Last Chance Beauty Queen (Last Chance #3)(21)
Author: Hope Ramsay

And then there was the whole Hugh and Cissy thing. She didn’t like them dancing. Not even a teeny bit.

But there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Cissy and Hugh matched. They were both rich and came from blue-blooded families. She was the country girl who needed to be looking for a regular Joe.

“What? Aren’t you happy?” Dash asked.

Caroline turned back toward him and studied his craggy face for a long moment. He was handsome, and funny, and a pain in the backside most of the time. They had known each other since she was a little girl. He was her brothers’ friend.

He was rich. He owned almost all the land in the general vicinity. He’d worked with his hands most of his life. He was a regular guy. People liked him, now that he was working through his problems. He’d gotten sober. Cleaned up his act.

There was a lot a girl could like in a man like Dash. But Caroline wasn’t the girl.

“What? Why are you looking at me that way?”

“You’re sweet, you know.”

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“I’m not. You’re sweet but you’re also a terrible dancer. And my poor bare feet need a break.”

“Okay. Want to take a walk down to the first pier? That should get everyone talking.”

“No. I don’t need any more talk. And besides, while I want Bubba to move on, I’m not sure I want him to move on to Rachel.”

Dash frowned. “What? Are you jealous?”

She rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Dash, I wouldn’t wish Bubba on my worst enemy, let alone my best friend.”

He gave her a sober look. “You know, Bubba is an all-right guy when he’s sober. Rachel could do worse.”

“I don’t think Rachel and Bubba are a match made in Heaven.”

“Well, maybe not, but look at him. He’s enjoying himself for once. So, see, I’m a genius. You should be grateful to me.”

“Yeah, I guess, but right now I’m just exhausted. And you need to rest that leg. So let’s drop the charade, okay? I need some alone time.”

“Okay. I need to wet my whistle anyways.”

He leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek. He played it up and lingered over it, but it was still a brotherly kiss.

Caroline left him at the pavilion with a bunch of local guys discussing Carolina football like the only teams in the universe were Clemson and the University of South Carolina. She wandered down to the river’s edge, where she collapsed onto a wooden bench. She sucked in the warm summer air, filled with the coppery scent of black water. Out beyond the riverbank, a gaggle of teenagers were trying to sink the float that rode the current between the first pier and the baby pool. They would pile on, get the float under water, and then the current would take over and knock people off. The activity came with its share of girls shrieking and boys laughing.

Caroline had been one of those kids once. The first day of the Watermelon Festival used to be the best day of the year. School was out, the weather was warm, the food was delicious, and her family got to come swimming out here.

All of that had changed twelve years ago, the last time she’d put on this dress.

And now, thanks to Dash’s admittedly brilliant plan, she might never be able to live down the legend.

She’d heard folks whispering all day. They halfway expected her to ride off in Dash’s Cadillac tonight and come back two days from now as his blushing bride.

Such was the legacy that Stone and Sharon had left in their wake. Everyone wanted a happy ending to that story. Unfortunately Stone’s happy ending had been cut short. So now everyone kept looking for another, substitute, Watermelon Festival romance.

She was doomed. She would have to play this charade for a while. And then when folks realized it was a hoax, she’d get blamed. Dash was right, his lasso had made her a living legend, and not in a good way either.

Her throat knotted up at that thought. She had no reason to cry, except that sometimes when she thought about Sharon and Stone, she’d get all weepy. Sharon had treated her like a grown-up, even when she’d been a teenager. Her sister-in-law had encouraged her to go to college, to be her own woman.

Sharon had loved Caroline’s brother, but Sharon had given up a lot to be with him. Sometimes Caroline wondered if Stone understood all that Sharon had sacrificed in the name of love.

And now Sharon was gone, and Caroline missed her. For a little instant, it almost felt as if Sharon was right there with her, enjoying the day as she always had. Sharon loved the Watermelon Festival. Caroline’s eyes watered up, just thinking about Stone and Sharon.

Great. She needed to have a crying jag in front of everyone like she needed a hole in the head. She gathered up the yards of tulle in her skirt and raced on her bare feet down the path that ran beside the river’s edge.

The tears overwhelmed her as she made her way past the first pier and on into the overgrown area upstream. A narrow dirt track led along the riverbank to a second pier, where people used to fish all the time.

She walked out onto the pier, the wooden slats smooth and cool under her feet. She sank down onto one of the benches and wrestled her tears under control. She had no reason to cry.

She was alive, and it was a beautiful day. She sat on the pier for a long while as the sun sank in the sky and the light turned golden. It was peaceful here, watching the river run, listening to it burble underneath the pier’s planking as it rolled its way to the sea. She let her thoughts run free, and of course, her mind went back to last night and the touch of Hugh’s hand, and the feel of his skin, and the way she had floated across the dance floor in his arms.

And then, as if she’d conjured him up with her thoughts, Baron Woolham strolled down the pier and sat himself right down next to her.

He said nothing. Instead, like one of those English lords in one of Momma’s books, he handed her a fine cotton handkerchief with his initials embroidered on it. “Your mascara has run a little bit,” he said.

She took the handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. The soft cotton came away black. She didn’t even want to think about how she looked at this moment—poured into a too-tight dress, her hair all windblown from her wild ride on Dash’s pony, and eye makeup destroyed by a PMS-laden moment.

And then there were her dirty, bare feet, and her close encounter with a pile of horse pucky.

So much for her carefully groomed professionalism.

“In case you’re wondering,” Hugh said in his clipped accent and deep, sexy voice, “I wanted to put my fist through that buggar’s face. I might have done, too, except I worried that it might have added to your problems. And of course, I didn’t want to damage any more faces in Last Chance. I’ve been rather a prat in that regard.”

She straightened up and turned in his direction. He had cocked his head and was giving her the oddest smile. It didn’t quite touch his lips, but his eyes were full of kindness.

Something eased inside her chest. “Buggar? You mean Dash, right? You already punched Bubba.”

He nodded. “I really think that lassoing someone off a parade float is rather an immature way of showing one’s affection.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Apparently I’m seriously out of step with you Yanks in this regard. And up to now, I was thinking that Last Chance and Woolham were quite alike, actually.”

She laughed. “You’re being droll or something, aren’t you?”

“Or something,” he muttered. “Look, Caroline, I know it’s really not my place, but um… well, you see, I know everyone says Miriam Randall never gets it wrong, but that prat is not the right man for you.”

She let go of a sudden and unexpected laugh. “What makes you say that?”

“He’s a terrible dancer.”

His gaze seemed more avid than it should be. He leaned in a little bit, close enough for Caroline to see the texture of his closely shaved whiskers and to feel his body heat. She suddenly wanted to snuggle up to him and rest her head on his shoulder. He had very broad shoulders, like every good English hero ought. But she couldn’t do that. Snuggling up to him would be very unprofessional. She needed to start thinking with her brains and not her hormones.

“Well,” she said, “dancing isn’t everything.”

“No. I suppose not. But you danced with Dash, and then ran away and came down here for a cry?” Hugh’s mouth finally quirked into a funny, uneven line. “I thought that was rather interesting, so I escaped from Cissy and came down to see if it was his dancing or something else.”

She looked away.

“So, what is it?”

She lifted a shoulder. “It’s really stupid. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“Well, it’s just that every time I put on this dress, it’s like I have to live up to something that isn’t true.”

“What?”

“My brother, Stone, ran off with a Watermelon Queen when he was eighteen. He and Sharon found a justice of the peace and got married and didn’t come back for two days.”

“So what does that have to do with you?”

“It’s complicated. See, my sister-in-law died in a car wreck a few years ago, and if that hadn’t happened, she and Stone would probably be here together today, and everyone would be joking and laughing and retelling their story. But instead, no one can talk about it because it makes everyone so sad.”

“I see. So you were crying about Sharon?”

She nodded. “Yeah, and the expectations that Sharon’s behavior has imposed on every Watermelon Queen since. It’s like the town wants us all to run off and have a romance. When the truth is, Sharon, probably more than anyone else, is the person who encouraged me to avoid romance, go to college, and find a career instead.”

“Right. I think I’m getting it. But I must admit that I do sometimes have rather a problem with female logic.” He said it with humor in his voice; otherwise she might have punched him herself.

“See, Bubba asked me to marry him in front of everyone that summer I was Watermelon Queen. He had a full ride to Clemson, and I had a scholarship that I worked hard for at the University of South Carolina. He wanted me to give up my scholarship and come to Clemson, where I couldn’t afford to go to school. But he just wanted me to be his wife. He practically expected it, because that’s what Sharon did.

“I’ll never understand why Sharon gave up her chance to go to college. I’ve never asked my brother because it’s too sensitive a subject. But I knew I wanted to go to college. So I told Bubba no.

“The first time I said it privately.

“The second time, he forced the issue and asked me in front a big crowd of people. And I got angry and said a few things I’m not proud of. I’ve paid the price. Not only because I was ugly to Bubba, but because small towns are places where myths are invented on a daily basis. And the myth in this town is that I treated Bubba so bad that I broke his heart. He fell apart and ended up flunking out of college, thereby messing up a bright NCAA college football career that was going to land him in the NFL.