Welcome to Last Chance (Last Chance #1)(41)
Author: Hope Ramsay

The relief vanished. Haley was seriously hurt. “Just hide in the barn, honey. With the angels, okay?”

Haley shook her head. “No, the angels are smiting the bad guys just like in the Bible. They’re busy; they can’t hide with me right now.” With that pronouncement, Haley scurried toward the black maw of the Ark’s doors. Jane watched her run, feeling the weight of the whole world on her shoulders. Stone Rhodes was going to murder her—or at least lock her up for life.

Jane turned toward the office door but didn’t get very far because something deep in the earth gave way and the ground shook again. And then a geyser of water shot up through hole eighteen, right at the feet of the second statue of Jesus. In fact, it looked as if the fiberglass statue, with its outstretched arms, was willing the water up through the golf hole.

And since it was hole eighteen—the hole where the establishment collects your golf balls so you can’t cheat and play another round—the geyser was not composed entirely of water.

It was, in fact, loaded with multicolored golf balls. It streamed forth like some kind of supercharged bazooka that shot those babies skyward with an aim that was pretty darn remarkable and not at all random.

Haley stopped and turned, and the two of them stood speechless as every single one of the bad guys—even the ones who had been burned or drowned or taken out by the stampede—got brained by one of those balls just for good measure.

Haley laughed aloud, and it was a joyful sound. “Jiminy Christmas! The Sorrowful Angel sure has a good throwing arm, doesn’t she?” she said.

“Who?” Jane asked.

“The Sorrowful Angel.”

Jane swallowed hard and looked up at the sky but didn’t see any angels, sorrowful or otherwise. Instead, the heavens were in the process of folding themselves up. That was about the only way she could describe what she saw. The black clouds were disappearing as if some hand or power were sucking them dry.

Blue sky was breaking out all over.

And so were the sirens.

In the next thirty seconds, the entire combined police forces and fire departments of the towns of Last Chance, Denmark, and Olar, not to mention various county authorities, converged on Golfing for God and took the bad guys into custody.

Stone Rhodes led the charge.

The chief of police covered ground fast, and when he got to Jane and Haley, he fell down on his knees in front of his child and hauled that little girl up against his chest like his entire life depended upon it.

Jane felt like a voyeur watching the chief lose his composure. There were tears running down his craggy cheeks, and he looked bad. Real bad.

Even though Stone was big and macho and capable of looking after himself, a person would have to be blind not to realize how much he loved his family and why he worked so hard to keep the bad guys out of Last Chance.

Jane hugged herself against a cold that seeped into her bones and made a mockery of the bright sunshine breaking out all over the place. A lump lodged in her throat, and guilt settled on her shoulders. She would never understand the Universe. If she had gone somewhere else, Ruby and Haley would still be all right.

At that moment, Clay came dashing through the wreckage like the U.S. Cavalry. She watched him approach with a mixture of hope and fear and overwhelming relief. She had thought she might never see him again.

She could count at least that blessing.

He came to a stop, breathing hard, and gave her one soulful look that said it all. Things had changed between them.

His actions punctuated the point. Clay didn’t pull her into his arms and profess his love, like Stone had just done with his child. He didn’t reach out and give her the warmth she needed. He just looked at her as if he were trying to figure out what he was supposed to do next. As if he were weighing the pros and cons and thinking things through, instead of acting on them.

His lips tightened. For one instant her hope soared and then it crashed. Clay turned away. It was over.

He presented his back as he squatted down and squeezed Stone’s shoulders for a brief moment. There was a world of love in that touch. Jane ached for it.

Clay hung there beside his brother, listening to Haley babble on about the Sorrowful Angel and studying the scrape on her head. Then it was like he made a decision.

He stood up and yelled for an EMT.

One of the medics who had just arrived detached himself from one of the bad guys and hurried up. He started examining Haley. Stone took that moment to look up at Jane, murder in his deep green eyes. Clay didn’t turn back toward Jane until the EMT and Stone took the child to one of the waiting ambulances. There wasn’t murder in Clay’s eyes, only a deep sorrow that made Jane want to weep.

He stood there, his waterlogged Stetson shadowing his face. She wanted to throw herself against his broad, sturdy chest. She wanted that safe feeling back, but she wasn’t going to find it there anymore.

“You all right?” he asked.

No. She wanted to wail the word. But she didn’t want to show her weaknesses. She didn’t want Clay to rescue her. She wanted him to love her. She wanted a love that could overlook even this, but that was more than anyone could ask. So she just ignored his question and asked one of her own. “Is Ruby…?” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Tears gathered in his eyes but they didn’t spill over. “She’s bad. It’s a head wound. But she’s still alive, if that’s what you’re asking.” His voice sounded kind of dead.

Jane’s stomach clenched, and her heart twisted. Ruby Rhodes had been kind, and this is how she had repaid her. She closed her eyes and winged a little affirmation to the Cosmos on Ruby’s behalf. She doubted that the powers of the Universe would answer her. She had lost her faith in manifesting. She had lost her hope, too.

“Look, I know what I said this morning, but…” Clay started, and his voice faded out.

Jane opened her eyes, her heart shattering. “I’m not going to hold you to that,” she managed to say. “We both know I’m not what you want,” she said, paraphrasing the words to “I Will Always Love You.” She would always love him. But right now, she needed to run—and run hard.

Clay nodded like he understood. “I gotta go. They were taking Momma up to Orangeburg. Getting up there’s going to be a problem, seeing as the road’s all flooded.”

Jane took a deep, shaky breath. Her world was coming unraveled. She had just cheated death, only now death seemed such a small hurt compared to this big hurt inside her heart.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

She looked away so she didn’t have to watch him turn his back. She stood there alone with her sadness and her guilt and her fury at the Universe.

“Mary Smith?” a deep, no-nonsense voice asked a moment later. Jane’s trip to the very bottom was not finished.

She turned and faced an African-American man with a grim face. He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a leather case and a shiny FBI badge. His name was Bernard Wilkes.

Clay still stood there, behind the G-man. The look on his face sent another wave of sorrow and regret running through her. He was thinking the absolute worst. Well, so be it. She didn’t want a man who always thought the worst of her. She wanted someone who could see the bright side of things. Someone who would support and forgive her, no matter what. Someone who would have her back when the bad stuff arrived.

She shifted her gaze back to the federal agent. “I’ve gone by that name,” she said. “But my real name is Wanda Jane Coblentz.” It was time to accept who she was.

She couldn’t blame anyone else for all the bad things that had happened to her in the past. She wasn’t a victim of bad luck or mean people. She was a victim of her own mistakes. It would be terrific if Clay could understand that, but he couldn’t. Not with his mother lying in some hospital with a gunshot wound that was, at least in part, her fault.

Jane would learn from this experience. She would pick herself up and move on. It was what she did best.

The FBI agent spoke again. “We need to ask you a few questions about the disappearance of the Cambodian Camel.”

Clay pulled his Windstar up to the curb, opened the door, and stepped out into a suddenly warm and humid day. A glorious autumn sun beamed down on him, making his wet clothes cling, but failing to warm him.

He kept thinking about the look on Jane’s face as the FBI hauled her away. His heart kept telling him that he needed to quit worrying about what was true or untrue about Jane and just go after her. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d failed her in some awful way.

On the other hand, Momma was shot and possibly dying in a hospital up in Orangeburg. Haley was traumatized and talking about angels. Clay didn’t think he could forgive her for either of those things. He didn’t need to be running after the woman who was responsible for what had happened.

Right now, he needed to focus on getting some dry clothes and getting himself up to the hospital.

He stepped into his living room, and the sight of Tricia’s suitcase and purse lined up like they were ready to go reminded him of every other heartache he’d ever suffered. And to make it worse, Chad Ames, a-hole of the century, had decided to pay a social call.

“Man, what the hell happened to you?” Chad asked as Clay entered his home. The lead singer for Tumbleweed sat on the sofa in the living room looking handsome. With his spiky bleached hair and soul patch, Chad was the hottest heartthrob in country music. And as usual, he was operating as if the world revolved around him.

He sat with one leg cocked up over the other, his arm around Tricia with her head resting on his shoulder. A pile of Kleenex littered the coffee table, and by the look of things, there had been a major scene played out between Chad and Tricia that had, at least for the moment, ended amicably.

Tricia was asleep.

Well, that was a good thing. That loose end was tied up nice and neat and tidy. Clay didn’t have to worry about having to settle for something comfortable instead of passionate. He could settle for nothing at all.

That thought hit him like a punch to the gut.

Clay wondered where Ricki might be. Maybe the woman had taken the hint and hightailed it back to Los Angeles. That was a good thing, too. He didn’t want Ricki, either.

You want Jane, his heart said. You can’t have Jane, his head rejoined; she’s a criminal. Every time that thought crossed his mind, his chest constricted and his gut burned.

“Great timing as usual,” Clay said in a barely civil voice, then turned his back on Chad and Tricia as he headed toward the bathroom at the back of the house.

“Hey, man, wait up.”

Clay stopped midway down the hall, ready to punch Chad if the guy pushed him too hard. Right now, he didn’t even care about messing up his hands. He just wanted to hit something, hard, and Chad looked like a good target.

Clay turned and watched Chad disengage himself from Tricia and lay the sleeping woman out on the couch. The singer sauntered down the hall. “I just wanted to say thanks.”

“Thanks? For what? Letting you steal my woman and my band and—” Clay stopped in midstream. This was an old hurt. He was almost over it. He had other, much bigger hurts right now.