything between them. His throat closed up at the thought.

  “Sarah, please—”

  “Please what? Stand here while yet another man kisses me and then invents all kinds of reasons why he won’t do it again? Why am I so pathetic that I can’t even interest a red-blooded male in taking me to the Peach Blossom Motor Court?”