Last Chance Beauty Queen

by Hope Ramsay

  “You should have told me. We’re friends. No secrets, right? And besides, you knew Bubba and I weren’t meant for each other.”

  “Yeah. I knew it and you knew it, but Bubba didn’t. He always looked right through me. Until… well, to be honest, until Dash lassoed you off the float. So I guess maybe the whole Lasso Fiasco wasn’t such a fiasco after all.”

  “Right. Just don’t tell Dash that, he’ll get a swelled head.” Caroline pulled her friend forward toward the place where the steaming and smelly wrecks had been lined up.

  They found Bubba surrounded by a group of good ol’ boys, including Dash, the Canaday brothers, two of Rachel’s younger siblings, and a bunch of guys from the Allenberg Fire Department. The testosterone was really flowing as the guys backslapped their momentary hero and poured beer over his head.

  Caroline figured it was probably a good thing that Rachel was strictly a beer drinker and had never experimented with anything else in her entire life. Because Bubba was going to smell like some strange amalgam of motor oil, burning rubber, and hops.

  “Hey, ya’ll,” Bubba yelled, exposing his gap-toothed smile. “I want you to meet my new buddy, Hugh.”

  Bubba pulled Hugh forward and thumped him on the back like he was just another guy in the crowd. Then Bubba let go of what could only be described as a Rebel Yell.

  “Ya’ll, this man is the best dang mechanic I have ever met. You shoulda seen the way he rebuilt my car’s engine. I mean I was stumped. Couldn’t get decent compression, and he just walked right up to that sucker and did his magic. I’m telling you, this guy is like an engine whisperer or something.”

  Hugh managed to look right at home despite his fancy pedigree. He didn’t even look like he was slumming or looking down his long patrician nose. He was genuinely enjoying the moment.

  “You know,” Rachel said, “it’s amazing how forgiving guys are. I mean, one minute Lord Woolham is breaking Bubba’s face, and the next, they are bosom pals and he’s helping him with his derby car.”

  “Yeah,” Caroline agreed, “although to be honest, the idea of Bubba and Hugh being BFFs kind of makes me nauseous.”

  Rachel turned toward Caroline. “Rocky, the time has come to act on our feelings, don’t you think?”

  “Our feelings?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m going to go get my man, because if I wait for him to notice me, it won’t happen. I think you should do the same thing. Because if you ask me, Hugh deBracy looks like a regular guy. And I can see that he’s got your panties in a twist.”

  And with that, Rachel fearlessly stalked right through that knot of men, ignoring the way every single one of them (including Bubba) ogled her bare legs. She walked right up to Hugh, pointed a finger at him, and said, “You may be an engine whisperer, but you also broke Bubba’s face.”

  The men kind of paused for a moment, not sure exactly how to react. But then Rachel did the amazing.

  She turned, grabbed Bubba by the shoulders, and gave him a serious kiss right on the mouth that probably hurt his stitches. She pulled back and glowered at Hugh. “And that just pisses me off, your highness, because I got plans to kiss this boy silly.”

  Bubba looked like he’d just been hit upside the head with a frying pan, but Rachel didn’t give him a moment to get his bearings. She went back to kissing him—with her entire body.

  The good ol’ boys all let go of whoops and catcalls.

  Not Hugh, thank goodness. There was a limit, really, and Caroline was so glad he hadn’t stepped over it. It was nice that he could hang with the boys, but it was equally sexy that he wasn’t exactly one of them.

  Instead of hooting and hollering, his Lordship turned and spied Caroline standing slightly behind one of the hay bales. A slow smile filled his face. Laugh lines crinkled up at the corner of his eyes, and his whole face lit up from the inside.

  Holy smokes, he had a great smile.

  Rachel was right. If she had any kind of courage, she would go after him—even if he wasn’t exactly a regular guy. Because a fantasy like Hugh deBracy didn’t come along in a girl’s life very often.

  She ought to run toward it. Live in the moment. Let it happen. In a few days, she’d be packing to go to Washington. She didn’t need or want a forever kind of thing.

  Hugh stepped away from Bubba and strolled toward her, the multicolored fairground lights shining in his curls. “Rocky,” he said in that sexy accent, “you look lovely tonight.”

  But she didn’t look lovely. She was dressed like a J.Crew junkie. She suddenly wished she had worn that pretty pink sundress that was still hanging in her closet. Right then, she wanted to be Rocky Rhodes in something summery and girly—maybe even something mysterious and foreign like her name.

  But no, she was wearing a white polo shirt.

  And he still thought she was lovely.

  No one was watching them. Everyone was still paying attention to Rachel and Bubba. He knew it. She knew it.

  So he leaned down and stole a kiss. It wasn’t like the kiss he’d bought yesterday. This one was as soft as the summer night, and just as hot and humid.

  It didn’t last very long either. It was a perfect kiss—just deep enough and long enough to make her yearn for more. He took her arm and deftly guided her away from the boys. They walked toward the midway, saying nothing.

  Eventually he let go of her arm and took hold of her hand.

  She let him.

  His touch was as intimate as it got. He intertwined his fingers with hers and the pleasure she found in the slide of his fingers across hers was almost too much to bear.

  “You don’t mind if I call you Rocky, do you?” Hugh asked, giving her hand the slightest squeeze.

  “No.” Her voice came out hoarse and small as a tsunami of lust hit her chest, practically drowning her. This wasn’t love. She knew the difference.

  But she still wanted it. If she let herself go, she could live one of her romances for a couple of hours. But she could also crash and burn—badly. So she pushed the fantasy away. “How did it go today with Cissy?” she asked.

  “She made me an offer.”

  Caroline stopped in her tracks. “An offer? Of money?”

  Hugh dropped Caroline’s hand and turned toward her, the twinkling lights dancing in his eyes. “In a way. She offered to buy my loom technology and set up a factory near the I-85 corridor.”

  The worry that had been nagging her all day made a sudden and sharp reappearance. “I thought you were lobbying the town council.”

  “We did that, too. You know, the council is unanimous in thinking that it would be best if your father sold his land.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Did you tell them about the swamp?”

  “I did. Some of them believe that wetlands reclamation is not as big a deal as you do.”

  “Most of them haven’t dealt with it like I have. So are you going to try to fight Daddy for his land, or take Cissy up on her offer?”

  “Rocky,” he said in the gentlest voice. When he said her name, it sounded magical and powerful and feminine and a whole load of things she had never heard in it before. She didn’t want to hear anything in the way he said her name. She had pushed this conversation into the safe zone so she could avoid stuff like that. She needed to forget the fantasy. She needed to be practical and wise.

  And run like hell.

  Instead, she looked up into his handsome, patrician face. “What, Hugh?” she said, using his first name.

  His eyes darkened. “There’s something I need to tell you. Come on.” He took her hand again and guided her to a secluded area behind the 4-H barn, where a grassy bank sloped upward toward a stand of shade trees. The little hill provided a wonderful view of the midway lights.

  They tumbled down onto the ground with the cool and dew-damp grass at their backs. Caroline stacked her hands behind her head and looked up into the night sky. Out here in the country, even with the lights from the midway, the sky seemed dark and velvety. The stars incredibly
bright.

  “So what is it that you want to tell me? I’ve got a feeling you just wanted to get me into a compromising position,” she said.

  Hugh rose up on his elbow and looked down at her, the stars silhouetting him. “Well, yes, I did. But I also need to tell you something about Cissy and her proposal.”

  “You agreed to it, didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t. And before you lecture me on being a very poor businessman, I want to tell you a story about a little girl named Elisa.”

  “Hugh, what…”

  He leaned down and kissed her so gently on the lips. Just one little kiss to shut her up. He accomplished his mission. “Just listen, love.

  “When I was about six or so, I befriended the daughter of our chauffer. Her name was Elisa. And before you snicker at me, I know it’s pretentious to have a chauffer, and you’re quite correct. But Granddad was pretentious.

  “Anyway, Elisa was like a garden sprite. She had dark hair and green eyes much like yours. She was a wild thing that loved to run in the meadows or wade barefoot in the stream. She told lovely stories about the little people. I was only six, but I loved her just the same. She was my best friend.

  “I loved her father, too. He taught me about motorcars, and he let me help him keep the Bentley in good nick.”

  “What happened to them?” Caroline asked, even though she had a feeling she knew the ending of this story.

  “My granddad fired Mr. Henson. Not because of anything he’d done wrong in his employment, but because I had made a friend of him and Elisa. Granddad discovered me with Mr. Henson, working on the Bentley. I was covered in motor oil. Granddad said I looked like a common workman. My punishment for this transgression was to watch Mr. Henson and Elisa pack their possessions and leave the servants’ quarters. I was not allowed to cry.”

  “How awful.”

  “I know. I was devastated. But Granddad had made his point. Granddad had very old-fashioned notions about things, and he wanted me to know my place. He said that a deBracy was never to befriend servants, or to be familiar with them, or even to be kind to them.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yes, well Granddad was a complete prat. And from that moment on, I was nothing but rebellious. He died when I was fourteen, and I didn’t cry at his funeral. And ever since, I’ve always gone out of my way to be kind to people. I’ve always told myself it was a way of paying back the damage Granddad did to Mr. Henson and his daughter.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “Yes, well, my trusting soul has gotten me into nothing but trouble. And I’m afraid my philosophy has gotten in the way of my dealings with Cissy. I refused her offer because I couldn’t stop worrying about the people living in Last Chance. Your passion for them on Sunday struck a nerve. But the thing is, Granddad was right about some things. The guys with the kind hearts usually fail.”

  Caroline reached up and gave his shoulder a little reassuring squeeze. “You’re not a failure. You’ve invented a loom that Cissy wants to get her hands on. She made you that offer because she thinks she can make money on your invention, and I’ll bet she’s going to rethink and up the ante. You should call her up tomorrow and start a negotiation. And don’t sell yourself short.”

  “I have no intention of doing any such thing,” he said in that stubborn voice of his—the one she’d mistaken for arrogance a few days ago. Now she recognized it as something more like gumption. He was hanging on to his dream with both hands, wasn’t he? It was admirable.

  But she couldn’t let him give up a chance like the one Cissy had offered him.

  “Hugh, I mean it. You’ve got no hope of building here. You should—”

  “Stop, love,” he said, his voice soft and sure, “I know all the arguments. But I want to give it a day or two. There’s no rush. Maybe working together, we can fix things here, and I won’t have to sell my technology to Cissy. And in the meantime, we can get to know each other better.”

  He dipped down and slid his mouth over hers, nibbling at her lower lip until she yielded to his sultry demands. His kisses were delicious. They melted on her tongue like cotton candy, leaving nothing but sweetness behind.

  She ran her hands up over his shoulders and down his back, feeling the play of firm muscles there. Meanwhile, he undid her ponytail and combed his fingers through her hair, messing it up beyond redemption and creating shivers across her scalp.

  His beard rasped against her cheek, his mouth devoured. He was hard and sturdy and male in all the right places. And he knew how to kiss. Holy smokes, the guy’s kisses were more intoxicating than the drinks he mixed that night at Dot’s Spot.

  She explored the contours of his body, pushing aside all her cares and worries. She forgot about the gossip in town, the job in Washington, the trouble at the chicken plant—all of it faded into the background.

  He kissed down to the nape of her neck, and she melted right into him. When he finally retreated, she was breathless with yearning.

  “I’ve been thinking about doing that all day,” he murmured against her ear. “I’ve been thinking about the things we didn’t do last night. The things we wanted to do. I have a long list of those things, Rocky.”

  “Me, too,” she whispered.

  Hugh had no clue how long they spent snogging in the grass. He lost track of time and place. Everything narrowed down to Rocky, and her warm skin, her soft breasts, and her spicy, exotic scent.

  He undid all the buttons down the front of her golf shirt. It hardly reached her amazing cleavage, but kissing the spot right below her collarbone was making all his dangly bits stand up and pay attention.

  She let go of a deeply pensive sigh and said, “What are we going to do?”

  He raised his head to look down at her. The midway lights twinkled in her pixie green eyes, and her hair was a wild tumble around her head, spread out against the grass. If she’d been wearing anything other than a golf shirt and shorts, he might have mistaken her for the Queen of Faerie.

  He wanted this woman in ways he couldn’t quite explain. He’d told her things about himself he’d never meant to tell a soul. She knew his problems. She knew his failures and his fears. She knew all his mistakes. And she wasn’t very dazzled by his title or his background.

  Being with her was so easy. It had been such a long, long time since he’d had a friend he could trust with his secrets. Elisa had been like that. And in a lot of ways, she reminded him of Elisa. They were both magical in some way he couldn’t quite fathom.

  He smiled down at her and said, “I believe this is the point where you suggest that we go off into the piney woods for an evening’s frolic with your magical friends. I will never return to the real world, of course, having been utterly ensorcelled by your beauty.”

  She giggled. “Uh, wait, I don’t think I’m in the same fantasy. In mine, this is when Prince Charming sweeps me up into his manly arms and carries me off to his castle.”

  “Darling, my castle is very drafty.”

  “You have a castle?”

  “Well, it’s more of a manor house.”

  “Wow.”

  “And to be honest, the woods sound ever so much more delightful and magical. Listen, the crickets have been serenading us.”

  “Uh, yeah, along with the frogs. And believe me, there are other critters out there in the piney woods.”

  “Are you about to bring up scary stories of snakes and alligators again?”

  She giggled.

  “Perhaps we should compromise.”

  “Compromise is good. What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, you did tell me about that place that sells rooms by the hour.”

  She laughed again. “I’m not taking you to the Peach Blossom Motor Inn.” He heard the regret in her voice and desperately wanted to erase it.

  “Was that a tawdry suggestion?” he asked.

  She ran her hand up over his shoulders and let her fingers roam through his hair. Her touch made him shiver. He closed hi
s eyes and let her touch him, savoring every moment.

  “Love, if we don’t go to a place like that, what do you suggest?”

  She didn’t say anything for the longest time.

  “Blast it, Last Chance needs a decent hotel, you know that?” he muttered.

  “Well, there’s the Magnolia Inn over in Allenberg. It’s not much better than the Peach Blossom, but it has the benefit of not being within spying distance of Lillian Bray and her high-powered telescope.”

  He opened his eyes. “Are you saying yes to my compromising suggestion?”

  “I want to, Hugh. I really do. But we need to be clear. This is a fantasy, you know? A fling. In a few days, I’m going to be moving to Washington, and you’re going to figure out that the best proposal you’ve got comes from Cissy Warren.”

  He stared down into her lovely pale face. He ought to argue with her. He knew he was in far deeper than she was. He didn’t want a fling.

  He wanted to find a place here, in her town, where he could be himself. And he had this feeling she could give that to him.

  But he knew if he said this aloud, she’d run away like the wild thing she really was. He could see through that disguise she wore. The real Rocky let her hair down without him having to help her. The real Rocky spoke her mind and wore frothy dresses that showed off her unbelievable breasts. The real Rocky went about on bare feet.

  He smiled. “Madam, I am pleased to provide any fantasy you want.”

  She giggled again. “Okay. But you have to remember it’s just for one night.”

  “Right, I have it. Sort of like Cinderella.”

  The Magnolia Inn stood just beyond Allenberg’s town limits with a rusty sign bearing a blinking neon magnolia blossom. It was truly an awful place to play out a Cinderella fantasy.

  Hugh killed the engine and gave the place the once-over. He said nothing, but Caroline could almost read his thoughts.

  “I know, it’s kind of trashy, but…” Caroline started to say.

  “Well, darling, I suspect it’s better than going off into your woods and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. I must have twenty bites just from that time we spent in the grass.”