by Ann Charles
Ruby grabbed the jar of beef jerky strips from the counter and held it out. “Hungry?”
“Thanks.” He ripped open the plastic. “How are the wedding plans coming? Is the bachelor party still on for tonight?” He tore a bite from the beef strip.
Her smile wavered. She set the jar back on the counter. “There isn’t going to be a weddin’.”
Mac froze mid-chomp. “Come again?”
“I called it off.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
The last time he’d talked to Claire, shit had hit the fan, but the wedding was still on. “Why?”
She shrugged and rounded the counter, sliding onto the bar stool. “Things just weren’t workin’ out.”
Mac chewed on her words and the beef jerky for several seconds, noticing that Ruby still wore the engagement ring Harley had bought her. “What happened last night?”
“I realized a future with Harley wasn’t in the cards for me.”
“Then why are you still wearing his ring?” Mac nodded toward the ring on her left hand.
Ruby glanced down, then crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her ring finger under her right forearm. “It doesn’t matter why. I’ve made up my mind.”
Mac shot her a squinty-eyed glare. “What did Jess do?”
“Jess didn’t have anything to do with my decision.”
Then it had to be Claire’s mom. “What did Deborah say to you?”
Ruby’s cheeks reddened. “Nothing she hasn’t been saying since Harley and I got engaged.”
“You want me to take her to the mine and shove her down a shaft?”
That earned a laugh from his aunt.
“What can I do to help you?”
“Ah, honey. You’ve always been my knight in shinin’ armor. Thanks, but I have to handle this one all by myself.”
If he couldn’t find the paperwork proving she owned the Lucky Monk, his knighthood status would be revoked.
Glancing at the curtain, Ruby leaned forward and whispered, “What’ve you found out about the lawyer? I’ve tried to get some news from Claire, but her lips are sealed up tight.”
“Nothing.” Which unfortunately was pretty much the truth.
“Damn.” Ruby sat back. “Well, now that I’m not going on a honeymoon, I guess I’d better take over from here and get me a lawyer. I appreciate you fixin’ to help me on this.”
No! Not a good idea. “Why don’t you let me work on this over the weekend? Do you know where Joe kept the records on the mines?”
“What kind of records?” Ruby’s gaze was sharp, searching.
Trying to hide the truth behind a smile, Mac answered, “Maps, claims, patents, permits. That kind of stuff.”
“I’ll have to go up in the attic. Joe was a pack rat, and there are a bunch of unlabeled boxes up there that I haven’t had a chance to look through.” She raised an eyebrow. “Why do you need those records?”
“I just—”
The bells over the door jingled. Mac looked over his shoulder as Kate and a gust of hot air swept into the room.
“Hey, Ruby.” Kate did a double-take when her gaze landed on Mac. “You’re back, good. You need to do something about Claire.”
He grinned. What was Slugger up to now?
Out the plate-glass front window, he saw the taillights of a familiar Chevy S10 pickup as it rolled out of the R.V. park.
“Was that Butch’s truck?” he asked Kate.
“Sure was,” Ruby answered. “Kate’s datin’ him.”
“I thought you were dating Porter.”
“She’s datin’ him, too.” Ruby said.
Kate’s forehead reddened.
“Wow, two men in one week.” Mac chuckled. “What did you do? Tape your business card to the condom machine at The Shaft?”
Kate jabbed Mac in the ribs as she walked past him. “That’s none of your business. You just worry about Claire.”
Again with Claire. What kind of trouble was she in now?
Gramps walked out through the curtain just as Kate reached for the fabric.
“Katie, you’re home. Good.” Harley grabbed her by the wrist. “I need to talk to you for a minute.” He glanced over at Ruby, who was suddenly busy inspecting her nails, and then Mac.
“Welcome back,” he said, and dragged Kate through the curtain.
“What was that about?” Mac asked his aunt.
“Beats me.” She avoided eye contact. “Now finish telling me why you need those records.”
“I want to—”
“Why can’t Claire do it?” Kate’s raised voice came from the rec room.
Mac couldn’t hear Harley’s reply, just some low-toned murmurs.
“Fine! But you two keep forgetting that I already served my time when I drove her down here.” The sound of footfalls bounding up the steps followed.
A look at Ruby earned him a shrug. “Family problems, I guess,” she said.
Harley stuck his head through the curtain. “Mac, will you come here a second?”
“Uh, sure.”
Harley stood by the bar where Mac joined him.
“What the hell is going on around here?” Mac hoped Harley would fill in the gaps in his aunt’s cryptic story.
Sighing, Harley rubbed his bald head. “Ruby called off the wedding.”
“She mentioned that. Why?”
“Because I didn’t do what I should have.”
“Which was what?”
“Lock Deborah in the tool shed until after the—” Harley paused at the clomp-clomp of footfalls across the wood floor in the upstairs hall. Holding his finger to his lips, he motioned for Mac to join him in the kitchen.
As soon as he crossed the threshold, Mac asked, “Where are Claire and Jess?”
“In the men’s bathroom.” Harley nudged Mac aside and peeked out through the kitchen doorway. “Did you bring my package?”
“It’s in my pickup. Why are they in the men’s bathroom?”
“It’s complicated,” Harley whispered over his shoulder, then stepped back quickly. Muffled footfalls followed.
Peering around the doorframe, Mac saw a glimpse of Deborah’s blonde hair before Harley grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back.
Two seconds later, the back door slammed.
“Listen, Mac, I need a favor from you.”
“What?” he said warily.
“Gramps?” Kate called from the rec room.
“We’re in here, Katie.”
Kate appeared in the doorway. “It’s all clear.”
“Good.”
“You owe me for this.”
Harley’s brows lowered. “You’re forgetting about those speeding tickets I found under your dresser when I helped move it.”
Kate sighed. “Christ. Will you ever forget about those?”
“Probably not.”
“Whatever. I’m going to get Claire.” She turned to leave.
“Don’t forget about Jess.”
“I won’t,” she called over her shoulder and then followed her mother’s path out the back door.
“Get Claire for what?”
“Operation Ditch Deborah.”
“What?”
Harley dug a piece of paper and a wad of bills out of his front pocket. “Here’s a list.” He grabbed Mac’s hand and slapped the paper and money in his palm. “When you get back, dump the goods in the tool shed. Claire will make sure it’s unlocked.”
Hold up. He’d just arrived. “Where am I going?”
“Yuccaville. Now hurry up before Deborah sees you leaving.”
* * *
The waxing moon shed silvery light on the tool shed’s aluminum roof. Claire’s shoes crunched over the dry grass as she snuck behind the shed and peeked around the back wall at Gramps’s car.
Mabel’s bonnet was open, the flickering under-hood light casting a sallow glow over the engine block. An upside-down quart of oil jutted from the engine.
Claire squinted in
the darkness, noticing the passenger side door was also slightly ajar, but the dome light turned off.
Thunder rumbled from the northeast—the last goodbyes from the storm that had skirted the valley earlier. Lightning flickered, flashing behind the cluster of clouds as they rolled over the horizon.
“Mac?” Claire hailed quietly, listening for a reply.
A warm breeze trickled over her skin and threaded through the cottonwoods overhead, stirring the leaves into a whispering twitter. An owl hooted twice from the canyon behind the campground, its call echoing off the walls.
“Mac?” Claire said again, a little louder this time. He had to be around here somewhere.
She crept over to Mabel and pulled the passenger door open wide. She popped the glove box, digging through the paperwork.
Ah, sweet Mother Mary, she thought as she pulled a wrinkled pack of Virginia Slim cigarettes from the box, just where she’d stashed them months ago.
All day, all she’d wanted to do was hide in Ruby’s office and figure out what those scrawls on that Post-it note meant, but between that damned toilet and Gramps’s crazy plan, she hadn’t had a single moment to herself.
Until now.
She tapped a bent, undoubtedly stale cigarette from the pack, and held it under her nose, inhaling that old familiar bouquet of tobacco. Damn, she missed smoking.
After spending half of the afternoon driving Deborah and Kate to Tucson International Airport in Ruby’s old Ford (sans air conditioning) only to find out at the ticket counter that Deborah had “accidently” forgotten her wallet with all of her identification at Ruby’s place, Claire needed nicotine as much as oxygen.
Her mother hadn’t stopped crooning her nobody-loves-me sad song until they were half way home. But then she’d changed her tune, and Claire’s ears still burned from her fiery rant.
She stuck the cigarette butt between her lips, tasting the stale tobacco, pulled a book of matches from her back pocket, and struck a match. A burst of flame lit her palm, the sharp smell of sulfur an aphrodisiac.
“Rough day, Slugger?”
She dropped the match. “Jesus, Mac! You scared the shit out of me.”
“You better put that out.”
Crap! She stomped around in the grass and dirt.
He plucked the cigarette from her mouth. “What’s this for?”
“I’m a little stressed.”
“Your mother’s been here a week now and you’re only a ‘little’ stressed?”
“You have no idea.” Satisfied there’d be no middle-of-the-night wildfires, she stopped taking her frustrations out on the flattened weeds.
Mac grabbed the pack of cigarettes from her hand, stuffed the bent cigarette back in it, and tossed it in the front seat.
“Come on, Mac. Just one.”
“You don’t need it.”
“You weren’t there on the drive back from Tucson. If you had been, you’d buy me a new pack and smoke half of it with me.”
He leaned against the back quarter-panel and caught her hand, pulling her toward him. “Come here. I have something that will relieve your stress.”
Claire liked the sound of that. “You promise?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” He caught her by the belt loops on her shorts and tugged her close. “I guarantee it.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, inhaling the warm, desert-fresh scent that was Mac. “I missed you.”
“I bet.” He groaned as she pressed against him, rubbing. “How do you manage to live without me?”
“I carry your picture in my locket and moon over it day and night.”
He brushed his mouth over hers. “Please tell me you’re not wearing anything under these shorts,” he whispered as his lips feathered along her jaw.
“Why don’t you see for yourself?”
“Claire.” His hands spanned her hips. He nuzzled the crook of her neck, his beard stubble rasping her skin. “I missed you.”
She slipped her hands under his shirt, dragging her fingernails down the center of his chest. He shuddered under her touch. “You know what I want you to do to me?”
“Tar and feather you?” He nipped her collar bone, his hands drifting northward.
“Kinky, but no.” She gasped as his thumbs worked some magic.
“Lock you in an iron maiden?” His breath warmed her inner ear as his lips grazed her earlobe.
“Too S-and-M-ish. Try again.”
His fingers slipped beneath her underwire. “Tie you to the rack and give you a good stretch.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a couple of inches taller, but not quite.” Pulling her hands free of his shirt, she ran her palms up his forearms and biceps, trailed her nails over his shoulders, and then sank her fingers into his hair.
“I want you to do that trick you do, Mac.”
“Which one?” His gaze dipped downward, watching his fingers move under her top.
“The one you do that makes me scream.” Claire covered his lips with hers, her tongue teasing, tasting.
“Mmmmmm.” The sound rumbled up from Mac’s chest.
Drawing back to catch a breath, she said. “Come on, let’s get in the car.”
Mac glanced through the back window. “In there?”
“Mabel has a big backseat.”
“Not big enough.”
“Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I lost it down a shaft. How about the shed?”
“No way. It stinks like oil and gas in there, not to mention that colony of scorpions I’ve been battling.”
“Why not right here.”
“Against Gramps’s car? What if somebody comes?” Claire didn’t relish Manny or Chester walking up on them, or watching them through their binoculars. They probably had night vision on those things.
“They won’t. Harley has it all planned out. They’re leaving early to go out to breakfast before heading to the courthouse.” He kissed her again, turning her knees to Jell-O. “Come on, Claire. Where is your sense of adventure?”
Mac unbuttoned her shorts and slipped his hands inside the cotton, cupping her hips. “Hmmm, you are wearing panties.”
“I can change that if you’ll join me in Mabel’s backseat.”
“No way. I’m not getting caught in that car with your hands in my pants again. It took months for the ornery old goats to let me live that down.”
Mac’s fingers found their way inside her satin underwear.
She groaned, rubbing against him. “So you’d rather get caught out here with your hands in my pants?”
His mouth covered hers, kissing her long and slow, exploring every corner of her mouth while his fingers kneaded her.
Claire dissolved against him, giving in to his onslaught. When his lips moved south, down her throat, his tongue licking the hollow at its base, she gasped and grabbed his wrist, moving his hand around to the front of her shorts.
“Touch me,” she whispered in his ear, then nipped his earlobe.
“Oh God, Claire. You make me want to—”
“Damn it, Claire!” the sound of Gramps’s voice scared a yip out of her. “What did I tell you about sex in Mabel?”
Mac yanked his hand out of her shorts, but when she tried to step away from him, he held her in place, blocking him from their unwanted visitor’s view.
“Don’t move yet,” he said under his breath.
Claire zipped up her shorts. “For your information,” she said over her shoulder, “we were not having sex in Mabel.”
“I think they were going to have sex on Mabel,” Manny clarified. “We should have waited a little longer before interrupting, then we could have really gotten a show.”
“I should have brought my night vision goggles,” Chester said and wheezed out a laugh.
“From now on, no sex in or near Mabel, period,” Gramps snapped.
“Well, there’s nowhere else we can go to get a little privacy around here.” Claire turned around, still shielding Mac.
Ruby appeared next to Gramps in the moonlight. “You can use my bedroom. Harley and I have decided to elope.”
Chapter Fifteen
Saturday, August 21st
“What do you mean they’re ‘gone’?” Jess asked the next morning as she trailed Claire out the General Store’s front door and down the porch steps.
“Gone, as in they eloped to Vegas last night and won’t be back for a few days.” She glanced back to catch Jess’s reaction.
Barefooted and dressed in her pink pajamas, still blinking away the remnants from sleep, Jess stood there in the sunlight with a frown so big even her ears seemed to droop. “I can’t believe my mom left without telling me.”
Deborah hadn’t taken the news nearly so calmly.
Last night, after Ruby and Gramps had rumbled off into the night, Claire and Mac had snuck into the house, planning to finish what they’d started. But Claire’s excitement had wilted at the sight of her mother, standing in the rec room, with lips pinched tighter than fat toes crammed into a pair of stiletto heels.
Her mother had heard the sound of Mabel’s muffler, noted the fact that Gramps and Ruby were nowhere to be found, and come to the correct conclusion that she’d been duped. It turned out the only heavy breathing done last night was by Deborah, who ranted at Claire and Kate for their deception.
By the time Deborah ran out of wind, Mac lay passed out on the couch, where Deborah insisted he stay for the night. Too tired to object, Claire claimed Ruby’s king-sized bed, which she had to share with Kate since Mac had monopolized the couch.
Way too soon, sunlight had poked through the curtains, reminding Claire that she had to do Ruby’s dawn duty of cleaning the campground restrooms.
Now, six hours, a raspberry jelly-filled doughnut, and two bottles of Coke later, Claire’s eyeballs felt like she had dipped them in hairspray.
On top of that, she had yet to sit down and figure out what Joe’s scrawls on the Post-it note meant.
Shielding her eyes from the glaring sun, she crunched across the drive toward Mac’s pickup. Jess followed, picking her way through the stones.
Claire opened the passenger door and leaned inside, looking for the manila envelope that he’d said was full of information regarding the Lucky Monk. A wave of hot air with the faint smell of Mac’s cologne rolled over her.