Home At Last Chance (Last Chance #2)(9)
Author: Hope Ramsay

He let himself smile, knowing for a certainty that there were some smiles women found irresistible. “Boy howdy, you do have a three-dollar-a-word vocabulary, don’t you? But don’t you worry. I do understand it. And if I weren’t trying to be grown-up and responsible, I might even try to help you get over being nice. I have this feeling that with practice, you might find you have a talent for sin.”

She giggled—no doubt as a result of the alcohol she had just imbibed. She squirmed in her seat as she took in all of Dot’s Spot with a pair of wide, girlish eyes. Then her gaze returned to his, and she smiled up at him. He picked up his beer and downed it in several swallows.

Someone punched up a George Strait two-step number, and Sarah started tapping her toe to the music. Every time her toe moved, her knee brushed up against his, setting off little electric shocks.

“That’s it,” he said, pushing up from the table. “It’s time for you to learn to two-step.”

“Huh? But I don’t know how to dance.”

“Figures, you being a virgin and all.” This should be good.

Tulane snagged her hand, registering her birdlike bones and the soft flesh of her palms. She was so tiny and so utterly female that it felt as if someone had just squeezed his gonads.

He pulled her out onto the dance floor and turned her around to face him. Her head barely reached the bottom of his chin. He snaked his right hand around to the back of her waist, his palm warmed with her body heat. He suddenly felt as awkward as a fifteen-year-old.

“Okay,” he said, leaning down and talking into her ear above the music. “All you have to do is remember that this is like walking. You start back on your right foot and just alternate right and left.”

“Uh-huh. Right.” Her voice sounded tight. Good, he wanted to keep his nursemaid a little off balance.

“Okay,” he whispered, trying to focus on the dance and not his raging hormones. “It’s six beats and four steps. One, two, three, hold, four, hold. Got that?”

“Uh, no, not really.”

“Okay, don’t worry. I got you. I’m leading, and I’m in control. You just follow me. Start on your right foot.”

He waited for the beat to roll around and then he gave her a little nudge backward. She stumbled a couple of times and stepped on his toes once. But in about three minutes, the girl was two-stepping like someone born in Texas. She had a talent for this that seriously outstripped her abilities to talk a mile a minute and wheedle information from his family.

He pulled her close enough to get his nose down into that glorious crown of red hair and smell her earthy scent. A moment later, just as they were beginning to get a rhythm going, someone tapped on his shoulder.

“Mind if I cut in?”

Tulane turned to find a seriously inebriated Bubba Lockheart standing behind him. Bubba, who had once been Pete’s main mechanic, outweighed Tulane by a good eighty pounds. He was dressed for work in a greasy blue shirt with his name—Bubba, not Frank or Francis—embroidered right above the right shirt pocket.

Bubba was drunk as a skunk, a turn of affairs that had become something of a habit with the boy recently.

“No, Bubba, you can’t cut in. You’re drunk and dirty.”

Bubba’s brow lowered. “Aw, c’mon, Tulane, there ain’t no other women in here.”

“Well, this one is with me, and she isn’t interested in getting grease on her black suit.”

“Um, maybe we should just leave, okay?” Sarah said, pulling Tulane in the general direction of the door. “We don’t want any lawsuits, remember? That would be bad for the Cottontail Disposable Diaper image.”

And wasn’t that just like his little nursemaid? Not that Bubba would ever think about suing anyone he picked a bar fight with. But, just the same, it was nice to know that Sarah Murray, librarian, was in Tulane’s corner.

“Yeah, Tulane, you wouldn’t want to be caught dead fighting, especially wearing pink.” This came from Roy Burdett, who worked the day shift down at the poultry plant out on Route 321. Roy was in his mid-fifties, with a red face, a Country Pride Chicken hat perched on his head, and a nasty disposition that had been fed by his nagging wife and more than a couple of beers.

Tulane consciously unclenched his fists and worked at controlling his temper. Maybe he should have taken off the pink shirt before walking into this place. He would never hear the end of this. Especially if he let Sarah yank his chain.

On the other hand, if he got into a brawl with his sponsor’s nursemaid standing right there, it wouldn’t be good. Jim Ferguson would be angry and disappointed. National Brands would be outraged. And just about everyone else would nod their heads and say that it was just Tulane being Tulane.

But, most important, Pete would be disappointed. Pete wanted him to grow up and be a man. And sometimes a real man had to walk away from a fight. It was counterintuitive, but Tulane knew that having a brawl right now would be stupid.

So he choked back his pride, and he smiled his best smile, and tried not to get angry. He was going to walk away from this fight and make Pete proud of him.

“Roy, Bubba, I don’t want to fight with anyone. I just want to teach this Boston girl how to two-step. Now, if y’all would just back off, we can avoid a sticky situation.”

He turned his back on Bubba, intent on continuing his dancing lesson with Sarah.

Unfortunately Bubba wasn’t interested in making anyone proud of him. Bubba was, in fact, too drunk to be thinking rationally. So the big, greasy mechanic shoved Tulane in the back and sent him careening into the jukebox.

Tulane stopped thinking when that happened. His natural instincts took over. He turned and rammed his fist right into Bubba’s nose. Bubba hit the floor, whimpering like a wuss.

That was a huge mistake, because Roy Burdett wasn’t about to stand by and watch his drinking buddy get punched. Roy stood up and came at Tulane with blood in his eye. Tulane braced himself for Roy’s charge.

That’s when little bitty Sarah picked up a chair and blindsided Roy right upside the head.

Roy went down without a sound.

“Nice shot, girlfriend,” Dot Cox said from her spot behind the bar. The proprietor of Dot’s Spot was on the long side of fifty, and her flame-red hair came straight out of a bottle. Trashy from the tassels on her neon-green western shirt right down to her snakeskin cowboy boots, Dottie Cox was the antithesis of every one of the old biddies in the Ladies Auxiliary.

Which made her okay with Tulane.

“Reckon I better call the EMTs. Ya’ll may want to make a quick getaway before Stone gets here. ’Cause you know every time I call the EMTs, Stone hears about it.” She smiled and batted her false eyelashes at Tulane. “It sure is nice to have you home, Tulane. It’s been boring around here with you gone.”

Dottie flicked her gaze to Sarah and then back. “Y’all are in some high cotton now, aren’t you?”

“Oh, Dottie, meet Sarah Murray. Sarah works for my sponsor. And, as you can see, she has a wicked way with a chair when she’s backed into a corner.”

Dottie turned toward Sarah. “You the one put him in a pink car?”

Sarah stood there like a one-eyed cat watching a bird. Tulane wasn’t entirely sure how to read the sudden tension radiating from Sarah’s straight, puritanical spine.

Did Sarah feel guilty about the pink car?

Or was she just now realizing she had knocked Roy Burdett unconscious?

“No,” she finally said, shaking off whatever it was that had frozen her in place.

Tulane grabbed her by the arm of her black suit. “Honey, it’s time to get out of here. We’ve broken enough rules for one night, and while I know that rule breaking can be fun, the point is to not ever get caught.”

A few minutes later, Sarah found herself riding shotgun in the old Ford pickup. She rested her head on the seat back and tried to figure out whether she was embarrassed, frightened, or merely turned on by the sudden adrenaline rush.

“I reckon we’re even-steven now. I swear I won’t tell anyone about the bar fight or you fainting, if you won’t tell about all that stuff you heard at dinner,” Tulane said, the dashboard lights illuminating his handsome profile.

“You’re serious about this?”

“Sure I am. Besides, I owe you one for taking out Roy tonight.”

“I’m so embarrassed—”

“Embarrassed? Honey, you got a real talent there. I reckon you’re a bar-fight virgin, too?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. My father and mother would be mortified by what I just did. Not to mention my boss.”

“Ah, the Dragon Lady—Deidre Montgomery. So, it’s a deal then. Mum’s the word on both sides.”

“Good grief, I’ve made a total hash of this assignment, haven’t I?”

“Uh, no, you just saved me from getting a black eye. And, truth to tell, you probably saved yourself from getting grease all over that nice black suit. But, see here, there’s just one thing. Even though I swear on a stack of Bibles that I will never tell Deidre Montgomery or Jim Ferguson about what happened tonight, you gotta understand that everyone in Last Chance is going to know what you did before the night is out. It could go either way with the Ladies Auxiliary.”

“Either way?”

“Yes, ma’am. Either they’ll think you’re a floozy and a tramp, or they’ll think you were justified in taking Roy out, seeing as he’s a married man and was drunk. The ladies take a dim view of drunks in our town.

“Now the way I see it, you are probably going to get a pass from the Ladies Auxiliary on account of the fact that every one of them already knows you are a descendant of Pilgrims and you were only at Dottie’s because I took you there.”

She managed a little laugh. “That’s funny.”

“You think I’m funny?”

“Yeah, I do. And I know you don’t like being laughed at, which is probably why you make a big joke out of everything. But what just happened isn’t a joke. I could have hurt that man. I don’t know what I was thinking, really.”

“Take my word for it, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We were defending ourselves. We didn’t pick the fight. We were sober, more or less, and Bubba and Roy were acting like a couple of bullies. I believe in putting bullies where they belong. Don’t you?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I don’t usually get involved with bullies. My goodness, Tulane, I had almost finished my margarita, so I wasn’t exactly—”

“That one drink wasn’t enough to classify you as being wasted. Besides, I told Dot to make it weak.”

“You did?”

“Yes, ma’am. I didn’t want to be blamed for getting you drunk. You being a librarian and all.”

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.” She was suddenly annoyed with him. She hated being treated like she was incompetent. Even if she was.

“I promise you, this will not get back to your bosses,” Tulane said. “And the way I see it, if you promise to keep your mouth shut, and I promise to keep my mouth shut, neither one of us will get into any trouble.”