Last Chance Beauty Queen (Last Chance #3)(41)
Author: Hope Ramsay

Big Bob took a breath and folded his handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. “Is there any discussion on this item?” he asked.

None of the other council members made a move to speak. So Hugh knew it was his time to stand up and stop this nonsense. He walked down to the microphone placed before the dais.

Before he could identify himself, or state his business, a commotion broke out in the hallway. The door to the chamber burst open, and a half-dozen women bearing hand-lettered signs marched up the aisle chanting, “Down with Lord deBracy.” Hettie Marshall was in the lead, and it was almost as if her calm exterior had cracked a little between yesterday and today. She wore a blue suit and pearls, but her hair was askew, her eyes were big and a little wild, and she was chanting louder than all the others. It was almost as if she’d suddenly discovered her inner rebel.

“Good lord, Lavinia, what are you doing here?” Big Bob said to the woman right behind Hettie, who was carrying a sign that said, “God Bless Golfing for God.”

The woman named Lavinia glowered at Big Bob. “I could be asking you the same thing. What makes you think you can just take away Bert Rhodes’s land when he’s never been anything but nice to you? And besides, we all love his wife.”

“Lavinia, you get your butt back home, you hear?” Bob said.

“I will not. And if you think you’re going to do this thing and have a blissful retirement with me, you have another thing coming. Doesn’t he, girls?” Lavinia turned around to her compatriots, her dark eyes sparking with her passion.

“Right on,” the girls chorused with a few fist pumps. They renewed picketing up and down the aisle. All of them were wearing trainers on their feet, so it appeared they were ready to stay for quite a while.

Bob turned toward Stone Rhodes, who stood at the side of the room with one of his deputies. “You get these women out of here,” Bob bellowed.

Stone hooked his thumbs in his belt, but he didn’t move. “Your honor, are you sure you want me to arrest Miz Marshall?” Stone eyed Jimmy, whose boredom had vanished.

Jimmy Marshall sat there red faced, looking like he might stroke out at any moment.

Bob glanced at Last Chance’s leading citizen and then back at Stone. “Belay that order,” the mayor said.

Stone nodded and stayed put.

Bob banged his gavel. “All right, ya’ll, you’ve made your point. Now sit down and behave like the ladies we know you are. We want to hear what Lord Woolham has to say.”

Hettie scowled at her husband, who made a point of not looking at her. But Bob had made his point, and so had Hettie. She quietly directed the church ladies to line the back wall. They took their places, placards clutched in their hands.

Hugh turned back to the dais and the council members. “Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I—” he began.

The door at the back of the room burst open a second time. “Stop, right now, ya’ll don’t want to do this.”

Hugh turned around to see Dash Randall stride up the aisle. Rocky followed behind him.

Rocky Rhodes seemed to trail magic wherever she went. Her presence left Hugh confused, dazed, and breathing very hard.

She wore one of her charcoal gray business suits, buttoned up all the way. Her hair was sleeked back. Her eyes were red, as if she’d had a really good cry. Her face looked pale and tired.

When their gazes connected, she stared at him, her green eyes hard and resolute. She’d put her mask back on, hadn’t she? This was Caroline staring at him. Looking poised and polished and in control of herself and everything around her.

And yet, a little curl had escaped her hair clip. It dipped down over her forehead, and it seemed to represent everything Hugh knew about this amazing and beautiful woman.

Aunt Petal would say that he’d been bewitched. And maybe Aunt Petal had the right of it. Unfortunately, in all of those fairy stories, the besotted man didn’t get his beautiful fairy princess. He had to return home and live out his drab, predictable life.

Hugh needed to quit woolgathering and get on with it. He looked away from Rocky and said, “Mr. Mayor, may I speak, please.”

“Not until I do,” Dash said.

“Excuse me, but I believe I was here first.”

“Yeah, you were, but what I have to say is more important.” Dash turned toward the council. “You see, your honors, there is a way for the town to—”

“Hold on one minute.” The door to the back of the council chamber slammed open one more time and in marched Cissy Warren and her father. Cissy looked quite fetching today in a classy yellow suit that matched her blond hair. She was the antithesis of Rocky—colorful in every way on the outside, but utterly lacking in any kind of magic.

The moment Cissy and the senator arrived, Rocky made herself seem smaller. She hunched her shoulders. She looked down. She tried to appear demure. All of that bothered Hugh a great deal. Rocky was far more interesting and vital than Cissy in all the important ways. Rocky was more interesting and vital than Victoria, too. If only Rocky would lose the gray suits, she wouldn’t look like such a little wren, instead of the magnificent bird of paradise that she truly was.

“Senator, what can I do for you?” Bob stood up.

The senator cast his eye around the room, taking note of the church ladies lining the back wall. He frowned in Rocky’s direction. “What in the Sam Hill are you doing?” he asked her.

“Uh, I was trying to help Lord Woolham,” Rocky said.

“Help him? Good gravy, Caroline, do you see what’s written on those signs?”

Rocky blushed. “Uh, yeah, I do, but, see… um.”

“Look, just shut up,” Dash said. “I have something monumental to say.”

Rocky groaned. The senator’s face got red. “Caroline, I really don’t like your boyfriend talking to me that way. And I’m very disappointed in you. I distinctly told you to help Cissy, not to work against her. And, lord knows, the last thing any of us wanted to do was to rile up a bunch of churchwomen. Really, I thought you had more sense.”

Rocky’s face paled. “But—”

The senator turned toward the town council. “I’m taking charge of this situation. There is no reason for ya’ll to condemn the land because—”

“Huey! What are you doing?” This comment came from Aunt Petal, who arrived on the scene wearing a purple dress and her red spectacles. She came striding into the room with Aunt Petunia, followed by Miriam Randall and a little girl with big brown eyes, a dirty T-shirt, and skinned knees.

“Hello, Aunt Petal. I’m here to do what Petunia asked me to do. I’m going to tell these good people that I don’t want Elbert Rhodes’s land. And when I’m finished, we’ll go home to the UK, and I’ll marry Lady Ashton, just as you want. I’m sure Aeval will be pleased to hear this news.”

“What?” Petal, Petunia, Cissy, and Rocky said in unison.

Dash turned toward Rocky. “Shoot, Rocky, you didn’t say he was engaged to be married to someone in England. Did you know that?”

The spectators began to speak at once. Big Bob banged his gavel but no one noticed. Hettie and her church ladies took that moment to renew their “Down with Lord deBracy” chant.

And into this fray strode Stone Rhodes, the chief of police. One might have expected him to impose order, but instead he walked right up to Hugh and asked, “Are you really engaged to be married to someone else?”

“Um, well, I—” Before Hugh could finish the sentence, Stone hauled back and punched Hugh right in the solar plexus.

Pain exploded, but he couldn’t even whimper. The punch had taken away his ability to breathe. He went down on his hands and knees, stars circling his vision.

Somewhere, from a distance, he heard a child’s voice saying, “Daddy, why did you hit that man? Don’t you always say that it’s better to talk than to fight?”

Rocky stared at the damage her big brother had just inflicted. She wanted to rush to Hugh’s side. Help him. Hold him. Kiss him.

But she couldn’t move. Her fingers, toes, and lips went numb with cold. Her eyes lost their focus. Her mind went fuzzy. Something strange and yet oddly familiar touched her and held her in place.

She watched as a bevy of little old ladies, including Miriam Randal, descended on Hugh. They went down on their knees and started tittering and stroking and comforting him.

He was in good hands. He seemed to be recovering.

But the situation in the council room still teetered on the brink of disaster. Caroline needed to do something.

But what?

The blood roared in her ears. Tears threatened to spill over. And then, something down deep inside of her snapped.

And the unseen force that had pinned her in place released her. She yanked off her jacket, moved forward, and snatched the gavel from Bob Thomas’s suddenly slack hand.

She pounded the gavel on the desk and shouted, “Ya’ll, just shut up and listen to me!”

The room went quiet, more in shock than because of her gavel banging. The last time Rocky had lost her temper had been pretty darn memorable. But she really didn’t care anymore. She was moved by this weird feeling she couldn’t quite explain.

“Look,” she said. “Let’s get one thing straight. No one is going to bulldoze Golfing for God. So you ladies can just shut up. Now!”

The church ladies stopped and stared. A few mouths hung open.

Rocky continued, “Even if Lillian could condemn the land, the town has no money to buy my daddy out. And besides, you should all know that Lord Woolham is a fake and a phony.”

A collective gasp went through the crowd.

“I say, young woman,” one of the gray-haired ladies ministering to the recovering lord said, “I do take exception to that remark.” The woman spoke with an English accent. Could this be one of Hugh’s aunts?

Rocky cocked her head. “Are you Petal or Petunia?” she asked.

“Petunia.”

Rocky nodded. “Well, it’s true. He came in here all snotty and lord-like, but he’s not at all like that.” She gestured to the crowd in the council room. “And ya’ll know that, too. He gave money to your committee, Hettie. And he helped Bubba with his car. And he even played matchmaker with Bubba and Rachel. Ya’ll know this.”

Everyone nodded.

“What you don’t know is that someone”—she looked pointedly at Cissy—“made him an offer yesterday that would solve all of his financing and real estate problems. All he had to do was to build his factory upstate along the I-85 corridor. Building up that way would have been easier and cheaper for him. A wise businessman would have taken that chance and run with it. But Hugh deBracy didn’t.

“And you want to know why? Because he didn’t want to sell ya’ll out. That’s why. He knew you needed this factory more than the folks up north do. He didn’t have to care about you, but he did. And if he were some snotty lord, he wouldn’t have cared. He would have just taken his business elsewhere.

“So that’s what I mean. He’s not what you think he is. He’s a good man. In fact, he’s the kindest man I’ve ever met in my life. He’s, well… he’s a regular guy.