by Ann Charles
That was one of the questions Claire had been chewing on. She shrugged. “I don’t know, but something is off with her. She said she had a fight with Butch before he left for Phoenix, but I have trouble believing one fight would be all it takes for them to split up.” She washed down her sandwich with a sip of soda. “She’s been all giddy with hearts in her eyes ever since they hooked up. I even caught her tittering like Mother.”
“Oh, God,” Natalie groaned. “Say it isn’t so.”
“Yeah, apparently it’s genetic. So if you ever hear me titter …”
“You want me to smack you or just take you out back immediately and put you out of your misery?”
“Let’s start with the smack down. I’ve seen you shoot. You’re really good at almost hitting a target.” Claire took a breath then continued. “Every time I ask Kate what’s wrong, she blows me off. I’m about done asking.”
That was tough talk. Claire wouldn’t stop frowning about Kate until she saw the light in her sister’s eyes again. Heck, she’d even put up with the tittering if it meant the end of this dark cloud hovering over Kate, pouring buckets down on whoever was near.
A crow landed at the other end of the roof and shrilled at them, wanting his share of meat.
Natalie jumped up and scared it away. She sat back down with a grunt. “What do you think is going on with Ronnie?”
“Well,” Claire said with a chuckle, “now there’s a question I’ve been asking myself since she showed up on Mac’s doorstep.”
She had thought about Ronnie’s comment last night regarding the house being Mac’s, that Claire was just sleeping with him in it, and realized her older sister was right … again, damn it. Claire had not really adopted Mac’s house as hers yet. When it came down to it, the only place that truly felt like “home” at the moment was here in Ruby’s R.V. park. Everything at Mac’s place was running perfectly. There were no broken air conditioners to repair, no structures to be built, no mysteries to solve.
Day after day she sat around either looking for her next job or trying to figure out how to quit her current job without pissing off Mac. So far he had not joined her family in song about her lack of ability to keep a job, but Claire was not naïve. Their relationship was still relatively new. In time things would change and probably not for the better if she didn’t find a job she could stick with for longer than a couple of weeks.
But now was not the time to dwell on those fears. She had work to do and an old man waiting to give her shit about it.
“Ronnie keeps watching over her shoulder,” Natalie said, crunching on a pretzel.
“You noticed that, too, huh?” Claire skipped the pretzels and went straight for the cookies. They were still warm from the oven and so soft she practically drooled just holding one.
“Last night in the bar, before the Sheriff showed up,” Natalie said, “she insisted on planting herself with her back to the wall.”
“Where was I when this happened?”
“In the bathroom.” Natalie stole a cookie from Claire and shoved it in her mouth all at once. “Mmmmm, that’s so good,” she said through a mouthful of cookie. “Just like Grandma used to make.”
Her comment about Gramps’s first wife, their real grandma, made Claire smile. “Nobody made monster cookies like Grandma.”
Natalie nodded, and then she held up a finger. “I bet Ruby could give her a run for her money, though. It’s no wonder Gramps married her, huh?”
Thinking about how fun and feisty Ruby was, Claire was glad he had. The old fart needed someone as stubborn as he was to live with his ornery but loveable ass day after day.
Claire grabbed two cookies and scarfed them so fast she almost bit the tip off one of her fingers. “I don’t know what’s going on with Ronnie since she left South Dakota. Whenever I ask about Lyle and the whole mess that ended with him in prison, she turns dark red and clams up, insisting on changing the subject.”
“Hmmm.” Natalie snagged another cookie. “She sure got sparky with Mr. Sheriff last night, didn’t she?”
Now that Natalie mentioned it … “You’re right. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her be so bullheaded. I guess she really does have Gramps’s blood in her after all. And here I thought she was adopted for all these years, her being all perfect in comparison to Kate with her horrible choices in men and me with my lack of ability to finish anything. I wonder why Ronnie is so mad at Mom.”
Natalie snorted.
“Other than for the obvious reason of Mother being Mother.” Claire swallowed the last of her soda and stuffed the can in the lunch bag. “Speaking of something being wrong, what’s going on with you?”
“Me?” Natalie asked, wiping the crumbs from her mouth with the hem of her shirt.
“Yeah, you.”
“What do you mean? I’m the most normal one around here lately.”
“You’ve been here for two weeks and have yet to even share a drink with a guy at The Shaft.”
Natalie’s gaze drifted out across the campground. Her shoulder shrug was so slight that Claire almost missed it. “I have new standards.”
“Really? So the long legs, tight ass, and broad shoulders no longer top your checklist?”
“Nope.”
“What are you looking for in a guy now?”
“Nothing.”
Claire waited for her to say more but nothing came. “You’re going to have to explain that more, Natalie, because I’m pretty high on molasses cookies and my detective skills are only so-so even when I’m on my game.”
She chuckled, but Claire could tell it was forced. “I’m taking a break.”
“From working on the building?”
“From men.”
“Like a short break while you’re in Arizona or several seasons of no males break?”
“The latter.”
“Why? Did something happen back home?”
Natalie chewed on her lower lip as if debating on letting the words out. Then she shook her head. “No, nothing happened, at least nothing worth talking about. I’m just tired of the game—boy flirts, girl flirts back, sex happens, girl thinks she’s fallen in love, boy leaves girl for an easy, young slut with one of those tattoos across her ass that says, ‘Enter here.’”
Claire blinked, the obvious non-fiction laced into Natalie’s story bringing out a mixture of laughter and disgust both at once. “That’s a pretty nasty ending to your tale.”
“Yes, according to the jerkoff I’d been stupid enough to get involved with that time, the slut did have a pretty and nasty ending to her tail, and he liked it. A lot. That’s why he left me. I was too much of a prude to swing that way.”
“Wait, you mean the slut swung both ways? She was into guys and girls?”
“No, I mean in addition to her unusual sexual preferences, she also was into sex swings and all that fun stuff.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah, wow.” Natalie frowned. “You know, I’m totally up for exciting sex, but I’m getting too old for that acrobatic shit. If I fall off a swing, I could break my leg again—or worse. Then I’m off the job for months. I can’t afford it. Plus my health insurance has a huge deductible.”
Claire started giggling.
Natalie swatted at her. “I’m serious. Those swings are dangerous, especially when you’re butt naked.”
Claire laughed harder, falling back onto the roof and letting it roll out. After having a gut-ache of frustration and fear all morning, she couldn’t seem to stop. Tears of laughter leaked out the sides of her eyes.
Natalie sputtered once or twice and then joined Claire, their laughter ringing out across the campground.
The crow returned, shrilling at them, making a play for the bag. Wiping at her eyes, Claire snatched the bag up along with the cookies before the bird got purchase. Natalie hopped up and shooed it away again, then returned to help Claire put the rest away.
“What’s going on over there?” Gramps asked.
“Nothing,” Claire
and Natalie said at the same time.
“Jinx!” Natalie said. “You owe me a drink tonight.”
“Damn it, between Ronnie and you, I’m going to be broke by Friday.”
Natalie held out her hand to help Claire up. “So, Claire,” Natalie said. “Now that I’ve been honest about me and my problems, answer one question for me.”
“Shoot.”
“What’s going on with you and Mac?”
“What do you mean?”
“I noticed while he was here this last weekend that you two seemed a little distant. Are you two fighting like Kate and Butch?”
“No, we’re okay.”
“Then what has you frowning at the horizon so much these days instead of singing with the radio while we work?”
Claire hesitated. Natalie had been honest with her. She hated to lie to her cousin in return. “Uh, just this small thing I keep worrying about.”
“What is it? Spit it out.”
Okay. “A baby,” she said, her voice mostly breath.
Natalie’s eyes widened. She stepped closer. “Come again?”
Claire jammed her hands in her front pockets, pulling her shoulders in tight. “I think I might be pregnant.”
* * *
Ronnie cruised into Yuccaville that afternoon, staying well under the speed limit and stopping for a full five seconds at each stop sign. After yesterday evening’s bare-all confession with Sheriff Hardass outside The Shaft, which had resulted in a warning from him about the punishment that came with falsely accusing others of crimes, she was not going to give him a single reason to grill her today.
There were no open parking spaces in front of the Yuccaville library, which was probably for the best with the Sheriff’s Department sitting kitty corner from it. While Grady had not actually seen her driving away in Katie’s car Sunday after she ran into him in the Mule Train Diner, she figured he would have his radar set to sound the alarm at any sight of her or her family, including their vehicles.
She found a spot two blocks away, but it would have required parallel parking between two big diesel trucks that were both hogging the white lines at either end. Ronnie’s insurance company had dropped her last month. The last thing she needed was to dent up her sister’s car and get stuck in town longer working off the cost to repair it.
Taking a right, she found a spot under a gnarled mesquite tree and cut the engine. She grabbed her purse along with the cowboy hat she had borrowed from Natalie and stepped out under the cloud-filled sky. Just in case the Sheriff or one of his deputies was running surveillance from their front window, she had dressed in faded blue jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a pair of flat-heeled sandals. Her goal was to blend in with the locals—hide in plain sight.
With her cowboy hat pulled low on her forehead, she opted for the long way around to the library, staying as far from the Sheriff’s building as possible. Behind her sunglasses, she kept watch for any government vehicles, hugging the buildings as she walked along, ready to dart inside if needed.
She made it to the library’s front doors without incident. Inside, the cooled air held the usual smells she had come to associate with the place—musty books, dusty carpet, and rose water perfume. The latter of the three answered the question that had crossed her mind several times on the way here. Sure enough, Grady’s Aunt Millie and her gang of grannies loitered. Only today, instead of filling the seats in front of the internet computers, they lounged in the green padded chairs nearby with bags of yarn at their orthopedic shoes. Their knitting needles clicked in the hushed room.
Ronnie approached slowly, unsure if the Sheriff had talked to his aunt since learning about her racketeering operation. Even though the computers appeared open for business, she followed protocol and waited next to Aunt Millie’s red walker.
“Good afternoon, girls,” she greeted each with her well-practiced smile. She focused on Aunt Millie. “I brought you some lovely gifts today. Is the library’s internet connection up and running?”
Which was code for: Here’s a bribe to score some computer time.
Aunt Millie nodded while her needles continued to click away.
Ronnie took a step toward the one with the fastest connection.
“What kind of lovely gifts, sweetie?”
Ah, that answered her question. Grady had not returned to his aunt’s place, which meant he probably didn’t believe a word Ronnie had said. That didn’t surprise her really, but it still stung a little.
Damn him for not believing her.
Damn her for caring one way or the other.
Reaching into her purse, she pulled out more chandelier earrings, this time with zirconia stems leading down to pear-shaped, faux yellow sapphires. “I believe these would look just darling with that green paisley scarf you have on today. What do you think?”
Aunt Millie eyed the earrings warily, then smiled and stopped knitting. “Yes, those would look just gorgeous, don’t you think so, Ruth?”
Ruth’s needles stopped clinking. From what Ronnie had gleaned over the last two days, she was the second in command. Ruth also had a cane she sometimes used, which made Ronnie assume she was Claire’s nemesis.
Lowering her rhinestone studded glasses, Ruth inspected the earrings Ronnie held out. “Oh, definitely, Millie. Those are lovely.”
“Wonderful.” Ronnie placed them on the table next to Grady’s aunt. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to look up a few things online.”
“Sure, darlin’,” Aunt Millie gave her blessing.
Ronnie glanced around the library to make sure she had no onlookers, as in lawmen or goons. All clear. Lowering onto the padded chair, she rolled up to the long table filled with monitors and keyboards, moving the mouse to wake up the computer. She pulled out her cell phone, opening the picture of the pocket watch that she had taken this morning down in Ruby’s basement office with Claire.
They had sneaked down the basement stairs while the rest of the house was asleep. Claire had locked the door behind them “to be safe.”
Ronnie tried not to roll her eyes at the whole cloak and dagger act. Her sister needed to relax. It was just a pocket watch and they were not in enemy territory.
“Where is it?” Ronnie had asked, checking out the antiques on the big desk in the middle of the room.
“In the safe. Give me a hand, would ya?” Claire stood on one side of the bookcase motioning Ronnie to join her.
The bookcase had snagged on the carpet as they pulled it out, almost tipping the cameras, books, and wooden boxes of who knew what onto the floor.
“Next time, Ronnie,” her sister had said, her voice tinged with sarcasm, “could you actually put some muscle into it?”
“I’ll put some muscle into you.”
Claire snorted. “That doesn’t even make sense coming from a girl.”
“Whatever. Why are we lifting this thing?”
“The safe is in the wall behind it.”
Ah, a wall safe. This was just like the movies.
They lifted the bookcase away from the wall enough for Claire to squeeze in behind it. She pulled a pair of gloves from her back pocket. Dropping onto her knees, she typed in a combination. Ronnie leaned against the side of the bookcase, watching her sister’s fingers trip over the keypad.
The door popped open. Ronnie caught a glimpse of a tiny gun holster before Claire started backing out. She walked over to the desk and waited for Claire to join her with the watch.
They had not pried open the back of the casing to check if the power were delivered by a spring-and-fusee mechanism or via a spiral spring balance, but the watch did have two hands rather than one. From what Ronnie had read, that pretty much date-stamped it as a seventeenth century or later piece.
With the help of Gramps’s magnifying glass, they had been able to find what was probably the watchmaker’s signature. It could have been the casemaker’s scrawl, but Ronnie doubted it since she had read that the signature of a watch’s enamel artist was rare. Not that Claire
or she could read the swirly letters on the name they found, except for “R”—the first letter. Or maybe it had been a “P.”
While Claire was looking at it through the magnifying glass, Ronnie had pulled out her camera.
“What are you doing?” Claire asked, covering the watch with her gloved hand.
“Taking a couple of pictures, so I can compare the real thing to what I find online. You didn’t expect me to draw the thing, did you?”
“No, I guess not.” Claire didn’t sound convinced though and kept her glove over the watch.
“You know I’m not the greatest artist.”
“True.” She lifted her glove. “Your stick people come out all bent and wavy.”
“I told you, those were his knees and elbows.”
“I’m talking about his neck.”
“He had an Adam’s apple.”
Claire harrumphed but held out the watch.
Ronnie took pictures of the outside of the case with its embossed picture of a carriage and then the inside painting on the face. She took another one of the inside of the casing. Zooming in, she got a slightly blurry shot of the signature, too.
… Now as she stared down at her cell phone under the library’s fluorescent lights, she tried to figure out how to zoom in on the picture. When she figured it out, the picture only got blurrier the more she zoomed in. Damn. She should have brought Gramps’s magnifying glass along with her.
Wait a second! She swiveled in the chair. “Do any of you happen to have a magnifying glass on you?”
Ruth shot her a glance over the barf-colored scarf she was knitting. “What’s it worth to you?”
Ronnie had just the thing. She unzipped her purse and fished out a stickpin with an amethyst in the center, the heart surrounding it supposedly made of sterling silver. Lyle had brought it back for her from one of his many trips to Texas, where he claimed one of his company’s satellite offices was located. According to the Feds, he had been down there helping a so-called “client” launder drug money coming over the border.
“How about this?” She held up the stickpin.
Ruth looked at it over the top of her glasses. Then she pulled a magnifying glass out of her knitting bag and offered it to Ronnie.