Home At Last Chance (Last Chance #2)(2)
Author: Hope Ramsay

“I know you grew up in a small town in South Carolina with a peculiar name. Your mother is a hairdresser and your father is a mechanic?”

He tried not to cringe. He wasn’t about to make his daddy a national laughingstock by telling the truth about him. He’d been protecting Daddy’s honor all his life, so he’d lied through his teeth in that bogus bio. He needed to change the subject. Now.

“So tell me,” Tulane said, “how’d a nice girl like you get into the business of advancing celebrity athletes like me?”

“Mr. Rhodes, I hardly think—”

“Better fasten up back there,” came the disembodied voice of the pilot. “We’re going to have to weave our way through a few thunderstorms.”

Just then, the plane took another hit from turbulent air. The clouds outside the window were turning an unsettling shade of gray. Tulane battled his fear by tightening his seatbelt.

He turned back toward Sarah. She didn’t seem to be all that worried about falling out of the sky or being struck by lightning.

She leaned forward, as if nothing untoward was happening. “What I was about to say is that I hardly think driving a stock car makes you an athlete. An entertainer perhaps. Certainly a daredevil, but not an athlete.”

“Trust me, it’s a sport,” he said through his locked teeth.

“It’s entertainment. And besides, you just go around in circles for five hundred miles, so it’s not very entertaining entertainment. That probably explains why it’s the fastest-growing phenomenon in the entertainment industry.”

“Look here, you name me one other sport where a man goes out and risks his life every time he performs.” And every time he has to fly to another city.

She smirked. “Bull riding.”

“What?”

“Bull riding. Not only do bull riders have to hang on to a raging bull, but they take their lives in their hands every time they enter the ring.”

“Yeah, well, I reckon you’d never catch a bull rider in pink.”

Her eyes widened, like she knew some great big secret. “You might be surprised what bull riders wear.”

“And just exactly what do you know about bull riding?”

“My father rode bulls for a living. He was pretty good at it, too. I saw some pictures of him all dressed up in fringe and sequins—purple ones.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Why would I kid you about that?”

A flash came from outside the fuselage, followed by a crack of thunder, and it felt as if God were trying to strike one of them dead. “Shit,” Tulane said aloud.

The red crawled up Sarah’s neck, but otherwise she seemed unperturbed by the thunderstorm.

“How did a bull rider produce such a prissy little daughter?” Tulane asked.

“You think I’m prissy?” Sarah sat even straighter in her chair and looked down her nose. She resembled a twelve-year-old trying to be outraged.

“Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, forgetting about the black cloud beyond the window.

Her eyes sparked with ire. “I am a lady, Mr. Rhodes, not a priss. I realize this distinction is probably lost on a person such as yourself.”

“You don’t like being prissy, do you?”

“I’m not prissy. I’m a businesswoman. I have a job to do, and I’d appreciate it if you would—”

“Like hell,” he said.

The blush staining her neck started to crawl up her cheeks.

“See? I say the word ‘hell’ and you light up like a neon Budweiser sign. Honey, hell isn’t even a really bad cuss word. NASCAR wouldn’t even dock me points or fine me if I said that word in a TV interview.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary for us to have a full discourse on profanity, Mr. Rhodes.”

“If you want to learn how to cuss, I can sure teach you how. Believe it or not, I have been fully briefed on the Federal Communications Commission’s list of seven dirty words that are never to be said over the airwaves. Would you like me to help you learn them? We could start with the filthiest one on the list. By the way, it’s f—”

“Don’t say it, please.” Sarah closed her eyes, but her face glowed. She didn’t appear to be angry. She looked turned on and hot. Tulane suddenly knew exactly how to handle this particular nice girl that the folks in New York had sent to keep him in line.

“Okay, I won’t say that word, although it almost escaped my lips a while ago when that lightning hit.”

“I’m not surprised.” She opened her eyes and gazed up at him. Yup, she was like every nice girl he’d ever met. A naughty spirit lurked deep inside her, yearning to be free. And wasn’t it fun to play dirty with a nice girl?

“Okay, forget the FCC,” Tulane said with a smirk. “Let’s start with something easier, like taking the name of the Lord in vain. People these days hardly think that’s cussing.”

“I’m surprised you would want to chance such a thing, given the way you’ve been clutching the arms of your seat.”

Uh-oh. He didn’t like that. If she ever told anyone that he was afraid of heights, he’d be laughed at from one end of America to the other. What in the world was he going to do about that?

One answer came immediately to mind as he studied her nice-girl pearls and pumps. It would be easy to compromise her integrity.

He launched his attack. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But why don’t we just move to the really easy cuss words, like ‘hell’? No one considers that a cuss word anymore. C’mon, girl, just say it once for me.”

Sarah angled her chin up and something naughty ignited in her eyes. Tulane breathed a little easier. This might be fun.

“The hell I will,” she said, and then her face turned beet red.

And just at that moment, a ray of sunshine came cascading through the window, lighting up her red hair like fire and making her look like a demonic angel. Tulane’s pulse rate climbed, but for the moment it had nothing to do with his fear of flying.

Chapter 2

Sarah kept counting way past twenty as she paced back and forth across the gray linoleum of the Columbia Metropolitan Airport’s General Aviation Terminal. The heels of her not-so-sensible pumps clicked against the floor like a ticking time bomb. She pressed her cell phone to one ear while she kept one eye on that infuriating man.

Tulane Rhodes sprawled in an athletic fashion across several of the terminal’s plastic seats. He’d squared the baseball cap on his head, and the brim shaded those come-hither eyes of his. He was clearly happier on the ground than in the air. She wondered how she might actually use that little tidbit of inside information to control him.

Like that was ever going to happen.

Steve Phelps’s assistant came on the line and gave her the bad news: There had been a screwup, and their scheduled limousine pickup had been inadvertently canceled.

Sarah knew that this screwup had been intentional, on purpose, and fomented by Steve, so that Sarah would fail to get Tulane to his personal appearance on time.

Steve wanted her gone from National Brands as quickly as possible. This explained why Steve, who was in charge of the NASCAR program, had ordered her out of the research department and onto the corporate jet.

This assignment might be beyond Sarah’s experience, but she was not going to fail. “Oh hell,” she muttered as she ended the call with Steve’s less-than-helpful assistant.

As if on cue, Tulane licked his long index finger and drew an imaginary chalk line in the air. “That was real nice, honey, but in situations like this you probably want to really let it fly, you know?” Tulane said from his relaxed position on the bench. “There’s nothing like yelling the f-word right out loud when things get screwed up.” He launched an impossibly sexy smile that didn’t show any teeth. “Go on. Do it. It might be real fun.”

He was right, of course, but she couldn’t let her lips form that word or say it out loud. She hated herself for that inability. So many of her problems would be solved if she could learn how to be like Deidre or some of the other women at National Brands. Maybe if she were that sort of hard woman, she could hurry Tulane along to one of the rental car agencies. With the weather delay and Steve’s apparent sabotage, they needed to rent a car, and fast.

Sarah took a deep, calming breath. She could manage this situation.

“Well,” she said to the man draped over the bench, “if Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, then I guess we’ll have to get the mountain to move.” She braced her hands on her hips.

“Am I Mohammed or the mountain?” he asked, tipping back the brim of his dirty baseball cap.

“The mountain. God knows you’re big enough. Isn’t there some kind of weight penalty for race teams with large drivers?”

“I’m just long, honey, but I don’t weigh much. You stick around me, and you’ll find that out, sooner or later.”

The blood heated her cheeks, and that appeared to amuse him. No doubt, in grade school he’d been like Georgie Porgie, kissing all the girls and making them cry.

“If you’re suggesting that you and I will become intimate, the chances of that ever happening in this lifetime are nonexistent.”

Tulane clutched his chest. “Man, you are one coldhearted woman. Can’t you see I’m trying my best to get on your good side? And trust me, honey, you got several real nice sides hiding under that man-tailored suit you’re wearing.”

“Mr. Rhodes, you”—she pointed her finger, even though it was appallingly rude—“are trying to get me in trouble. So just stop with the lewd remarks, salacious suggestions, and offers to impugn my integrity. Grab your bags and get the lead out. We’ve got to go rent a car.”

“Wow, how many three-dollar words do you know? I’m impressed.”

“Mr. Rhodes, time is flying, and if I don’t get you to Orangeburg on schedule, I will get into trouble.”

“Oh. Well. I don’t want to get you into any trouble.” He settled deeper into the chair.

She had to control her temper. She counted to ten and tried hard not to grind her teeth. “Please get your bags,” she finally said quietly. “We don’t have much time.”

“You mean I have to get up?”

“Yes,” she ground out.

“You mean I have to carry my own bags?”

“Didn’t I just ask you to get your bags?” For goodness’ sake, she sounded just like Mother. How awful.

“Well, hell,” Tulane drawled, “what does National Brands pay you for, anyway? I thought an advance man was supposed to carry baggage, sort of like a Pullman porter. I thought an advance man was supposed to have all the details worked out.”

“Are you suggesting that we’ve got a problem because I’m not a man, Mr. Rhodes?”

“I sure do wish you would call me Tulane. And no, we don’t have a problem because you’re a woman, but jeez, I have a reputation to maintain, you know, and you seem to be impervious to my many charms.”