by Ann Charles
He watched her, his lips flat-lined. “All right, then finish your sentence.”
An idea hit her. A way to keep from ending up tied to a chair tonight with a gun in her face. “I was thinking that you need to arrest me, Sheriff.”
She needed him. Well, needed his protection anyway, until she could shake these two goons. Being arrested solved that problem. She’d worry about how to lie her way out of this with her family later.
“For parking illegally?” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know how things work back in South Dakota, but down here in the desert illegal parking scores you a ticket, not jail time.”
“Yes, but this is my second offense in as many days.” She held out her wrists. “You should slap your cuffs on me and take me in.”
Sheriff Hardass pushed his hat back on his head, scratching his forehead. “Take you in? I’m not even heading back to Yuccaville tonight.”
“Where are you heading?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Well, it’s obviously not a date.” She tapped her fingernail on his Sheriff’s star. “Unless your girlfriend likes it when you role play.”
He stared hard at her, his chiseled face completely still in the orange-tinged light, shadowed in the crags and crevices. “Have you been drinking, Mrs. Jefferson?”
“You used that line on me last time. You need to come up with some new ones. And my name is not Mrs. Jefferson.” The less that name was spoken the better, especially in front of the two goons who stood watching them—one smoking, the other leaning. She grabbed the Sheriff by the arm, tugging him toward his white, four-door patrol truck with the obnoxious grill.
He didn’t budge. “What are you doing, Mrs. Jef—”
“Call me Veronica, please.” She pulled again, this time getting his feet to crunch across the gravel after hers.
“Fine. What are you doing, Veronica?”
That was better. When she reached his truck, she let go of his arm and hauled open the passenger side door. “I’m arresting myself for multiple infractions.”
“Did you hit your head recently, woman?”
“No.” She climbed up into the truck, settling herself into the passenger seat. “Let’s go, Sheriff. Take me in and throw away the key.”
He filled the door frame, his face a mask of shadows. “What’s really going on here?”
“It’s simple. I broke the law. You’re going to punish me for it.”
His shoulders stiffened. “Get out of my vehicle, Mrs. Jefferson.”
She pushed her feet into the floorboards, digging in the heels of her sandals. “It’s Veronica, Sheriff, or Ronnie if that is easier for you to remember, and you owe it to your community to lock me up tonight. I could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” He guffawed. “More like off your meds.”
“Exactly. A night in jail would probably do me good.” And keep her safe. “You should teach me a lesson while we’re at it.”
“What in the he—heck is wrong with you?” He reached for her arm but she pulled away before he caught her. “Lady, get out of my pickup.”
“No.”
“I’m not joking.” He reached again.
She dodged. “Neither am I. Arrest me, damn it. It’s your job.”
“I’m not going to arrest you for illegal parking.”
Shit. Why was he making this so hard? Maybe she should just tell him about the two goons. No, he’d think she was even more nuts, paranoid even.
Another brilliant idea hit her. “Fine, if you aren’t going to haul me in for my illegal parking, you need to take me home.”
“Take you home?”
“Yes. I’ve been drinking.” When he continued to stare in at her without moving, she added, “A lot. Way too much.”
“You’re not slurring your words.”
She thought fast. “I studied linguistics in college.” Okay, maybe that was too fast.
“Studied linguistics, huh? That’s a new one.” He fumbled with a snap on his belt and then shined a flashlight in her face, making her wince and shield her eyes. “You don’t look drunk.”
“I’ve built up a tolerance for alcohol and hold my liquor well, but I’m sure I’m over the legal limit.”
He lowered the light, leaning into the cab sniffing. “You don’t smell like you’re drunk.”
When he started to pull away, she grabbed him by the shirt front and yanked him back. “I do, too.” She opened her mouth wide and breathed all over his face. “See?”
He recoiled, overacting in her opinion.
“Gin and tonic,” she told him. “Now is it or is it not your duty as an officer of the law to transport someone who has had too much liquor and has no way of getting home safely?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s my ‘duty.’”
“Quit splitting hairs. It’s a service you are supposed to offer.”
“You’ve been watching too much television. I’m not a taxi driver.”
“Of course not. You’re an elected civil servant who is paid by taxpayer money. Therefore, I believe that makes me your boss, and as your boss, I’m asking you nicely to drive me home.”
He stared at her for a handful of heartbeats. Ronnie could have sworn she heard his back molars grinding away.
“You came here alone?” he asked.
“Not entirely, but she’s busy right now.”
Sheriff Hardass looked up at the sky and cursed under his breath; then he took on that authoritative stance again, hands holding onto his belt. “Veronica Jefferson, would you please remove your person from my vehicle before I …” he hesitated.
“What are you going to do? Call for backup? Arrest me?”
He closed his mouth, opened it, and then closed it again. It was a great fish out of water imitation. She doubted he practiced that in front of the locker room mirror.
Ronnie checked over the Sheriff’s shoulder. The two men had climbed into their car, but remained there in the semi-darkness. She could see the dark outlines of their hats through the windshield.
They sure were persistent assholes. Cripes. She needed the safe passage that Sheriff Hardass could offer, and he was playing hardball. Fine, after the hell she’d been through in the last few months, she could play hardball with the best of them, especially a small-time Sheriff in a dust-bunny county.
She started unbuttoning her blouse.
The Sheriff found his tongue when she made it to the fourth button. “What in the hell are you doing now, woman?”
The fifth button slipped out, then the sixth. Two to go.
She glared up at the big doofus. “If you’re not going to arrest me for parking illegally or escort me home after I’ve had too much to drink, you leave me no choice.”
Shucking off her shirt, she threw it at him. It hit him in the face then drifted to the ground.
She reached for her bra’s front clasp. “I’m going to get arrested for indecent exposure.”
* * *
Mac slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop in The Shaft’s gravel parking lot.
What in the hell?
On the other side of the lot, a big white pickup with SHERIFF decaled in black on the side idled under a streetlight, waiting in the orange glow as a semi-truck roared past. Between the streetlight and the glare of his headlights, he could swear it was Claire’s sister in the passenger seat.
The pickup rolled out the other side of the lot onto State Route 191. Mac leaned forward, peering through his front window. What would Ronnie be doing in a Sheriff’s truck? It’d make more sense if she were in the back seat behind the divider after the cagey way she had been acting lately.
The Sheriff’s truck made a right at the junction and sped off down the road toward his aunt’s R.V. park. After watching the taillights fade in the darkness, Mac eased into a spot that a black sedan with tinted windows had just left and killed the engine. If that really was Ronnie in the cab, why was the Sheriff or one of his deputies taking her home? Did something
happen in The Shaft requiring the law to show up? Something involving a certain brunette he couldn’t resist with a cute but prying nose, who had a knack for slugging first and sobering up later?
He climbed out into the cool night air and slammed his door closed, his footfalls loud in the soft copper light surrounding him. Maybe he was seeing things. Maybe Sheriff Harrison had stopped by to talk to Butch and that was all. The two were long-time fishing buddies if Mac remembered right. The woman could have been the Sheriff’s sister or a date. Ronnie was probably sitting inside nursing her usual gin and tonic while plotting the next thing she could do to throw a wrench in his sex life.
He glanced around the nearly full parking lot and growled under his breath when his gaze found his aunt’s pickup. Damn it, Claire. She knew better than to park in front of Jackrabbit Junction’s only fire hydrant. He’d have to get the keys and move the truck. It was a wonder Sheriff Harrison hadn’t left a ticket under the windshield wiper or had the pickup towed.
Natalie’s truck was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’d left early and slipped by Ruby’s General Store. Mac had been stuck inside playing a game of Euchre in the rec room with Manny, Chester, and Ruby while Deborah had been chewing on Harley in the kitchen. Her father’s refusal to agree to spend a month with her in Phoenix going through physical therapy with more qualified doctors than “Yuccaville’s quacks” had her in a rant-filled tizzy.
A steady thumping bass leaked out of The Shaft’s front door. He yanked it open and stood back as a couple of women stumbled out giggling. They smelled like they had been swimming in a vat of perfume and beer.
Mac stepped inside the bar and scanned the room until he locked onto Kate. He dodged an older woman with a mass of platinum blonde hair hay-stacked on her head and carrying two pitchers full of beer and foam, and threaded his way through clusters of bodies.
“What happened to your lip?” he asked when he got a close look at Kate. Her lower lip was swollen on one side, a slice of dried blood splitting the center of it.
Kate leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. “Somebody clipped me.” She glared across the table at her sister, who was just lowering into a chair.
Mac pulled out the chair next to Claire, noticing her right hand had a white napkin wrapped around her knuckles. He put one and one together. “Christ, Slugger. You hit your sister?”
“Not on purpose.” She pointed a finger at her sister. “Besides it’s Kate’s fault.”
“How is getting punched by you my fault?”
“You shouldn’t have gotten in the way.”
“You shouldn’t have swung at the guy.”
“What guy?” Mac asked, sitting. His gaze lowered to her T-shirt. The faded image of a she-devil with La Diabla written under her forked tail was pulled tight across Claire’s chest, the fabric strained just enough.
Claire leaned toward him. He smelled the watermelon shampoo she used, flashing back to the last time he’d had her against the wall in the shower, and gulped. “I think they’re after that gold pocket watch Joe has stuffed in his wall safe down in your aunt’s basement,” she said in his ear.
“They?” He looked across at Kate. “There was more than one of them?”
“Katie-girl,” a woman spoke from behind Mac, “here’s some ice for that lip.”
Mac looked over his shoulder. The waitress he’d seen earlier carrying the pitchers of beer handed Kate a bumpy bundle wrapped in a towel. The woman’s bright pink lips matched the bright pink checkered shirt tied at her waist, just above the jeans she must have painted on. With the mole above the left side of her upper lip and the extra-long eyelashes she was sporting, she reminded him of a blonde version of Ginger from Gilligan’s Island. Only her voice had a soft drawl to it, rather than a vixen’s purr. Subtract twenty-five years from her face and the Professor and Gilligan would definitely have been putty in her hands.
“You sure you don’t want something for your knuckles?” Ginger the blonde waitress asked Claire.
“Nah. I didn’t hit her that hard, just scraped over her teeth.”
Mac removed the napkin from Claire’s hand and looked at the two cuts on her knuckles, whistling under his breath. “You should get some peroxide on that. I have some in my truck.”
“Don’t we have some in the first aid box Butch keeps on the wall in the kitchen?” Ginger asked Kate.
“I’ve never looked.”
“I’ll go see.” The waitress picked up a glass from the table that was half-full of clear liquid and a lemon wedge stabbed by a straw and left.
Mac’s focus returned to Claire’s knuckles. “That was a good graze.”
“I think Kate’s part shark. Her mouth is full of razors.”
Lifting her hand, he brushed his lips over the back of it, careful to skirt her injury. Claire gave him a smile that warmed his cockles and everything below them. She cupped his jaw, leaning toward him, angling for a kiss.
“Oh, my God!” Kate snarled, grabbing Mac’s shoulder and jerking him away from Claire. “Knock off that googly-eyed shit, both of you. She punched me in the mouth, her baby sister, and you’re kissing her owie better? This is all wrong. She’s a freaking bully. She was a bully back when she gave me rose-gardens on my arm every other day, and she’s a bully now.” She hit Claire with a pointed glare. “Wait until Mom sees what you did to me, you big brat.”
“You’re such a puss.” Claire slid over into the chair next to Kate and grabbed her head, forming her lips into an over-exaggerated pucker. “Come here, my poor little baby sister, and let me kiss it all better for you.”
Kate smacked at her arms and punched her in the shoulder. When Claire refused to be pushed aside, Kate broke into a big grin, and then winced and dabbed at her split lip. “Ow! I can’t even smile without it hurting.”
After dropping a loud kiss on Kate’s forehead, Claire took the bottle of peroxide Ginger the waitress had returned with, along with a handful of cotton balls.
“Where did Ronnie go, anyway?” she asked, unscrewing the cap of the peroxide bottle.
“She left,” Kate said. “I saw her racing out the door right before you clobbered me.”
Claire’s lips twisted. “Typical of Ronnie to run, skirting conflict at every turn. She’s never stood up to anyone.”
“Especially Mom,” Kate smirked at Claire. “And look where that got her—newly divorced.”
Mac took the peroxide from Claire, picked up a cotton ball and soaked it. He tugged Claire back to the chair next to him and went to work cleaning her cuts. “I think I saw Ronnie heading down the road in the Sheriff’s pickup.”
“What?” Kate and Claire both said in unison.
“I’m not one hundred percent certain, but it sure looked like her.”
“Is Ruby’s Ford still out there?” Claire asked.
Mac nodded. “You parked next to the fire hydrant again.”
“Not me. Natalie dropped me off and went back to get some sleep–something is up with her lately, I swear. She’d normally always choose men and beer over sleep.” She winced when he dripped peroxide into the deeper scrape on her middle knuckle. “Anyway, Ronnie must have illegally parked and gotten busted by the Sheriff.”
“Sheriff Harrison can be a stickler for the law,” Kate said, “but he wouldn’t have taken Ronnie in for that, would he?”
“They were headed away from Yuccaville, toward the R.V. park.”
The waitress stopped by again, her colored-on eyebrows raised. “Can I get you two anything else?” she asked the brawlers.
Kate pushed out the fourth chair at the table with her foot. “Have a seat, Arlene. It’s my turn to do a couple of rounds while you take a break.” When Arlene hesitated, Kate grabbed her forearm and tugged her down. “I insist.”
“Well, my dogs could use a little rest.” She dropped into the chair on Mac’s left.
“Have you met Mac before?” Kate asked. Arlene shook her head. “Mac is Claire’s … boyfriend. They live together in Tuc
son. Mac, this is Arlene. Butch hired her about two weeks ago.”
“Three weeks,” Arlene corrected.
Mac preferred Ginger; it fit the older blonde better and was much more entertaining.
“Really?” Kate frowned. “Damn, how time flies when you’re pouring beer night after night with no future goals in sight.”
Mac would have had to have been deaf not to pick up on the bitterness in Kate’s comment, but after living with two Morgans for the last couple of months and dealing with their problems, he wasn’t in the mood to take on a third. He was a geotechnician not a masochist.
“I’ve been meaning to ask where you’re from, Arlene?” Claire asked.
“Southern Kentucky, originally. But most recently from Florida where I spent the last ten years or so takin’ care of my mama.”
“What brought you to Jackrabbit Junction?” Mac asked, spreading salve on a bandage. Why had she left the Atlantic Ocean for a dusty old stage stop in the middle of Arizona mining country?
“I had family here years ago. They lived up Yuccaville way. When my mama passed a few months back, God rest her soul, I was finally free to go wherever I pleased.”
Mac covered Claire’s scrapes with the bandage. “And Yuccaville was your destination of choice?” The Florida sunshine must have ripened her brain too much.
“I had so many good memories of the town and folks in it that I decided to come back and hang around for a time.”
Good memories of Yuccaville? Mac sat back, his brows raised. Maybe she had Yuccaville, Arizona confused with another Yuccaville. One that wasn’t filled with dust devils, rusty mining equipment, and rows of decrepit company-owned shacks.
Claire made a fist, testing his first aid skills. “And you got a job here at The Shaft of all places.”
“Hey,” Kate slapped Claire’s shoulder. “Butch runs a respectable business. Don’t knock this place.”
“You were the one knocking it a moment ago.”
“I’m allowed to. I work here.”
“Oh, is that what you call sleeping with the owner for money?” Claire’s grin took the sting out of her words.
“No, I call sex with Butch a fringe benefit.” Kate’s smile was ghostly, not quite reaching a full bodied form. “Anyway, Arlene was hanging out here several nights a week keeping me company and asked if we needed some help. With Butch’s newest adventure taking up so much of his time and energy, this place needs all of the help we can get.”