by Ann Charles
“I’m not hiding from Mother,” Ronnie said. “I’m—”
The back door swung open, interrupting her.
In flounced Deborah, wearing a fancy pink getup. Mac almost laughed aloud at her frilly ensemble.
A tall, lanky blond guy in designer jeans and a button-up shirt followed on her sparkly heels.
“Oh, you’re such a charmer,” Deborah cooed, fluttering her eyelashes at the stranger. Even her lips were painted pink. Pepto-Bismol should have paid her for ad space.
“Ay yi yi, Deborah,” Manny said. “You are a vision, like a pink rose.”
Deborah shot Don Juan a lightning fast glare before returning to her fawning flutter.
Jess bounced in behind them, stars in her eyes as she looked up at the man that Mac had no doubt was her father.
All right, so Deborah and Jess were accounted for, as well as Claire, her sisters and cousin, and the old boys. That left Ruby and Harley. Mac had a suspicion that one of them was loading shotgun shells into a chamber while the other tried to add some sense into the mix, but knowing Claire’s grandfather, Mac was not sure who would be holding the gun.
A blur of movement in his peripheral vision made him look around. Ronnie was nowhere to be seen; the velvet curtain swaying in her wake was the only evidence she had been there.
Deborah’s gaze bounced between her two remaining daughters. Her lips pinched into a wrinkled pink blob. “What’s going on here, Kathryn?”
“Nothing, Mother,” Kate brushed dust off her work shirt and patted down her blonde waves and curls. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Horner,” she said to Jess’s dad, all prim and proper. Mac half-expected her to curtsy. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get to work.”
Deborah huffed. “Handing out drinks is not work, Kathryn. It’s servitude. You need to come home with me and find a decent job. If Butch were a true gentleman, he’d be treating you like a princess instead of his slave.”
Kate’s face darkened, but she held her tongue. After flashing a glare at her sister, she pushed through the velvet curtain … to freedom. Mac was tempted to bow and follow Ronnie and Kate’s exits, but Claire would hunt him down for leaving her stranded and nail him with a shitload of guilt, pounding it in deep with her hammer.
“Thank you for showing me around, Deborah,” Horner touched Claire’s mom’s shoulder and then let his hand rest there. “You’re a lovely hostess.”
Deborah tittered, which made Claire cringe visibly next to Mac.
“Steve,” Deborah said with a smile so big Mac wanted to slap a Wide Load sign on her forehead, “it’s the least I could do after the way Ruby treated you.”
“Oh, Christ,” Mac muttered, and then realized he had said it aloud.
Deborah turned toward Mac, her smile pulling a disappearing act. “How rude of me. Steve, I don’t think you’ve met Ruby’s nephew, MacDonald Garner.”
Deborah had a way of saying his name all wrong, sounding like she was spitting something rotten and slimy out of her mouth when she uttered it.
“Jess talks about you all of the time in her letters,” Horner said to Mac, offering his hand. “It’s going to be hard to live up to your Superman status.”
Mac stared at the hand of the asshole who’d jerked his aunt around for years when it had come to child support and broken his cousin’s heart with unfulfilled promises time and again. When he gripped Horner’s hand, he squeezed hard, following it up with an even harder glare.
Horner’s slick grin turned gritty.
“So,” Mac pulled his hand away, resisting the urge to wipe it off on his jeans. “What brings you down here to Jackrabbit Junction after all of these years?”
* * *
“Hey, where are you going?” Ronnie asked as she followed Katie out the screen door.
Katie didn’t pause on her way down Ruby’s porch steps. “The Shaft.”
Ronnie slipped back inside and grabbed her purse from behind the General Store’s counter and then bounded down the steps after her sister. “I’ll join you.”
“I’m going to work.” Katie yanked open the driver’s side door of her Volvo. “Not to drink.”
“Fine.” Ronnie jogged over, joining Katie inside the hot car as the engine growled to life. “I’ll drink while I watch you work.”
“Really?” Katie shoved on her sunglasses. “Then you must be even more desperate to escape than I am.” She wheeled the car around.
Katie didn’t know the half of it. Ronnie grabbed the oh-shit handle above the passenger side window and held on for dear life when her sister sent gravel flying in their wake. She’d forgotten how crazy Katie was behind the wheel.
“It’s Claire’s turn to babysit Mom for once,” Ronnie added, swallowing a gasp as Katie swerved to miss a jackrabbit crossing their path. Maybe she should have walked to town.
A guffaw came from Katie. “The two of them can find a whole new reason to swap glares.” Ronnie would have had to be deaf to miss the underlying animosity in her sister’s voice.
“What’s going on with you?” Katie was usually the peacekeeper, keeping the white flag waving in the midst of family battles.
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you and Claire fighting so much?”
“We’re not fighting.” Katie tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “It’s just she has this one-track mind, and some of us have bigger concerns than finding out where a stupid pocket watch came from.”
Katie must be referring to the reason she had moved out of Butch’s place, but Ronnie had a policy of staying clear of her youngest sister’s romantic life. Her brief career as a relationship therapist had ended after an ex-con Katie had been dating had wiggled his eyebrows in Ronnie’s direction and suggested a ménage à trois, inspiring her to accidentally clobber him with a frying pan—twice. Luckily for him, it was made of aluminum, not cast iron.
“You don’t think Claire has a point about being proactive after all of the crap she’s been through thanks to Joe’s illegal shenanigans?”
After seeing the pocket watch that had Claire so obsessed, Ronnie found herself panting and licking her chops, too. That thing would bring a pretty penny even if it was only a century old.
Katie sighed and hit her turn signal, the bar’s parking lot ahead on the left. “Probably, but she needs to find someone else to be her research bitch. I don’t have time to hang out at the library all day and take turns on the internet with half of Yuccaville’s senior citizens. Those old women go over their one-hour limit and get downright pissy when you politely ask them to take turns. Last time I was there, I got my toes crushed by a mean granny with a cherry red walker lined with dingle balls. Then one of her cronies with a cane—who I’m pretty sure clobbered Claire—warned that I might want to bring a bodyguard to the library or I could win a one-way trip to the handicap stall.”
Ronnie laughed.
Katie didn’t. “I’m not kidding. The folks in these parts don’t take kindly to pretty young blondes.”
“Oh, yeah?” She grinned. “And how do they treat old platinum blonde shrews like you?”
“Bite me.” She flashed Ronnie her middle finger. “This color is the real thing, unlike your bottle job. Why did you go back to being a brunette, anyway? I thought you liked your hair lighter.”
Ronnie looked out the side window. As much as she’d like to unload the burden she’d been carrying around since arriving on Claire and Mac’s doorstep, she didn’t want to endanger Katie.
She changed the subject rather than answering. “What do you mean when you say you’re Claire’s ‘research bitch’? Researching what?”
“Several of Ruby’s antiques. Claire is trying to figure out market values.”
How many antiques were they talking?
Ronnie had been down in Ruby’s basement once, but she hadn’t really paid much attention. She had been an errand girl, sent down to tell Claire that Gramps wanted her as his partner for a game of Bid Euchre. He always favored Claire when it c
ame to winning at cards, saying Ronnie was allergic to taking risks. She wondered what he’d think about her if he knew the mess of risks she was facing daily thanks to the piece of shit her mom had convinced her to marry.
“Why doesn’t she do her own research?” she asked as Katie pulled into the parking lot.
Claire was busy building the restrooms all day, but the library must be open in the evening.
“She’s banned from the library for fighting with that bully with the cane.”
Ronnie laughed.
“It’s true. Claire claims she was defending herself. She’s convinced that the librarians are in the old womens’ little beaded pocketbooks. It’s probably another one of her silly conspiracy theories, but nobody came to my rescue when I was being threatened. She may be right on this one.”
Everything revolved around conspiracy theories in Claire’s world. The girl had watched too many Scooby Doo episodes when they were kids. “So you’ve been looking up information on that pocket watch Claire had in the rec room?”
Katie parked in front of The Shaft and killed the engine. “That and some other pieces.”
“Like what?” Anything that Ronnie could pawn for a quick thousand that would help her escape the goons keeping an eye on her? She’d find a way to pay Ruby back after the issues with Lyle’s illegal financial activities had settled down.
“Some of the first editions in Ruby’s bookcase, a bunch of those antique cameras Joe had, and some stock certificates Gramps found last month, to name a few things.”
Stock certificates? How hard was it to cash in on those? She couldn’t leave a paper trail, though. She would have to settle for returning to that greasy dude’s pawn shop with that pocket watch in hand. “Why don’t you let me help you out?”
“What do you mean?” Katie climbed out of the car.
Ronnie opened her door. “Let me borrow your car today and go hang out at the library in Yuccaville, do some research.”
“You don’t even know what to look for.”
“Don’t you have some notes already on it all? Pictures?”
“No pictures. Claire’s been pretty adamant about not taking pictures before today.” Kate’s forehead crinkled in thought. “I think I left my notes back at … no wait. They’re in the trunk.”
She popped the trunk and pulled out a flowery backpack. “You sure you want to do this? I thought you were boycotting the internet these days.”
Which was the excuse Ronnie had used when Claire had offered to help her get her resume up online via a job hunting website. The last thing she needed was to be posting her address online where any Tom, Dick, or Harry-the-hit-man could find it.
“What else do I have to do here? I’m tired of sitting behind the counter and painting my nails with Jessica’s glittery nail polish.”
“Fine. Have at it.” She handed Ronnie the backpack. “But you need to be back tonight to pick me up when we close.”
“I’ll be here.”
“And be careful with my car. I just got it back from the body shop after my last … uh … accident.”
“You mean after the last time you plowed into your boyfriend’s pickup.”
“Stuff a sock in it, rubba dub.” Katie tossed her the keys and headed into the bar.
Hopeful for the first time since the pawn shop creep had spread manure all over her field of dreams, Ronnie zipped around the back of Katie’s car and slid behind the wheel.
Perfect! Now to go find out how much she could snag for that pocket watch.
She pulled out of The Shaft’s parking lot and headed toward Yuccaville, cranking up the radio and singing along with a sad Dolly Parton song about a bunch of laughing and drinking going on two doors down. If she could score some quick cash with one of Ruby’s antiques, she might be able to get the hell out of Dodge before she ended up polka-dotted with bullet holes. Then she could join the party going on two doors down, too.
After cruising around Yuccaville’s dusty streets for twenty minutes, she found the library. Just her luck, it sat kitty corner from the Sheriff’s Department building. At least the parking spots were plentiful this morning. She grabbed the flowery backpack and a sunhat from Katie’s backseat. Hiding behind her sunglasses, she stepped out into the hot sunlight, careful to keep her head down and face averted in case Sheriff Hardass was daydreaming out the window this afternoon about handing out more speeding tickets to poor, desperate women.
Last night after her initial striptease, the big ape had relented to driving her home. He had thrown her shirt back at her and ordered her to buckle up. They had ridden to Ruby’s place with the thump-thump of tar strips on the asphalt and a periodic squawk from his police radio the only sounds breaking the silence.
When she had thanked him for the ride, he had stared across the cab at her. The dashboard lights had added more angles and ridges to his face, the areas not shadowed by the scruff covering his cheeks and jawline, anyway. She had swatted down the urge to reach out to touch his features, to explore the textures with the pads of her fingers.
“I’d suggest you stay out of trouble,” his baritone voice had sounded hard and scratchy in the soft glow of the cab. “But you share blood with the Morgan sisters, so I know better.”
She had grimaced at him, not liking the tone he’d used when mentioning her maiden name. “You say that like we’re descendants of the Clantons or the James Gangs.”
“Well, let’s see, since you and your sisters rode into town, Cholla County has been flooded with attempted murders, B and E reports, and multiple irresponsible and reckless driving incidents. Add your speeding ticket, illegal parking, public intoxication, attempts to bribe an officer of the law, and threat to run around naked as a jaybird, and you three Musketeers are on your way to a bang up reputation as outlaws.”
The back of her neck had bristled at the high and mighty Sheriff with his tin badge and condescending smirk. “And you love the idea of playing Wyatt Earp, don’t you?”
His stiff cotton shirt rustled when he shrugged and shifted to face her. “Makes me wonder what dust devils you girls are planning to stir up next. Guess I’d better make room in my jail for all three of you to come spend the night with me this time.”
Her smile felt brittle on her lips, but she hid behind it, anyway. “Sheriff Harrison, I assure you that neither my sisters nor I have any such criminal plans on our agendas.” Well, not at the moment, anyway.
“Sure.” After a long stare down, he tipped his hat. “You have a good night now, Mrs. Jefferson.”
His deliberate use of the name she had previously requested he no longer use had motivated her to slam his pickup door harder than normal. As he drove off across the bridge leading out of the R.V. park, she rattled off a chorus of colorful adjectives that flowed beautifully with “Hardass.”
Now with the sun bearing down on her and the potential to get some cash in her pocket so she could possibly escape from Cholla County U.S.A. along with the steaming pile of trouble her lousy not-husband had left, she wasn’t feeling so cocky. A light at the end of the tunnel beckoned. She did not need Sheriff Hardass stepping in front of her and blocking it.
She reached the library’s front door and pulled on the handle. The door didn’t budge. Pushing the sunhat back, she looked up and found a CLOSED sign front and center in the door window.
Damn it! The place was closed on Sundays. No wonder the open parking spaces were so plentiful on the street. She’d have to borrow Katie’s car and come back tomorrow.
Turning, she growled and muttered back to her sister’s car. Halfway there, she noticed a black sedan cruising toward her on the street. She was within ten feet of Katie’s car when her brain connected the dots and her breath caught. She looked up, gawking at the car’s passenger. He was missing his black cowboy hat, hiding behind dark glasses instead today.
Her heart screeched to a stop along with her feet. She tried to think through the panic clanging in her brain. He had not seemed to recognize her, which mi
ght save her ass this afternoon.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she kept walking instead of stopping at Katie’s car. If they didn’t know what vehicle she was driving, she might be able to give them the slip after circling around the block a time or two.
She glanced behind her. The sedan had pulled into a parking spot two blocks away, the goons still inside. Had the driver figured out it was her under the hat and shades? Were they waiting for the opportunity to hop out and shoot her down? Would they risk it right in front of the Sheriff’s windows? She didn’t plan to stick around to find out.
At the end of the block, she took a left and started running, looking over her shoulder every other breath. Up ahead, a sidewalk sign advertised fresh sandwiches and sun tea. The bell overhead jangled as she stumbled inside. Trying to slow her huffing, she took several deep breaths while straightening her bohemian skirt and tank top.
The place smelled like fresh baked bread with a hint of pickles. The sign at the hostess station said to seat herself, so Ronnie slid into a chair at a table in a corner that would give her a view of the front window but with a fake cactus to hide behind. With her back to the rest of the deli, her only concern was the two men she expected to burst through the door any minute.
She opened a menu, pretending to peruse it while peeking over the top. The black sedan cruised by slowly, dark sunglasses on the driver, too. Were they both carrying? Did they have a horse’s head in their trunk next to their Tommy guns?
“Keep going,” she said under her breath, her eyes on the taillights to see if they brightened. When the car rolled out of her view, she pushed to her feet and edged up to the window, watching the sedan pause much longer than three seconds for the stop sign before continuing on down the road.
She sighed in relief. Jesus, that was close.
She needed to get out of here before they came back around again and started going door to door looking for her. When she turned back and let her gaze sweep the rest of the diner tables, her knees almost buckled at the sight of Sheriff Harrison sitting in a chair three tables back.