Welcome to Last Chance (Last Chance #1)(5)
Author: Hope Ramsay

“Meet Wanda Jane Coblentz,” Clay said as Betty poured coffee.

“That’s Jane for short,” she said. The fiddler had insisted on calling her by both her given names, instead of the name she had been using for the last seven years.

Jane had retaliated by calling him Clayton P. This annoyed him. And annoying the man was too much fun, especially since he had humiliated her this morning and proven himself to be a mule-headed weasel with a pessimistic streak.

Although he was resourceful, sort of like a Boy Scout, which was a troubling thought. He’d managed to find her a bright orange plastic poncho in his minivan. Clayton P. apparently took the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared,” very seriously, since he had a veritable warehouse of stuff in his van, from safety flares to fishing rods. Not the kind of collection of useful items she would expect from a guy who looked like he was bad to the bone.

“Howdy, Wanda Jane,” Betty said. “New in town?”

Well, duh. There were no more than a couple thousand souls living in Last Chance. What were the odds that a stranger walking into the Kountry Kitchen for the first time was actually new to town? Probably a dead certainty.

“Yes, I am.” She gave Betty a sweet, down-home smile, which the waitress didn’t exactly return. “I’m looking for work,” Jane added. “You wouldn’t happen to have a need for an experienced waitress?”

Clayton P. Rhodes put his coffee cup down hard enough to slosh the contents. The fiddler had already made it clear that he intended to run her out of town as soon as the storm ended. But Jane had other ideas.

“Sorry, we don’t have any job openings,” Betty said. “But, you know, Dottie is always looking for help.”

“Dottie? As in the proprietor of Dot’s Spot?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Betty did smile then, but it was phony enough to be featured on a piece of forged artwork.

“You’re not working for Dottie,” Clayton P. announced as if he had a say in the matter, which he did not. Jane had decided to stay in Last Chance for a little while, because it looked like the kind of small town where Woody and the thugs after him would never dream of looking for her.

“What can I get you, sugar?” Betty asked.

“I’ll have the two-egg breakfast,” she said, snapping closed the menu. It cost only four dollars. Her mouth watered in anticipation, which was fitting because when she paid the bill she would be officially flat broke.

No, check that, she would be officially in debt because she intended to pay Clayton P. back for the Cokes she drank last night and half of the motel, too. That way she could say she hadn’t sold her body for food and shelter. She wrapped her hands around her coffee mug and tried not to look up at him.

“I told you,” Clayton P. said in a low voice, once Betty had departed, “I’ll give you enough money to get you wherever you want to go.”

Well, of course, he didn’t mean that. She doubted if he would pay her passage on a cruise to Bermuda, although she was tempted to ask, just to prove her point.

“I want to stay here,” she said.

“For goodness’ sake, why? This is a dying town.”

Jane looked up at him as he frowned down at her. The fluorescent lights gleamed on his dark chestnut hair. He had nice hair, even when he wore it slicked back into a ponytail. But last night, with it falling down around his shoulders, he had looked hotter than Hades. She pushed the vision of him nak*d out of her head.

“If it’s so bad, why don’t you take your negatory attitude and leave?” she asked.

“Negatory attitude?” His brow lowered, and he looked sour. “What in the Sam Hill does that mean?”

“Dr. Goodbody says pessimism can become a habit, blinding you to the bright side of even the worst disaster. You might try to focus on the positive things about Last Chance instead of the negative ones. And you didn’t answer my question. If it’s such a terrible place, why do you stay?”

“You didn’t answer mine.” He didn’t stop frowning.

“I’m staying because I have to. It’s pretty simple. And I aim to make the best of this disaster, just like Dr. Goodbody says.”

“Little gal, you don’t—”

“I’m not little, and I’m not a girl, so would you please call me Jane?”

He gritted his teeth. She could tell by the way the muscles jumped in his oh-so-square jaw. “You don’t have to stay here, Jane. I’ll—”

“Forget it. I’m not taking your money, okay?”

He blinked at her for a couple of moments. “Look, if this is about what happened last night, I—”

“Well, of course it’s about what happened last night. And I think it would be best, all the way around, if we put all that behind us,” she said. “It was enjoyable so far as it went. But we both know it was a big mistake and dwelling on it will unleash lots of negative psychic energy. And at the moment, I’m trying to be positive about the future.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that. So when the storm blows over, I’ll stake you to some cash so you can leave Last Chance behind. Trust me, this is not a positive place.”

“I’m not taking your money. I told you that already. Taking your money would make what happened last night even worse than it already is.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, you tried to roll me this morning.” He leaned back in the booth, a miserable look on his face.

“No, I didn’t. And it seems the only way to make that point clear is to get a job and pay you back for your expenses. That way I won’t have anything heavy weighing down my karma, you know?”

“Karma?”

“You know, like a spiritual scorecard. Last night, I slipped, and I—”

“Honey, I owe you something for last night. And I’m sorry about this morning.” He sat there looking unhappy. She pitied him, but not enough to take his money. Taking his money would be a big mistake. He would get the idea he owned her or something, and she most definitely didn’t want him thinking that. She was independent. She could fend for herself.

Jane reached out and touched his hand where it rested on the Formica tabletop. His skin was warm and a little rough. Touching him reminded her of the way he’d touched her last night, and her stomach clutched.

She withdrew her hand. “Look, I heard you in the bathroom, and it’s okay. Whatever got to you last night, I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

“You heard me?” His voice cracked in alarm.

She shrugged. “I tried not to listen. Honest. But you weren’t exactly quiet about it. So anyway, the point is, you don’t owe me anything for last night, and you shouldn’t feel guilty about your feelings either. Like you said, it was just a case of runaway lust.”

His ears got red. It was kind of sexy the way he blushed like that. Clayton P. was kind of sweet for a negative person with lots of emotional baggage. He must have something heavy weighing him down, since he’d gone into the bathroom and cried.

Despite the zinging of her hormones, she could resist him. That was the important thing right now.

He lifted his coffee mug and took a sip, his gaze drifting away from her. They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes while Jane studied her surroundings. The Kountry Kitchen looked like something out of a 1950s family TV show set in some quaint little town where everyone was nice to everyone else. It had polished chrome everywhere, booths and stools covered in red vinyl, a linoleum checkerboard floor, and a gray Formica lunch counter. On this dark and windy Thursday morning, the place was empty, except for a table of old geezers wearing overalls and Country Pride Chicken hats.

That changed a moment later as the front door opened to the sound of an old-fashioned tinkling bell. A big man wearing a plastic-covered Stetson and a full-length, shiny black raincoat stepped across the threshold and shook himself. Rainwater poured off his shoulders and splattered in a big puddle on the floor.

He took off his hat, exposing close-cropped dark hair, graying at the temples. His face had fine, almost perfect features.

The guy took off his raincoat, and Jane realized he was a cop—a big cop, wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying about fifty pounds of weaponry and communications on his utility belt. Barney Fife this guy was not.

The cop hung his coat and hat on a peg by the door and headed down the line of booths with the coiled grace of a big predator. The radio on his belt made a crackling noise, and his shoes, which looked shiny bright despite the rain outside, had a little squeak to them. He headed right for them.

Fear blew through Jane. What if the thugs had killed Woody and his body had turned up someplace bearing incriminating evidence? What if Woody was into something illegal and not just a gambler with a bunch of sharks on his tail? Negative thoughts of being interrogated about her stupid liaison with Woody West danced right through her mind.

She looked up at the cop and told herself to think happy thoughts, but there was something kind of dead in his green eyes that made all the positive energy inside her condense into a big knot right in her stomach.

“Hey, Stony,” Betty said, as she arrived with Jane’s two-egg breakfast and the fiddler’s biscuits. Betty gave the policeman the same adoring look she had given Clayton P. earlier. The cop was just as immune.

“Hey, Betty,” he said in a voice so deep it sounded like it came right out of the center of the earth.

“The usual?” the waitress asked.

“Nope. Just coffee, I’ve only got a minute. Route 70 is washed out down over to Sweden, and the county needs backup to set up a roadblock. Make it to go, would you, darlin’?”

Betty bustled back to the kitchen, and the cop turned toward Jane. He put his hands on his utility belt and studied her for almost ten seconds without blinking.

Ten seconds is a long time to endure a stare like that. She couldn’t look away, so she forced herself to look up into his granite face while she recited the mantra she used every night right before she dropped off to sleep. The mantra was supposed to clear her mind and make it possible for her to manifest self-confidence and positive energy in her life.

“Hey, didn’t Momma ever tell you it’s not polite to stare,” Clayton P. said as he scooted his butt toward the wall, making room on the bench beside him. “Take a load off, bro.”

Bro?

The big cop dropped down onto the seat beside Clayton P., and that’s when Jane saw the shiny nameplate above his right breast pocket. It said S. Rhodes.

Hoo boy. Unless she’d missed something, the term of endearment coupled with that surname on the cop’s chest meant he was Clayton P. Rhodes’s brother.

This was not a positive sign.

Clayton P. wasn’t nearly the bad boy she had, at first, taken him for. He had a relationship with the local law, which meant he wasn’t in trouble with it. More to the point, Clayton P. could turn her in for attempted robbery and get the local law’s full attention without too many questions asked.

“Meet Wanda Jane Coblentz,” Clayton P. said. “She’s originally from West Virginia, and she’s just passing through.” He gave her a knowing smile, and his silver eyes sparkled with what looked like real amusement.