Last Chance Book Club(40)
Author: Hope Ramsay

“Dash gave you money to give me?” Savannah asked in a tiny voice.

“Yeah, honey,” Rocky said. “He made a big donation to Angel Development with the understanding that a big chunk would go to the theater.”

“And he did that because you asked him to?” Savannah turned toward Hettie.

“I did. But that was—”

“Yes, she did,” Rocky said. “Just like he gave Hugh the land for the factory—because Hettie needed for that to happen.”

Hettie’s face grew red as a beet. “No, not really, he—”

“No, really. Hettie, I don’t want to start a fight, but any fool can see that Dash would walk through fire for you. He’s ten times the man Jimmy ever was. When are you going to see the obvious?”

Savannah’s emotions tumbled. “But he’s not,” she said.

Rocky laughed. “Savannah, honey, you didn’t know Jimmy. He was a rich man’s son and had all the swagger, but Dash has always been the better man, in my opinion.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I just meant—” Savannah stopped herself. If she told the book club, and Hettie Marshall, that she thought Hettie and Bill were a match made in Heaven, they would laugh at her. More important, they would figure out exactly what she and Dash had been doing recently.

And she didn’t want to expose herself. Not now. Not knowing that Dash didn’t really care about her the way she’d come to care about him.

“What did you mean?” Hettie asked. She looked very regal at the moment. The kind of strong woman Savannah was never going to be. The kind of woman people didn’t laugh at or challenge or doubt. Of course Dash loved her. Who wouldn’t want a woman like Hettie? “Dash isn’t what, Savannah?”

“Nothing,” she murmured, letting Hettie stare her down the way Claire always did. She had to get out of here before she made an idiot of herself in front of people she was beginning to consider good friends. She stuffed her knitting into her Vera Bradley bag.

“I have to go,” she said, and escaped.

But of course, Hettie came right after her. “Wait,” she called.

Savannah got to the corner before Hettie caught up. “Honey, stop. What were you about to say?”

“Nothing.”

Hettie gently grabbed her by the shoulder. “Listen, Savannah, I know what’s going on between you and Dash. He doesn’t love me. Rocky’s wrong.”

“He does.” She knew it was true. Hell, Dash had even told her a couple of times that he had a “thing” for Hettie. And besides, she and Dash had just been having fun. There wasn’t anything serious going on. No one had used the word “love.” They’d been sneaking around having dirty, meaningless sex.

“He’s loved you a long time,” Savannah said. The words almost stuck in her throat.

Hettie sighed. “Okay, he has loved me for a long time. But I was married. I was not attainable, so it made me easy to love. The truth is, we had a fling when I was very young but I fell out of love with him a long time ago. He’s just not ever been able to move on. But I think maybe he’s getting ready to.”

Savannah shook her head. “No. It’s impossible. It can’t be.” Her insides kind of collapsed. She knew just how impossible it was. The Department of Social Services caseworker had made it quite clear what would happen if she even dared to go down that road. And the minute she did, Dash’s reputation would be dragged through the mud. She couldn’t do that to him again.

Besides, what was the point of hanging on so tight, knowing down deep that Dash was in love with someone else? Savannah couldn’t compete with Hettie. She was the kind of woman who knew that a gift of five hundred thousand dollars was suspicious. If Hettie had been in charge of the theater renovation, she never would have hired John Rodgers. Hettie probably could have gotten financing on the merits of her business plan, instead of the kind of charity Dash had given out.

Savannah had been so stupid and naive about the theater. Mom was right. She was at her best when she stayed in the kitchen.

“Honey, it’s going to be okay. Don’t be mad at him,” Hettie said.

“I’m not.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks and straightened her shoulders.

Then she turned toward Hettie. “You know, you should quit screwing around and make a play for Bill. Y’all belong together.”

Hettie’s eyes widened. “What? I can’t cook.”

Savannah shrugged. “He doesn’t need a cook. He needs someone to keep him pointed in the right direction. And you could do that with your eyes closed. I wish I was like that. I really do.”

Hettie hurried up the walk to the front door of the Christ Church rectory house. The brick rambler, set back under a canopy of Carolina pines, was more suited to a family than the bachelor Reverend Ellis. Pine needles and cones made a soft russet carpet on the front lawn and perfumed the night air.

She pushed the bell, knowing it was far too late to be visiting. Coming here, after the scene at the book club, was insane, in fact.

And yet it wasn’t. Something had snapped inside Hettie the minute Savannah had told her to make a play for Bill. A strange sense of peace came over her. As if all the puzzle pieces suddenly fit together.

The discussion of the book this evening pointed in this direction. She had been an observer of her own life for a long, long time.

Even when Jimmy had been alive, she’d felt disconnected from herself. But something had started to change a couple of years ago, when Sarah Rhodes made her remember what it felt like to be a girl, when her faith in the simple things hadn’t become so jaded and eroded.

She’d changed. And the more she stopped hanging back in her life, the better her life got. And now there was just one thing she’d been procrastinating over. The one thing she’d kept telling herself that she didn’t want.

But which she wanted more than anything.

She wanted what Savannah and Dash had. Savannah might be angry right now about the truth, but Hettie was glad she’d spilled it. Savannah and Dash needed to figure out that they had something really great going on.

So great, in fact, that Savannah was finally going to help Dash move on. And it was time for Hettie to move on, too.

Bill opened the door, and Hettie’s pulse rate kicked up a notch. His hair was curled over his forehead, his serious, deep-set blue eyes full of concern. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and without all that clerical garb he looked like a man.

A very handsome man.

The man who made her heart sing whenever he turned his gaze on her.

“Hettie?” Bill said. “What’s the matter?” A frown wrinkled his brow.

“Do you remember that time last spring when we were cleaning up Golfing for God and you told me that we were friends?”

His lips twitched. “Of course I do.”

“Well,” she said on a puff of air as her mouth got cottony.

“Well, what?”

“I don’t want to be your friend,” she whispered.

He blinked. “What?”

“I don’t want to be your friend. I know I can’t cook worth a lick, but I would like to be…” She couldn’t say the word. It was absurd. She wanted to be his lover. But he was an Episcopalian priest. Priests did not take lovers.

She stared down at his nak*d toes. He must have noticed the direction of her stare because he wiggled them.

She looked up. He had a half smile on his face, and the lines at the corner of his eyes softened his gaze. She’d seen him look at her like that a million times. And it always made her heart race. It had done that even before Jimmy had been murdered.

“I… I…” Darn it, what was she supposed to say now?

Bill stepped out onto the landing. He caressed her cheek. His hand warm and tender. “Yes?” he said, his eyebrow arching.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered as she placed her hand on his. She closed her eyes.

And the next thing she knew, Bill had drawn her up into an embrace. She drank him in like a sacrament. “I know it’s wrong, but I don’t want to be friends anymore.”

“What’s wrong about that?” he murmured against her ear.

She pulled back just enough so she could look him in the eye. “Because what I want is not nice.”

“No?” His mouth was curling at the corners. “I think it must be very nice. Would you like to come in? I could read you the Song of Solomon.”

“Uh, that would be nice, but I want more than that. Am I’m crazy to want it, Bill? Just tell me that I’m crazy, and I’ll go.”

“Well, if you want it that bad, Hettie, we could always run off to Georgia together.”

She straightened as if she’d been hit by a Taser. “Uh, did you just suggest that we should run off to Georgia to get married?”

“Yeah, I did. You can get married there without a waiting period. If you want to get married in South Carolina, we’ll have to wait three days. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting on you for a long time.”

“You’ve been what?”

He shrugged. “Well, I knew I couldn’t just walk through the front door of your big house and get down on one knee. You weren’t ready for that. I had to wait until you were ready.”

“Then why did you have dinner with every single cook in Allenberg County?”

“Because I knew it would bother you?”

“But you proposed to Savannah.”

“Yes, in public, where I knew she would turn me down.”

“You knew she would turn you down?”

“Of course I did. I had Miriam Randall as my co-conspirator. She guaranteed it. She even gave me pointers on how to annoy Savannah. It was pretty simple, actually. I just turned into a grumpy old minister whenever her son was around.”

Hettie’s mouth dropped open. “No, you didn’t. Miriam didn’t.”

“Yes, she did. She told me that Savannah belonged to someone else.”

Hettie started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Savannah and Dash are having one hell of an affair. I saw them at the country club kissing one another. Do you think you having dinner over there made Dash jealous?”

Bill smiled. And then he swooped in with a kiss that was way too sexy to belong to a man of God.

Not to mention the fact that his hands got busy touching her in a way that was truly sinful. And they were standing right on his front stoop in front of any neighbor, including Lillian Bray, who might have a mind to look in this direction.

Which was kind of exciting, actually. The notion of getting caught kissing Bill Ellis was a definite turn-on.

A while later (who was counting minutes?), Bill disengaged. “Hettie, I think we should go to Georgia.” His voice sounded a little gruff.

“Uh, don’t you think that would be—”

He pressed his fingers on her lips. “Yes, it would raise all kinds of gossip, but I don’t care. I’m tired of waiting. Let’s go.”

“But—”

One of his eyebrows arched. “You have doubts?”