Dance of the Winnebagos

by Ann Charles

  Instead, she’d ended up mired in a slough of clues with no idea on how to link them together.

  Blowing her hair out of her face, Claire picked up the day planner she’d found in Joe’s briefcase and fanned through the pages. There had to be something she’d missed that explained why some of the dates were circled in red.

  Who kept a day planner with practically nothing in it?

  Claire’s older sister, Ronnie, carried a planner with her wherever she went. She wrote down everything in that damned book.

  Then there was Claire’s Aunt Mary, her mom’s sister, who carried a day planner for the sole purpose of wanting people to take her more seriously. Aunt Mary liked to wear silver glitter eye shadow and hats with life-sized, foam pieces of fruit gracing the brims. A planner wasn’t going to cut it.

  She snapped the book closed. She’d run head-long into another dead end.

  With a grunt of frustration, she hurled the book at the door. It hit with a satisfactory wump just as the doorknob turned and the door opened a crack—no further.

  “What?” Claire didn’t even try to tone down her annoyance. She’d told Ruby and the boys she needed some time alone—a rare commodity over the last few weeks.

  “Is the coast clear?” Mac asked through the crack.

  Claire crossed her arms. She’d missed the smell of him over the last couple of days, even resorting to sneaking into his room and sniffing his pillow a couple of times. But just because she was hungry for the sight of him didn’t mean she’d forgotten that he was deliberately withholding information from her. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether you came here to give me some answers, get hot and heavy, or just frustrate me more.”

  The door opened a bit further and his hand slipped through, her tool belt dangled from his fingers. “Does this answer your question?”

  Her pulse stuttered. A flame flickered to life clear down in her toes. There was only one reason he’d be carrying around her tool belt, and it had nothing to do with repairing fences.

  “I believe that particular deal involved you telling me who trapped you in Two Jakes mine. Are you going to spill?”

  “If you let me in without throwing anything at me.”

  Claire narrowed her eyes. She didn’t quite trust him, but the fire had already spread to her knees and was rushing northward. After the rotten day she’d had, she really, REALLY wanted him to spill. “Okay.”

  Mac stepped in and shut the door behind him, leaning against it with the tool belt still dangling from one finger. His eyes raked over her, his grin extra wolfish as he locked the door.

  She gulped, her lower belly now a glowing furnace.

  “You’re locking the door,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. She hoped that meant what she thought it meant.

  He nodded slowly, his eyelids fluttering low and sexy-like as he eyed her mouth. “I’m storming your beach.”

  “You’re what?” That sounded like something she’d hear Gramps and the boys say.

  Mac dropped the tool belt on the desktop and rounded the side. “I said, I’m storming your beach.”

  He pulled her from the chair and tugged her against him, the desert-fresh scent of his cologne enveloped her, mixed with a hint of beer and cigar smoke. He must have said hello to the boys before coming downstairs.

  “Okay.” Whatever he meant, she liked the sound of it. Her body felt so wired she could jump-start a blender. Her skin burned, her fingertips tingled. She wanted every inch of him ...

  His lips lowered toward hers. “Daisy Duck looks very sexy spread across your chest like that.”

  But not before he answered a couple of questions. She covered his mouth with her hand. “Hold it right there, Romeo.”

  Mac grunted, his hazel eyes smoldering with promises of wicked deeds.

  “We need to clear a few things before the clothes start flying.”

  Mac raised an eyebrow.

  “Who trapped you in that mine?” She lifted her hand, but didn’t step back. Breathing him in felt too damned good.

  The heat in his gaze cooled a couple of degrees. “Sophy.”

  “I knew it!”

  “But you have to promise me you’ll stay away from her.”

  Her eyes lowered to his Adam’s apple. “Of course,” she said, which she mostly meant.

  But she didn’t promise to stay away from Sophy’s shed. Knowing for certain that Sophy was behind the attacks on Mac shot Claire’s curiosity into the stratosphere. Something important was in the shed, and tomorrow she was going to find out what it was.

  “Claire.” Mac cupped her chin and forced her to look in his eyes. “I mean it. Sophy is dangerous—way more than you know.”

  “Why do you think she did it?” She veered from the subject before she started to fidget under his warning glare.

  He rubbed his thumb over her chin. “She’s looking for something in one of the mines, and I was poking around, getting in her way.”

  “I knew she was sadistic, but I had no idea she’d take things that far. Sealing someone in a mine is up there with cement blocks and gravel pits. That woman needs to be serving pie in a sanitarium.”

  “She’s running out of time,” he frowned, “well, as far as she knows. Had Ruby signed those papers today, the mining company would have been in those mines by the end of the week, and whatever Sophy wants would be out of reach forever.”

  Claire barely caught the end of his sentence.

  She stepped back, needing distance to focus properly on the conversation. “What do you mean had Ruby signed those papers? I thought she was going to sign and hand them over today.”

  Mac leaned against Joe’s desk. “I told her not to.”

  “You what?” A mouse’s sneeze would have knocked Claire on her ass. “What about ... You said ... I mean ...Why not?”

  “The mines are worth more than the mining company offered.”

  “How much more?”

  “Enough that selling for the amount they’re offering to pay would make Ruby look like a fool.”

  Claire plopped into the chair, her weight rolling it back several inches. “I’ll be damned.” Her grandmother’s ashes were safe from the steam shovel after all. “But how is Ruby going to pay the bank?”

  “I’ve got it taken care of.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “That’s my business.”

  “I’m sure Ruby would disagree with that.”

  Shrugging, Mac said, “She and I will work things out.”

  “So what comes next?”

  “You. Me. No clothes.”

  “I mean with Ruby and her mines.”

  Mac captured Claire’s hands and hoisted her out of the chair. “I know what you meant.” He dropped his hands to her hips and settled her in front of him, between his thighs.

  “So what’s your answer?”

  “My answer, hmmm ...” he ran his fingers up her arms and buried them in the hair at the nape of her neck, drawing her in. His lips brushed over hers, then returned, hard and demanding, stealing her breath. He leaned back. “My answer is that Daisy needs to go.”

  In one quick sweep, he hauled her T-shirt over her head.

  “Wow,” Claire chuckled as he tossed her shirt behind him. “You’re good at that.”

  “These need to go, too,” he said, unbuttoning her shorts and pushing them to the floor.

  His mouth claimed hers before she had a chance to react. She stepped out of her shorts as his tongue teased her. Her knees wobbled in anticipation, her head soaring.

  The feel of hard, stiff leather against her stomach pulled her back down to Earth. She glanced down as he cinched the tool belt under her belly button.

  “Now,” he said and nudged her back a step. “Let me look.”

  Claire crossed her arms, not sure what to do with her hands while she stood in front of him in nothing but her satin bra, butterfly-covered panties, tool belt, and tennis shoes. Wishing
she’d skipped the king-sized Snickers bar she’d eaten to ease her anxiety about her inability to help Ruby with her woes, she straightened her spine and sucked in her stomach.

  Mac ogled, and then ogled some more. He twirled his finger. “Spin around.”

  Claire shuddered. Dear Lord, the butt view.

  Now was the moment of truth.

  She turned. “I’m not exactly Victoria’s Secret catalog quality,” she said over her shoulder, “but I’m handy with a torch, and can weld better than most—”

  Mac grabbed her, spun her back around, and lifted her onto Joe’s desk. The pictures she’d been looking at went flying. The lighter engraved with SAM dug into her ass. “Hey,” she protested, pulling the lighter out from under her.

  Then Mac was all over her, touching and rubbing and licking and kissing, whispering promises of the things he’d do to her, blasting rational thoughts from her head.

  She tore off his shirt, popping buttons, and smiled at the sound of fabric ripping.

  “God, Claire.” He shed the remains of his shirt. “I’ve been thinking about this—about you, naked—for so damned long.”

  “Then hurry up and take off my bra.”

  He obliged in one swift move, then groaned as he stared down at her, tracing her skin with his eyes. His hands followed. Then his tongue.

  She leaned back onto her elbows, allowing him more access.

  “Your skin is so soft,” he said against her stomach. “So sexy.”

  Claire wiggled against him, eager for what came next. “Mac,” she whispered.

  “Mmmmm?” he answered against her skin.

  “Take your pants off.”

  His teeth nipped her hip bone. “I’m a little busy here.”

  Claire grabbed the sides of his head and forced him to look up at her. The dark hunger in his hazel eyes nearly turned her to Jell-O from the waist down. “Take them off now.”

  He shucked his boots and pants with Superman speed. She managed to kick off one tennis shoe before he found the inside of her knee with his lips and made her eyes roll back in her head.

  “Mac.” She moaned.

  His mouth moved up her inner thigh.

  She twisted and clenched. “Mac.”

  His finger slid up under her tool belt and lined the inside hem of her underwear. She was surprised the flimsy fabric didn’t combust.

  The delicious heat from his tongue circling her belly button made her shoeless foot shoot out straight, toes rigid in her sock.

  The tremors started deep within her core. She knew where this was leading, and as tempting as it was to lift her hips to his mouth, she wanted him inside of her this first time. Foreplay would get its due next time around. “Mac!”

  “What?” He pushed the tool belt higher on her waist and then cupped her hips.

  She latched onto his bare shoulders, holding tight. “It’s time.” She gasped as the tips of his fingers brushed over her.

  “Okay.” He caught a butterfly on her panties in his teeth and started to pull down the thin piece of fabric.

  She laced her fingers through the hair on his crown and yanked his head up so she could look at him eye to eye. His pupils were big, black pools. “If you’d like to participate in today’s event, then you need to take action now. Otherwise, I’m going alone.”

  He nodded. “Take them off.”

  Claire needed no second bidding. She wiggled out of her underwear in world record speed. Joe’s desk was cool under her bare skin.

  A smile curled the edges of his mouth. “I meant mine.”

  “Oh.”

  She obliged. Then she stared. Then she melted.

  “You better hurry up with that,” she pointed at the condom in his hand, glad he’d thought ahead, because she sure hadn’t and wasn’t sure she could have stopped at this point without it.

  He did and followed with a kiss that made her head spin.

  “Wrap your legs around me,” he whispered in her ear.

  She locked her ankles behind his back. “Mac, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you since you patched me up after the bar fight.”

  “What?” he paused right before entry, ready, his eyes searching.

  “I really like you.”

  The corners of his lips twitched. “You don’t say.”

  “And I really want to feel you deep inside of me.”

  He obliged in one swift shove. “Like this?”

  “Yes.” Her ankles tightened.

  He moved in and out again. “And this?”

  “God, yes.” She leaned back on her elbows.

  His mouth explored her cleavage, his tongue tracing circles as his thrusts drove her higher and higher. She tightened around him and wiggled, increasing the friction.

  A groan rose up from his chest. “Claire.”

  “You like that?” She did it again.

  “Too damned much.” Then he touched her with the pad of his thumb and the stars spun behind her closed lids.

  She started to cry out and then remembered she was in Ruby’s basement and moaned behind sealed lips as the waves of pleasure rippled through her.

  Mac wasn’t far behind, his lips on hers as he groaned into her mouth and shuddered under her hands.

  “Holy shit,” she said, smiling at the ceiling tiles. A warm glow lit her from the inside out. “That was freaking incredible.”

  Mac rested his forehead on her sternum. His hands still cupped her hips under the belt. “Slugger?”

  “Hmmm?” She combed his hair with her fingers.

  “We’re going to do that again.”

  “Yes.”

  “Only slower.”

  “Yes.”

  He pushed upright. “And on something soft.”

  “Definitely.” Her tailbone had practically dented Joe’s desk.

  “But you still have to wear the tool belt.”

  She laughed and turned her head, her gaze traveling from the Johnny Cash painting beside the door to the floor where the day planner had slid half out of its leather binder. Her fingers stilled.

  “What’re those?” she said under her breath, frowning at the two pieces of paper spilling out from between the planner and its leather sheath.

  She scrambled free of Mac’s hold, despite his protests, and rushed to the book. Her hands trembled as she scooped up the papers.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tuesday, April 27th

  Claire couldn’t find her underwear.

  “Where are you running off to so early this morning?” Mac’s voice, gravelly with sleep, stopped Claire at the bedroom door.

  Clad in her wrinkled T-shirt and shorts, sans the tennis shoes she clutched and her missing panties, Claire fished for a believable lie. Unfortunately, without caffeine, she had trouble just baiting the hook.

  “Uh ... I was just ... Yuccaville,” she answered. Pathetic, but after a night of sheet-burning sex, it was a wonder her synapses were even firing.

  “The sun isn’t even up yet.”

  “Yes, it is. Your eyes are closed.”

  Mac patted the mattress next to him.

  She caught sight of her butterfly undies sticking out from under his pillow.

  “Come back here,” he said. “I haven’t thanked you properly yet for getting my compass back.”

  Tempting, Claire thought, what with him sprawled on the yellow sheets, looking all tan and finger-licking yummy in his birthday suit. But she had a date with a padlock and a pair of bolt cutters.

  “Where’s your tool ...” Mac’s breathing slowed, lengthened, “belt?”

  Claire remained cemented to the floor until she saw his chest expanding and collapsing rhythmically. Then she tiptoed over, pulled out her undies, and stuffed them in her shoes. The door hinges creaked as she slipped out of the bedroom.

  She tiptoed down the hall toward the stairs, sniffing for a whiff of brewed coffee. If Ruby was already up, Claire was busted. At this point, the fewer who knew she’d spent the night rubbing skin wit
h Mac the better.

  As she hit the bottom stair, the door to Ruby’s bedroom opened. Claire paused, her bare foot hanging in midair.

  Gramps stepped out of the room and quietly pulled the door shut behind him. He jolted in surprise when he saw her standing so close to him.

  “Jesus Christ, girl,” he whispered and backed against the closed door, holding his chest. “You shouldn’t sneak up on an old man like that.”

  Claire noticed the stubble covering his cheeks and jaw and grinned. “You were in Ruby’s bedroom.”

  “So?”

  “What were you doing in her bedroom?”

  Gramps narrowed his eyes. “None of your business.”

  Her grin widened. The man needed a new line.

  His gaze lowered to the shoes she was still hanging on to. “Why are your skivvies stuffed in your shoe?”

  Without looking down, Claire shoved her butterfly panties deeper into her tennis shoe. “They aren’t mine,” she lied for the second time in less than five minutes. She was on a roll this morning. At the rate she was going, she’d be roasting in Hell by mid-afternoon.

  “Your shirt is buttoned crooked,” she said to distract him and pushed past him as he frowned at the buttons that were done up correctly.

  She was down the hall and halfway through the rec room by the time he caught up with her.

  “My shirt is just fine,” he said to her back.

  “What was it doing off in the first place?” She wondered what Rosy would say if she found out he’d been rolling around in Ruby’s sheets all night.

  Gramps followed her out the back door into the morning air, already stale with heat. The sun warmed her like a towel straight from the dryer.

  “You have enough trouble of your own brewing, no need to nose into mine,” Gramps said.

  “What are you talking about?” She hobbled over the sharp gravel toward Ruby’s old Ford. With Gramps tight on her tail, she’d sooner walk across a bed of nails than take the time to dig out her underwear and slip on her shoes.

  “You spent the night with Mac.”

  “Yeah, so what?” Unlike Gramps, she had no problem owning up.

  “What happens whenever you jump into bed with a man?”

  Claire didn’t really see how this was appropriate subject matter before breakfast, especially since the other participant was her grandfather, but she answered anyway. “I don’t know. I have sex with him?”