Jackrabbit Junction Jitters (27 page)

Gramps grabbed Deborah’s forearm. “Pack your shit, right
now. You leave first thing in the morning.”

She shook her head. “Not without you.”

“You don’t understand. If you’re not gone by sundown
tomorrow, I’ll drag your ass to Tucson and leave you at the airport myself.” He
limped over to the back door. The windows rattled with his exit.

Spinning around, Deborah pointed at Claire. “If I leave, you’re
coming with me.” She climbed the steps to her room without a backwards glance.

Feeling like she’d caught a fastball with her gut, Claire looked
at her sister, then Chester, then Manny, and then Henry, who lay on the floor
chewing on the boot that broke the camel’s back.

She could use a cigarette about now. Hell, they all could.

“Euchre, anyone?” Chester picked up Deborah’s cards and
frowned. “She should have passed.”

Friday, August 20th

“Here we are.” Butch slowed his pickup to a stop.

Here where? Kate stared through the bug-splattered
windshield at an aluminum gate bearing a No Trespassing sign. Utilitarian
rather than ornate, the gate barred the end of a gravel drive that crested the
top of a small hill covered with orange-brown dirt and patches of scrubby green
bushes.

“Be right back.” He grabbed a set of keys from his
coin-filled ashtray. Kate watched from his air-cooled truck as he unlocked a
padlock that secured the gate to a post, opened the gate, and then blocked it
open with a large stone.

“What is this place?” she asked when Butch crawled back
behind the wheel and shifted into gear.

“It’s where your sister got shot.”

As they rolled up the drive, Kate sent several sidelong glances
Butch’s way. Why did he have a key that opened the padlock on Sophy Wheeler’s
gate?

Butch cut the engine in front of a gray, single-story,
cinderblock house. Kate followed him out of the pickup, shielding her eyes from
the mid-morning sun.

She spun slowly, taking in the surrounding, mostly-barren
hills that hid the place. Behind the house, a string of violet mountains
outlined the mounds of orange-brown dirt. Wind chimes hung from the porch roof,
dinging in the warm breeze winding up through the small canyon. Dust salted the
back of Kate’s throat. The place felt barren, full of ghosts.

The drive dead-ended at a shed with a rusty, corrugated
steel roof that creaked with each draft of air. A coat of green paint had been
slapped on the walls—somewhat recently, Kate guessed, judging from the dried
paint splashed on the ground edging the building. On the door, a padlock that
was identical to the one securing the gate kept the public out.

Kate turned to Butch, who leaned against the front quarter
panel of his truck and watched her with an amused expression that made her feel
like she’d been caught stepping out for the morning paper in her robe and
curlers.

“So that’s the shed where Claire and Sophy had their
showdown?”

“Yep. Do you want to go inside?”

He had the keys to the shed as well? Kate grew more
suspicious with each grasshopper that bounced past. “Is Joe’s old car still
stored in there?”

“Nope. Just a handful of tools. It’s mostly empty.”

“I’ll pass then. Do you have the keys to the house, too?”
She tried to sound flippant, but her voice held a slight tremor in spite of her
efforts.

“Uh-huh, but I can’t let you inside. You can peek in the
windows, if you’d like.”

Kate shook her head. “That’s okay.” Sweat beaded on her
lower back.

“You ready to go?”

“Sure.” She scuttled back to his truck. As Butch turned the
ignition key, she wiped her damp palms on her thighs. “So, why do you have the
keys to this place?” She hoped she sounded inquisitive instead of accusing.

“I’m taking care of it while the owner is away.”

Why hadn’t Sophy sold the place? The woman wasn’t likely to
be back here for a long time, if at all, from what Claire had been told.

Kate waited while Butch turned the pickup around. She
adjusted the vents so the blast of air hit her in the chest. “Did you know
Sophy well?”

“Sure.” He coasted down the drive. “Jackrabbit Junction isn’t
exactly a sprawling metropolis. It doesn’t take long to meet all sixty-seven
inhabitants.”

“Was she friendly with you?”

“She was friendly with most everyone, especially if you were
a functioning male.” He smirked. “If you know what I mean.”

Dear Lord! The idea of Butch sleeping with Sophy had never
crossed Kate’s mind—until now. Her stomach dropped at the thought. She watched
a lone poppy bobbing in the wind outside her window. “I didn’t realize you’d,
uh, been intimate with her.”

Butch coughed out a loud laugh. “Sex with Sophy? Hell, I’ve
never been that desperate.”

Removing her hiking boot from her mouth, she grimaced at
him. “Sorry. I thought … Gramps told me Sophy is ‘a looker’.”

“She is easy on the eyes, especially considering she’s
pushing sixty and has lived in the desert all of her life.” Butch parked the
pickup just outside the gate. “But that doesn’t mean I want to take her to bed.
She’s not exactly my type.”

“What kind of woman is your type?” The question slipped off
her tongue like it’d been slathered with butter.

Her forehead heated as Butch stared at her.

“Kate Morgan, are you asking what I think you’re asking?”

The wicked gleam in his gaze made Kate’s body hum. She knew
better than to get mixed up with yet another man who had a barred window and a
urine-stained cot in his future, but that didn’t stop her from fantasizing.

“I’m not sure.” Her voice came out husky sounding.

Butch reached across the cab and captured the tail end of
one of her blonde tresses in his fingers.

“Kate,” he whispered.

“Yes?” she whispered back, her limbs heavy with
anticipation. The spicy smell of his aftershave drifted over her, making her
hungry for more than just sweet-nothings.

“How was your date with Porter the other night?”

She blinked, trying to make sense of his words. “How do you
know I went out with Porter?”

“Ruby’s daughter was on the front porch this morning when I
came to pick you up.”

Damned Jess and her mouth!

“It wasn’t really a date. Porter is just a friend.”

Butch raised his brows. “So you give goodnight kisses to all
of your male friends?”

Shit! Kate had thought she’d seen some movement from the
upstairs curtains after waving Porter off. She was going to nail two-by-six boards
over Jess’s window.

“No, of course not. Porter is just …” she paused in the
midst of explaining that Porter was just a mark that she was playing for Claire’s
sake. Claire would kick her ass if Kate leaked any more secrets.

“Porter is just what?” Butch pressed, letting go of her hair
and running his finger down her arm, stroking the inside of her wrist.

“He’s just, uh …” she scrambled to come up with an answer,
but Butch’s touch had turned her brain to a consistency somewhere between coarse
grits and cornmeal mush.

“Yes?” Butch leaned closer, his warm breath bouncing off her
cheek as she stared straight ahead.

Kate gulped down a coconut-sized lump in her throat. All she
had to do was turn her head and kiss him to find out what he tasted like.

“He’s just what?”

“Using me.”

His finger stilled. “He’s using you? Why?”

“I think he has a thing for Claire.” She tried to be
slightly vague in her response to give her wiggle room if it got thrown back at
her later.

“So he’s using you to get closer to Claire?”

“Possibly. He’s trying to make her jealous.”

“But isn’t she with Mac?”

“Mostly, and it’s breaking poor Porter’s heart.”

“Mostly? How can you be ‘mostly’ with … Wait, wasn’t she
dancing with Porter the other night at the bar?”

“I believe she might possibly have been.” Uh, oh, this
little white lie was mushrooming.

“Does Claire know Porter is interested in her?”

Kate hesitated, fanning herself, weighing the possible fall
out of however she answered. “Not completely.”

Her forehead practically on fire, she lunged for the door
handle, wanting to put some space between her and Butch before she combusted and
melted a big hole in his pickup seat.

“I’ll get the gate,” she hollered on her flight out the
door.

Cursing at her inability to control her hormones, she kicked
aside the rock, pulled the gate closed, and locked the padlock. She needed to
come up with another interrogation strategy. Her plan to seduce answers out of
Butch kept backfiring in her face.

Butch’s grin greeted her as she climbed into the pickup. “Cute
blondes with pink cheeks,” he said as he shifted into gear.

“What about them?” Kate flipped the air conditioning on high
and directed the middle two vents toward her face. She glanced in the mirror on
the back of her visor and winced. She looked like a red-faced spider monkey.

“They’re my type.” He punched the gas, spewing gravel in
their wake. “Buckle up. Things are going to get bumpy from here on out.”

* * *

“What are you going to do about her?” Claire asked Gramps.

She leaned back in Ruby’s leather office chair, which
squeaked out its two cents on the subject of Gramps swallowing his pride and
crawling back to Ruby on his hands and knees.

“I don’t know.” Gramps paced in front of her. “What do you
think? Roses? Chocolate? Jewelry?” He paused to eye the mummified hand sitting
on the desktop. “Where do you think Joe got this thing?”

Claire shrugged and took a bite of one of the molasses
cookies Ruby had baked earlier in the morning. Gramps needed to fix this mess
before Claire grew too big for her britches from all of Ruby’s stress-fueled
baking.

“I’m still working on that,” she told him.

“How old do you think it is?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Come on, girl. After all of the college classes you’ve
wasted money on you must have an educated guess or two.”

“Well, Mr. Wise Ass, I have been reading about some of the
ancient cultures around this area and I do have some thoughts on the subject—but
nothing concrete.”

Gramps stared at her. “And?”

“I’m almost positive it’s older than the Hohokam and
Mogollon cultures.”

“You’re speaking to a layman, Professor.”

“Sorry. I’m talking B.C. era here.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The early A.D. cultures cremated their dead. I’m still
working on this stick figure piece, though.” She pointed at the sculpture. “Between
the library’s Internet time limit and Jess doing my leg work, the research is
slow. But yesterday she grabbed some books on ancient cultures that I’m hoping
will shed light on the figure or that handmade bag.”

A crooked grin formed on Gramps’s lips. “They still won’t
let you in the library, huh?”

“I’m on six months’ probation.”

“You’d better not get Jess in any trouble.”

“How can surfing the Internet get Jess into any trouble?”

“Just talking to you most days can land any poor sucker
ass-deep in a rat’s nest.”

“Thanks for the kudos, Gramps. You just better hope I’m not
in charge of what words are carved on your tombstone.”

Gramps waved her off and returned to pacing. “So, how am I
going to get Ruby to marry me?”

Claire caressed the soft leather of one of the custom-made
cowboy boots Gramps had found a half-hour ago (along with a box of expensive
cigars) while searching under Ruby’s bed for Henry’s squeaky wiener chew toy.
Claire and Harley had come to the same conclusion about the boots and cigars:
wedding gifts from Ruby.

“I think you need to start with talking to her. Go somewhere
Mom won’t find you and try to interfere. Where’s Ruby right now?”

“She’s running the store.” Gramps snapped his fingers. “I
know. I could borrow Carerra’s Airstream for a bit, have him on surveillance
duty.”

“Good idea.”

“Better yet, you take your mother to the airport in Tucson
and ship her out of here.”

Claire would rather eat a cow pie. “Mom’s afraid to fly.”

She didn’t know why he didn’t just put his foot down and
kick her mom’s ass out of Arizona.

“That’s just a ploy so she doesn’t have to travel alone. I’ll
call the airlines, see if they have any flights to Rapid City today, and book
her a seat.”

Claire figured this idea had about as much of a chance of
flying as a one-winged rhino. However, if it would save the wedding, it was
worth a try. But she’d be damned if she was going to catch and transport her
mother with her sharp talons on her own. “Is Kate back yet?”

“No, but she should be in an hour or so.”

“Wait until she’s here before you say anything to Ruby.
Between Kate and me, we can figure out a way to convince Mom to climb on that
plane alone.”

“Just tell Deborah I meant what I said last night.” Gramps
snapped his fingers again. “That gives me another idea.”