Last Chance Christmas (Last Chance #5)(33)
Author: Hope Ramsay

And besides, it would be crazy to want more from a man who had yet to stop loving his wife. She’d given him what he needed. He’d given her a memory. Better to call it quits, and move on. She was good at that kind of thing.

Only this time it was going to be hard. Stone would be seared into her memory for a long time to come.

Maybe forever.

She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling and forced herself to think about Pop. Why had he sent her on this wild goose chase?

“You brought home memories, too, didn’t you?” she whispered out loud. What had happened on the eighteenth hole?

And just like that she had the answer. It had been hiding in plain sight all this time.

She threw the covers back and headed into the shower, where she tried and failed to wash away the memories. It was nine-thirty when she arrived at the Kountry Kitchen for breakfast.

She ate her toast and drank her coffee and watched Palmetto Avenue out the front windows of the café. People were headed off to church this morning. So if she was going to get to the truth, she would have to wait until services were over.

She ordered another cup of coffee. Churchgoers were not the only ones up early. The Last Chance Police Department—all two of them—were busy this morning, directing traffic, patrolling the main drag, and keeping everything safe.

She recognized the man behind the wheel of one of the police cruisers as it made its rounds. With each of his slow circuits she wondered if he was glancing up at her windows, thinking about last night. Was he getting hot thinking about what they’d done together?

Or was he just feeling guilty?

At eleven o’clock, she headed back to the Cut ’n Curl and got into Pop’s SUV to drive the short distance to Nita Wills’s house.

Stone had seen Lark through the front windows of the Kountry Kitchen as she ate her leisurely breakfast. Every cell in his body wanted to stop the cruiser and head into the café for his usual Sunday-morning coffee.

But not if he had to come face-to-face with Lark in a public place. He needed to talk with her, but not out in the open. And besides, he wasn’t sure he could keep his hands off her. The memory of what they’d done in the cornfield had haunted him last night. He felt groggy and confused and as randy as a double-peckered billy goat.

When Lark left the café and headed toward the south side of town, he tried to be subtle about following her, but it was impossible, especially since she didn’t go very far—just down Palmetto to Julia and over to Maple, where she pulled to the curb in front of Nita Wills’s house.

He pulled in behind her. He understood her motives for wanting to speak with Nita, but he also had very clear orders from Nita’s daughter, the mayor-elect. He knew good and well that Kamaria would not approve of Lark staking out Nita’s home.

He squared his uniform Stetson on his head and left his cruiser. He approached Lark from the driver’s side of the SUV. When she saw him, she rolled down the window and looked up at him out of those big, vulnerable doe eyes. Her face was so pale, the skin beneath her eyes bruised, as if she hadn’t slept well either.

He wanted to rip open the door, pull her up into his arms, and hold her. It was all he could do not to act on the urge.

He leaned against the door frame. “Are you okay?” he asked. All thought of confronting her about Nita fled his mind.

She gifted him with a sweet smile. “I’m fine. How about you?” A sudden spark of mischief lit up her eyes.

He honestly didn’t know the answer to that question. “I’m… confused.”

“That’s good. Just so long as you aren’t feeling guilty.”

Damn. It was like she could read his mind. “But I am feeling guilty.”

She looked away, and some of the light left her eyes. “I was afraid of that.”

“Damn it, how do you expect me to feel? I mean I acted like an idiot last night. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t use any protection. What if I—”

She tilted her head back on the head rest and let go of a belly laugh.

“Are you laughing at me?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m not. Is that what you’re feeling guilty about?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.”

“But—”

“Look.” She leaned into the window frame. “I’m not worried about STDs. Not with you. I suppose you probably should have some concerns about me. But I can promise you that, as far as I know, I’m clean.”

“That wasn’t what I was mostly worried about.”

She grinned up at him. “Stone. I have an IUD.”

He felt gut-punched. “Oh.”

“I’m a grown-up responsible woman. I may live on the wild side from time to time, but I’m not entirely stupid.”

“But that’s the thing, last night I was stupid.”

“No, last night you were horny. You were a guy. We were consenting adults, and you did what any guy would have done. When are you going to realize that?”

He frowned.

“I know. Your male ego is probably crushed by the truth. But that’s what happened. I made a move, and you didn’t stop me. So don’t beat yourself up about it. And besides, I had a really good time.”

“Uh, well, so did I, actually,” he admitted.

“I know. So just accept it for what it was and move on. Okay? Don’t feel guilty. You didn’t cheat on your wife last night.”

He felt the sting of her rebuke. Because the truth was, in addition to being shocked by his own behavior, he had felt a little like a cheating husband. Especially when he got home and started doing the laundry.

“Okay,” he said, pushing his confusion away and dropping back into police mode. He was way more comfortable when he was behaving like a cop.

“So now that we’ve dispensed with that, could you explain to me why you’re parked out here staking out Nita’s house?”

“I’m waiting for her to get home from church.”

“I figured as much, but, you know, I think Nita made it clear that she doesn’t want to talk to you. And, well, the truth is the mayor asked me to make sure that you don’t bother her.”

“So you’re here in an official capacity then?”

“I guess. Honey, why don’t you just let it be?”

“Because I can’t. I can’t sweep the sad things under the table and take the difficult photos out of the family album. Pop sent me here for a purpose, and I need to know what it was.”

“He wanted his ashes scattered.”

“Yeah, but why here? And what happened at Golfing for God that changed his life? I have some theories, but theories aren’t the truth. Only Nita can tell me the truth.”

“But she doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“So, what are you going to do? Run me out of town?” Her voice sounded suddenly strident. “Is that what you want? Are you so embarrassed by this situation that you’d just like me to leave?”

“No. God, no. What I want is to sleep with you. All night long. I want to hold you and make love to you, and there isn’t anyplace in Last Chance that I can do that without the whole town knowing what I’ve done and gossiping about it.” The words spilled out of him like a river in flood stage.

“Oh.” Her dark eyes widened. “Well, I’ve got a few ideas. We could always use Hettie’s river house. I still have the keys. Or maybe we could get a sleeping bag and do it on the eighteenth hole.”

“Uh.” The flood of words dried up in his mouth.

Nita Wills arrived right at that moment, precluding him from further discussion of this scintillating topic. She pulled her Toyota into the driveway, and Jakob LaFlore pulled in right behind in his Volvo Cross Country. Mayor-Elect LaFlore jumped out of the passenger’s side.

“Stone, is there something wrong?” Kamaria called from across the street. “Why is that woman here?”

Stone turned toward Lark. “You stay right where you are. Let me see what I can do to help you, okay?”

Stone headed toward the visibly furious mayor-elect. But before he was halfway across the street, he heard Lark get out of the SUV. A second later Lark strode right past him, heading in Nita’s direction. Nita had just gotten out of her car and was walking up the path to her front porch, her grandsons with her.

Kamaria turned toward Lark and, in a most un-mayor-like manner, told her to leave the premises and never return. When Lark ignored her, Kamaria turned toward Stone and said, “Arrest that woman. She’s stalking my mother.”

“Uh, well, you’d have to get a court protective order for me to arrest her, Mayor LaFlore. And besides, she isn’t stalking your mother. She’s just trying to talk to her. Now, why don’t you just calm down, okay? And we can maybe talk this through like adults.”

The look on the mayor’s face told him that he’d probably just stepped in a big pile of horse-pucky. She was going to have his ass in a sling if he didn’t stop Lark.

But there wasn’t any way he could stop Lark from pursuing this. He’d tried. And failed.

And then it struck him, like a bolt from the blue, that Kamaria was terrified of learning the truth.

“I’m sorry,” Lark said as she crossed the lawn, “but I need the truth.”

Nita stood on her walk, her eyes flicking from Lark to Kamaria and back again. The mayor was yelling at Stone, which wasn’t fair. This wasn’t his fault. Stone behaved just like a cop. He went into calm mode, using every bit of his professional training to defuse what was rapidly becoming a domestic situation.

Just as Lark’s courage began to falter, a tall man, wearing a gray suit, walked up behind Nita and put his hands on her shoulders. He leaned down and spoke softly. “Momma, I know Kamaria is scared, but maybe she needs the truth.”

Nita looked up at the man, her eyes suddenly liquid with unshed tears. “It’s going to hurt her.”

“She’ll survive.” He patted Nita’s shoulder and then headed off toward the mayor-elect.

“That’s my son-in-law, Jakob,” Nita said. “He’s a cardiologist up at the hospital in Orangeburg, and I think he understands hearts better than just about anyone. He’s a good man.”

Jakob spoke softly to Kamaria, and the yelling stopped. Nita let go of a long, pensive sigh. “Stone, you might as well come on in and hear what I have to say, too. This is as much about your granddaddy as it is about Lark’s father.”

Nita turned, headed up the porch steps, and unlocked the door to her house. Everyone followed.

Nita’s front room was awash in Christmas decorations, from the big tree in her front window to a village of Christmas miniatures on her coffee table. The smell of pine filled the room, and the furniture was contemporary and comfortable.

She turned on the Christmas lights before she settled herself on the couch. “Sit down, Lark. You too, Kamaria.” She turned to Jakob. “Honey, you think you and the boys could get some coffee and sandwiches going?”

“Coming right up,” Jakob said as he herded two school-aged boys dressed in their Sunday best down the center hall and out of the room.