Last Chance Book Club

by Hope Ramsay

  Still, a building could always be replaced. People couldn’t.

  He turned back toward Savannah. “Don’t you ever do anything stupid like that again, do you hear me?” His voice came out louder than he meant it to.

  “Dash, calm—”

  “You hear me,” he said again, as a wellspring of emotion bubbled right out of him. He didn’t even know where it came from, just that it seized him by the throat and wouldn’t let go. It hurt so bad. It was like all the bad things that had ever happened in his life all at once, starting with his mother leaving, and his grandma dying, and his daddy never being around, and Gramps being hard on him, and Uncle Earnest…

  He got that far and lost it. Tears filled his eyes, and he couldn’t breathe. It was like the smoke got into his head and he couldn’t think.

  He blinked away the water. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you. You hear me?”

  She stared up at him utterly surprised. And he realized right then that he’d made a stupid, stupid, stupid mistake that he might never recover from. He’d just told her how he felt about her. And now she was going to leave him.

  And he could take just about anything but Savannah pulling up stakes and leaving town.

  He couldn’t stand here with everyone looking at him. So he turned and ran through the crowd to his Caddy. He fired it up and took off down the road.

  There were bars up in Orangeburg. He could go up there where no one knew him.

  He needed a drink. Bad.

  CHAPTER 16

  Savannah ripped the oxygen mask off her face and shook off the hands of the EMTs. “I’m fine.”

  She stood up and gave Todd a big hug. “I gotta go get Dash before he does something even stupider than I did.”

  Her son looked wide-eyed and scared. He nodded.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll bring him back. He just got upset because of the theater.”

  “Here, honey, you take my car.” Molly dangled a set of keys in her direction. “It’s way faster than your POS Honda.” She grinned. “Oh, and Momma sent you these.” She handed over a small package of Handi Wipes. “Your face is all black.”

  “Any idea of where he went?”

  “He headed off toward Route 70. You’ll have to drive like the wind to catch him, though.”

  Molly pressed Savannah’s purse into her hands. “If you’re lucky, the cops will pull him over for speeding.” She dragged Savannah off to the parking lot behind The Knit & Stitch.

  Molly’s car turned out to be a canary yellow 1970s-vintage Dodge Charger.

  “Holy cow, this is yours?”

  “You like it? I restored it myself. I restored Dash’s car, too. So I know how fast it will go.” She smiled. “Now get going, and don’t drive like a girl.”

  It was a good thing the roads in South Carolina were more or less straight and usually deserted this time of evening. It allowed Savannah to peg the speedometer at ninety without having to worry about curves or traffic.

  Please, God, I need someone to pull Dash over.

  And to her utter astonishment, she topped a rise in the road, and there was an Allenberg County sheriff’s deputy on the side of the road, his cruiser lights flashing. He was leaning up against Dash’s cherry red Eldorado.

  Savannah hit the brakes and pulled over.

  The cop went immediately on alert when she pulled up in front of Dash’s Caddy, sending up a pretty big cloud of dust. He put his hand on his weapon as he strolled up along the driver’s side of Molly’s car. Savannah lowered her window and gave him a smile.

  He blinked a couple of times. “You’re not Molly.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m one of her friends.”

  “Ma’am, are you all right? I mean your face…”

  “Oh, I just came from the big fire in Last Chance. I’m sure you heard about it on your radio.”

  “Oh, yeah, I heard The Kismet burned down.”

  Savannah’s heart lurched. “Well, not quite.”

  “You look like you were in The Kismet when it burned.”

  “I was rescuing Maverick.”

  “You mean someone was in that old theater when it burned down?”

  “Maverick is a cat.”

  “Oh. I see. Ma’am, why are you here?”

  “Well, you see, Mr. Randall’s uncle used to own the theater.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And I guess when he saw the place going up in flames—see, he’s a member of the volunteer fire department?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, it must have just done something to him. He just got mad or upset or something. And he tore off, and I came after him to make sure he didn’t do something stupid.”

  “You mean stupid like what he did that time on the motorcycle?”

  “You know about that?”

  The cop leaned on Molly’s car. “Ma’am, everyone knows about that. Dash Randall was our hero, you know. He kind of disappointed us.”

  “I see.”

  “I remember watching him play in the those state championship games back in the early nineties.”

  “I’m sorry I missed that.”

  “He was amazing. In his senior year, back in 1996, he went five for five with ten RBIs.”

  Savannah understood this comment about as well as she’d understood Pat’s advice for decreasing stitches around an armhole. She assumed it was something good.

  “So, anyway,” she said, “I was wondering if you could just give him a break on the ticket you were about to write him. That fire made something snap inside him. You know?”

  The cop smiled. “I guess I do. It’s a shame that old place went up in flames. I heard some woman was renovating it. I would have liked to see that.”

  “Yes, some woman was,” she said with a long sigh.

  “You?”

  “Me.”

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am.”

  “Thanks. So, you won’t give him a ticket, will you?”

  “No, ma’am. You just see that he gets back home in one piece. He’s still a local hero, you know. We wouldn’t have deBracy Limited hiring all those folks without him. Not to mention the help he’s given Molly Canaday. She wants to open a place to restore old classics like this one.”

  He rubbed his hand along the paint of Molly’s Charger. “Man, that girl sure knows how to paint a car. That finish is smooth as a baby’s butt.”

  He tipped his Stetson. “You take care, now.”

  He turned and walked back to his cruiser, stopping to say a couple of words to Dash, who was sitting in his car with his head back on the headrest.

  Savannah pulled out a couple of wipes from the pack Molly had pressed into her hands. She ran them over her face. She was kind of surprised when they came back black. But then she smelled like a chimney sweep. The smoke smell and soot were everywhere. On her hands, under her nails, in her hair. She was a mess.

  But at least she’d caught up with Dash before he did something idiotic.

  He sat up the minute she climbed out of Molly’s yellow car. “What in the hell are you doing driving that car? I hope to God you didn’t steal it.”

  “Dash, I’m not the kind of person who steals cars for joyrides. Molly loaned it to me. She said my POS Honda would never catch you.”

  She strolled up to the passenger’s side of the Eldorado. She gave the white upholstery a glance before she climbed in.

  “How did you talk Henry out of throwing the book at me?” he asked, apparently not concerned about her sooty clothes or his pristine upholstery.

  “I batted my eyes.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched.

  “You think I can’t bat my eyes when I want to?”

  “Oh, I know you are a champion eye-batter, princess. It’s just that you batting your eyes with that dirty face is kind of amusing is all.”

  She wiped her hands over her cheeks. “Henry said he saw you play high-school baseball.”

  “Yeah
, he did. It’s annoying how many former high-school acquaintances still live here. Like most of them, Henry is annoyed at me because of my last idiocy with a motor vehicle.”

  “So I gather. I told him to give you a break.”

  “You should be with the EMTs,” he said, changing the subject.

  “I’m fine. I’m filthy but I’m fine. You want to explain what just happened back there at the theater?”

  He leaned his head on the seat back and looked up at the sky. She followed his gaze, suddenly thinking about the painted ceiling at The Kismet. She had once thought Granddaddy hung the stars. But she’d been wrong. The real stars were more magnificent. And out here in the country, the stars were so much brighter than they were in Baltimore.

  It surprised her that she wasn’t nearly as devastated by the fire as Dash had been.

  “It’s just a building,” she said.

  He didn’t say a word. She let him be silent, almost the way they had danced in silence, only this was way more uncomfortable.

  They must have sat there for four minutes before he said “I want you.”

  Her insides went a little crazy because the feeling was mutual. When Zeph had handed her off to Dash, she’d felt safe. She’d rested her head on his shoulder, and it had felt so right. Why was it that Dash made her feel safer than she’d ever felt before? It made no sense.

  “Dash, I—” she started.

  “I don’t want to want you, princess. I don’t want to want anyone.” His voice was gruff with emotion.

  She understood why he didn’t want anyone. She’d been there, too. “Well,” she said as her heart rate spiked, “for what it’s worth, I want you back. And I don’t want to want you. I want to be independent. But apparently my libido doesn’t want me living like a nun. It always gets me into trouble. Whenever I dance with a good-looking jock it goes into overdrive.”

  He laughed out loud, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “So, you want hot, dirty sex, is that it?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He sighed. “Of course you do. Everyone wants hot, dirty sex with me. And darlin’, I’d be happy to oblige you, but not tonight. I have a headache.” The corner of his mouth curled up and stayed there.

  The joke didn’t bring a laugh. Instead it turned her core molten. “Be serious, Dash. How can we do that?”

  “Pretty easy. We just keep on driving on this road until we reach the outskirts of Orangeburg, and we find a no-tell motel. It’s pretty standard practice if you want to be discreet. And in Last Chance, when it comes to people having hot, dirty sex, discretion is probably the better part of valor.”

  Silence stretched out between them while she contemplated this scenario and suddenly found absolutely nothing wrong with it. Her pulse raced, and the excitement of sneaking away and having the one thing that was utterly forbidden seized her. Two months of bumping into him, or trying not to bump into him, had made her completely crazy.

  It had made him crazy, too, as evidenced by his behavior earlier in the evening.

  “I must be insane,” she muttered.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m having this discussion with you like we’re trying to decide where we should have dinner.”

  “Sometimes it’s a good thing to talk these things out. There are huge downsides, of course. If we were smart we’d just continue to take lots of cold showers. Or swim in the Edisto.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve been swimming in the Edisto a lot lately. It’s freezing this time of year.”

  “Really? Since we’re being utterly honest, I’ve been having hot and wicked dreams about you.”

  He let go of a deep breath. “Going to a no-tell motel with you would be the second stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

  “What’s the first, putting a snake in my bed?”

  He scowled at her. “When I tore out of town, all I wanted was to find a place where I could get a drink. Sitting here thinking about taking you somewhere to have sex with you is just the same damn thing. My addictions are showing up, right on time.”

  “And why did they show up tonight?”

  He pressed his lips together. “I reckon I cared about the theater.”

  “And why is that?”

  He shrugged. He wasn’t going to open up to her. But she had a pretty good idea of what was going on in his head. Hell, she empathized with his pain on a very deep level. And that surprised the heck out of her.

  “Dash,” she said softly, “I’m here. I didn’t burn up. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to leave. I know how bad it sucks when people leave. Maybe that’s why I was so ugly to you when I was ten—because I knew exactly how to hurt you. When I said that you were so naughty that you didn’t deserve a mother and father, I was halfway talking about myself. My dad abandoned me when I was three.” Her voice began to waver.

  She took a deep breath. “Sometimes I think I want to fix up The Kismet because I’ve got this stupid idea that if I do that, Granddaddy will rise up from his grave and live again. He was the only one who ever had any faith in me. He was the only real father I ever knew.”

  Dash stared at Savannah’s dirty face. She had a big splotch of soot on her nose and over one eye. The gold in her hair was muted by ashes, and she smelled like a fireplace.

  She was still beautiful. And alive, thank God. She was here, just for him. But like every other woman in the universe, she only wanted to have hot, dirty sex with him.

  “We should go back,” he said. “Check in with the fire department. I can’t imagine what would have caused that fire.”

  “The door was open.”

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “The door was open to the theater. The contractor must not have locked up.”

  “Great. I told you—”

  “Don’t. I don’t want to talk about the theater right now. I want to talk about you and me and that motel.”

  “We’re not going there.”

  She cocked her head. “No?”

  Heat flowed through him. It was his addiction singing to him like a siren from the shore.

  That was probably why he sat there like some fat, dumb, and happy idiot when she slid across the bench and pulled his hands away from the steering wheel.

  He didn’t fight too hard when she placed his hands on her rib cage and then moved in, slanting her mouth over his. She invaded him like the Union marching on Atlanta.

  She tasted like barbecued heaven, all warm and soft and smoky. The breath caught in her throat right before the round, soft contours of her breasts pressed up against his chest. She threw herself into that kiss like she’d thrown herself into everything she’d done in the two months she’d been in Last Chance.

  Fingers roamed up over his scalp, sending hot tingles down his spine; her tongue teased his and then danced away right before she thrust it back. Blood pounded in his ears and other places.

  Damn, she was as hot as T-bone’s chili special.

  A man with his weaknesses could never stand up against something like this. Savannah was all over him, and he wasn’t about to sit there like a lump.

  Or push her away.

  Not when she unleashed this torrent of longing and lust that he’d been battling for so long.

  But she needed a bath. Which of course sent his mind racing in all sorts of directions that involved her naked in lots of water. With soap.

  For low-down dirty sex, his fantasy was surprisingly clean.

  “Okay,” he murmured against her sooty cheek. “Okay, let’s go.”

  She backed away. “Let’s go? To a no-tell motel for discreet, but hot and dirty sex?” There was an impish grin on her face, and those dark eyes of hers were lit up with starlight. She wanted her bad-boy fix. And he wanted his Savannah fix.

  “Aren’t you even sorry about the fire?” he asked, his voice cracking like a teenager’s.

  Her face fell. And he hated himself for bringing up the topic. Although maybe, he’d just managed to get
himself out of a really dangerous situation.

  “I am.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “I’m heartbroken. And I’m also kind of pissed off, to tell you the truth.”

  “Pissed off?”

  “Yeah, at myself.” She pulled back and looked right up in his eyes. He couldn’t look away. “I should have taken your advice. I should have listened to you. But I had to do everything myself. And I don’t know squat about anything, except maybe cooking strudel.”

  Her lip quivered. Why the hell had he brought up the fire anyway?

  “Uh, there are other things you’re good at.”

  “There are?”

  “Yeah. You’re a great dancer. And you sure can kiss, princess. And you’re a pretty terrific screamer when it comes to snakes.”

  “Right. That’s not very impressive.”

  “I’m not finished. You can cook more than strudel, you’re kind to Aunt Mim, everyone in town loves you. And you used to make your grandfather’s eyes light up. I used to be so jealous of that.”

  She blinked up at him. “I loved him. You loved him. But you know something? Bringing The Kismet back to life isn’t ever going to bring him back.” She rested her forehead on his chest.

  And his heart swelled up and lodged in his throat. “Shit.”

  “What?” Her breath heated his chest through the fabric of his shirt.

  “I want you.”

  “Yeah, we’ve established that. Can we do something about it or are we just going to sit here arguing with one another about who loved Granddaddy more?”

  “You think he would approve of this?”

  She raised her head and stared at him, the connection between them stronger than ever.

  “I know he wanted us to be friends.”

  “This is a lot more than that. This is dangerous, princess. You don’t even know how dangerous it is.”

  She wasn’t listening to him, as usual, because she leaned forward and kissed him again. This kiss was demanding and wicked and not at all the kind of kiss a princess would unleash on anyone. Good Lord, that woman had a talent for dirty, sexy kissing. And then she dropped her sweet little hand to his thigh and started walking her fingers up to his crotch.