Jackrabbit Junction Jitters (29 page)

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.”

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.

Jess caught up with Claire. “You’d think Ruby would’ve at
least told her kid she was leaving. Do you think she took the money with her?”

Her back to Jess, Claire rolled her eyes. “Think about it,
Jess. Why would she take all of that money with her?”

“Good, that means it’s still somewhere around here.”

Silence followed as Claire bent the back of the bench seat
forward and searched through the gadgets, tools, and geology-related books Mac
had neatly packed back there.

“What are you doing?” Jess asked.

Out of the corner of her eye, Claire could see Jess peering
over her shoulder. “Looking for something for Mac.”

After breakfast, Mac had disappeared up the attic ladder.
Claire suspected he was searching for proof of Ruby’s ownership of the Lucky
Monk, but she hadn’t asked, since Deborah had been circling in vulture fashion
since emerging from her lair wearing curlers, a silk robe, and bright red
lipstick.

Muffled thumps overhead had been the only sign of life from
Mac all morning until a few minutes ago when he’d hollered down to ask Claire
if she’d run out to his pickup and grab the envelope.

“You should look in the glove box.” Jess offered unsolicited
help.

“Thanks,” Claire said with a dose of sarcasm.

She clicked the seat back into an upright position, pulled
open the door to the glove compartment, and screamed.

* * *

Mac looked up from the box of Joe’s old tax returns he’d
been sifting through. He frowned at the web-clogged mesh covering the attic
vent. Was that a scream?

Several seconds passed, filled with the whirring of the
attic fan. He shook his head. It must have been his imagination.

Specs of dust twirled and tumbled through the air,
illuminated by the 100-watt halogen floodlight Mac had dragged up into the
sweltering loft. The scent of dry-rotted cardboard and baked insulation surrounded
him. He mopped his face with his sweat-soaked T-shirt and bent back over the
box of returns.

A high-pierced shriek rang out.

Jess! He’d know that eardrum-bursting scream anywhere.

Springing to his feet, he dashed down the attic ladder, and
took the steps three at a time. The rec room and store were nothing more than a
blur.

He raced down the porch steps. “Jess?”

“Mac, no! Freeze!” Claire said from where she leaned inside
the passenger side of his pickup.

He skidded to a stop a couple of feet behind her. “Where’s
Jess?”

“I’m up here,” Jess said from the porch.

On his flight out of the store, he’d zipped past where she
stood, plastered against the wall, trying to become one with the house.

He turned back to Claire. “What’s going on?”

“I have a little problem.” Claire said, still with her back
to him.

Then he heard it—a dry, rattling sound, like a tiny pair of
maracas.

He crept up behind Claire and peered over her shoulder.

A diamondback rattlesnake sat coiled, tail shaking, on the
open glove box door, not a foot from Claire. Its head was raised and poised to
strike.

“Fuck.” He licked his dry lips.

“That’s my line,” Claire said.

Easing back, Mac rubbed the back of his neck.