Home At Last Chance (Last Chance #2)(24)
Author: Hope Ramsay

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 nak*d 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 br**sts 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 continued. “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 nak*d 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?”