Last Chance Book Club

Chapter 17


Dash had serious talent when it came to sex. Unfortunately, Savannah’s bad-boy cousin also had a finely tuned sense of guilt.

Once their big moment in the shower had ended, the guilt arrived right on cue.

“Our goose is cooked,” he muttered as he turned off the water, which was starting to get cold. “We need to dry off, go get Molly’s car, and get on back home before Miriam and Todd bust a gut.”

So much for romance.

But he was absolutely right. Miriam and Todd could get seriously hurt by what they’d just done in the shower.

She dried off, using the tiny motel-rough towel. It took about five minutes to sort out their discarded clothing.

All in all, they spent a grand total of about forty minutes in that forgettable hotel room before they were back in the Cadillac heading home to Last Chance.

“You okay?” he asked after about ten minutes on the road.

She nodded. She didn’t feel like talking.

He glanced at her. “You sure?”

She gazed at his handsome profile, lit up by the dashboard lights. She didn’t know where to start a conversation. Should she thank him for giving her a sexual fantasy that she would never, ever forget? That seemed kind of silly. Two people sneaking around to have low-down dirty sex shouldn’t have to talk, should they?

It seemed like a very dangerous moment to start talking. She was liable to blurt out all kinds of things. Like how she wanted to hear him laugh more, like he’d done in the shower. Or how she wanted to take care of him when he was sick or discouraged. She wanted to cook him a three-course dinner. She wanted, God forbid, to knit him a sweater.

Most of all, she wanted to sleep with him. But how could she do that? All the guys she’d ever slept with had turned into big mistakes. So maybe she should promise herself never to sleep with him or knit him anything. Cooking his dinner was already a done deal.

“I’m good,” she said in answer to his question. “I had fun. How about you?”

What does a man say to the most incredible lover he’s ever known? Does he tell her he thinks he loves her? Only he’s not sure what love is because in his whole life none of his lovers have ever loved him back. Does he admit that he’s kind of afraid of being loved back?

Or maybe he just says he’s confused, which would be nothing but the unadulterated truth.

“I had fun, too,” he said. It was an understatement of monumental proportions.

She gave him a sweet smile. Her chocolate-drop eyes sparked with the light from the dashboard. His body ached from wanting her. Again. Someone should have told him that sex was much better sober. It might have helped with his recovery.

They didn’t speak again until he pulled the Eldorado off the side of the road where they had left Molly’s Charger.

“So, you want me to follow you to Molly’s?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Molly has my car. You go on home. I’ll be fine.” She hesitated before she got out of the car. “Uh, Dash?” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you think we could sneak off again sometime?”

He had to struggle to keep a smile from his lips; now that he’d tasted this forbidden fruit, he was completely hooked. He wanted her more than ever. “Maybe we could find a better hotel next time.”

“Okay, if you want. But, um, well… it was also kind of exciting to do it in a seedy motel like that. And I’ve never had shower sex before.”

Great. She just wanted the low-down dirty part of it. Not all the rest. That was the story of his life, wasn’t it? “Yeah, sneaking around lends a certain element of excitement to it,” he said. He didn’t think she wanted to hear him say that next time he wanted to sleep with her all night and wake up next to her in the morning.

“So, when do you think we could do it again?” she asked.

He was addicted. “How about tomorrow? Maybe we could sneak out to the river house when Todd’s in school.” He said the words, and a wave of lust washed through him.

“Tomorrow sounds good,” she murmured. Then she opened the Caddy’s door and got out.

Savannah stood in the ruins of The Kismet’s auditorium staring up at what was left of the roof. The bright blue of another beautiful spring day shone through the burn holes.

The insurance adjuster and the Allenberg County fire chief had just left the premises after imparting the shocking news that he believed the fire had been purposefully set.

The Allenberg Fire Department had determined that the blaze started in a corner of the auditorium, far from any ignition sources. Their inspection of the scene suggested accelerants or some kind of flammable liquid had been used. The episode was still under investigation, and the determination wouldn’t be final until the lab up in Orangeburg finished their analysis of samples taken from the scene.

Of course, the insurance company wasn’t about to hand out any checks if this was a case of arson. And the two men had not been very impressed by the fact that she had been in the yarn shop when the blaze started.

“Ma’am, you could have hired anyone to start that fire. Heck, Zeph Gibbs has been in and out of here for two weeks, and everyone knows he’s crazy. You should think twice about having that man around, if you ask me.” The chief of the ACFD had been more than blunt.

Savannah didn’t think, for one minute, that Zeph had started the fire. Not when he’d risked his life to rescue Maverick and herself.

She was processing all of this disastrous news when John Rodgers strolled into what remained of The Kismet. He seemed more than chipper this morning as he started inspecting the damage and making notations in a hard-backed notebook. He had the audacity to whistle while he worked. No doubt he was totaling up the increase in his fees.

Savannah was just trying to decide whether to plead with him or kick him out on his backside when Dash arrived.

Her heart flipped over in her chest. She hadn’t seen him since she’d left him by the roadside last night. She’d purposefully gotten up early so as to miss him at the bathroom door. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling about him. Lust, certainly. But it was so much more than that.

And yet, all the angry tension disappeared the minute he strolled into the auditorium, replaced with something else altogether. Dash was here. She was safe. Even if someone had tried to burn down her theater.

“They think it was arson,” she said, her voice shaky. “The insurance company is balking.”

John Rodgers stopped whistling.

Dash frowned. “Who would want to burn down The Kismet? It was falling down anyway.”

Savannah turned on Rodgers. “It might never have happened if your crew hadn’t left the door unlocked. It was probably some kid pulling a prank.”

“I didn’t leave the door open.” Rodgers turned and headed toward the front door. Dash and Savannah trailed after him.

“Well, shoot,” Rodgers said, “there isn’t any sign of a forced entry.”

“Because your workers left it open,” Dash said.

Rodgers put his fists on his hips. “Or maybe you did, Dash. Maybe you set the fire just like you put the snakes up in the projection room. Maybe you’ve just been trying to make everyone think you’re still the hometown hero.”

“I was never the hometown hero,” Dash said. “And that’s the reason folks think I put diamondbacks in the projection room.”

“Well then, it was probably that old crazy man, Zeph,” Rodgers said.

Savannah had to step in before the two men came to blows. “Zeph isn’t the kind of man who would burn a place like this down. You’ve seen the way he is about the woodwork. And Dash wouldn’t put diamondbacks in the projection room. If he wanted to scare me, all he’d have to do is find a little garden snake. So I have to conclude that your workers were not careful about locking up.”

“Look, honey, you don’t know squat about this. Why don’t you just let me and Dash figure it out?” Rodgers said.

“You’re fired,” Savannah replied.

Rodgers straightened. “We have a contract.”

“Too bad. You didn’t lock the door and look what happened. That’s grounds for dismissal,” Dash said, folding his arms across his chest.

“Fine. Have it your way. I’ll expect you to honor the termination clause in the contract. And you sure aren’t going to get your deposit back. You won’t be able to afford to fix the place up if the insurance doesn’t come through either.” The contractor turned and strolled out of the building.

“He didn’t seem too upset about being fired, did he?” Dash said.

“Are you suggesting that he left the door open on purpose? That’s crazy. Why would he do that?”

Dash turned and walked back into the auditorium. “Well, whoever tried to burn this place down did a pretty bad job of it. The ceiling may be gone, but the lobby’s intact. We can salvage this.”

“I don’t have the money. If I don’t pay Rodgers a cancellation fee, he’ll take me to court, and I can’t afford that either. And the project has gotten way more expensive. I don’t think I could get a loan, and I have a feeling that Angel Development is going to want—”

“I have the money. We’re going to renovate this place, if it’s the last thing I do. And if it’s true that someone tried to burn this place down, then I’m going to find out who the bastard is and I’m going to let him know just exactly how ticked off I am about it.”

Savannah opened her mouth to argue and then stopped. “Okay,” she said.

He turned, a surprised look on his face. “You aren’t going to argue?”

She shook her head. “No. You loved Granddaddy as much as I did. I think he would be happy if you and I teamed up on this. And God knows, if someone tried to burn this place down on purpose, I won’t stand in the way of your beating the crap out of them, when you find them. And also, I need the money.”

He smiled. With both sides of his mouth. And that grin made her heart swell. God, she was falling for him in a big way.

“I’m ready to listen to your advice, too,” she added.

“Apparently so. You just fired your contractor.”

“I did. You’ve been telling me to do that for a while. I should have listened. We need to change the locks on the door.”

“And put up a locked construction fence. Seems like overkill in Last Chance, but I don’t want the arsonist to come back to finish the job. And then we need to talk to those architects.”

“Who would do this?” she asked, feeling suddenly vulnerable. She hugged herself.

“Someone who wanted to stop you.”

“Who?”

He shrugged. “Your ex-mother-in-law comes immediately to mind.”

Savannah shook her head. “Claire is a difficult person, but she wouldn’t break the law. She’d be more likely to turn the law on me because her husband is a high-powered attorney. As a grandparent, though, she doesn’t have many rights. I double-checked before I decided to move Todd out of state. On the other hand, if Greg ever got the wild notion that he wanted to actually visit with his son, then I’d have to accommodate him. Greg and I have a custody agreement that we entered into in the state of Maryland.”

“You just outlined why Claire might be desperate enough to bribe a contractor into setting a small fire. One that might not cause all that much damage, just enough to discourage you. And then there is the mystery of the diamondbacks. Someone put those snakes in the projection room.”

“That’s crazy. She wouldn’t do something like that.”

“She’s the only person I can think of who wants you to fail. Everyone else is rooting for you.”

“My mother wants me to fail.”

“She wouldn’t set a fire in the theater or put venomous snakes where you were likely to get bitten. She’s your mother, and she loves you.”

“You think?”

“I know she loves you. She’s misguided, but she thinks she’s doing the best she can for you and Todd. She wouldn’t burn down her father’s theater.”

“No, I don’t think she would. It would never occur to her because she’s convinced I’m going to fail regardless.” Savannah’s voice betrayed her emotions.

Dash closed the distance between them and gave her a big, warm hug. “You’re not going to fail.”

She shamelessly clung to him. Maybe it was okay to let him hold her up for a few minutes. Maybe she didn’t need to accomplish everything all by herself just to prove a point. She wanted to bring the theater back to life. Did it matter if she needed Dash’s help to make it happen?