Home At Last Chance (Last Chance #2)(25)
Author: Hope Ramsay

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 n**ples. 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 br**sts, 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 nak*d. 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?”

Was she nuts? He sincerely wanted to take her there, but he wasn’t going to do that. She was the kind of woman a man took to the Ritz and made love to.

“You aren’t the kind of woman who ought to see the insides of the Peach Blossom Motor Court. And you sure as hell shouldn’t see it with a guy like me. You’re a nice girl, and I’m not taking you there, okay? We’ve ended our hell-raising session for the evening.”

“Here is a news flash for you,” she rejoined in a flat voice that telegraphed her ire. “I’m here trying to have a bad-boy experience. The entire point is for me to see the insides of a place like the Peach Blossom Motor Court with somebody like you.”

Of course she wanted a fling with a bad boy, every woman did. But he was tired of being the designated bad boy. These relationships were great until the inevitable moment when the good girls realized that he was not good at things like lifelong commitment. There were always tears and recriminations when that happened.

And just imagining Sarah in tears twisted up his gut. He didn’t want to hurt her. He liked her way too much for that.

“Well, I’m not the bad boy who’s going to screw you tonight,” he said, purposefully using that word to wake her up and make her realize the danger that she faced.

She was startled for a moment, clearly disturbed by the profanity. And that little hesitation told him all he needed to know. It confirmed that he was doing the right thing, even if it was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done in his life.

“Why is it that guys like you think you can egg on a girl like me, just so long as you stop before the action gets hot? If a girl did that to you, you would call her a tease,” she said.

Tears gathered in her eyes. He’d just hurt her. But she would get over it.

“Look,” he said on a long, frustrated sigh. “you stay here. I’ll go get our clothes.”

Chapter 11

Steve Phelps sat down at the computer, the lights of the New York skyline glowing dully in the darkened office. He glanced at the silver clock on Deidre’s desk. Eleven o’clock on Saturday evening. National Brands was quiet as a tomb.

He waited for Deidre’s workstation to boot up. When the log-in screen came on, he pulled a yellow sticky note from his breast pocket and carefully keyed in the user name and password.

“Yes,” he hissed when Deidre’s desktop appeared. He was in. Tracy down in IT had come through for him. She had actually given him the log-in information with few questions asked. He’d simply told her that Deidre was traveling in the wilds of South Carolina and had no Wi-Fi connection and needed someone to check an incoming e-mail.

Tracy, a born-and-bred New Yorker who had never been farther south than Newark, actually believed that most of South Carolina was devoid of cell phone connectivity. Steve wasn’t a complete dunce when it came to selling people the big lie. He knew that to do that, you just had to appeal to a person’s inner prejudices.

Breaking into Deidre’s computer was a long shot, but Steve was desperate. He couldn’t let Deidre mess up a good thing, could he?

Cottontail Diaper sales had never been better, and he was reaping all the glory for that. But if Deidre moved forward with her car seat safety program, any future accolades wouldn’t fall to him.

Besides, with Deidre protecting Sarah, Steve was in a precarious situation. What if Deidre found out that he hadn’t written the Cottontail Diaper marketing memo? What if Deidre found out that he’d ripped off Sarah’s ideas for the Cuppa Java campaign?

He needed to figure out something quick before Deidre took the NASCAR program back or Sarah outed him.

The easiest solution to his problem would have been to come up with some brilliant marketing strategy for Rice Doodles, the new snack-food product that had landed on his desk.

Unfortunately, Rice Doodles were tasteless and odorless. The fact that they were diet food was completely irrelevant. No one would eat that crap after tasting it once, no matter how desperate they were to lose weight. This probably explained why Deidre had given his team the task of coming up with the marketing program. In Steve’s opinion, Rice Doodles were unmarketable.

Steve was up against a wall. If he didn’t figure out something quick, he might have to join the swelling ranks of the unemployed. And that was not a good option for him. He had very expensive tastes.

Removing Deidre from his career path seemed to be the best option open to him at the moment. And for that, a little inside corporate espionage seemed reasonable.

He opened Deidre’s e-mail program and began reading her messages. It didn’t take long for him to find Sarah’s memo on car seat safety.

So, Deidre was stealing Sarah’s ideas, too.

Either that or the two of them had teamed up.

Deidre stealing Sarah’s ideas didn’t surprise him. But Deidre teaming up with Sarah scared the crap out of him.