The Great Jackalope Stampede (18 page)

At her tone, he stopped scratching inside of his cast with his favorite hanger. “You did almost lose Henry back in April.”

“But I found him again.”

“He kind of found you,” Chester butted in. “If I remember right.”

“She did go out looking for him with my camera, though.” Manny stuck up for her as usual.

“Take it easy, Claire. I’m just trying to help from down here where I’m stuck, grounded like a broke-dick pilot.”

“Well, you’re pissing me off, so why don’t you try
not
to help for the rest of the day.”

“You never used to be this touchy when we worked together.”

“That’s because you were usually working alongside of me, not sitting there like Napoleon shouting orders.”

It also had something to do with the fact that her period still had not come, which made her all thumbs on the job. Her lack of ability to focus this morning had resulted in several bruises and cuts, as well as some tar in her hair.

Every time she thought about a baby, her breakfast of a cherry fruit pie, bacon, and orange juice threatened to rocket back up her throat. She was not ready for a kid. Hell, she couldn’t even hold down a full-time job for six months, how could she hope to be responsible for another person for eighteen whole years … or more?

After watching Ruby struggle with Jessica for the last few months, Claire figured a child of her own would be better off raised by wolves … or maybe chimps. Wait, make that bonobos—they had a reputation for making love, not war.

“She has a point,” Manny said. “You do like to yell a lot more these days.”

“That’s because she’s way up there.” Gramps adjusted the bill of his ball cap. “Napoleon was a chump. I’m more of a General Patton.”

“I think you both need to light up a smoke and relax,” Chester grumbled. “This stupid no-smoking bet of yours is making the rest of our lives hell.”

Until Claire knew if she was pregnant or not, there would be no more smoking, Chester’s issue with their mutual grumpiness be damned.

Gramps snorted up at her. “Fine, I’ll put on my kid gloves for the rest of the afternoon and treat you like I do Deborah.”

Manny crossed himself at the sound of Claire’s mother’s name.

Claire bristled. Gramps’s attitude had gone steadily to hell since he’d broken his leg, an accident for which he had blamed her once again this morning while shoving a metal hanger inside his cast to scratch an itch. Ruby had mentioned to her yesterday after their talk about Jess that Gramps was struggling with more pain in his leg than he let on. Knowing that, Claire had a little more patience for his orneriness, but this continual jabbing while she worked on finishing the building he had started was getting old.

The damned stubborn man. Maybe it was time to stop treating him like he had a broken leg. Now that she thought about it, the more Ruby played nurse, the more he stomped around the house and chewed on Claire’s ass. Maybe instead of compassion from her, he needed her to butt horns with him, let him burn through some built-up testosterone.

“You want to play rough, Gramps?” She shucked her work gloves, holding them out before her in reply to Gramps’s taunt about donning kid gloves and dropped them on the roof. “Fine. Just don’t run home crying to Ruby when you get your ass kicked and handed to you.”

Manny whistled long and low. “You go, girl!”

Chester shook his head, lighting up a cigar.

“That’s more like it,” Gramps said, scratching with his hanger. “I’m timing your lunch, so don’t be holding hands and singing
Kumbaya
with Natalie for too long.”

After an exaggerated curtsy, she joined her cousin on the other side of the roof’s apex.

Natalie patted the shingles next to her. A good looking roast beef sandwich and a bag of pretzels sat on the roof next to her, waiting for Claire.

“Thanks,” she said, dropping onto her butt and scooping up the sandwich.

“Thank Ruby. She sent Jessica out with it a few minutes ago.”

Natalie pulled a small paper plate stacked with homemade molasses cookies out of the bag. More stress baking by their step-grandmother. Lovely. The button on Claire’s jeans groaned. She needed to fix this deal with Jessica and her dad, or she’d end up hanging drywall while wearing a muumuu and probably screw her dress to the wall. The old boys would never let her live that down.

Claire bit into the sandwich. Ruby had remembered to slather on the horseradish, too. She licked her chops and looked out across the campground. She caught sight of Jessica, who was taking a detour past the archaeology crew’s campers and tents on her way back to the store. The girl was playing peek-a-boo as she strolled extra slowly past what Claire now knew was Beanpole’s tent.

A little bit of investigative work yesterday evening had provided a wealth of information about the tall, skinny college junior whose lofty IQ had made Claire blink. Why was such a smart guy taking an interest in a high school girl? The news about his big brain cemented what Claire suspected, that he was up to something. She would bet that something most likely had to do with a leak—or ten—from Jessica’s loose lips.

After swallowing her bite, she turned to Natalie. “You know the guy you overheard on the phone the other night?”

Chewing, Natalie nodded.

“Was he tall and skinny, like a beanpole? Wearing glasses?”

“Huh-uh.” She took a drink of soda. “He was only about my height. I don’t remember him wearing glasses.”

Damn. So Natalie’s guy and Jess’s beanpole were probably not one and the same. Unless maybe the two were in cahoots—Beanpole was the brains and the other guy was the muscle.

Claire took another bite, chewing on all of the questions she had about the crew and more.

After a few moments of silence broken only by the guffaws of laughter coming from the other side of the building, Natalie asked. “You think Kate is doing okay?”

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?”