Welcome to Last Chance (Last Chance #1)(33)
Author: Hope Ramsay

“No,” Clay said looking down into her face. “You don’t get to run away from me. Or lock yourself in the bathroom. Not after last night, you don’t.”

“Nothing happened last night, unless you count the fact that you told me I was a symptom of your midlife crisis.”

Shoot. He’d forgotten those stupid things he told her last night when he wanted to push her away. Instead, he had gotten swept up into a mind-blowing kiss that almost carried him right back to the Peach Blossom Motor Court.

Obviously, she hadn’t forgotten the stupid things he said. Women were like that. They had memories like steel traps.

“Look, I’m sorry about what I said last night, Jane. I didn’t—”

“Oh, yes, you did mean it. Now let me—”

“Okay, so maybe I did mean it… sort of… at the moment I said it. But that was then, and this is now, and…” He stopped speaking before he dug himself all the way to China.

“And what?” Jane demanded.

“Look, the last eighteen hours have been kinda rough on me, you know? I’m confused. I’m dazed. I’m sleepless. I said stuff last night to push you away, but I didn’t want to push you away. You should have realized that the moment I broke down and kissed you. Okay?”

Her shoulders relaxed a fraction, and he thought he’d better clear the air entirely. “And then I went off to the police station and talked to Stone. What he told me confused me some more. Jane, what happened in Lexington? I gotta know.”

Her shoulders stiffened again. Something real bad had happened in Kentucky. He was afraid of learning the truth.

“You gotta know?” she whispered and then let go of a bitter-sounding laugh. She looked up at the ceiling, purposefully avoiding his stare.

“Jane?” He gave her little shake.

She responded by trying to twist away from him. “It’s not important. The past isn’t important. Just leave me the hell alone, okay? I don’t gotta tell you anything, because we don’t have any kind of relationship unless you count one night at a no-tell motel.”

“No, I’m not going to leave you alone,” Clay said, softening his voice. He reached up and stroked her temple, her silky skin warm under the pad of his thumb. The touch ignited his libido. He wanted to be her friend, but his body kept pushing him the other way. He forced himself to think about the things Stone had said about the hotel in Kentucky. It helped, but not entirely.

“Darlin’, look at me,” Clay said.

Jane shook her head and closed her eyes.

“Darlin’, you can’t carry this alone.”

“Yes, I can,” she said in a strangled whisper.

“No, you can’t.”

“I told you. It’s not important.”

“Are you worried about what I might think?” he asked.

Jane opened her eyes and stared up at him. He’d hit the mark.

“Baby, I promise you,” Clay murmured, “I won’t think less of you if you let me share this burden.”

Jane made a little noise and then shook her head. “You can’t make that promise, Clay. You don’t know.”

“Did someone die in that room, girl? Tell me the truth.”

Her body tensed, and his heart sank. Someone had died in that room.

“Who, Jane? Who died?”

She said nothing. She hardly moved. It was like she had shut down or given up or something.

“Jane?”

She took in a deep breath and let it out. He could almost feel her marshaling her strength, and he found himself rooting her on.

“Innocence and Faith,” she said in a wobbly voice.

That threw him for a loop. “What happened, darlin’?”

Muscles tensed in her jaw as she fought against tears. She collapsed into his chest. She didn’t cry, though. She just let him hold her up, as if she was drawing strength from him.

It felt right to have her in his arms, and not just because she was a woman in need and he was a sucker for needy women. It felt like coming home. Like Miriam Randall knew what the hell she was doing sending him to her. Because hadn’t that old lady sent him here precisely to find out what Jane was running from? Like his holding Jane up was part of some plan the universe had set in motion.

But maybe Clay was getting carried away. He always got carried away. He needed to remember that someone had died in that hotel room, and Jane had been there when it happened.

“Jane? What happened in Lexington?”

She let go a shuddering breath. “I wanted to call her Faith.”

“Who?”

“The baby I lost in that room.”

His stomach clenched. Oh, Lord.

“How pregnant were you?” he asked. His voice sounded ragged to his own ears.

“Four months.”

“Jane, you didn’t—”

She pushed back and looked up at him with this ravaged look on her face. “I didn’t kill my baby. She was born too soon. And I don’t understand why the Universe let that happen.”

A rush of relief wrapped up in deep affection washed through him as he pulled her into his arms and made soft noises against her temple for a couple of minutes.

“Honey, I’m sorry about the baby—” he began.

“I told you I wanted to call her Faith,” she said emphatically.

She had named her lost child Faith. He didn’t want to delve too deep into the psychology of that.

“Darlin’, this is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You don’t understand.” Jane pushed back and ran the palm of her hand over her cheek, knocking away tears she still refused to cry. “The point is I got myself into trouble and then I decided to run away with Joey instead of facing my parents with the truth, and because of me, Faith died, and Joey went to prison, and some guy up in Lexington is in a wheelchair for life. I’m bad news, Clay. I’m bad luck and bad karma, and Mrs. Randall is wrong. The Lord has never been on my side.”

Okay, Clay was confused now. He’d been working himself up to hearing about some heinous murder, and now she was talking about some guy in a wheelchair. “Baby, you want to slow down and try that one again, because I’m working on no sleep here and my brain’s not functional.”

“Look,” she said, turning around and putting her hands on her hips. “I got pregnant. I didn’t tell my folks because I was afraid my pa would beat the crap out of me for it, or maybe haul off and shoot Joey. Instead, I ran away with Joey. And when we got to Lexington, I started having cramps and that’s when Joey found out I was pregnant. He wasn’t happy to learn that. So he dropped me off at a sleazy motel and left me there. He said he was going to find a doctor. Only he didn’t come back. And the next morning… after I… lost the baby… I turned on the television, and I saw where the law had chased Joey down after he’d shot someone.”

Her voice petered out, and tears leaked from her eyes. Clay reached for her, and she ducked. “I’ve always believed Joey robbed that store to get money for a doctor.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Clay said, feeling a sudden connection with her that went so deep he could feel it in his bones. He understood what it was like to feel guilty about something that wasn’t really his fault.

“No?”

“Honey, it wasn’t your fault that this Joey guy shot someone instead of being smart and dialing 911.”

“I should have told him the truth before we ran away. He freaked out when I started bleeding.”

“So he dumps you at a sleazy hotel and runs off and knocks over a convenience store? Nice guy.”

“I drove him to it.”

“You did no such thing. The cops in Kentucky think this Joey guy killed you, don’t they?”

Jane nodded.

“I seem to recall Stone saying that this jerk was some kind of junkie.”

“For the record, I had no idea Joey was into any drugs. I’m not sure your brother has all the facts right.”

“Look, honey, Joey dumped you in that hotel room and never intended to come back. When he found out you were pregnant, he got the hell out of Dodge and stopped off at the convenience store on the way out of town.”

Jane closed her eyes. “Okay, so he was a weasel. But don’t you see? Bad things like this happen to me all the time.”

Clay shook his head. “This has nothing to do with bad karma, Jane. Listen to me. Seventeen-year-olds can do some real bone-headed things—like not calling 911 when it’s the smart thing to do, or running off with losers instead of going home and telling their parents they made a mistake. I’m pretty certain your folks would have understood. Why didn’t you go back home?”

“There was no reason to. I was done watching Pa beat on Ma, and I changed my name so the law couldn’t find me. I felt responsible for what Joey had done.”

Jane stood there looking pitiful, and Clay hauled her back to his chest where she belonged. She didn’t resist. It felt good to have her there, warm and alive against him, her curvy body under his hands.

And it felt good to have this Lexington mystery solved. Jane hadn’t done anything wrong. She was just torn up with guilt over her baby and things that were beyond her control.

“Faith would be about Haley’s age,” Jane said in a shaky voice. “I just don’t understand why the Universe didn’t want her to be born.” Her voice petered out, and he hoped she would break soon. He had a feeling that she had given that baby a name but had never cried for her.

“When I left that hotel room, I promised the Universe I would give something up if I could just get away from the past and start over. So I gave up the idea of going to Nashville. Instead I skipped out on the hotel bill and used almost all of my money to buy a ticket to Miami because it’s warm there and I’d never seen the ocean.”

Clay brushed his hand across her cheek, and she leaned into his touch. He wished he could take away her pain. He promised to hold her hard, and steady, and true when she let go. “Why did you give up the idea of going to Nashville? Honey, you have a pretty remarkable singing voice.”

Jane shrugged. “I guess I figured everyone in Seth, West Virginia, knew I wanted to go to Nashville. I just figured I could disappear in Miami. I wanted so desperately to disappear.”

The words came out as a sob. And that’s when Jane finally broke down, and Clay pulled her hard against him.

Then it hit him. Jane didn’t need to be taken care of. She had been managing on her own for a long time. What she needed most was forgiveness. And time to grieve for the children she had lost: the baby named Faith and the young girl named Wanda Jane.

Chapter 16

Jane opened her eyes and knew that the world was a different place than when she had fallen asleep. Time had moved on. Long afternoon shadows hung in the corners of her room, and the little slice of sky framed by her windows had gone from bright blue to magenta.

She wasn’t alone anymore, either. Clay had curled himself around her, and they lay together, fully clothed but nested like spoons. His left arm wrapped around her middle, and the rise and fall of his breathing was steady and regular against her backbone. They had been sleeping together like this for hours.