by Ann Charles
“Don’t look down my shirt, Sheriff,” she told him as she focused on her shot.
Ronnie might not have been overweight in the past, but she had been a brunette instead of a blonde. The few times she had been hit on since dying her hair back to her natural color had done wonders for her confidence after years of feeling like she had to pretend to be someone else, someone blonde, to be noticed by any man, including her husband.
“I’m not a robot, Veronica Morgan.”
She had hit a nerve there. When she looked up, his eyes were on hers, not her chest. She took the shot and sank the fourteen ball. “Okay,” she stood up, stretching her lower back. “How about a cyborg?”
He came around to her side in a few determined strides and pinned her butt back against the pool table. His thighs were pressed hard against hers, along with another very noticeable part of his anatomy. “Your ex-husband was an idiot.”
Suddenly, there seemed to be a lack of oxygen in this corner of the bar. She tried to catch her breath. “He was?”
He angled his head like he was going to kiss her. She peered up at him from under her lashes, wishing like hell he would hurry up and do it. As much as she didn’t want to find Grady attractive and tempting, she did. Plain and simple. Seeing him tonight without the reminder of what he did for a living only cranked her interest in the man behind the star even more.
“I appreciate your advice,” he said, inches from her lips.
She pushed up on her toes, lining up with his mouth. “It was my pleasure,” she whispered, licking her lips in anticipation.
He stared at her mouth for a long moment, and then grinned. “You’d want me to use the handcuffs, I’m betting.”
Before she could figure out what that meant in relation to her jumping his bones right there on the pool table, or vice-versa, he grabbed his cowboy hat and walked away, leaving her aching for more.
Chapter Eighteen
Sunday, October 7th
“Where’s Mom?” Claire asked Kate, who was sitting behind the counter in the General Store, apparently holding down the fort. Her face looked paler than usual, especially against the black collar of her work shirt. Her blonde tendrils hung limp around her cheeks, and her blue jeans looked baggier than ever on her thighs. Pregnancy was beating the crap out of her inside and out.
“Good morning to you, too, Sunshine.” Kate lifted a spoonful of white creamy stuff to her mouth, plugged her nose, and then gagged it down like she was self-medicating with castor oil.
“What are you doing?” Claire picked up the plastic container from the counter in front of Kate.
“Eating yogurt.”
“I thought you liked yogurt.”
“I did before morning sickness hit.”
Claire set it down on the counter. “How long have you been dealing with this?”
“About a week.”
“You weren’t really going on walks early in the morning, were you?”
“Well, if you count the distance to and from the bathrooms, then sort of. Thank God Ruby takes pride in keeping her campground’s toilets clean.”
Claire grimaced. “I don’t envy you.”
“I don’t envy me, either. When are you going to tell everyone you’re not pregnant?”
Claire held her finger to her lips. She had told Kate the no-baby truth late last night when she had returned to the Skunkmobile without Mac in earshot.
“What? We all know about the baby. Well, what we thought was a baby.”
“Mac doesn’t.”
“What?” Kate frowned at her. “Why haven’t you told him yet?”
“I wanted to talk to him about it in person, not over the phone.” Claire walked over to the packaged fruit pies display and grabbed a blueberry pastry from the shelf. “But I never got to it yesterday with everything else going on.” She tore the wrapper open and returned to the counter, throwing some money down for the food. “Then I started my period, you were crying about being pregnant, and Ronnie got totally wasted.” She took a bite out of the pie, the glazed crust sweetening the sugary globs of blueberry filling perfectly. “Jeez, my life sounds like one of those reality T.V. shows. I wonder if there’s any money in letting them come follow me around with cameras day and night.”
“I’d opt out. They always focus so much attention on the one whose life is the most screwed up, and right now I think I’m out in front of you and Ronnie.”
Claire nodded, happy as hell to be dealing with cramps today instead of morning sickness. “When are you going to tell Butch?”
Kate dropped her spoon on the counter and pushed the container of yogurt away. “I don’t know. I should probably wait until he gets back from his road trip.”
“Does he have any idea what’s going on with you?”
She shook her head. “I told him I was staying out here because I felt safer around my family while he was gone.” She hugged herself, clearly uncomfortable with the subject. “I just couldn’t bring myself to break up with him over the phone.”
Claire agreed. Phone breakups were right up there with Dear John letters and walking in on your boyfriend having sex with your best friend, but still … “So he’s going to come back and find out you’re pregnant and you’ve moved out?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
Claire shook her head. “That’s not going to go well. Are you sure this is the best choice?”
“No, Claire. Right now I’m not sure about anything other than the fact that I am pregnant with his child, and that he told me face-to-face weeks ago that a child would mess up his plans for the future.”
“What did you say when he told you that?”
“I agreed. I didn’t know I was pregnant at the time, and you know how much I don’t love being around kids. A life with Butch and only Butch sounded like nirvana.”
Claire could see Kate in that lifestyle, traveling the world with Butch, no children slowing her down. Kate never had taken much interest in other children. When they were in elementary school, she always hung out with the much older kids. In junior high and high school, she had delivered newspapers for extra money instead of babysitting like Claire and Ronnie.
“Well,” Claire searched for the silver lining and grinned when she found one, “at least you know who the father is. And as a bonus, he isn’t in jail or prison, unlike a few of your exes.”
Kate tried to hold onto her frown and failed. She reached across and poked Claire hard in the shoulder. “Not funny, smartass.”
Chuckling, Claire rubbed the spot Kate had poked. “It is, too. I made you laugh.” Then she sobered. “Seriously, Kate, it could be much worse.”
“Worse than having a baby on my own with no job to support us after I quit working at the bar? Don’t even get me rolling on my inadequate health insurance nightmares.”
“There are plenty of places around here to get a job, and you won’t be on your own. I’m here.”
“You’re in Tucson.”
“So come live in Tucson with me.” Claire bit her lower lip. She probably should’ve run that by Mac first.
Kate stared out through the screen door, her forehead lined. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good. Just remember, you’re not alone. You have Ronnie and me.”
Her eyes flooded with tears. She pinched her lips together and nodded.
“Don’t start crying again, you big bawl baby. You got mascara and snot all over one of my favorite T-shirts last night.”
A half-sob half-laugh leaked from Kate’s not-so-sealed lips. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “I can’t help it, damn it. The stupid hormones have me all messed up.”
“I’m going to leave you here now to have a nice little blubber-fest while I go find Mom.”
Kate sniffed, straightening her shoulders. “You’re not going to start a fight with her, are you?”
“No.” Claire was not in the mood to go head to head with her mother this morning. Her wounds from last night were still too raw.
“I want to ask her if she has seen any strangers down in the basement over the last few days while going through Joe’s antiques.”
“You’re still fixated on that watch, aren’t you?”
“Of course. I have to have something to obsess about until you have that baby.” Especially since she no longer had a baby of her own to worry about 24/7.
“Tell Jess that I have to leave in an hour. Her shift is next.”
“Will do.” She started toward the curtain then paused. “Who knows about you know what?” She pointed at Kate’s belly.
“You, Mac, and Natalie. And that’s all who needs to know for now.”
“What about Ronnie?”
“I’ll fill her in when she drags her hungover ass out of bed.”
Claire nodded and then slipped through the curtain into the rec room. The smell of eggs and toast teased her stomach—the blueberry pastry merely an hors d'oeuvre. She detoured to the kitchen and found Mac and Jess sitting at the table eating with Gramps, the newspaper in his hands. Ruby looked over from where she stood breaking eggs into a cast iron skillet.
“Good mornin’, sugar.” Ruby held up an egg. “Hungry?”
“Famished.” She flicked Gramps’s paper as she passed in front of him.
He grunted something that sort of sounded like it had the word “morning” in it and turned the page.
Patting Jess’s head, she said, “Kate says you need to take over behind the counter within the hour so she can head to work.”
Jess smiled up at her. “Dad’s taking me to see that new movie tonight about the zombies who fall in love while on the run from vampires. You want to come with us?”
As much as Claire wanted to see that film, there was no way in hell she was going with Steve Horner.
Wait.
Then again, if he was the one who had stolen the pocket watch, this might be the perfect opportunity to interrogate him and watch his body language to see if he was lying. What was that rule? If the person looked up and to the left, then they were lying? She once had a pilot for a boyfriend who diddled with his sausage and biscuits every time he lied. One face-burning visit to Gramps’s house had marked the grounding of that relationship before it had left the gate.
“Maybe.” Her answer made everyone except Jess frown in her direction. “What time does the movie start?”
“Eight fifteen, I think.”
“That’s too late for you to be going to a movie on a school night,” Ruby said, beating the hell out of Claire’s eggs in the pan. Today’s special: Eggs—Murdered with a splash of blood and a side of butchered pig.
Claire walked around Mac and gave him a hug from behind, wondering how Manny’s couch in the Airstream had treated him last night. Mac certainly looked well-rested and smelled desert fresh with his hair still damp from the shower. Unlike Claire, who had yet to rinse off the dried beer mess from last night. Silly drunken knucklehead. That was the last time she’d let Ronnie help behind the bar when she was four gin and tonics to the wind.
“Morning, Slugger.” He scooted back and pulled her down on his lap, getting handy under the table until Claire elbowed him. She shot him a warning glance, nodding toward Jess.
Mac shrugged and tried to look down her skull-and-crossbones T-shirt.
“Dad said I could spend the night in his hotel room,” Jess continued. “He has two beds in there, and if I bring a set of clothes, he said he can take me to school in the morning.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Ruby said through gritted teeth. “He’s fixin’ to be a real standup daddy these days, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Jess seemed oblivious to the sound of Claire’s eggs being brutally slashed and slain via blunt force trauma. “That would save us driving back here after the movie and give me an extra half hour to sleep in tomorrow morning before school starts.” Jess slurped on her orange juice. “Can I go, Mom? I promise to go to bed right after the movie is over. Please, please, please?”
“Why don’t we ask Harley what he thinks.” Ruby smacked Gramps’s newspaper with her deadly spatula.
“I’ll finish my homework this morning while working in the store,” Jess added to try to sweeten the deal.
“If Claire goes,” Gramps said from behind the paper, “then Jess can go. But Claire needs to bring her home tonight.”
“But—” Jess started.
Gramps lowered the paper. “Jessica, it’s Sunday. You know the rules about curfew on a school night. If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut and appreciate that your mother is letting you go when you have a full week of school in front of you.”
Ruby was back to hacking into the eggs, apparently not happy with Gramps’s answer.
Ah, good times with the family, Claire thought and wrapped her arm around Mac’s neck, wiggling her eyebrows at him. “What do you say, McStudly? You want to go watch some vampire zombies tonight with Jess and me and her pop?”
“Please, Mac,” Jess pressed her palms together, begging.
His muscles tightened under Claire and not in the way she preferred. He avoided looking at Jess and picked up his fork. “I’ll think about it.”
Claire kissed him on the smooth-shaven cheek. “How’d you sleep?” While they were discussing sleeping arrangements last night at The Shaft, Manny had offered his couch to Mac along with a promise not to bring any women home, whereas Chester had watched Arlene’s hips as she walked away and given no guarantees.
“Good. I didn’t even hear Manny come in.” Under the table, Mac’s hand crept up her thigh until she clamped her hand down on his fingers.
Mac, she mouthed, trying to frown, but ruining it when she broke into a grin.
What? He feigned innocence yet shifted his hips deliberately under her derriere.
“Hey,” Jess said, giving them her version of the stink eye. “If you guys are going to spend the movie sucking face, I’d rather stay home and paint my nails.” She looked over at her mom’s back. “They’re always making out when you guys aren’t looking.”
“As long as they aren’t doing it in my car again,” Gramps said, “I don’t give a rat’s patootie.”
Claire’s cheeks warmed, remembering how close they had come to being caught in the midst of car sex by Gramps and his buddies—twice. She was not going to go for a hat trick on that one. Manny had plans to bring his digital camera along for the next peep show if she did. She knew that old dirty bird well enough to believe him when he said he would post the pictures on the internet, too.
“Stayin’ home to paint your nails sounds like a good idea to me,” Ruby piped in. “I bought ya some new pink polish when I was at Creekside Hardware store the other day.”
Cutting off a square of his omelet, Mac held his forkful of eggs and meat out for Claire. She took him up on the bite, moaning in her throat over the maple cured bacon mixed with melted cheddar cheese. Next to that, her murdered eggs were going to taste like ketchup covered cardboard.
Mac’s hazel eyes were glued to her mouth, watching her chew and then lick her lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Claire,” he paused to clear his throat, “I need you up at the mine with me today.”
Really? That was weird. Last time she had wanted him to take her up there, he had talked her out of it. “I don’t know if I can. We’re doing the final touches on the drywall. I hope to get a layer of primer on some of the walls before I clean up for the movie tonight.”
“I can help you with the drywall and painting,” Mac offered. “Then we can go take a look at things up at the mine.”
Did he mean the Lucky Monk? Where the archaeology crew was snooping around? Maybe he had remembered something suspicious during the night that he needed to tell her in private.
“No.” Gramps’s paper rustled as he folded it and tossed it on the table in front of Mac. “I’ll finish up the sanding and help her with the painting so she can go with you. The new restroom is my project.”
Sensing an upcoming pissing match and not wanting to hang around for either male
to mark her as his territory, Claire hopped off Mac’s lap and made for the rec room. “I need to talk to Mom quick before breakfast. I’ll be right back.”
She was halfway across the rec room when Ruby called her name.
“Claire, hon. Could you hold up a sec?”
She paused with her foot on the first step and waited for Ruby to join her.
Wiping her hands on a dish towel, Ruby glanced behind her before asking, “Will you do me a favor?”
“Of course,” Claire said, wondering if this were going to be about Jess and her dad or Gramps or all three. “What is it?”
“Your momma’s birthday is comin’ up.”
Oh, shit, that was right. Her mother took to getting older like a cat to a bath. There was always lots of hissing, growling, screeching, bristling hair, and biting—and then her actual birthday arrived.
“Will you order her favorite cake from the grocery store in Yuccaville when you head into town? I’d make the cake from scratch, but she probably would suspect me of fillin’ it with a laxative.” Ruby’s lips curved upward. “And I just might, too, if she was in one of her pissy moods while I was makin’ it.”
Claire squeezed Ruby’s shoulder. “Sure. I’ll order her favorite. That should make her happy for a whole two seconds.”
“Thanks, sweetie.” Ruby glanced once more at the kitchen. “I’d appreciate it if y’all kept quiet about this. Your grandfather thinks I’m a fool for throwin’ her a party.”
Gramps knew his daughter well. He was probably right, but Ruby’s heart was too big for her own good. Claire would join in on the birthday fun, even if she had to get vaccinated for the rabies virus after the party was over.
“My lips are sealed,” Claire said and took the stairs two at a time.
She hesitated outside of her mom’s bedroom door, listening for any sounds coming from inside. Her mother had been very happy last night when Chester and Manny had pretty much carried her out of The Shaft. The sight of her wide smile was as rare as a giant squid sighting, and Claire could not help but gawk as the old boys had fun making her mom laugh.
