by Ann Charles
She skipped across the dirt drive, puffs of dust trailing in her wake. Apparently, his comment about schoolwork hadn’t had a lasting effect.
“I heard you had an accident Tuesday night,” Chester said.
Mac turned back to find three pairs of keen eyes staring him down. How much did they know about the last forty-eight hours? Hell, Mac wasn’t even sure yet how much he knew. And without evidence to prove someone threw a lit stick of dynamite in the mine with the intention of sealing him in there, he had nothing to hand over to Sherriff Harrison besides theories and suspicions.
Lucky for him, his would-be murderer had no idea about the man-hole-sized air vent past the rotting porcupine that some miner had hacked into the hillside. The blinding sun had been a welcome sight, the fresh, dry air coaxing the musty moisture from his lungs. When he’d heard the rattle of Ruby’s old Ford on the road below, his knees had nearly buckled.
“Señorita Jess said someone stole your pickup and left you stranded at the mine overnight.”
Mac nodded, but kept his lips sealed. While poking holes in his brake lines, his wanna-be assassin must have found the spare key hidden in the wheel well. Stealing his pickup was a minor crime compared to using it as a decoy; the former ruled by greed, the latter by a much more malicious intention.
“You’ve really run into a patch of bad luck lately, boy,” Harley said, his gaze locked onto Mac’s.
“Sure seems like it.”
Harley cocked his eyebrow. “What’s your take on the value of those mines?”
His “take” was that he’d have a better chance at guessing the value of the moon. With just four days until Ruby’s deadline, uncertainty hung around his shoulders like a lead cape. “Until I get results back on those samples I took to Phoenix last week,” he said, rubbing his forehead, “I’m not drawing any conclusions.”
“What happened to your hand?” Chester pointed at Mac’s hand, the one he’d gashed on a sharp edge of amethyst in the mine’s wall after wading out of the pool.
“Just a little accident.” Mac stuffed his hand in his pocket.
“Hmpff. He’s as bad as Claire,” Harley told his buddies.
The amethyst find was nothing to blab about. It could play a bigger role in Ruby’s future than the sample results. If it had been just a thin vein, he wouldn’t think twice about its effect on the mine’s value, but a ten-foot wide section of grade-A purple quartz was nothing to shrug off. If that vein extended into the last unmapped tunnel, Two Jakes might be worth more than the other three mines put together—maybe not to the copper company, but surely to a gem seller.
Chester let out a wolf whistle.
Footsteps crunched on the drive behind Mac. He turned to see what had all three boys grinning like village idiots and was blinded by sunlight ricocheting off a rhinestone-peppered bikini top.
“Ms. Derriere is strutting her stuff again.” Harley said, his voice hushed.
Mac shielded his eyes from the walking disco ball. The woman would have made Liberace scream with envy. He dragged his gaze back to the boys.
Manny stared after the woman, his grin tiger-like. “How did your date go last night with Fanny, Chester?”
Chester grunted. “We played strip poker. She stripped, and I poked her.”
Laughter filled the afternoon air.
“What’s so funny?” Jess asked from behind Mac.
“Chester’s love life,” Mac said.
Jess wrinkled her nose, and Mac couldn’t have agreed more.
“So where’s Claire?” Mac asked after they’d quieted down.
“Probably running into barbed-wire fences again,” Harley said.
Manny chuckled and sipped his Corona.
“Claire is playing with fire,” Harley continued, shooting Mac a glance. “Sophy is dangerous.”
Mac got the impression he was being warned. “Are you referring to those three-inch claws?”
Manny made a purring noise in his throat. “Mmmmm. Red nails. She’s dangerous all right—dangerously sexy.”
“I bid three,” Jess said, then peered over the top of her cards at Manny.
“Pass.” Chester threw his cards face-down on the table. “Sexy, yes. But she’s also dangerously deceptive.”
“Exactly.” Harley knocked twice on the table to show he passed, too.
“Deceptive how?” Mac asked. Besides hiding behind too much makeup and what had to be one of those inflatable bras, Mac couldn’t imagine Sophy doing anything that would get dirt under her red fingernails.
“I’ll pass, too, gatita,” Manny said, patting Jess twice on the head. “You get to call trump.”
“There’s more to Sophy than short skirts and red lipstick.” Harley lit a cigar with a silver-plated lighter.
“Hearts is trump.” Jess threw down the Jack of hearts. “Are you guys talking about that old lady who works at the diner? The one who always has hickeys on her neck?”
Chester tossed out the Queen of hearts. “She once broke a guy’s arm for trying to steal second base without her approval.”
Jess’s mouth fell open. “She broke his arm for trying to French kiss her?”
“What are you saying?” Mac asked. “The woman is no light-weight in the ring?” Judging from the way Claire was throwing punches while rolling around on the bar floor, she wasn’t either.
“Yes, and something else—something that may interest you in particular.” Harley threw a nine of hearts on top of Chester’s Queen. “A couple of years ago, Mabel was sputtering every time I started her up. One day, when I was leaving the diner, Sophy was outside smoking and heard Mabel do her coughing routine. The next morning, when Sophy brought me my usual, she told me I needed to get Mabel’s idle jets cleaned. The woman could tell just by listening.”
Mac’s gut twisted as the meaning behind Harley’s words sunk into his sleep-hung-over brain.
Manny took another swig of his Corona, then cleared his throat. “She told me her father was in the 89th Infantry Division as a mechanic for the regimental motor pool. He taught her how to put together an engine piece by piece. When I asked her why she didn’t run a garage instead of the diner, she told me kitchen grease is easier to wash off.” Manny dropped a ten of hearts on top of the pile and grinned at Jess. “Good job, señorita. You won that round.”
“Yay!” Jess clapped her hands.
As he watched Jess rake in the cards, Mac’s thoughts raced. Looking at Sophy, he’d never guess she could be the one sabotaging his truck. But if what the boys were telling him was true, he now knew his number one suspect. What to do with this knowledge had him spinning in circles.
Harley smiled across the table at Jess. “Nice work, kid. Now do it again.” He looked up at Mac and the wattage of his smile dimmed. “You get my point then, boy?”
Mac nodded. “Where’s Claire?” He didn’t hide the urgency in his voice. Claire had better be more tender-footed around Sophy. If Sophy was capable of trying to bury him alive in Two Jakes, she’d stop at nothing to get rid of Claire.
“She’s cleaning out the tool shed,” Jess supplied while throwing out the Ace of hearts.
“Thanks.” Mac tipped his head to the boys before turning to leave.
“Oh, Mac,” Jess’s voice stopped him. “I heard Claire tell Ruby she’s going out looking for more bones with or without you this afternoon. She’s tired of waiting around.”
No way in hell was she going out there without him.
“It’s not nice to keep a lady waiting,” Chester told Mac. “Gets them all hot and bothered.”
“You’d know,” Harley said. “That’s part of your technique.”
“Isn’t that what Mac wants from Claire?” Manny asked.
Mac escaped before they could hold him over the coals any longer.
Five minutes later, he stood outside the open shed door listening to Claire bumping around inside.
He stepped into the shed. The stagnant heat trapped under the steel roof made him pause to accli
mate to the oven-like air. As his eyes adjusted to the shadowed interior, the smell of grease, gas, and dust filled his sinuses.
Claire stood at the far wall of the shed, her back to him as she struggled with something that had her spewing curses auctioneer-style. Her orange T-shirt, darkened with sweat along her spine, clung to her like a faded sunburn, a slice of her porcelain-pale skin visible just below the bottom hem. Her jeans hung low on her hips, a tool belt slung around her waist.
Mesmerized by the belt wrapping around her hips, Mac strolled toward her. His palms itched to trace the curves under her jeans. As he reached for that crescent of bare skin, a loose floor board creaked under his weight.
Claire whirled around, her eyes wide, a wrench in her hand.
Mac grinned. “Morning, slugger.”
“Damn it, Mac,” she tossed the wrench behind her on the bench. “You scared the shit out of me.”
His focus returned to her hips. “Nice tool belt you’ve got there.” Manny was right—the sight of a woman in a tool belt could drop a man to his knees.
Mac’s gaze crawled up her T-shirt to where Porky Pig smiled back at him, the words Men are Pigs scrawled in blue underneath the mug shot. The orange cotton hugged the soft swells beneath. He gulped.
Claire’s eyes narrowed. “Mac.” She stepped back, her butt bumping into the workbench. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Claire,” he managed to say around the thick lump of flesh that was his tongue. He reached for her.
“Freeze, buster.” She whipped a drill out from behind her and held it between them.
He paused, the tip of a bit poking into his chest. “Drop the drill.”
She shook her head. “I don’t trust you. I’ve seen that wicked gleam in your eyes before, and it’s always followed by your lips kissing me senseless.”
“And you object?”
“Right now I do. I have a few questions for you, and it’ll be impossible to ask them if your tongue is in my mouth.”
He knew a brick wall when he hit one. He stepped back and rested on his heels. “Okay, shoot.” The quicker they got this over with, the sooner he could sink his teeth into that sweet spot on her shoulder.
“Well, to start with, are those mines worth more than the mining company is offering?”
Mac shrugged. “Right now, I don’t know.” Which was the truth.
He wasn’t going to clue Claire in on the amethyst cache until he did some research on the value of gem mines. He didn’t need her running to Ruby and convincing her not to sell if the vein in Two Jakes turned out to be nothing more than a small pocket of amethyst.
“When will you know?”
“After Saturday, I hope.”
“What’s Saturday?”
“I’m heading back to Phoenix for the samples and results.”
She seemed to chew on that for several seconds. “Are you going to go back in those mines?”
“Yes.” As much as he’d rather not, he had to.
There was that last tunnel in Two Jakes to explore, as soon as he found the nerve. The only way into that mine was back through the air vent and past the rotting porcupine. The thought of swimming across that inky pool again made his ball sack shrink.
Rattlesnake Ridge had about a mile of drifts to check out, and he had yet to step foot in the Lucky Monk. Plus, Socrates Pit held something Sophy was willing to kill to protect.
“You’re insane.”
“I have a job to do.”
“You’re willing to risk your life to do it?”
He nodded once. “Whatever it takes.”
She wiped at a drop of sweat trickling down her forehead. “Who drove your truck home the other night?”
“I don’t know,” he said, but he had a strong suspicion.
Claire shot him one of her “bullshit” glares.
Until he found out why Sophy was trying to remove him from the picture, he wasn’t going to waste time speculating with Claire—she was too quick to act for his comfort.
“Who trapped you in Two Jakes?”
“The mouth caved in—no big deal. These kinds of accidents happen periodically. Years of heat and cold waging war on the fractures in the rock tend to weaken them.” Neither Claire nor Ruby needed to think it was anything more than an accident. “The copper mining company’s nighttime blasting probably triggered the whole thing.”
“Spare me the geology lesson, Mac.” She dropped the drill on the counter behind her. “I saw the debris. Cave-ins don’t imbed pebbles two inches deep into ten-by-ten inch slabs of timber.” She crossed her arms over Porky’s face. “I also saw boot prints outside Two Jakes that were too small to be yours.”
The woman was sharp—too sharp. She wasn’t going to let him off with a few head scratches and shoulder shrugs. What he needed was a distraction.
Mac grinned. “You look sexy as hell in that tool belt.”
“Mac,” she warned, reaching behind her.
He closed the distance between them and pinned her against the workbench, clamping his hand down on top of hers over the drill. “And there’s nothing hotter than a beautiful woman with big ...,” he cupped the back of her head, “... brains,” he finished, his lips almost touching hers.
“Don’t patronize me.” Her breath fanned his chin. “And distracting me is not going to work.”
He palmed her hips and tugged her tight against him. “I’m not patronizing.” He reinforced his words with an unwavering gaze. “You’re a very intelligent woman, which you’ve proven repeatedly in the two short weeks I’ve known you. And as you can tell,” he glanced downward, “I find that fact a huge turn-on.”
“Oh.” Her voice sounded strangled. She cleared her throat. “Thanks.”
Mac heard her suck in a breath as he trailed his lips down the tendon bridging her ear and collarbone.
“But ...” she moaned when he nipped her shoulder, “I still want to know who trapped you in that mine.”
He slipped his hands inside her shirt. Her stomach trembled under his fingers as he inched them up her ribcage. The softness of her warm, silky skin made his knees weak.
He wanted to touch her—all of her—and he was tired of fighting what he wanted.
“And I’m not going ...” her eyes widened when he unhooked her bra. “I’m not going to stop ...” her breath hitched as he licked the sensitive hollow between her neck and shoulder. “Stop asking you ...” her voice quivered as his thumbs caressed the damp skin where her underwire had rested. “Oh, screw it.”
She hopped up on the workbench and wrapped her legs around his hips. “Mac,” she whispered, trailing her fingertip down over his Adam’s apple. “Take your shirt off.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” He lifted it over his head and dropped it on the bench next to her.
Her finger took a circular course down to his navel. He caught it at the waist of his jeans and lifted it to his mouth, then ran his lips along her wrist up to her inner elbow. “Claire,” he said against her soft flesh.
“Yes?” she licked her lips as he stared at her mouth.
“Kiss me.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said and slid her fingers in his hair, pulling his mouth to hers. Her tongue coaxed his, her hands sliding over his bare shoulders.
Mac pulled away from her mouth and rained kisses down her chin and neck, making his way south. She smelled of grease, tool shed, and sunshine, and he wanted to taste every sweet and salty inch of her.
He palmed Porky the Pig’s rounded cheeks, the soft weight of her filling his palms. The ache inside him cinched tighter.
Her nails scraped down his bare back.
“Christ,” Mac said slipping his hands under her shirt. “When you wiggle your hips against me ...” he paused as his thumbs hit paydirt. What would she taste like? “I can’t think straight.”
“Really?” Her tone teased. “What happens when I do this?” She reached down and ran her palm over his zipper.
He groaned and pushed back
against her.
“I want you, Mac,” she whispered, pressing harder, her teeth grazing his earlobe. “I want you to—”
“OH, MY GOD!” Ruby’s cry stopped Mac cold, like a bucket of ice dumped down the front of his pants.
He yanked his hands out from under Claire’s T-shirt, keeping his back to his aunt.
“I’m so sorry,” Ruby said.
Mac peeked at her over his shoulder. Her hand was clamped over her eyes.
“I didn’t see anything, I swear.”
Liar! Her fiery blush told the truth.
Mac turned back to Claire, who was trying to fasten her bra. He reached out to help and she batted his hands away, shaking her head vigorously.
Was it too much to ask to ravish Claire without an audience? “What do you need, Ruby?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Claire.”
So did he, something fierce. His aunt could wait in line.
“I have to go to Yuccaville for a couple of hours, and I need her to watch the store.”
“I’ll be there in just a second.” Claire hopped down from the workbench, still adjusting her bra.
Ruby sprinted out of the shed like her hair was on fire.
Picking up his shirt from the workbench, Mac took a deep breath. “Claire, if I don’t see you naked soon, I’m going to lose my mind.”
He watched her straighten the tool belt on her hips. “On second thought, lose the clothes and keep the tool belt.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her toward him.
Chuckling, she pulled free of his grip and backed toward the door. “Tell me who trapped you in that mine, Mac Garner, and I’ll make every one of your tool belt fantasies come true.”
* * *
Friday, April 23rd
Claire’s luck had gone the way of the Dodo bird.
She slouched on a stool behind the counter in the General Store, frowning out the door at a pair of Spotted Towhees playing tag in the early morning sunshine.
The heat had yet to catch up with the morning, but warm drafts of sagebrush-scented air pushing through the screen held the promise of sweaty backs and stinky armpits.
The sound of Jess screaming at her mother drowned out the soft jingles from the wind chimes. Claire closed her eyes and tried to block out the anger raging down through the overhead vent.