Home At Last Chance (Last Chance #2)(28)
Author: Hope Ramsay

“Sarah,” he said, trying to find some way to keep his voice even, “meet Lacy DuBois. She’s an assistant to an assistant to a not-very-important NASCAR flack. She’s here to make my day.”

He turned toward Lacy, who was looking at him suspiciously. No doubt she was trying to figure out if he had just insulted her. Since Lacy didn’t have much in the brains department, it took a while for her to process the thought. “Lacy, Sarah is the National Brands liaison to Ferguson Racing,” Tulane said.

“Oh.” Lacy managed a weak smile. “Nice to meet you.”

Sarah said nothing to Lacy. The silence said enough, since everyone knew the best insult is simply to ignore the competition. Sarah did a real fine job of pretending that Lacy wasn’t even standing there.

She hopped down from the golf cart onto a pair of pointy-toed, do-me boots. She tottered on them as she tried to walk over the grass. She reminded Tulane of a little girl who had just dressed up in her momma’s clothes. Only in this case, Momma would be a streetwalker. The effect was adorable and deeply disturbing.

What the heck had happened to her? Where was his little librarian? Obviously escaped from the library and on a wild tear to raise some more hell. The fact that she was off doing this without his help made him ornery. He was going to miss out on some major-league fun.

She held out a FedEx overnight envelope for him. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said in a polite voice. “But Deidre insisted that I deliver this to you right away. It came yesterday to the office. She thought you might be interested.”

“What is it?” he asked, taking the cardboard folder.

“Artist’s renderings for new paint schemes. National Brands is starting negotiations with the owners of the rights to the Racer Rabbit cartoon character. The artist is trying to make the car look like the one Racer Rabbit drives. It’s painted green.”

“Green?” Hallelujah.

“Pale lime green,” she said soberly. “About the shade of Lacy’s pants. With fuchsia trim.”

He flicked his gaze to Lacy’s green outfit and stifled a groan. This was not what he had in mind.

“And, just for the record,” Sarah said, tossing her hair, “I wrote a totally bogus memo to Deidre about what happened at the funeral. I’ve kept all your secrets, but I’m telling you, Tulane, I’m really tired of lying for you. I’m starting to regret the promises I made.”

She finished her piece and turned unsteadily on one spike heel. She headed back to the cart, fired up the electric motor on that baby, and zoomed off at an unsafe speed.

Tulane watched her leave. The folks in Last Chance were going to laugh their heads off when they saw him in a lime green and fuchsia car. And wasn’t fuchsia a shade of pink? Thank goodness Pete wouldn’t ever have to see that.

“Sugar, what did you do to that girl to get her so riled up at you?” Lacy asked, pulling him away from his sour thoughts.

He leaned toward the long-legged blonde, feeling ornery as a snake with the hives. “Same as I’m going to do to you.”

“What’s that?”

“I turned her down.”

With that, he turned and climbed the stairs to his mobile home, slamming the door right in Lacy DuBois’ face.

“Tulane,” she bellowed behind him, and he tried not to listen. “What the hell is the matter with you? Are you g*y or something?”

Eight hours later, Tulane’s mood had improved marginally. In an attempt to build more team spirit, Doc Jackson, Tulane’s crew chief, had organized an impromptu cookout at Tulane’s motor home.

Dwayne, the gasman, brought several cases of Budweiser. Kyle, the jack man and team driver, brought hamburgers and hot dogs and all the trimmings. Lori Sterling, the team’s logistics coordinator and wife of Sam Sterling, the team manager, brought all the makings for her rum punch—a powerful concoction of Bacardi and orange, apple, and pineapple juices that Tulane never touched.

All Tulane had to do was sit back, sip his beer, and revel in the fact that, for once, they seemed to have gotten it right this afternoon. The No. 57 Ford had been the fastest car during today’s two-hour practice.

Tulane’s bliss lasted about two minutes, until Ken Lewicki showed up. True to form, the jerk hadn’t brought anything to eat or drink. But he had the balls to show up with Sarah.

Her appearance at this impromptu gathering shouldn’t have surprised Tulane. After all, she was detailed to the team as if she were actually a member of it. It was their showing up together that annoyed him.

What was she up to?

She gave him only the barest of greetings—a little nod of the head and that was it. Then she and Kenny snagged a couple of lawn chairs about fifteen feet from where Tulane was sitting. They sat there like a couple of kids with their heads together. Kenny the motormouth was doing his thing, and Sarah appeared to be hanging on every one of the man’s three-syllable words.

He wanted to walk over there and smash Kenny flat. Only he couldn’t do that. Kenny was exactly the right kind of man for Sarah. Just because he was an opinionated snob didn’t mean that he and Sarah weren’t made for each other.

Tulane sat there watching for the better part of an hour while Sarah and Kenny each downed a large cup of Lori’s punch, as if that stuff were only fruit juice and not laced with both dark and light rum. When Lori headed out with another round, he decided Sarah had had enough.

He pushed up from his chair and grabbed Lori before she could deliver the drinks. He took the plastic cup of punch from her hand. “I’m cutting Sarah off,” he said quietly.

“Hey, gimme that back. Since when are you her keeper?”

“Since right now. And while I’m at it, you’ve had enough, too.”

“Gimme back that cup, Tulane.” She attempted a lunge at the cup, and he backed away.

“Look, Lori, the thing is, Sarah doesn’t drink all that often, and those rum drinks are really strong. You don’t want to get her into trouble now, do you?” Tulane asked.

Lori tossed her mane of dark hair and rolled her eyes in disgust. “You know, Tulane, just because Sarah’s not a pit lizard doesn’t mean she isn’t capable of letting her hair down and having some fun. Now gimme that back.” Lori lunged again and managed to pull the drink right out of his hand without spilling too much of it. She turned around with a little sniff and marched on toward Sarah and Ken as if she were on a crusade.

“Leave Lori alone, Tulane,” Sam said. “We’re supposed to be having fun tonight. I’m sure Sarah can handle it.”

Tulane wanted to argue the point, but he clamped his mouth shut. Arguing with Sam would be stupid, because Sam was the team manager, and Lori was Sam’s wife.

So Tulane sucked it up and walked away.

Like a man.

Pete would be so proud.

“Hey,” Doc shouted to his back. “Where you going?”

“Taking a walk,” Tulane said, and didn’t look back.

He walked for a good hour, around the mile-long asphalt track a few times, still searching for the no-head zone. It continued to elude him, so he focused on the problem of how to excise Sarah from his head.

Unfortunately, though, he had a deep-down hankering for Sarah. So that was a problem.

When the evening faded to twilight, the weekend concert got under way at the bandstand. Tulane figured the party had moved on, so he headed back toward his motor home. But when he came around the corner of the Prevost Coach, his little piece of the infield was still occupied.

Kenny had Sarah pinned against the motor home’s exterior. The engineer was making a thorough and deep-throated inspection of the little librarian’s tonsils.

Ugly and dangerous emotions welled up inside Tulane and made his hands ball up into fists. He ought to turn around and walk away, but his anger held him captive. He stood rooted to the ground while his pulse and respiration climbed into the red zone.

His anger turned into rage a moment later when Sarah’s fisted hand pressed up against Kenny’s shoulder in an unmistakable gesture that said she had had enough. Instead of letting go, Kenny grabbed her upper arm and slapped her tiny hand up against the motor coach, where he pinned it by the wrist. Then he spread his legs and used his much larger body in an attempt to smother her efforts to get away from him. She bucked against him and tried to twist away, but Kenny was larger and more powerful.

Tulane’s raging emotions propelled him forward. Three long strides carried him close enough to grab Kenny by the shoulders of his golf shirt. He yanked the man back, whirled him around, and gave him a hard shove backward that sent him sprawling into a lawn chair, which promptly collapsed underneath him. The engineer and the chair tangled up and ended down on the ground.

Tulane took two steps forward and stared down at his adversary. “Get the hell out of here before I break your face.”

Kenny untangled himself, scrambled to his feet, and stood there a little unsteadily. “What’s the matter, Tulane? Jealous?”

“I said get going. I don’t want to pick a fight. And I don’t want to hurt you. But it’s clear to me Sarah isn’t interested in where you want to go. You’re drunk. So just get out of here.”

Kenny’s gaze shifted a little. “C’mon, Sarah, let’s take this somewhere else. The big, important race car driver has a problem with us being here.”

“Sarah’s staying here.”

“The hell she is,” Kenny bellowed, coming forward a couple of steps and taking a wild-ass swing.

Tulane ducked and instinct took over. He turned and came back at Kenny with a hard right cross that caught the engineer square in the nose. Tulane felt the cartilage in Kenny’s nose crunch. Blood exploded out of the man’s nostrils, and he staggered back a few steps, wailing in pain.

“Shit, Tulane, goddamn you, you sonofabitch.” Kenny brought both of his hands up to his face, the blood splattering his shirt and his hands. “What the hell is wrong with you, anyway? You’re such a loser.”

The epithet knifed through Tulane. How many times had people called him that? “I didn’t want to hurt you. I told you to leave.”

Kenny just stood there swaying a little.

Dammit. He had worked so hard to avoid a fight. He didn’t want to fight. He’d been trying to get on Kenny’s good side for weeks and weeks.

But what was a man supposed to do in a situation like this? Stand there watching Sarah get manhandled?

No frigging way.

“I think it’s broken,” Kenny whined.

“I’m sure it’s broken. You ought to find some ice for it before it swells up on you. I’m sorry I had to do that,” Tulane said in a shaky voice.

He turned his back on Kenny, giving him a chance to take a little revenge if he wanted. But Kenny was a college boy who knew better than to get into fights. Kenny was well-educated and mature. And Tulane was just a hick from the sticks.

Tulane heard him moving away, muttering curses and insults.

Tulane turned back toward Sarah. She sagged against the motor home, eyes closed, her face as pale as his momma’s bone china. Her cotton T-shirt had been ripped apart at the shoulder, exposing the pale lace of her bra. Three dark bruises in the shape of fingerprints had begun to darken her upper left arm. She cradled her left hand against her chest, a little smudge of blood welling out of a scrape along the knuckles.