Last Chance Book Club(3)
Author: Hope Ramsay

The officer brushed his fingers along the side of his Stetson. “Ma’am, I’m Chief Damian Easley. Miz Dottie gave me a call about an hour and a half ago. I’m afraid Dash ran into a little bit of trouble with Roy Burdett down at The Spot.”

Savannah stared at her unruly cousin. “You got into a bar fight on the night before Uncle Harry’s funeral?”

Dash said not a word. Possibly because his lip was injured, but probably because he had nothing to say in his own defense.

Chief Easley grinned like he thought it was a joke or something. “Well, that’s not all that unusual when you consider Roy Burdett. I took Dash over to the clinic, and Doc Cooper put a couple of stitches in his lip. The good news is that, even though Roy knocked the crap out of him, Dash doesn’t appear to have a concussion. Otherwise Doc would have probably kept him under observation all night.”

“I need to get my car.” Dash’s voice sounded muffled and slurred.

“I’ll see about having someone drive it over in the morning. You probably shouldn’t drive.”

Well, of course not. Dash was obviously three sheets to the wind. Savannah watched as her cousin made his way up the porch steps. He leaned a little unsteadily against the porch railing and turned back toward the policeman. “Thanks, Damian.”

Officer Easley tipped his hat a second time. “Good night, y’all. I’m sorry about your loss.” A moment later the cruiser’s headlights swung in a wide arc, and the night returned to darkness.

Dash turned toward Savannah. “Don’t look at me like that. Roy tackled me because of Dottie’s jukebox. Everyone’s a music critic these days.”

His words were hard to understand through the swelling and the ice pack.

“Do you need help getting to bed?” she asked.

“Are you volunteering to tuck me in?”

Was that a put-down? Or was it a come-on? Ew.

And just like that, a little unwanted vibration of awareness shot through her, underscoring the nonexistent status of her current social life. Dash had grown into an amazingly handsome man—all craggy-faced in a Harrison Ford kind of way. Even with a bloody shirt and a swollen lip, he looked like some larger-than-life movie cowboy. But still. This was Dash she was looking at. Her cousin.

Okay, so he wasn’t really her cousin exactly, but they were still related.

And he was a total screwup. And a drunk. And he was trying to mess with her mind like he always did.

She gave him her Uma-Thurman-as-Beatrix-Kiddo squint that still put the fear of God into Todd. “Honestly, I should ground you or something. You’re acting like an out-of-control teenager.”

He didn’t seem all that affected by the squint. He pushed off the porch railing and walked slowly toward the front door. He moved carefully like a drunk who didn’t want to stumble.

“Here, let me help you with the—”

“I don’t need your help.” His words sounded angry as he managed to open the door. He headed across the foyer toward the stairway in a kind of stiff-legged walk. He was obviously limping. Savannah followed in his wake like a mother chasing after an unsteady one-year-old. Boy, he had really put on a bender tonight, hadn’t he?

Maybe he was so sad about Uncle Harry’s passing he’d tried to numb his grief with booze.

Or maybe he put on a bender most nights.

He took the first step and let out a groan. He stopped, bending over to massage his knee. He was listing to one side. In a minute, he was going to fall ass-over-teacart. Savannah snagged his shoulders and steadied him on his feet. “Whoa there, pardner,” she said in a phony drawl, as the feel of bone, sinew, and soft cotton beneath her fingers triggered an unexpected and entirely unacceptable internal response.

She resisted the instinct to draw back as if she’d been scalded. If she did that, Dash would fall.

“Thank you, princess,” he said under his breath. He steadied himself and took the first couple of steps up to the landing. “You know, I’m not nearly as drunk as you think I am.”

“Oh, really?” she said, letting go of his shoulders. Releasing him didn’t seem to help her spiky heart rhythm one bit, especially since her field of vision filled with a view of his Wranglered butt. He had a very nice butt. She hated herself for even noticing.

He stumbled again as he attempted the quarter turn on the landing. She darted up beside him, and he sagged against her, his arm snaking over her shoulder. She took a portion of his weight and became uncomfortably aware of Dash’s muscular chest.

“What kinda perfume you got on?” he asked.

“I don’t wear perfume, Dash. And I don’t want to hear one crack about BO. I wash every day. I washed when I was ten, too. Now, here we go; one step at a time.” They wobbled forward and up the stairs. He was limping on his right side.

He sniffed her hair. “You smell like the lilacs my granny used to grow.” His voice took on a soft and faraway sound that she didn’t want to hear. But her brain registered the longing in his words, and her heart reacted by doing a real Texas two-step right on her ribs.

Why the hell was she having this reaction to Cousin Dash? She had to distance herself, fast.

“You, dear cousin, smell like a brewery,” she jibed.

“That’s only because Roy dumped his beer on my head after he knocked me out. Damn, that hurts.”

“What hurts?”

“My effing knee. Doc says I’ll have to go get an MRI if it’s not better by tomorrow. And I had finally gotten to a pain-free place. I know now why I decided against playing football. Roy still has a few moves he hasn’t used up.” It certainly sounded like Dash was using booze to self-medicate. She tuned out his drunken ramblings and focused on helping him get to his bedroom on the second floor.

When they reached his bedroom door, he let go of her shoulder and steadied himself against the wall. He continued to press the slightly bloody ice pack to his mouth, but he looked down at her out of a pair of sharp blue eyes.

“Honey, I think it’s best we be honest with each other, right off the bat,” he said, after a very long and uncomfortable moment. “So I think it’s important for you to know that—”

“Save it, cuz. We know each other too well. We’re like oil and water. We always have been. I don’t approve of you going off and getting drunk. Good night. I hope you’re clearheaded in the morning. It’s the least you could do for Aunt Miriam and Uncle Harry.”

Chapter 2

Dash awoke to the sound of his brains being sucked from his head.

No, that couldn’t be right. If his brains were being sucked out, he would be unconscious. Unconsciousness would be better than this. He lay on his back, and something roared at him from someplace.

Inside his head, perhaps?

Or maybe he’d been abducted by aliens who were about to probe him.

He cracked an eye and immediately closed it against the bright morning sunlight streaming through the dusty windows of his bedroom. His face was pounding. His lip was throbbing. And his knee…

Well, there weren’t words to describe that pain.

He lay there panting and mentally cursing himself and Roy Burdett. Everyone was going to think the worst of him. Why had he gotten all riled up at Dot’s? Why had he lost his temper?

What is that sound?

He rolled over and peeked at his bedside clock. Shoot, it was eight-thirty. The funeral was scheduled for ten. He needed to get himself some ibuprofen.

He pushed himself out of bed. Every muscle screamed. He was bruised in all kinds of places. Damn. Football was a vicious sport. He staggered across the floorboards and pulled open the door.

The roar got louder, and the sight that greeted him didn’t make him feel any better.

Savannah, wearing a skirt, a pair of high heels, and a tight sweater that showed off her br**sts, was pushing the old vacuum cleaner across the worn carpet in the hallway. She looked up from her domestic chores and greeted him with a regal smile as bright as the light shining from her blond ponytail.

A tight coil of unwanted reaction wormed its way through the haze of his pain. She was uppity all right, but boy howdy, was she ever built.

He drew in a breath and held it for a long moment as he reached for the robe hanging on the back of the door.

She stopped running the machine across the threadbare carpet. One proud eyebrow arched as her gaze narrowed. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she’d just gotten one hell of a good look at his morning erection.

But, being a princess, she kept calm and carried on. “Good morning. I thought you were never going to get up,” she said.

“You’re vacuuming.” His voice sounded as rusty as nails left out in the rain. “Princesses don’t vacuum.”

She scowled at him. “I’m sorry I disturbed your beauty rest, but I’m vacuuming because this hallway was dusty, and we’ll be having a house full of people this afternoon.” She cocked her head, and her ponytail swished.

“ ’Scuse me. I need to hit the head.” He staggered past her and into the bathroom, where he fumbled around until he found the ibuprofen and knocked back three. Cupping his hands under the water, he gulped down ten or twelve mouthfuls before raising his head and looking at himself in the mirror.

A sorrier sight he’d never seen. His lip was swollen out to there. The shiner was impressive, to say the least. He felt the back of his head. Yeah, the knot there was still tender to the touch.

Shoot, he looked like he’d been on a three-day bender.

How in the hell does a sober man end up looking like this on the day of his uncle’s funeral?

He stared at himself, replaying every humiliating moment of the previous night. His heart bumped against his rib cage as he recalled Savannah helping him up the stairs. She’d thought the worst of him, hadn’t she? And all the while, he was getting kind of turned on by the way her hair smelled, and the pressure of her warm, soft curves against his bruises.

Well, that was just the AA celibacy talking. Because hav**g s*xy thoughts about Savannah was ridiculous. All of Aunt Miriam’s friends might think that Savannah was sweet. But Dash knew the truth. Behind that facade, she was meaner than a junkyard dog.

His first summer in Last Chance, she’d come waltzing into his world and immediately run her mouth about all his private business to all her friends. She’d tried her darndest to turn her friends Rocky and Tulane Rhodes against him. She’d made his life miserable. She’d made him feel small and insignificant and unworthy.

He let go of a deep breath. All that had happened a very long time ago, and he needed to grow up. He had choices now. Choices he could control. And right now he was choosing to shower off the beer that Roy had splashed all over him and to stay the hell away from Savannah Reynolds White.

“Damned woman,” Dash muttered. “It’s gonna be a long few days until she goes back where she came from.”

Forty-five minutes later Dash stumbled into the kitchen, where he found Savannah brandishing a coffeepot like a Viking queen flaunting her sword. The field of battle was so spotless, the shine off the linoleum floor hurt his eyes. Did the woman stay up all night housecleaning?