Welcome to Last Chance (Last Chance #1)(7)
Author: Hope Ramsay

“Lemme go,” she gasped. She didn’t need anyone tanning her backside. Pa had done enough of that when she was young. Every instinct in her body screamed that she needed to run—and run fast.

She pulled against his grip, and he released her. She whirled away, racing for the door like a coon with a bloodhound on her tail. She didn’t think about the storm, or the poncho, or anything except getting away from him. A girl on her own needed to run when her instincts told her it was time. She hit the door and pushed through it. A wall of wind and water hit her with the force of… well… a hurricane.

Her namesake smacked her upside the head with a fury designed, no doubt, to beat some sense into her addled brains. Hurricane Jane might have blown her all the way to Kingdom Come, too, if it hadn’t been for Clayton P., who materialized out of the wall of rain and wind and folded her up in a pair of strong and gentle arms.

He was so enormous that he blocked the wind with his big body and seemed utterly immovable despite the forces buffeting him. “Are you all right?” The concerned look on his rain-drenched face chased away the sudden panic. It also did something to her insides—as if she had just taken a deep draught of something at least one hundred proof. Heat flowed from her belly to every one of her extremities. How could a really big guy who’d just scared her silly make that kind of heat inside her? It was not a hopeful sign. It was scary.

But she nodded anyway, momentarily struck dumb by the strong and benign feel of his hands on her shoulders.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said above the roar of wind and rain. The look of contrition on his face seemed genuine. He turned and pulled her with him up the street. As she walked beside him, clinging to his impressive arm, it occurred to her that either Clay Rhodes and the hurricane were in league and out to mess up her life, or the big man was just too darned stubborn to let tropical-storm-strength winds knock him around.

Either way, she had gotten the message: The Universe and Hurricane Jane meant for her to go with him.

Chapter 4

Haley Rhodes sat in her small pink rocking chair in the corner of Granny’s kitchen. It was her favorite chair in the whole world. Granddaddy had painted it pink like she’d asked him to, and it was the only chair in the house that fit her just right.

Most times, Granny kept Haley’s rocking chair out on the porch, but today it was raining hard on account of the hurricane, so Granny brought the chair into the kitchen. Priscilla, Granny’s kitty, had curled up on Haley’s lap while Haley listened to Granny talking on the telephone.

“I am certain Clay didn’t take a floozy to the Peach Blossom Motor Court, Lillian. I raised my boy to be better than that,” Granny said. Granny’s voice sounded kind of flat—the way it got when Granny got mad about something. Miz Lillian Bray, who was on the other end of the line, taught Lizzy’s Sunday school class.

Haley wasn’t sure why, but she knew that spending the night at the Peach Blossom Motor Court was wicked. She had heard Miz Bray talking about folks who had done it. Miz Bray said a good girl never wanted to see the insides of a place like that. Haley wasn’t sure what a floozy was, but that didn’t sound too good either.

Prissy purred softly. Being a cat, Prissy didn’t care what Uncle Clay might have done, but the angel in the corner by the broom closet must have cared something fierce, ’cause she had stopped crying.

Most times, the angel wasn’t happy. Instead of being up in Heaven and having wings, like the angels in Haley’s Sunday school book, this angel cried—sometimes real loud at night. Haley had named it the Sorrowful Angel. The Sorrowful Angel’s crying never woke up Daddy or Haley’s big sister, Lizzy, ’cause neither of them could hear her or see her.

Once, Lizzy caught Haley trying to talk to the angel. Lizzy laughed at Haley so bad that Haley had cried as hard as the angel. Then Daddy got mad at Haley and made her go to bed without dessert.

Anyways, ever since then, Haley was careful not ever to try to talk to the angel when grown-ups or Lizzy were around. The angel was Haley’s secret.

“Lillian,” Granny said into the telephone, “you know good and well that Ike’s rheumatism is so bad he can’t play organ anymore. I doubt he wants to come out of retirement. I doubt that the members of the choir want him out of retirement either. Besides, even if Clay has slipped a little, whatever happened to the Christian notion of forgiveness?” Granny leaned against the wall and blew the hair off her forehead like she did when she was mad about something. Granny looked real mad right now. Mad and beautiful.

Granny was always beautiful on account of the fact that she owned the Cut ’n Curl. Haley had heard folks saying that Granny was the best beauty consultant in all of Last Chance, and maybe even Allenberg County.

Granny held the phone a few inches away from her ear as Miz Bray talked back. Haley heard Miz Bray’s voice hollering on the phone, but she couldn’t really make out the words.

Granny took a deep breath and then spoke into the phone again. “Don’t you start on Stone. He has nothing to do with whatever you think Clay did last night. You know that as well as I do. And do not lecture me on Stony’s absence from church on Sundays. The boy is troubled, and we both know it.”

As soon as Granny said Haley’s daddy’s name, “Stone,” the angel took a step forward, like she was really, really interested. Haley was, too, on account of the fact that Miz Bray scared her and also because everyone knew Miz Bray didn’t like Daddy much.

Granny said Miz Bray didn’t like it that Daddy never went to church like other folks. Granny said Daddy was sad about Momma, and that’s why he didn’t go to church. Granny said Daddy was mad at God. Haley thought maybe Daddy was mad at God because Momma went to live with Jesus, and that’s what made the angel sorrowful.

Haley didn’t remember her momma any. But she sure wished she had a momma like all the rest of the kids in second grade. Maybe that’s why Daddy was sad, too.

“Lillian, why don’t I just go on down to the hardware store and take a look at this so-called floozy and talk with Clay.” Granny stared out the kitchen window as she listened. “I promise you I will give you a full report. I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation. Clay is a good Christian man, Lillian. He wouldn’t do anything to embarrass the church.” Granny paused again as she listened to Miz Bray. “Uh huh, I’ll call you right back. Bye now.”

Granny slammed the phone down on the hook. “I swear I will tan Clay’s backside if what she says is true,” Granny muttered. Thank goodness, Granny wasn’t smashing any dishes. It was a sign of real trouble when Granny started breaking things.

The phone rang again, and Granny said a word Haley knew good girls weren’t ever supposed to say.

Granny picked up the phone. “Oh, hello, Miriam. I’ve already heard from Lillian.”

Haley knew that was Miz Miriam Randall on the phone. Miz Randall was really, really old, and she walked with a cane, but she wasn’t as scary as Miz Bray.

“What?” Granny said, like Miz Randall had surprised her.

The angel nodded and almost smiled for a minute, which made Haley stop petting Prissy. The angel never smiled, ever.

“Well, that changes everything, doesn’t it?” Granny paused and listened for a moment. She looked a little happier when she spoke again. “Miriam, I am much obliged. I’m going to ride on down to the hardware store and check things out for myself. I’ll call you back when I’m done.”

Granny hung up the phone much more gently this time. That’s when Granny remembered Haley was still in the room. She smiled down at Haley with one of those grown-up looks that meant Haley had been caught listening to something she wasn’t supposed to hear.

“Honey, how would you like to go over to play with Betsy Maxwell?” Granny asked.

Haley sighed. Granny wasn’t ever going to let Haley see Uncle Clay get his backside tanned. And she wasn’t ever going to let Haley meet anyone who had seen the insides of the Peach Blossom Motor Court, neither. And Granny, for sure, wasn’t ever going to tell her what the word “floozy” meant.

Haley was stuck. She was going to have to spend a rainy day playing Barbie with dumb old Betsy Maxwell and listening to the endless caterwaulin’ of the Sorrowful Angel.

Clay sat on a stool behind the counter at Lovett’s Hardware and stared out at the torrent through the crosshairs of the duct tape that crisscrossed the store’s plate-glass windows. Palmetto Avenue, Last Chance’s main street, looked like a river. The town’s single traffic light danced in the wind like a kite. So far, though, they hadn’t lost power, and the roof in the one-hundred-year-old building hadn’t sprung any leaks.

Ray Betts pushed a broom across the oak floor for the one-hundredth time that morning. Clay and Ray were the only employees who had shown up for work this morning.

Ray had come because it was a Thursday, and he knew he had to work on Thursdays. Clay was there because Ray would come to work, regardless of the weather.

Uncle Pete was in Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic with Aunt Arlene. Cousin Alex, Arlene’s boy by her first marriage, had not deigned to appear. But that was a blessing, because Alex was a jerk.

Alex had returned to Last Chance in August, just after Pete Whitaker had been diagnosed with cancer. Alex figured Pete was going to leave the store to his momma, Arlene, when he died. And since Alex was actually a Lovett—his granddaddy had sold the store to Pete thirty years ago—Alex reckoned on taking over once the cancer had run its likely course.

Alex Lovett had been strutting around Lovett’s Hardware like a peacock, acting like he was the designated new boss man. He was getting on everyone’s nerves. He’d let it be known that when Pete was gone, he’d make sure Ray was the first person he let go.

So any day Alex stayed home was one more day Clay could avoid losing his temper and knocking Alex into next week. Clay hated fighting. But a fight with Alex was going to happen—sooner or later.

“I checked in on April. She’s still asleep on the couch,” Ray said, pulling Clay from his sour thoughts.

Clay shifted his weight on the stool by the main checkout. “I told you, Ray, her name’s Jane, not April.”

“No, Clay, she is April.”

Clay stared out at the storm and tried not to think about the woman sleeping on Pete’s old couch, or the trouble that could easily arise if Ray kept thinking she was April.

He intended to get that woman out of town on the next bus if it was the last thing he did. Then he would move on with his life. He needed a little bit of maturity and balance. He turned toward his oldest friend and asked, “How many women you reckon there are in Allenberg County?”

“A little more than eight thousand.”

Clay grunted. “How you figure that?”

“Because there were 16,658 people living in the county as of the 2000 census, and a little over half of them are female,” Ray said, nodding like a bobble-head doll.

Clay laughed out loud. Leave it to Ray to know about the census and be able to extrapolate it into a hard estimate of the number of women in the county.