Welcome to Last Chance

by Hope Ramsay

  Jane pressed her lips together before she opened her mouth and said something destructive like: Wow, Clayton P., I’m starting to see you as a tortured soul with incredible talent between the sheets who is searching for abiding love. Wanna go back to the apartment above the Cut ’n Curl and see if we can get it on?

  Instead, she shrugged her shoulders.

  Clay’s eyebrows lowered. “Not a jazz fan, huh?” he said as a little muscle pulsed in his cheek.

  Ray turned and stared at her. “Oh, April, that’s really too bad,” he said, bobbing and shaking his head.

  She realized her mistake the minute Ray spoke. She had not affirmed Clay’s talent, and she had hurt him in the process. Her noncommittal shrug had been about as negative a reaction as possible, and if anyone needed some affirmation in his life, it was Clayton P. Rhodes.

  Jane opened her mouth, intent on fixing the damage by telling him she had enjoyed his song, but he didn’t give her the chance. He started playing a series of chords on the piano that didn’t sound like country music or jazz.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Dottie said. “Don’t go and start singing hymns on me again. Clay, I mean it…”

  In defiance, Clay began to sing “Amazing Grace” in a big voice. Jane noticed the other patrons in the bar shaking their heads and laughing into their warm beers.

  “Clay, stop it. You’re being a jerk.” Dottie gave Jane a woman-to-woman look that Jane understood. Jane needed to do something to turn this situation from the negative into the positive. So she hopped down from the stool, walked over to the piano, and started singing harmony.

  Clay looked up at her, surprise etched on his face. She watched a little iridescent fire spark in his eyes, and he smoothed out his playing and singing so they could hear each other and find a blend. And the blend was amazing. His husky tenor filled in all the hollow places of her soprano, and her soprano lent his voice a resonance it otherwise lacked.

  As she sang, her consciousness narrowed down to his face, and the sound of his voice, and the sound of her own as she complemented him. In that instant, singing opened a link with the creative force of the Universe, like real manifesting or—Heaven help her—like making soulful, breathless love.

  Her synapses lined up and conducted an amazing amount of electricity through her system. It aroused her completely while it sent up warning flares. She needed to stop now. She needed to run away quick.

  But she had this awful, sinking feeling as she stared into his face, unable to look away, that it was already too late. With every second the hymn continued, Clay drew her further toward him, like a moth to a flame.

  She had to remind herself that this appearance of a soulful connection between them was a sham and lie and a fake. This was a heady illusion of something deep and meaningful brought on by her current circumstances and a night of incredible sex. It was like some kind of flashing danger sign.

  But she couldn’t look away. She couldn’t deny the buzz that hummed in the center of her being, in her belly and in the deep recesses of her consciousness. Hoo boy, if he asked her, she would agree to another night with him.

  Clay ended the song after the second verse, which was a good thing, because she only knew the first verse and had kind of stumbled through the words on the second. In the moment after the last musical vibration and before the smattering of applause, he looked up at her and smiled sweetly.

  Her heart lurched sideways in her chest. She ought to run like hell, as far and as fast as she could run. But she didn’t, because some force seemed to have nailed her feet to the floor.

  “Honey,” Dottie called from behind her. “Where did you learn to sing like that?”

  “In church,” Clay answered for her, never releasing her gaze. He was looking right into her, reading her, and it felt like an invasion of privacy even if his assumptions were all wrong.

  “I did not.”

  “That’s good, sugar, because we don’t need hymns here. You know anything other than hymns?” Dottie asked.

  He leaned closer to her. “You did sing in church, I’d bet on it. In fact, I bet you can hit the high A in the Lord’s Prayer.”

  She squared her shoulders and scowled at him. “I never sang in church.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t sing the Lord’s Prayer here, okay? It would be bad for business,” Dottie said. “How ’bout some Dolly Parton? ‘I Will Always Love You’ is my all-time favorite song.”

  Clay arched an eyebrow in question.

  “I don’t know the words to that song,” Jane admitted. “Do you know ‘Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?’ ”

  His brows lowered, and his eyes flashed, and his stubborn streak marched right across his features. “No way I’ll let you sing that. That song is wrong for you,” he said.

  The forces of the Universe released her. His true colors bled through the disguise. He was a stubborn jerk, and she could resist a jerk. In fact, she knew better than to fall for a jerk.

  She put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, well, I do that song really well. I sing karaoke every Thursday at the Shrimp Shack. I get lots of applause.”

  Clay’s gaze dropped to her chest and the “Get Reel” shirt and then back to her face. “I reckon when you sing karaoke you wear something more like that outfit you had on last night? I’ll bet you wiggle your backside, too.”

  “I don’t usually walk around wearing hunting fatigues held up by a length of nylon cord, you know. And I put on a show. That’s part of show businesses—the show, I mean.”

  “That explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “Why you get applause.”

  Fury marched right through her system, scouring her of any desire she might have harbored for this guy. “You are a class-A jerk, aren’t you? I try to affirm your talent, and you sit there judging and demeaning mine.”

  Someone wearing a Country Pride Chicken hat, sitting at the bar, said, “You tell ’im, sister. Anyone can plainly see you got loads of talent.”

  Clay shook his head and smiled an infernally delicious grin that lit up his face. “Look, Jane, all I meant was—”

  “You know, one day I’m going to make it to Nashville, and I’ll be discovered. I’m telling you, Clayton P. Rhodes, I’m going to be a star, and you’ll eat your words.”

  The smile vanished from his face. “Honey, I know you believe in wishful thinking, but Nashville is a rough town.”

  “And what do you know about it anyway?”

  “I’ve lived there since I was seventeen. I only moved back here a few months ago. And I’ll tell you something, nobody ever just gets discovered, even people with musical talent. And even when you think you’ve got it made, it can fall apart in an instant.”

  “Oh, and I don’t have real talent, is that it?” Clayton had some kind of nerve sitting there calling her talent into question. He had no capacity to acknowledge anyone’s talent—certainly not hers, and not even his own. He had a negative outlook on life, and who needed that?

  She needed to hang around his negative vibe like she needed another day with Woody West. “Up yours,” Jane said. Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the bar without looking back.

  CHAPTER 6

  Clay watched Jane march out the door and knew another moment of supreme confusion. He had not meant to make her feel small. He had meant to give her some good advice. Advice she needed if she wanted to make it in Nashville.

  “Well, that went well,” Dottie said from the bar. “Jeez, Clay, just because you’re having a hard time these days doesn’t mean you can snap at folks the way you been doing.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said on a long sigh. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  He moved to the bar, where Dottie handed him a beer. Bubba Lockheart took that moment to connect his iPod to the battery-operated boom box someone had brought along for the Hurricane Party. Predictably, the latest Tumbleweed hit song started playing.

  Clay felt something snap inside, and he tu
rned toward Bubba, who had taken a seat at the end of the bar. “Damn it, why’d you have to play that stupid song?”

  Bubba shrugged. He was already looking halfway wasted. “It reminds me of Rocky,” he said.

  Well, that was predictable, too. Rocky, Clay’s little sister, had broken Bubba’s heart into a million pieces a number of years ago. The big man still carried a torch for her, and truth to tell, most of the folks in Last Chance blamed Rocky for the demise of Bubba’s potential as a future NFL linebacker. Of course, Bubba was a loser, and Rocky had probably been right to dump him when she did. At least Rocky knew a bad boy when she saw one.

  “Bubba, Rocky ain’t never coming back. You know that. I know that. The entire town knows that. And my momma is as heartbroke over it as you are. But it’s time to move on.”

  “Right, Clay, I know.” Bubba nodded and lifted his beer as the Tumbleweed song played on. There was no mistaking the sarcasm in his voice.

  “Clay,” Dottie said, “don’t take your misery out on Bubba. He’s got plenty of his own. And while I’m at it, it was unfair of you to take your sorrow out on Jane, too. As far as I’m concerned, she has a voice like an angel, and I, for one, would not have minded hearing ‘Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?’ In fact, Clay, you should tell Kyle about that girl. She might bring some real class to the Wild Horses. You owe her an apology.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” When Dottie got to handing out advice, it was best not to argue. Besides, Dottie was right. He did owe Jane an apology, but he didn’t feel like running right out the door after her. Instead, he turned toward Ray, who was eating a bowl of hash as if there were no tomorrow.

  “You want to explain those questions you were asking Jane and Dot?” he asked.

  Ray looked up, his cheeks filled with food. He chewed vigorously for a couple of moments, then swallowed. “I realized this afternoon that the matrix we started didn’t have enough dimensions.”

  “You want to put that in language I can understand? What matrix?”

  “You know, the list we started of eligible women. We didn’t have enough dimensions on it. So I came up with a list of questions designed to determine the suitability of any woman to be your wife within an acceptable standard deviation.”

  “Of course.” Clay ground his teeth together but held himself back while he counted slowly to ten. “And where did you come up with these questions?” he finally asked when the initial fury had passed.

  “Oh, here and there. The questions about games of chance are to determine if she has any mathematical abilities and likes the kind of stuff you like. And, of course, she needs to know how to bake a pie, Clay. You can’t hitch yourself up to a woman who can’t bake a pie.”

  He leaned in. “Listen, Ray, you leave Jane alone, and you stop asking women these questions, you hear me?”

  “But Clay, I—”

  “I mean it. If there are any questions to be asked, I’ll do the asking myself. You got that?”

  Ray looked up at him. “Sure, Clay. I hear you.”

  “Good.” He took a deep breath. “Well, I guess I need to go find that little gal and apologize for being a jerk, and while I’m at it, I’ll apologize for you, too.”

  He turned, snagged his heavy-duty flashlight from the top of the piano, and headed toward the door. He stopped before he stepped through it and turned over his shoulder, pointing the unlit flashlight at his best friend. “I mean it, Ray, no more questions.”

  “I hear you.” Ray ducked his head a few times like he was nodding.

  Clay turned and pushed through the door into the dusky October evening. He found Jane five minutes later, sitting on the bottom step of the stairway that led to the apartment above the Cut ’n Curl. She had her chin planted in her fists.

  He had this horrible feeling that she was crying, but he wasn’t about to shine his flashlight in her face to confirm it. So he doused the light as he approached, putting them both in the safety of the deepening night.

  “Go ’way.” She sniffled.

  Yup, he hated himself. It was not an unfamiliar feeling. “I’m sorry about what I said back at Dottie’s. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

  “Okay. Now get lost.”

  “No.”

  Jane looked up at him, and he could almost make out the spark in her dark eyes. “You know, you are a stubborn pain in the butt.”

  Clay let go of a bitter laugh. “Yeah, I know.” He paused for a moment, wondering how to continue. “Uh, look, Jane, the thing is, my life has been crap the last few months.” He couldn’t speak without a little waver, and it made him feel about five years old.

  “Crap? You mean like someone broke your heart or—”

  “No, like someone I care about is really, really sick. With cancer and likely to die.” His voice didn’t waver this time. Instead, it sounded hard and flat and angry. It was so much easier to be angry at Uncle Pete for getting sick than to admit that he was angry about other things: like his broken career or the broken heart that he refused to acknowledge.

  “This person who is sick. Is she—”

  “He. My uncle.”

  “Oh.”

  “He owns the hardware store. He’s been like a father to me and my brothers and sister, seeing as my own daddy is… well…”

  “What?” Her voice cut through his confusion.

  Clay shrugged. He wasn’t about to go explaining his complicated and uneasy relationship with his father. “I already told you about my father.” He turned to go.

  She called him back. “So you’re telling me you have father issues and that explains why you’re a big, selfish, stubborn, myopic jerk.”

  He stopped and turned. Suddenly, he wanted to laugh out loud. What was it about this girl that called to him?

  “Yeah. I have father issues. And a bunch of other complications in my life.”

  “Like what? Because my father used to get drunk and beat on my mother. And as for life complications, maybe we could have a contest. Because I’ll bet I win. I only have five dollars and assorted change to my name, I’m wearing an oversized ‘Get Reel’ shirt, and there isn’t a store open in Last Chance where I can get a jar of peanut butter. I mean, that’s bad, Clay.”

  He laughed, and the tightness in his chest eased. “I’ll concede the point.”

  “Oh, goody, do I win a prize? Like biggest loser in Last Chance or something?”

  “You’re not a loser, Jane,” he said. “If I gave you that impression back at Dottie’s, I am truly sorry. The biggest loser in Last Chance is me.”

  She looked up at him and cocked her head, and he wished with all his heart that he could see her face. He wanted to sit beside her. He wanted to hold her hand. He wanted to take her up those stairs and make sweet love to her.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m living here in Last Chance, just waiting for the moment when I snap and start seeing angels like my daddy does. Because my career in Nashville is over and I don’t really know what to do next.” Because I’m alone and I’m tired of being alone. But he didn’t say that out loud.

  “You had a career in Nashville?”

  “Yeah. I was a union-scale side man for years.” He didn’t talk about Tumbleweed or the rest of it. He didn’t want to pour his heart out to this semistranger. “Look,” he said, “there’s something else I need to say.”

  “If you’re going to invite me back to your place, I think I’ll take a pass. I’m thinking maybe you’re too needy and high-maintenance, you know?”

  He stifled a chuckle. In all his born years, no woman had ever told him that he was needy and emotional. Maybe that was because his exes had all been pretty needy themselves. Or maybe because right now he was needy and emotional.

  He put his foot up on the first step and leaned toward her. “Can I give you some free advice?”

  She drew her knees up and rested her chin on them, the gesture a pretty clear message that she didn’t want anything from him. “Free advice is worth what you
pay for it.”

  “Yeah, well, in this case maybe not.”

  “Sure. Go ahead. I have this feeling there’s no way on earth I can stop you anyway.”

  “I spent years in Nashville, and the thing is… well…”

  He paused a moment, trying to find the right words to warn her, to guide her, to give her what she needed to know. It wasn’t that he wanted to discourage her. He wanted to keep her from breaking her heart. Nashville was the capital city of heartache.

  “I’ve met dozens of girls like you,” he continued. “Girls who’ve sung gospel in their hometown churches. Girls with pretty faces and killer bodies who know in their heart of hearts that one day someone is going to discover them as the next big thing in country music.”

  “For the record, Clay, I never sang in church, so get that right out of your mind.”

  “You didn’t? Really?”

  “No. I sang in chorus in high school. But not in church. Never in church.”

  “Okay, it’s the same deal.”

  “So you’re saying we’re all a bunch of dreamers? That we—I—don’t have what it takes?” He could hear the pain in her voice, even though she was trying hard to mask it.

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying I’ve seen dozens of girls who think that singing in church, or chorus, or in karaoke bars is the same thing as being a musician.”

  “So you don’t think I’m a musician?” She was working herself up to angry now, and that was better.

  “To be honest and totally frank, no. I don’t think you’re a musician. But you do have talent.”

  She didn’t say a thing. She raised her head up off her knees and looked at him in the darkness. He could see a sliver of moonlight reflected in her eyes, and he wanted to lean down and kiss her—hard. Instead, he concentrated on telling her the God’s honest truth. Because he had this feeling that it was the best thing he could do for her. Giving her the truth would be better than taking care of her, or taking her to bed.