The Great Jackalope Stampede (10 page)

After Natalie’s comment about the “situation” with the archaeologists, he needed to talk with Claire. Depending on what “conspiracy stuff” she was whispering in Natalie’s ear, he might be paying a visit to the Lucky Monk before the day was out after all.

“Filling up, huh?” Ronnie glugged down some root beer, then slammed the can on the counter, burping into her fist. Two of her fingernails had the paint half peeled off. Another one looked ragged, like it had been torn or chewed.

Mac could not help but gape at her. He had never seen Ronnie anything other than perfectly poised with her hair coiffed, her nails polished, and her smile fine-tuned. It looked like Jackrabbit Junction was working its dusty magic on her, leaving her pucker faced and sour tempered.

“Don’t tell me you’re planning to leave paradise so soon.” Sarcasm laced her tone along with something he could not pinpoint. It almost sounded like a touch of desperation, or maybe fear.

No, it couldn’t be fear. That made no sense. What did Ronnie have to fear besides a missed spa appointment? Whatever it was, Mac had no time for this. He needed to see Claire—and Ruby, too. He took several steps toward the curtain, but then remembered something from last night and returned to the counter.

Stuffing the last of her candy bar in her mouth, Ronnie looked up at him with raised brows.

“Did I see you getting a ride from the Sheriff last night?” he asked, watching for her reaction.

Claire had called Natalie before leaving the bar with Mac last night and confirmed that Ronnie had made it back to the Skunkmobile, which meant Mac most likely had been spot on about her leaving in the Sheriff’s pickup.

Ronnie’s cheeks reddened. “Like I told Claire and Katie,” she said through a mouthful of chocolate, “he was just doing his duty and taking me home after I’d had a few too many drinks.”

“Right.” It was his turn to use sarcasm. “Since when does the Sheriff of Cholla County act as a taxi service for drunks?”

She swallowed while shaking her head. “I wasn’t drunk, just tipsy.”

“Is that why you didn’t stick around to help Claire and Kate with the fight?”

Ronnie’s mouth opened, but a loud war cry from the other side of the curtain interrupted her, followed by a crash and several thumps.

Mac didn’t wait to hear what came next. He rushed through the curtain into the rec room only to stop in his tracks at the sight of Claire and Kate rolling around on the carpet, grunting and cursing as they wrestled for something Kate clutched in her right hand. Ruby’s set of four T.V. trays, which usually sat stacked next to the couch, lay scattered across the floor.

Frozen in surprise, Mac watched as Kate rolled on top of Claire and nailed her with a solid elbow in the breadbasket, and then tried to scramble out of her sister’s reach. Before Kate could make it to freedom, Claire recovered. She latched onto Kate’s ankle, yanking her backward.

His brain finally thawed. Mac barged forward. “What in the hell is going on?”

“Dang it, boy,” Chester said from a stool at the bar. “Don’t go ruining the match.”

“What match?” Mac grabbed Claire’s arm, the one that had a hold on Kate, and tried to loosen her grip.

“Kate ‘the Ex-Porn Star’ Morgan versus her sister Claire ‘the Tool Babe.’”

Manny burst through the back door, a can of beer in his hand. His gaze landed on the three of them in the middle of the rec room. “Holy
frijoles
! What’s going on in here? Can I join in?”

Chester snickered. “You wouldn’t last a round with your trick hip.”

“Claire,” Mac growled. “Let go of her.”

“Fine! Fine! I’m letting go.” Claire sat up, rubbing her gut. “She started it, though.”

“She’s right, Katie did start it,” Chester confirmed, puffing on his cigar. “I saw the whole thing.”

“Bragger,” Manny said.

Chester rolled the ash from his cigar. “I’ve seen better matches in the mud pen at Dirty Gerties.”

Mac turned his glare on the two contenders. “What’s with all of the fighting lately? Are you two trying out for the WWE?”

“It’s their mother,” Manny answered. “Ford has said it time and again. Every time their
madre
comes around, all three of his granddaughters go a little
loca
.”

“Or a lot,” Chester added. “Like werewolves during a full moon.”

Mac got a look at what Kate was holding in her hand—the damned golden pocket watch from Ruby’s safe. That explained Claire’s temporary insanity.

“What are you doing with the watch?” he asked Kate.

“Keeping it away from her.” Kate pointed at Claire. “She’s obsessed.”

“Would you stop touching it with your bare hands! The oil in your fingers can ruin it.”

“See, Mac, like I said—obsessed.”

“I told you, I am not obsessed,” Claire said. “I’m just concerned about the trouble it might bring our way.”

“There’s not going to be any trouble,” Kate said, her voice higher than normal, her cheeks dotted with red splotches. “Nobody but our family knows about this stupid watch or any of the rest of Joe’s stuff.”

“I do,” Chester said. “So does Manny.”

Kate shot them a glare. “You two don’t count.”

“That’s not true,” Claire said. “Your barmaid buddy Arlene knows now, thanks to your big mouth.”

“What watch?” Ronnie asked from behind Mac. She stood just inside the curtain.

“Arlene doesn’t give a damn about any of this.”

After helping Claire to her feet, Mac said to her, “I thought we agreed last night that you were going to take a break from this whole sleuthing business.”

“I said I would do my best to keep my nose out of trouble,” Claire said, picking up her Mighty Mouse hat from the floor and jamming it on her head. “Not stop researching it altogether.” Her eyes challenged his. “There’s no harm in just reading about it, is there?”

A scoff came from Kate’s direction. “There is when you’re trying to blackmail your younger sister into breaking into someone’s house or office to get on his computer.”

“He’s your
boyfriend
, numb nuts.” Claire straightened her red T-shirt so the mummy image was back in front. “It’s not breaking and entering when you’re having sex with him on a regular basis.”

“How regular are we talking?” Manny asked.

Chester scratched his jaw. “I thought they were breaking up.”

“Let me see the watch.” Ronnie sidled up next to Kate, who opened her fist warily while keeping an eye on Claire.

“Mac, you gotta make Claire stop messing with Joe’s things,” Kate said. “She’s starting to get all twitchy-eyed again.”

“My twitch has nothing to do with the watch.”

“And look what happened last time she got too deep into someone else’s business.”

“What? I helped Ruby keep her mine,” Claire justified.

“You almost got killed,” Mac reminded her.

“Only a little,” she shot back.

Chester let out a lungful of smoke-filled laughter.

“Damn.” Ronnie whistled through her teeth. “That’s gotta be worth a few thousand bucks, don’t you think?”

“Hand me the pocket watch, please,” Mac ordered.

Kate dropped it into his open palm, dusting off her hands like she was finished with the whole mess.

“What are you going to do with it?” Claire asked.

“Give it to you,” (which he did) “and ask you to return it to the place you got it from and leave it there.”

“I was going to do just that after I took some pictures of it, but Kate blew this all out of proportion and took it from me.”

“I did not.”

“You did, too,” Chester butted in. “You kind of went a little nuts there, Katie girl, getting all bristled up and jaw snapping when Claire mentioned calling Butch.”

Claire lovingly buffed the case of the golden watch with her T-shirt, handling it like it was a museum piece. “What’s wrong with you lately, Kate?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me.” She pointed at her oldest sister. “Ronnie is the one acting all weird.”

“What?” Ronnie took a step back. “I’m not acting weird.”

“Yeah, you are,” Claire joined Kate’s side. “You cut and darkened your hair, you’re wearing colored contacts, and you keep hiding from Mom.”

“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.