Home At Last Chance (Last Chance #2)(33)
Author: Hope Ramsay

Tulane stared at the words on his computer screen, feeling useless as udders on a bull. “You mean Deidre Montgomery?”

“Who?”

“She’s Sarah’s boss.”

“Well, hell, I’m not so sure Sarah isn’t responsible for this crap. After all, she isn’t really one of us, no matter what Momma or the church ladies say.”

Stone’s accusation fried Tulane’s nerve endings like the shock of a cattle prod. For an instant he entertained the thought, and then he dismissed it. The woman who had been worried about him and held his hand last night would never have had anything to do with an article like this. No doubt some reporter hit town and Lillian Bray told all.

“Stone, Sarah had nothing to do with this. I’d bet my life on it. And Deidre didn’t have anything to do with it either. Deidre might have wanted to know all the nasty details of my life, but she would never have handed them to Arnold Simons. This is not good for diaper sales.”

“Shoot, Tulane, you’re starting to sound like them. I don’t give a holy hell what they might have done. You need to fix this. Did you read what they said about Haley?”

“How am I supposed to fix this? There’s nothing I can do.”

“There has to be something. Thousands of people are going to wake up this morning and read that my daughter is crazy. She’s not crazy.”

“Well, she is seeing a therapist. Maybe if she wasn’t I could sue for libel.”

Stone started cussing, and he kept it up for a full minute before finally hanging up on Tulane.

Tulane propped his head in his hands. He could count on one hand the number of times his brother had been that angry. In fact, he could do the counting and still have ten fingers left.

Arnold Simons was a bully.

But he was a bully who was beyond Tulane’s reach. Otherwise, the guy might be in danger of having his face broken. Tulane had to get up. He had to move. Sitting still was no longer possible.

He started pacing, both his body and his mind raging. A few minutes later his cell phone rang again. He stopped midpace and checked the caller ID.

He didn’t recognize the number.

It was probably some reporter looking for a comment. He thought about answering the phone and screaming at the person on the other end of it.

But that wouldn’t be mature. He was trying to control his anger, not unleash it on the world. And he knew one thing—cussing out a reporter was something Jim Ferguson would not be happy about.

So, before that happened, he needed to disappear. He needed to get his head straight before he figured out what to do about this awful thing. He needed to think things through.

He turned off his phone, threw on some clothes, and climbed into his Mustang fastback. He didn’t have any particular destination in mind. He just drove. Taking his fury out on the pavement seemed like a reasonable thing to do, so long as he didn’t exceed the speed limit by more than fifteen miles an hour.

An hour later, he looked up from the road.

Dammit all.

Like some old horse that always managed to find his home barn, Tulane had driven to Last Chance. It was an old habit when things started falling apart. But this time, Uncle Pete wasn’t around for the usual man-to-man talk.

A hollow place opened in Tulane’s chest as he cruised through town and continued heading south. Pretty soon Golfing for God came into view on the left side of the road. He slowed and pulled into the gravel lot.

He turned off his engine and sat in the car for a few minutes as the sun heated the interior. He contemplated the remains of the statue of Jesus that had once stood at the edge of the parking lot. Tulane’s career and Jesus were pretty much in the same shape—wrecked beyond recognition.

Who wanted a driver with a reputation for being an immature hothead and who had insanity running through his gene pool? It was over. And he didn’t know what to do about it.

The heat eventually drove him from his car. He headed down the path toward the ark. Weeds choked the main walk, and the place looked good and truly abandoned.

Kudzu vine was burying the place faster than anyone might have expected. In a couple of years, if nothing was done, the place would fade into obscurity.

He walked to the eighteenth hole and sat on the little bench by the 8-foot statue of the resurrected Christ. Jesus looked down on him with a half-smile on His fiberglass face and His hands outstretched. Stress fractures were forming along one hand.

What had Daddy been doing all these months since the lightning storm? The place was falling apart.

Tulane could almost hear Pete’s voice in the back of his head, answering the question. Daddy didn’t have anything to do anymore. And without Tulane’s help, there wouldn’t be any money to rebuild Golfing for God. Daddy could retire.

And do what?

All the times Tulane had wished for calamity to strike this place, he’d never stopped and really thought about how losing Golfing for God might affect his father.

A huge load of guilt slapped Tulane right upside the head. For one small instant he understood how Daddy might feel. What the hell would Tulane do if he couldn’t drive a car around an oval racetrack? Driving a car was what he did, just like running a putt-putt was what Daddy did.

Daddy had always loved his job. He was good at it. And hadn’t Tulane told Sarah last night that everyone wants to do the thing they are good at?

Tulane stood up and started toward the ark. Maybe he could find Daddy’s power saw and cut down some of the burned pines that lined the main walk. That would certainly be a productive way to burn off his anger at Arnold Simons. And it might make Pete happy, too.

He had just taken a step toward the ark when Haley’s little-girl voice called out, “Uncle Tulane, are you here? Me and Granddaddy saw your car.”

Tulane turned, and Haley appeared an instant later, running down the walk and looking no worse for having been trashed on a blog read by thousands. Her shorts and T-shirt were a little dirty, her hair was a big mess, and she had a Band-Aid on her left knee. She pounded down the path on sneakers that flashed a pink light with every step. Then she jumped right into Tulane’s arms.

Haley didn’t seem angry at him, which was a huge relief. But of course, she was too little to understand what had happened to her reputation.

He gave her a big hug and buried his nose in her soft little-girl hair. Something in his chest eased. He wanted to hold her tight and keep her safe, but she wiggled out of his grasp.

“Are you gonna help us?” Her dark eyes danced with delight, and Tulane felt his mouth tip up. He adored this child.

“Hey,” Daddy said.

Tulane looked up. His father stood by the Tree of Knowledge, wearing one of his signature black T-shirts and a pair of patched blue jeans. The message across Daddy’s chest today: “America Needs a Faith Lift!”

“What you doing here?” Daddy said.

Tulane shrugged. “Thinking, I guess.”

“You guess. Don’t you know?”

“No, sir, I guess not.”

“Hmmm. I know the feeling.”

Haley tugged on Tulane’s jeans. “So, you gonna help?”

He squatted down to be at eye level. “Help with what?”

“Well, see, Hettie Marshall has started this committee called the Resurrection of Golfing for God, and some people are coming today to do some cleaning and to figure out what needs fixing up.” Haley had managed to lisp through her speech, and then she gave him the most beautiful gap-toothed smile. He wanted to hug her again and never let go.

“I’m so glad folks are going to fix this place up,” Haley continued, “ ’cause, honestly, I don’t think the Sorrowful Angel wanted Golfing for God to go out of business because she had to smite the bad guys who came out here that time. But she’s an angel, you know, and angels always smite the bad guys, like in the Bible.”

Tulane swallowed hard. Maybe she would grow out of it. He could only hope. “I’m sure your angel didn’t mean to break stuff,” Tulane said aloud. He already knew there was no point in telling Haley that the damage to the golf course had been caused by a violent lightning storm.

“So you’ll stay and help? I heard Granny say you were never, ever going to help with the golf course, even though Miss Sarah says the golf course is the bestest thing in Last Chance, and you and Miss Sarah are friends. So did Miss Sarah change your mind?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” he managed, even though the hollow place in his chest opened up into a wide chasm. For the first time that morning, he thought about Sarah and what Arnold Simons’s article was probably doing to her career.

Deidre was going to be furious when she read this stuff. All the more so because Tulane had asked Sarah to lie for him.

Maybe he should have listened to Sarah a few weeks ago. Maybe if they had told the truth, they could have minimized the damage.

What an idiot he’d been.

Just then, Hettie Marshall came striding down the walk with Bill Ellis by her side. Both of them were wearing jeans and T-shirts.

Hettie had graduated from Davis High a few years ahead of Tulane, but even back then, Hettie never wore T-shirts. And as for Bill, well, seeing a minister at Golfing for God was a whole new experience. The pastors of the past had never been big fans of putt-putt.

What was going on?

“Where do you need us, Elbert?” Bill said.

Elbert dug in his pocket and pulled out a key chain. He tossed the keys to the minister. “Why don’t ya’ll go unlock the ark and get out the wheelbarrow and the garden tools? I’ll be with you directly. I need to talk with Tulane for a minute.”

“I’m so glad you changed your mind, Uncle Tulane,” Haley said. Then she turned and scampered toward the ark. “I can show you where everything is,” she said to the preacher. Hettie and Bill let the little girl lead the way.

Tulane jammed his hands into his pockets. “So I guess you heard about the article on OnlyLeftTurns.com?”

Daddy strolled over to the eighteenth hole, took a seat, leaned back, and rested his arms along the back of the bench. “Afraid so. Stone woke us all up this morning at some ungodly hour.” He chuckled.

“You think it’s funny?”

“No, but haven’t you wondered exactly how Stone found out about that article? I have a theory that your big brother has been following your career with more interest than he lets on. He’s proud of you.”

“Stone? Proud of me? I don’t think so.”

“Well, you can think what you want. You usually do.”

“C’mon, Daddy, we all know the truth. I’m famous because I wear a stupid pink bunny suit and drive a stupid pink car. I’m not admired because of what I do behind the wheel. And the bullies just want to use the bunny on my back for target practice. Most folks don’t give a rat’s ass about what all this meaningless publicity is doing to my family. I’m sorry about what happened. I tried real hard to keep this stuff about Haley and you out of the press.”

“Uh-huh. I reckon that’s what you call lying in your biography and picking fights with anyone who looks at you crosswise.”

“Daddy, don’t start.”