by Ann Charles
Something over Claire’s shoulder suddenly caught Manny’s eye. He let out another wolf-whistle. Claire turned to see what had distracted him and nearly had her retinas fried. Who in the hell wore a rhinestone-studded running bra in the desert? The thing glittered like a disco ball on the surface of the sun.
With copper red hair and Hollywood sunglasses, the woman waved at Claire’s grandpa as she strutted along the campground drive. “Hi, Harley.” Even her fingernails sparkled. Purple hot pants molded her very full bottom.
Claire shot Gramps a glare. “That’s why you shut off my alarm.”
Gramps had the decency to blush. “What? How was I supposed to know she’d be out exercising this morning?”
Claire snatched her cap from him. “She looks like trouble.”
“Ay yi yi!” Manny moved up next to them and leaned against the car, his gaze still glued to the woman’s extra-voluptuous backside. “I can’t wait to see where else she sparkles.”
Listening to Manny’s comments for the next month was going to warp her mind. Claire shoved the cap down on her head. “How many women did you guys line up to meet you here?”
Gramps shrugged, chewing the end off his cigar and spitting it on the ground next to him. “Enough to be picky.”
“Geez-Louise, I’ve landed in the middle of a senior citizen orgy.” She rooted in her shirt pocket, needing a cigarette, and pulled out a squished York Peppermint Pattie.
“At least you’re not sitting in another useless college class.” Gramps grabbed the pack of matches sitting on Mabel’s dashboard. “Maybe you’ll actually learn something here.”
“Hey,” Claire mumbled through the chocolate and peppermint goo in her mouth. “An education is—”
Something bumped against her kneecap. She looked down to find Henry staring at her with his tail wagging and the femur he’d found yesterday hanging out of his mouth. “What’s he doing with my bone?”
“He found it,” Gramps said.
“Oh, really? In the cupboard over the fridge?”
Gramps squinted as he lit his cigar. “He’s a beagle,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “They’re good hunters.”
“I don’t think he should be playing with that bone.” Claire reached for the femur. Henry zipped just out of her reach. Damned dog! She glanced at her watch. Shit, she was officially late.
“Why not? Dogs are born to play with bones.”
“I told you last night, that’s not just any old bone. Besides, I want to take a closer look at it when I have more time. That might be important evidence in some murder case.”
Gramps rolled his eyes. “Girl, when are you gonna learn? Don’t go looking for trouble. It’ll find you soon enough. It always does.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” she said with a grin, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his scruffy jaw. “I have to go. Don’t let Henry eat that bone.” She punched Manny lightly on the bicep. “And don’t let Manny talk you into skinny dipping again.”
“We don’t do that, anymore,” Manny said seriously, and then ruined it by winking. “At least not in the daylight.”
Good. That would be one less trip to the county jail this spring.
With a salute goodbye, Claire did her best impression of jogging all the way to the General Store.
The screen door squeaked shut as she stumbled inside, her breath coming in short bursts. The knife-like stitch under her ribs reminded her that surfing channels with a remote control was not really a cardiovascular workout.
She skidded to a stop at the sight of a hammer and pipe wrench lying on the counter next to the cash register. "Ruby?"
"Shitfire!" A woman’s voice, laced with a southern drawl, came from the doorway in the back corner of the room.
Claire slipped down an aisle shelved with potato chips. She rounded a life-size cardboard display of Elvis holding a can of Diet Coke and stopped in the doorway. The R.V. park’s owner, Ruby Martino, sat on the floor with her back against the toilet. Her curly, reddish blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, which emphasized her slender, freckle-dotted neck.
"Rough night on the town?" Claire asked her new boss, grinning.
“I wish.” Ruby’s green eyes flashed. She threw a pair of vice grips across the yellowed linoleum. "Damned sink! This place is fixin’ to crash down around my ears. Soon there won’t be anything left for the bank to take."
Claire’s grin wilted. What did Ruby mean about the bank? Claire opened her mouth to ask, then closed it. It wasn’t really any of her business. In a month, she and Gramps would be driving back home.
She lifted her gaze to the sink where a rust stain ran from the faucet to the drain. "Looks like you have a leaky faucet."
"That’s dripped for years,” Ruby said with a dismissive wave. “But the drain plugged up last week. I figured I’d fix both in one swoop. But these damned nuts won’t budge."
Those damned nuts looked stripped. "Mind if I have a try?" Thanks to Gramps’s contractor business, Claire and her cousins had tinkered with plumbing since their teens.
"Be my guest, honey." Ruby handed Claire the flashlight and moved out of the way.
Squatting in front of the sink, Claire shined the light under the basin. "Your bolts are rusty."
Ruby groaned. “Story of my life.”
"You need a plumber."
"Can’t afford one. They won’t take minimum wage."
Claire ignored the warning bells ringing in her head. Ruby’s problems weren’t hers. "Tell you what." She wiggled further under the sink. "Bring me your toolbox and that pipe wrench I saw on the counter, and I'll see what I can do here."
An hour later, Claire walked out of the bathroom wiping her hands on her jeans. She paused next to Elvis, catching the faint sound of Ruby’s voice over the buzz of the florescent lights overhead. A green curtain hung in an archway behind the counter. The wood floor creaked under Claire’s feet as she inched up to the curtain. She hesitated, her nose brushing the cloth. The smell of stale dust and varnished wood clung to the material. “Ruby?”
“Come on back, Claire,” Ruby called.
Claire pushed through the curtain and stopped dead. She’d stepped back in time to 1977. Orange shag carpet covered the floor from one lemon yellow cinderblock wall to the next. A pea green couch sat below a photo of a ten-point buck; two brown bean bag chairs cluttered the far corner next to a glass-front cabinet stuffed to the gullet with antique beer cans.
Ruby, with the phone to her ear, stood at a long walnut bar with a brass foot rail. Four barstools with purple velvet-covered seats framed the bar. Beer steins lined the wall behind it.
“I know all about the deadline, Mr. Rensburg,” Ruby said, each word terse, her shoulders rigid. “You’ll have your damned money by the end of the month!” She slammed the receiver down.
Claire cleared her throat. “I unclogged the drain." She waded through the thick shag toward the bar, pretending she hadn’t overheard the end of Ruby’s conversation. “And installed the new faucet.”
Ruby glared at the telephone, her forehead furrowed.
“Are you okay?” Claire asked against her better judgment.
“No. Yes.” Ruby took a deep breath. “I’m fine. It’s just that ever since Joe died ...” She looked at Claire and hesitated.
Yesterday, when Claire had applied for the job, she’d learned that Ruby’s husband, Joe Martino, had died last year from a stroke. Ruby hadn’t offered any more details, and Claire hadn’t asked.
Ruby shook her head. “Never mind.”
“It must be tough running the R.V. park on your own.”
Ruby narrowed her eyes at Claire for several seconds, then nodded. “It would be much easier if Joe hadn’t left me with a heap of bills and just a handful of money to pay them.”
That explained Ruby’s comment about the bank.
“But if I can sell those mines and the surrounding valley that he left me,” Ruby continued, “I might be able to save this place.”
"Yep, and the two on the other side of the hill just off County Road 588."
Claire almost choked on her tongue. Her grandma's desert grave was on the other side of the hill just off County Road 588. "Do you have someone interested in buying them?”
“The mining company up the road.” Ruby slipped behind the bar and pulled a can of Coke from a mini-fridge. “If you guys came through Tucson, you passed their flagship mine after you left the interstate."
Claire had seen it all right. It was hard to miss the gaping open-pit mine as long as three football fields and almost as wide. Twenty years ago, when she’d come here as a teenager, there’d been a hill there, covered with black-eyed Susans and red skyrocket flowers.
The gears in Claire’s mind spun. If that company bought the mines, it would gut the hillside, including her grandma’s sacred valley below. She’d seen the same thing done in the Black Hills.
Personal stance aside, didn’t Ruby realize how much this would affect her long-term income? Who would want to camp next to the boom of regular blasting and the constant rumble of those huge quarry trucks?
"Where’d you learn how to fix sinks?" Ruby cracked open the soda pop.
"I, uh ... I worked for my grandpa during the summers. He was a contractor before he retired.” Claire hid her alarm behind a smile as she grabbed the can of pop Ruby offered. “He taught me and my cousins all kinds of things about plumbing and carpentry." She sipped the ice-cold cola.
Ruby’s eyes lit up. "How do you feel about working outside instead of behind the counter? I could use help fixin’ this place up for the spring bird watching season."
“Sure,” Claire said without hesitation. Working outside would give her time alone—time to figure out how Ruby could pay off her debts without selling the mines and surrounding valley. Maybe, just maybe, she could come up with a way to stop that mining company from staking its claim on her grandma’s burial ground.
* * *
“Who the hell is that?” Mac Garner tapped the brakes and slowed his pickup to a crawl. He stared through the front windshield. The drone of Paul Harvey’s voice from the speakers faded.
Twenty feet in front of him, a woman pranced over the bridge that led into the Dancing Winnebagos R.V. Park. With long, black hair and an ass hard enough to make quarters bounce, she was decked out in stiletto heels, a silver miniskirt, and a hot pink bustier.
Mac inched up behind her. The right side of his front bumper drew level with her hips as she reached the other side of the bridge and stepped onto the shoulder. He rolled down the passenger side window, craning his neck to see if her front was as curvy as her back. His gaze landed on the white Persian cat she hugged between her full, bouncing breasts; Dolly Parton had nothing on this lady.
The cat glared at him, a piece of sagebrush tangled in the red bow ringing its neck.
“Howdy! Wanna ride?” he asked, shoving his field books, hard hat, and work gloves behind the pickup seat to make room for her. He’d been doing a lot of solo fieldwork down by Rio Rico for the last few months. Sharing the cab with a pair of shapely legs would be a treat.
“No, thanks, sweetheart.” Her voice crackled, like a poorly tuned AM radio.
Mac glanced up at her face for the first time and barely bit back a horror-filled shout. Deep wrinkles criss-crossed her forehead and cheeks, and furrowed her bright pink lips. The woman had at least thirty years on him.
His smile flash-frozen on his lips, he rolled up the window, hit the gas, and didn’t look back until he’d skidded to a stop in front of his Aunt Ruby’s General Store. Only then did he peek in his rearview mirror and watch as the lady sashayed out of view around the side of the store.
Shoving open his door, he scrambled out and took the front porch steps two at a time. “Ruby!” He marched past the cash register and peered down each of the four aisles. “Ruby, where are you?”
“In the rec room,” his aunt hollered.
Mac pushed through the curtain. “You’ll never guess what I—”
He stopped at the sight of a brunette sitting on a barstool in front of Ruby’s bar. As he stared at her, she pulled her red cap low over her brows. Mighty Mouse smiled back at him. Mac’s eyes narrowed. Ruby didn’t usually invite customers into her favorite hangout.
“Hi, honey,” his aunt said, drawing his gaze away from the other woman to where Ruby stood behind the bar. “How about a cold one?”
“No, thanks.” He shot Ruby a what-the-hell look.
“Suit yourself.” Ruby nodded toward her guest. “Mac, say hello to Claire. She’s my new handywoman.”
Handywoman? Mac crooked his head a little, trying to see under the red brim of her cap. She looked about thirty. “Nice to meet you.”
Claire’s dark eyes looked him up and down. “Same here.” She slid off the stool and set her pop can on the bar. “Thanks for the drink, Ruby. I’ll get started on the fence out back.” Her voice sounded soft, musical, with a hint of breathiness. Her blue jeans rode low on a pair of nicely curved hips; the strip of fair skin peeking out above her waistband looked smooth to the touch.
With a nod his way, she walked past him and breezed through the curtain. The subtle scent of watermelon trailed in her wake.
Mac sidled up to the bar and picked up the Coke can, still warm from Claire’s touch. “Where’d you dig her up?”
“She’s fixin’ to stay for a month and needed a job.”
“Did you check out her background?”
“Nope, and I don’t plan to. Her grandfather’s been visiting every spring since before I took over the park.”
“That doesn’t clear her from a history of chain gangs.”
“She’s as trustworthy as the next person.” Ruby leaned her elbows on the bar, her forehead wrinkling. “Are you feelin’ okay?”
“Sure.” Hell, no!
He was supposed to be on his way to China to see the one wonder of the world that had always captivated him—the Great Wall. Instead, here he sat in Jackrabbit Junction, Arizona, with the task of determining the value of his aunt’s mines in three short weeks. If it had been anyone else needing his help, he’d have recommended a bankruptcy attorney.
Not that his aunt had asked for help. She’d sooner cut off her left thumb.
Doubt darkened Ruby’s eyes. Mac switched subjects. “What’s the story on the dame who looks like Miami Vice from the back and the Golden Girls from the front?”
“Which one?”
He did a double-take.
Ruby grinned. “I’ve had strange-looking women of all shapes and sizes pouring in here every day for the last week.”
“And you just up and hired one of them as a handyman?”
“Handywoman.” She patted his forearm. “Don’t fret, you’ll have your old job back before you know it.”
“It’s not my old job I’m worried about.”
Her blush confirmed she’d caught his meaning. “There’s nothing to worry about here.” Ruby broke eye contact and brushed some nonexistent crumbs off the bar. “I appreciate you taking time off work to come all the way out here, but like I told you on the phone, I have it all under control.”
Receiving daily calls from bill collectors was not Mac’s idea of “under control.” But if Ruby ever found out he’d canceled his vacation to come help her, she’d knock him over the head with a frying pan.
The air conditioner on the wall across the room rattled to life. When the rattling didn’t stop, he glanced over. “Is that thing giving you trouble again?”
“Of course. It gets all uppity every time the temperature reaches eighty degrees.” Ruby marched over to the duct-taped unit and flat-handed it near the vent. The clattering stopped. “That’ll teach it.”
Mac grinned. “You should ask your new handywoman to fix it.”
She turned to him, hands on hips. “Maybe I will. And maybe I’ll have her show you a thing or two while she’s at it.”
The spark in her eyes made him chuckle. After a year of hard times for his aunt, it was good to see a glimpse of her old, feisty self. “Where’s Jess?” Without his fifteen year-old cousin jabbering about her latest heartthrob, the place was funeral-parlor quiet.
“Babysitting. She’ll be ba—” The store’s screen door squeaked. “A customer.” Ruby headed toward the curtain. “Listen, I’m glad to have you here for the next few weeks, but I’m sorry you had to come to my rescue.” She stopped long enough to drop a kiss on his cheek.
Mac crushed the Coke can in his hand. If he couldn’t help her sell those mines for a good price, he’d be sorry, too.
Chapter Three
“Holy crap! What crawled in here and died?” Claire plugged her nose to keep from gagging as she tiptoed into the shadow-filled tool shed.
Overhead, the tin roof clicked and clinked as the metal expanded from the heat of the mid-afternoon sun. The floor boards creaked under her shoes. Daylight peeked through the cobwebs clinging to the dirty window, outlining a workbench buried under a mound of rags. The previous handyman must not have subscribed to Good Housekeeping.
Searching for the drill Ruby had mentioned, Claire stepped over a weed-whacker with its nylon thread guts spilling out, then skirted a generator with a dented gas tank. She waded toward the workbench, lifted a handful of rags, and gasped.
A dead rat lay belly-up on top of the remaining rag pile. As she grimaced, its stomach hiccupped and boiled. The wet, sticky sound of something crawling through slime held her captive, then two maggots wiggled out from between the rat’s gaping jaws.
“Ugh,” she groaned and gulped, dropping all but one of the rags. She pinched her nostrils tighter. Shielding her hand with the cloth, she reached for the long, hairless tail.
A scream rang out right behind her.
Claire nearly rocketed out of her tennis shoes. She whirled around to see a teenage girl with red curly hair and a freckle-covered nose standing two feet away. The girl’s gaze was locked on the rat.
Who in the ... Her thought was cut off by another piercing scream. Ears ringing, Claire grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her out of the tool shed into the bright sunlight. Only then did she notice the plastic tumbler filled with an opaque liquid in the kid’s hand.