Home at Last Chance

by Hope Ramsay

  She shut her eyes and sent a prayer winging heavenward. She was not one to pray for much, but this time, she prayed very hard for Tulane, and she asked the angels to please, please protect him.

  No movement came from the car. A crash van and ambulance pulled up, and a team of men dressed in red spilled out carrying fire extinguishers. Three of them made short work of the fire in the car’s back end, while a fourth got down on his belly and used a knife to hack through the netting on the driver’s-side window.

  Officials waved a red flag and stopped the race. The safety crew reached into the cockpit and finally pulled Tulane from the wreckage.

  His pink driver suit looked pretty darn bright against the muddy infield, the cottontail bunny on its back oddly incongruous. The suit was relatively clean and not blood-spattered.

  In fact, the suit appeared unscathed, and so did the man in it. He stood up on his own two feet and didn’t even appear to be wobbly as he waved to the crowd and walked calmly to the ambulance.

  Sarah turned away from the sight, swallowing down bile. She took off toward the bathroom at a dead run. When she reached the stall, she heaved up the contents of her stomach. Then she sat there for a good ten minutes, weeping silently.

  It had been an awful weekend for everyone, and it had almost ended in disaster. What if he’d been worrying about all those stupid things she was responsible for unleashing instead of keeping his eye on the road?

  What would she do if anything happened to Tulane?

  She sniffled back her tears. She had just discovered that she had more than a crush on him.

  God help her, she was falling in love with the guy.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Tulane eased himself into a window seat near the back of the Boeing 737 charter. He was the first one on the plane, because he���d gotten a helicopter ride from the track, and the rest of the Ferguson crew had to fight the post-race traffic in an Econovan.

  He buckled his seatbelt loosely around his bruised hips, reclined the seat, and tried to get his battered body into a position that didn’t hurt too much.

  Well, at least he had made Jim Ferguson happy today, even if he hadn’t won the race. Instead of punching Augie in the nose for bumping him and causing a multi-car wreck, Tulane had simply shaken the man’s hand and accepted his apology. On camera, no less.

  Tulane sank back in the seat and closed his eyes and tried to focus on staying calm. Fear of flying wasn’t the only reason that he was back here in the safest part of the airplane. He needed to keep his distance from Sarah.

  That woman made him feel like he was driving 300 miles an hour in a car without brakes. Maybe if he kept a low profile back here, she wouldn’t find him and make his day.

  He wasn’t that lucky.

  “Hi,” Sarah said in that straitlaced New England voice of hers.

  He opened his eyes. There she was, his irresistible little librarian, leaning over the seat in front of him, concern all over her pretty freckled face and in her warm hazel eyes.

  “Are you okay?” she asked in a near whisper.

  He managed a little smile. “I’m okay.”

  She smiled back. His heart took flight. “I saw you shake Augie’s hand after the race. That was very mature of you.”

  “Thanks. I’m trying my best. Why don’t you sit down?” He said the words without thinking. He almost regretted them.

  “No, I don’t think that’s a good…” She stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry for everything that happened this weekend. I was a huge distraction, and I hope that Deidre has straightened things out with Jim. If you need me to talk to Jim, then I’m more than—”

  “Sit down, Sarah.”

  “No, I think maybe I should go…”

  “Please?”

  Her eyes darkened a little, and he had the urge to stand up and drag her into the seat. “I think we are both capable of being adult about this if we try hard,” he said. He didn’t actually believe it, but he said the words anyway.

  Her eyes seemed oddly bright as she nodded. “Even though I behaved like an immature teenager most of the weekend?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. I think you have the capacity to behave.”

  A little smile touched her lips. To his delight, she sat herself down in the seat beside him. “I wanted to thank you and the rest of the guys on the team for keeping my name out of the press. Really, I should have known better, all the way around.”

  “It’s okay. I forgive you for Friday night, and I thank you for being honest on Saturday.” Holy crap! Saying what was really on his mind felt good.

  Sarah turned her head away. She had the most amazing skin on her cheeks. Pale, translucent, dusted with freckles. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, and he liked that about her. But her face was oddly pale tonight.

  “It was terrifying watching your car cartwheel like that. I was so worried that you had lost your concentration because of… well, you know.” She turned back, and her lips, the palest pink, parted slightly. She was shaken up by what had happened today. He needed to put her mind at rest.

  “I’m not hurt.”

  Her gaze did a little nervous circuit of his body and his face. Her inspection made his heart rate kick up a little bit.

  “That’s a lie. You’re sitting there like everything hurts.”

  Just then, the jet lurched back from the gate. “Sarah,” he said, trying to ignore the icy clutch of fear in his belly, “the cars are incredibly safe. Accidents happen all the time. It’s part of what I do. You know that. You’ve seen me hit the wall before. And in this case, the whole thing was Augie’s fault, not yours. You had nothing to do with it. In fact, in a way you did me a favor. I needed to get rid of Kenny, one way or another. And the truth is, this weekend, for the first time, Doc and I were really communicating. We didn’t have Kenny getting in the way. Doc had that car dialed in, and if Augie hadn’t bumped me, I might have won that race. So don’t worry.”

  The jet’s engines roared to life. He felt a little pain in his chest. God, he hated this. “Racing is what I’m good at. Everyone likes to do the thing they’re good at. Like you’re good at marketing, and numbers, and selling stuff to consumers.” He paused a moment. “And you’re not good at drinking hard liquor, or playing pool, or poker, or breaking traffic rules. Just remember that, okay?”

  Her mouth pursed. And he could almost read her thoughts.

  “Look, Sarah, I know what you’re thinking. But trust me, one day you’ll meet some guy, and he’ll be just what Miriam Randall predicted, and it’ll all work out. They say Miriam is never wrong.”

  She turned toward him. Her face was only inches from his, her hazel eyes locking with his. He felt a rush, like when they waved a green flag at him at the beginning of a race. He could lean in and kiss her. He surely did want to. But he wasn’t going to. It would be dumb and unprofessional. He wanted to make Jim Ferguson proud of him.

  “So we understand each other, right?”

  She nodded. “Yes. It would be stupid for us to break any more rules or things like that. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Good. So have I.”

  He settled himself back into his seat. “Now that that’s settled, I’m going to lie back here and concentrate on not moving anything painful. I’m going to do some deep breathing. Anyone comes around, you tell them I’m asleep, okay? You won’t tell them I’m a sissy or anything, will you?”

  “I’ve promised not to tell your secrets.”

  Tulane leaned back and closed his eyes and tried not to think about the panic that gripped him when the plane rolled down the runway. The minute he felt the wheels leave the ground, he clutched the armrest.

  A second later, Sarah’s cool fingers closed over his. She gave him a little squeeze, and he let go of his left hand and turned it palm up. She fit her hand in his. Her itty-bitty hand felt steady and strong and brave. He could get used to holding her hand like this.

  But that was against the
rules that Jim Ferguson had outlined for him. So he told himself he’d hold her hand for just a little bit, and then he’d let her go. Completely and forever.

  All of Tulane’s efforts to control his anger hit a major roadblock the next morning when his cell phone rang at 7:30 in the morning. It was Stone.

  It took about thirty seconds of listening to his brother rant over the line before Tulane figured out that someone had written something unkind about the Rhodes family in a racing blog.

  Tulane listened to Stony’s invective while he got up and headed into his home office. He fired up his computer and found the website: OnlyLeftTurns.com, the quintessential NASCAR gossip blog penned daily by Arnold Simons.

  The article this morning had the provocative title: “Is Tulane Rhodes NASCAR Material?” It began innocently enough, rehashing the events of the weekend. But then the article took a nasty right turn. Tulane started reading:

  One has to wonder whether Rhodes has the emotional makeup necessary to find success in the big leagues of motorsports. It’s not merely a question of his antics on and off the track, but a question of his background.

  Although his official biography claims that his father, Elbert Rhodes of Last Chance, South Carolina, is a mechanic, the truth is far more colorful and disturbing. Tulane’s father, a Vietnam veteran, has a history of mental illness.

  “It’s a fact,” says Lillian Bray, chair of the Last Chance Garden Club, who has known Tulane Rhodes since he was a child. “Tulane’s daddy is real different, bless his heart. He says he sees angels. And he’s not the first one in his family to do so. Elbert’s own daddy claimed that the angels told him to build the golf course outside of town.”

  The golf course in question is a putt-putt establishment, with 18 holes featuring Bible stories…

  By the time Tulane had finished reading the article, he was ready to punch something. Simons had made the family look like a bunch of inbred hillbillies. The idiot had spared no one, not even Haley, who he suggested had “inherited the family’s angel madness.”

  It was a hatchet job, pure and simple.

  “So,” Stone said, “what are you going to do about this? I’ll bet those high-and-mighty people from New York are responsible for this. Folks up that way really don’t understand the way we are in Last Chance.”

  Tulane stared at the words on his computer screen, feeling useless as udders on a bull. “You mean Deidre Montgomery?”

  “Who?”

  “She’s Sarah’s boss.”

  “Well, hell, I’m not so sure Sarah isn’t responsible for this crap. After all, she isn’t really one of us, no matter what Momma or the church ladies say.”

  Stone’s accusation fried Tulane’s nerve endings like the shock of a cattle prod. For an instant he entertained the thought, and then he dismissed it. The woman who had been worried about him and held his hand last night would never have had anything to do with an article like this. No doubt some reporter hit town and Lillian Bray told all.

  “Stone, Sarah had nothing to do with this. I’d bet my life on it. And Deidre didn’t have anything to do with it either. Deidre might have wanted to know all the nasty details of my life, but she would never have handed them to Arnold Simons. This is not good for diaper sales.”

  “Shoot, Tulane, you’re starting to sound like them. I don’t give a holy hell what they might have done. You need to fix this. Did you read what they said about Haley?”

  “How am I supposed to fix this? There’s nothing I can do.”

  “There has to be something. Thousands of people are going to wake up this morning and read that my daughter is crazy. She’s not crazy.”

  “Well, she is seeing a therapist. Maybe if she wasn’t I could sue for libel.”

  Stone started cussing, and he kept it up for a full minute before finally hanging up on Tulane.

  Tulane propped his head in his hands. He could count on one hand the number of times his brother had been that angry. In fact, he could do the counting and still have ten fingers left.

  Arnold Simons was a bully.

  But he was a bully who was beyond Tulane’s reach. Otherwise, the guy might be in danger of having his face broken. Tulane had to get up. He had to move. Sitting still was no longer possible.

  He started pacing, both his body and his mind raging. A few minutes later his cell phone rang again. He stopped midpace and checked the caller ID.

  He didn’t recognize the number.

  It was probably some reporter looking for a comment. He thought about answering the phone and screaming at the person on the other end of it.

  But that wouldn’t be mature. He was trying to control his anger, not unleash it on the world. And he knew one thing—cussing out a reporter was something Jim Ferguson would not be happy about.

  So, before that happened, he needed to disappear. He needed to get his head straight before he figured out what to do about this awful thing. He needed to think things through.

  He turned off his phone, threw on some clothes, and climbed into his Mustang fastback. He didn’t have any particular destination in mind. He just drove. Taking his fury out on the pavement seemed like a reasonable thing to do, so long as he didn’t exceed the speed limit by more than fifteen miles an hour.

  An hour later, he looked up from the road.

  Dammit all.

  Like some old horse that always managed to find his home barn, Tulane had driven to Last Chance. It was an old habit when things started falling apart. But this time, Uncle Pete wasn’t around for the usual man-to-man talk.

  A hollow place opened in Tulane’s chest as he cruised through town and continued heading south. Pretty soon Golfing for God came into view on the left side of the road. He slowed and pulled into the gravel lot.

  He turned off his engine and sat in the car for a few minutes as the sun heated the interior. He contemplated the remains of the statue of Jesus that had once stood at the edge of the parking lot. Tulane’s career and Jesus were pretty much in the same shape—wrecked beyond recognition.

  Who wanted a driver with a reputation for being an immature hothead and who had insanity running through his gene pool? It was over. And he didn’t know what to do about it.

  The heat eventually drove him from his car. He headed down the path toward the ark. Weeds choked the main walk, and the place looked good and truly abandoned.

  Kudzu vine was burying the place faster than anyone might have expected. In a couple of years, if nothing was done, the place would fade into obscurity.

  He walked to the eighteenth hole and sat on the little bench by the 8-foot statue of the resurrected Christ. Jesus looked down on him with a half-smile on His fiberglass face and His hands outstretched. Stress fractures were forming along one hand.

  What had Daddy been doing all these months since the lightning storm? The place was falling apart.

  Tulane could almost hear Pete’s voice in the back of his head, answering the question. Daddy didn’t have anything to do anymore. And without Tulane’s help, there wouldn’t be any money to rebuild Golfing for God. Daddy could retire.

  And do what?

  All the times Tulane had wished for calamity to strike this place, he’d never stopped and really thought about how losing Golfing for God might affect his father.

  A huge load of guilt slapped Tulane right upside the head. For one small instant he understood how Daddy might feel. What the hell would Tulane do if he couldn’t drive a car around an oval racetrack? Driving a car was what he did, just like running a putt-putt was what Daddy did.

  Daddy had always loved his job. He was good at it. And hadn’t Tulane told Sarah last night that everyone wants to do the thing they are good at?

  Tulane stood up and started toward the ark. Maybe he could find Daddy’s power saw and cut down some of the burned pines that lined the main walk. That would certainly be a productive way to burn off his anger at Arnold Simons. And it might make Pete happy, too.

  He had just taken a step toward the ar
k when Haley’s little-girl voice called out, “Uncle Tulane, are you here? Me and Granddaddy saw your car.”

  Tulane turned, and Haley appeared an instant later, running down the walk and looking no worse for having been trashed on a blog read by thousands. Her shorts and T-shirt were a little dirty, her hair was a big mess, and she had a Band-Aid on her left knee. She pounded down the path on sneakers that flashed a pink light with every step. Then she jumped right into Tulane’s arms.

  Haley didn’t seem angry at him, which was a huge relief. But of course, she was too little to understand what had happened to her reputation.

  He gave her a big hug and buried his nose in her soft little-girl hair. Something in his chest eased. He wanted to hold her tight and keep her safe, but she wiggled out of his grasp.

  “Are you gonna help us?” Her dark eyes danced with delight, and Tulane felt his mouth tip up. He adored this child.

  “Hey,” Daddy said.

  Tulane looked up. His father stood by the Tree of Knowledge, wearing one of his signature black T-shirts and a pair of patched blue jeans. The message across Daddy’s chest today: “America Needs a Faith Lift!”

  “What you doing here?” Daddy said.

  Tulane shrugged. “Thinking, I guess.”

  “You guess. Don’t you know?”

  “No, sir, I guess not.”

  “Hmmm. I know the feeling.”

  Haley tugged on Tulane’s jeans. “So, you gonna help?”

  He squatted down to be at eye level. “Help with what?”

  “Well, see, Hettie Marshall has started this committee called the Resurrection of Golfing for God, and some people are coming today to do some cleaning and to figure out what needs fixing up.” Haley had managed to lisp through her speech, and then she gave him the most beautiful gap-toothed smile. He wanted to hug her again and never let go.

  “I’m so glad folks are going to fix this place up,” Haley continued, “ ’cause, honestly, I don’t think the Sorrowful Angel wanted Golfing for God to go out of business because she had to smite the bad guys who came out here that time. But she’s an angel, you know, and angels always smite the bad guys, like in the Bible.”