Jackrabbit Junction Jitters (14 page)

“And that’s our cue to leave.” Kate grabbed Porter by the
arm and tugged him toward the curtain. “Don’t wait up.”

Claire stepped to the side.

“Nice to see you again, Claire.” Porter tipped his hat as he
skirted her. He grinned back at Deborah. “I sure enjoyed meeting you, Ms.
Morgan. I can see now where your girls get their good looks.”

Rolling her eyes at her mother’s blush, Claire breathed a
sigh of relief after they disappeared through the curtain. Swallowing the last
of her pie, she headed for the kitchen. The smell of fried burgers teased her
stomach.

Gramps peeked out from the kitchen doorway. “Are they gone?”
He didn’t even blink when he caught sight of Claire. “Oh, there you are. Did
you get that toilet fixed?”

Ruby walked out around him, took one look at Claire, and
smiled. “Let me get you a washcloth.” She hurried past Claire.

Nostrils flared, Deborah whirled on Claire. “That was rude
and disgusting.”

“What? I was chewing with my mouth closed.”

The back door opened and Chester and Manny barreled inside.

“And when I asked her to blow on my schnitzel,” Chester
said, “she slapped me.” He stopped short when he realized he had an audience.
He started wheezing when his gaze hit Claire. “Damn, girl. You look like you
crawled out of the back end of a mule.”

“Ay yi yi, mi bonita.” Manny rubbed his hands together, his
eyes glued on her hips. “You’re wearing your tool belt. I love a woman who knows
how to handle a tool.”

Claire smirked. Him and Mac both.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Carrera.” Gramps shot
Manny a one-eyed glare. “And stop looking at my granddaughter like that.”

“Howdy, boys.” Ruby handed Claire a wet pink washrag. “Supper’s
ready for y’all.”

Deborah sniffed and wrinkled her upper lip as if Ruby had
cooked Lutefisk. She grabbed her Coach designer purse from the bar and started
toward the back door.

“Where are you going?” Gramps asked.

“I have some reading to do.”

“You can do that after you eat the food Ruby cooked for you.”
Gramps poured on the guilt, like a true parent.

“Let the games begin.” Chester unfolded the card table.

Claire wiped her cheek and looked down at the rag. A brown
smudge stained the pink terry cloth. A spit bath with a dainty washcloth wasn’t
going to cut it. When she was finished, she was going to have to scour the tub
clean.

While Deborah and Gramps argued about eating at the kitchen
table instead of the card table, Claire slipped into the bathroom and locked
the door behind her. The shower beckoned.

A bubble of laughter popped in her throat when she caught
sight of herself in the mirror. She looked like she’d been dragged behind a
horse across the desert floor.

She pulled her shirt over her head and unbuttoned her jeans.
As soon as she’d scrubbed her skin clean and grabbed some supper, she planned
on sneaking up to Mac’s room and daydreaming about the things she would do to
him later tonight.

The lock on the bedroom door would keep her mother out.
There was no way she wanted to spend another evening listening to Deborah’s
lectures on etiquette and morality, not with the Mac-filled fantasies Claire
had been stirring up all day.

She paused in the midst of taking her socks off, chewed her
bottom lip, and fretted for a moment about Mac being alone up in the Lucky
Monk. Cave-ins were always a possibility, as well as crazy bitches with guns,
which they’d both learned from experience.

Somebody pounded on the door.

She jumped. “What?”

“What are you doing in there?” Gramps asked in her favorite
barking tone of his.

“Knitting you a sweater. What do you think?”

“Well, hurry up.”

“There are two other bathrooms in this house.”

“You’re up next in the tournament.”

Claire sighed. “Can’t someone sit in for me?”

“No. You’ve got five minutes.”

“Then what? You’ll break the door down?”

“I know where Ruby keeps the key. I’ll send your mother in
there to get you.”

Claire grimaced at her reflection in the mirror. Gramps knew
how to play dirty. “I thought she was going back to the R.V. to read.”

“She did, too. But she can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s your Euchre partner tonight.”

“That Porter is a real gentleman,” Deborah said as she
rearranged the cards in her hand. “He actually asked me what time he should have
Kate back here. Can you believe that?”

She looked across the table at Claire, sporting a porcelain
smile that barely reached the corners of her lips, let alone her eyes. “Claire,
didn’t you tell me MacDonald asked your grandfather for permission to date you?”

“No, Mother.”

White knuckled, Claire stared blindly at her own cards, her
tongue raw from biting it repeatedly while Deborah crowed praises for a man
with whom she’d spent a grand total of ten minutes trading weather forecasts.

She tipped back her Corona, barely tasting it. Cigar smoke
and Chanel No. 5 swirled around on the air conditioned trade winds that circled
the rec room.

“Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten that MacDonald isn’t
concerned with your family’s feelings. My mistake.”

With Ruby off to Yuccaville to pick up Jess from a friend’s
house, Deborah had no incentive to censor her comments about Mac and his
so-called shortcomings. But Claire was about to give her mom a reason. She just
wasn’t sure if cramming a bear claw doughnut in Deborah’s mouth and then duct
taping her lips shut would be enough.

“Claire, it’s your bid.” Gramps thumped his fingers on the
table, puffing on his cigar. His knickers were wadded up double-knot tight
because he and Manny needed only one more trick to win the game. “And that tic
is back in your eye, girl.”

Closing the guilty eye, Claire shot Gramps a Cyclops glare
over the top of her cards. His cheeks creased slightly as he noticeably fought
to keep a grin from surfacing.

“Did you see how Porter kissed the back of my hand?” Deborah
sipped her second glass of White Zinfandel. “I haven’t had a young man kiss my
hand since I was in college.” She tittered as she lowered her glass to the
table.

Claire winced. Whistling tea kettles grated less on her
nerves.

“Claire, bid.” Gramps nudged her again.

Chester belched from where he sat at the bar watching them
play. “Did he kiss your hand, too, Claire?” The smirk on his face said he
already knew the answer.

“Of course he didn’t.” Deborah spoke for Claire, like any
good, overbearing mother. “I don’t blame him either. You saw how filthy she
was.”

Her stomach churning with tension, Claire stared down at her
cards. She tried to focus on the suits and numbers. Manners instilled back when
she wore pigtails kept her from snarling at her mother in front of Chester and
Manny, but her teeth were going to crack if she gritted them much harder.

“Seems to me,” Manny said, “a gentleman would look past a
little dirt to have a chance to touch his lips to the hand of a beautiful
woman.”

Claire shot him a quick smile.

Gramps slammed down his cards. “Would you quit horsing
around and bid already, Claire!”

“Fine! I’m going to shoot.” That should shut Gramps up.

The only way to keep him from basking in the spoils of
victory was to try to win all of the tricks this hand and steal the game out
from under Manny and Gramps.

“Alone?” Manny asked.

“No.” Claire laid her worst card face-down on the table and
pushed it across to her mother. “Give me your best heart.”

Gramps snickered. “I’m not sure Deborah even has one.”

Deborah frowned. “Very funny, Dad.” She shoved one card
across the table toward Claire and pocketed the rest. “Since I’m sitting out
this round, I may as well file my nails. That country bumpkin at the Nail
Palace turned my fingertips into daggers.”

Claire had always thought her mom’s nails grew that way
naturally.

She picked up her mother’s card—the Queen of clubs. What
part of “best heart” had Deborah not understood? Claire stuffed the card in
between her others.

Straight faced in spite of this chink in her armor, she told
the guys, “Hearts is trump,” and led the round with the highest trump card—the
Jack of hearts.

Gramps and Manny threw out lower-ranking suit cards. One
down, five to go.

“Honestly, Claire.” Deborah pulled a short nail file from her
purse. “If you want my opinion—”

“I don’t.” Honest opinions from her mother usually burned in
Claire’s gut.

She dropped the second highest trump card, the Jack of
diamonds, onto the table.

“It would do you some good to be a little more like Kathryn.”
Deborah filed away on her talons.

Gramps tossed out the nine of diamonds. “So, you want Claire
to start lying to the cops?”

Chester guffawed.

“I think she means Claire should bleach her hair blonde and
wear short skirts.” Manny dropped the Ace of hearts on the pile. “And I for one
am all for short skirts.”

Chester rolled his cigar in the ashtray. “They say blondes
have more fun, but I’ve known many brunettes who could—”

“I’m referring to Kathryn’s choice in men.” Deborah had
stopped filing. She glared at each of the three stooges in turn.

Claire scooped up the cards and replaced them with the Queen
of hearts, her penultimate trump card. “Oh, I get it. You want me to start
dating petty thieves.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Claire Alice.” Deborah pointed the
file at her. “I’m not your father. I don’t think it’s cute.”

“What’s your problem with Mac?” Gramps slapped the Jack of
spades on Claire’s card.

Manny added the Jack of clubs.

Three down, three to go. Claire’s nine of hearts came next—the
last trump card out there.

“MacDonald needs someone less refined than Claire. Someone
more his social equal.”

“Have you forgotten Claire’s entrance earlier this evening?”
Gramps asked. “She looked like she’d been making mud pies all afternoon. And
look at her now, sitting there in her paint-stained shirt and torn jeans. She’s
not even wearing a bra, for chrissake.”

“Hey!” Claire pulled Ruby’s windbreaker closed over her purple
Deadwood Rocks! T-shirt. “You guys are the ones who couldn’t wait for me to run
to the Winnebago for some clean underwear.”

The stash of spare clothes she kept in Ruby’s linen closet
included jeans, shorts, some old tennis shoes, and a couple of T-shirts—extra
clothes she didn’t care about getting paint or grease on. But no skivvies or
bra, and she’d refused to slip back into the ones she’d sweated in all
afternoon.

“Claire is not exactly a model of refinement.” Gramps placed
the King of clubs down. “No offense, kid.”

“None taken.” She watched Manny place the ten of diamonds on
the stack. “Refinement sounds too much like ‘confinement’.”

“Her outfit tonight is just a minor setback in my plans for
updating her wardrobe.”

“I swear to God, Mother, if you lay one manicured finger on
my T-shirts, I’ll tell Kate that you never really took Mr. Bojangles to that ‘nice
little farm’ out on the prairie.”

Deborah flashed Claire a narrow-eyed, silent warning. “I’m
just saying that you could use someone to guide you here and there.”

“What do you think I am? Some ass-scratching ape?” Claire
rolled her eyes and threw out the Ace of spades, Gramps the Ace of diamonds, and
Manny the Queen of spades. “Besides, Mac has a master’s degree. You’ve
obviously never heard him talk about soil types or plate tectonics at the
breakfast table.”

One to go and she’d be free of her mother for the night.
Crossing her fingers under the table, Claire dropped the Queen of clubs in the
center of the table.

Manny sighed and threw his King of spades out of turn.

She looked at Gramps. The grin on his face made her swear.
He slapped the Ace of clubs down and howled in victory.

Deborah pulled her cards from her pocket and laid them in
the center of the table. Claire flipped over her mom’s cards. The King of
diamonds mocked her.

“Damn it, Mom. Why didn’t you give this one to me? We could
have won the game.”

“No one likes a sore loser, sweetie.” Deborah’s gaze
remained glued on the nail she was filing. “Besides, you shouldn’t have shot.
It was too risky. One of these days you’re going to learn the importance of
using caution and not jumping before you’ve had a chance to plan things out.”

“Whatever!” Claire fell back in her chair. She shoved her
stack of won tricks across the table, her shoulders drooping in defeat.
Partnering with her mom had added several wrinkles on her face. She’d eat a fly
in exchange for a cigarette right now.

“Don’t ‘whatever’ me. You’re thirty-four years old.”

“Thirty-three and a half.”

“You have yet to settle down with a good man.”

“Have you forgotten that I live with Mac?”

“And raise a family of your own.”

“If this is about you wanting grandchildren—”

“No, it’s not about grandchildren. It’s about you being a
responsible, well-groomed woman. Take Kathryn, for example.”

“No, you take Kate.” Claire had put up enough with her mom raining
glory on her younger sister’s deeds for this evening. “I’m going to take Henry.”

The dog looked up from where he’d been snoozing on the
couch. He stood and stretched.

“We’re going to go for a walk. And tonight, when Mac gets
back, we’re going to have wild and wooly sex. The kind improperly-dressed,
intellectually-challenged girls like me revel in. So if you don’t want to hear
it, stay away from the spare bedroom.”

Eyes bulging, Deborah gaped at Claire.

Gramps grimaced and puffed on his cigar.

“What do you mean by ‘wooly’?” asked Chester.

Henry hopped to the floor when Claire grabbed his leash and
stepped into her flip-flops.