Jackrabbit Junction Jitters (18 page)

Under the table, Claire crossed her fingers on her free
hand. “Sure.”

“Claire.” His tone warned as his breath brushed her lips.

She crossed her ankles. “I promise. Now kiss me like you
mean it.”

* * *

Kate wiped her hands on a paper towel and pulled open the
ladies’ room door. She stepped out into the narrow hallway and collided with a
black shirt and a wall of chest.

“Oof!” she said, stumbling sideways.

A pair of hands grabbed her and kept her from hitting the
wall.

“Sorry about th—” His voice trailed off as she locked gazes
with a familiar pair of dark blue eyes. “Oh, it’s you.”

Butch didn’t sound happy to see her. He looked shorter
without his white cowboy hat. His reddish-blonde hair curled at his collar.

“We keep running into each other.” Wincing at her own words,
Kate tried to laugh off her embarrassment, but it came out high-pitched,
squeaky around the edges.

His eyes narrowed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me I
should’ve let you know I was walking down the hall before you came busting out
of the bathroom and slammed into me.”

She deserved that, but he didn’t have to glare at her like
she’d run over his foot.

She’d screwed up royally when it came to handling that
accident. Hours of doodling on the concrete wall in a jail cell had given her
plenty of time to realize the error of her ways. It was time to clear the slate
and start over.

Lifting her chin, she said, “Listen, I need to talk to you,
Mr. … Butch.” She had yet to learn the man’s last name and she doubted he’d
appreciate her calling him Mr. Bartender.

He held up his hand, stopping her. “I’m too tired for this
today after being up all night.”

Now that he mentioned it, his eyes were slightly bloodshot
around the rims.

“I just want to say—”

“I think you said enough last time, Miss Morgan. Goodbye.”

Without a backwards glance, he strode past her and pushed
through the men’s room door, the creaking hinges his encore.

Kate stared after him, her mouth hanging open, stunned by
his abrupt departure. So she’d been a pain the day of the accident. That was no
reason to be so rude in return. He was going to hear her apology whether he
wanted to or not.

She marched to the men’s room door and lifted her hand to
knock, but halted, her hand in the air. What was she going to do? Talk to him
through a slab of wood? Ask if she could join him?

Before she could change her mind, she closed her eyes,
pushed open the door, and stepped inside.

The smell surprised her. She’d expected stale urine with a
hint of cigarette smoke, or worse. Instead, a fresh pine scent filled the air.
The sound of water hitting porcelain made her squeeze her eyelids closed even
tighter.

“Butch?” she said too loud for such a small room and jumped
at the sound of her own voice.

“Jesus, woman! What are you doing in here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I’m a little busy right now.”

“You can just listen then.” She continued with her mission
before he could interrupt. “I want to tell you that I’m sorry for my behavior
after I smashed your pickup. I wasn’t thinking straight and kind of panicked.”

“Kind of?” The water stopped. She heard him zip his jeans.

Ignoring his skepticism, she swallowed the nervous
fluttering in her throat. “If there’s anything else I can do to help get your
pickup fixed, let me know.”

The urinal flushed. She tried to smile, but it felt stiff on
her cheeks, so she dropped it.

“I’d offer to drive you around, but my car is out of
commission, of course, and nobody in my family will allow me to drive their
vehicle. So, the best I can offer is a ride on the handlebars of Ruby’s bicycle
while I peddle.”

“You can open your eyes now.”

She peeked between her eyelashes as he turned on the faucet.
He stared back at her through the mirror above the sink, an unreadable
expression on his face.

Glancing away, she tried to focus on something else. Her
gaze landed on the urinals, and she felt her forehead grow warm. She turned to
her right and realized she was staring at a condom machine. Her ears
practically burst into flames.

She looked down at her sandals. “Anyway, I don’t want you to—”

The door behind her creaked opened, bumping her in the
shoulder. She stepped to the side as a short, very chubby, very hairy man in a
wife-beater tank top walked in.

“Hey, Don.” Butch greeted the guy with a nod.

“Howdy, Butch,” Don replied. When he noticed Kate standing
there, his smile widened. “Good afternoon, Miss.” He touched the brim of his
brown, dusty cowboy hat, then headed for a urinal.

Zipppp.

Kate squeezed her eyes closed again.

The door hinges squeaked.

“Come on, crazy lady,” Butch whispered in her ear. He
grabbed her arm and dragged her into the hallway.

Kate opened her eyes and found herself standing close enough
to Butch to count his blond eyelashes. He smelled like soap and something fresh—not
strong enough to be cologne.

“Anyway,” she said, her voice higher this time.

“Apology accepted.” Butch stepped back. “While I’m thinking
about it, I need to return this to you.” He pulled his wallet from his back
pocket and flipped it open.

Kate looked down at his Arizona driver’s license stuffed
behind clear plastic. He looked rugged in his picture, his hair combed back,
his cheekbones and chin chiseled. The name “Valentine” was printed next to his
picture, but his hand blocked the rest. As he dug through one of the pockets, a
couple of cards slipped out and drifted to the floor.

“Damn,” he said under his breath.

“I’ll get them.” Happy to give her fingers something to do
besides twiddling, she squatted down. One of the cards was for a video rental
store, the other had Copper Snake Mining Company printed in bold letters on it.

“Thanks.” Butch held out his hand.

She stood and gave them to him without getting a chance to
see the name on the business card.

“Here you go.” He held out her insurance card. “You got
hauled off to jail before I could return it.”

At that moment, a hole in the floor big enough for her to
disappear into would have been appreciated.

“How’s the stolen car business treating you these days?” His
grin took the sting out of his words.

Wow! She’d forgotten how handsome he could be when he wasn’t
glaring at her. She tried to think of something witty to say. “Umm, good,” was
what spilled out of her mouth.

Criminy, she was an idiot.

His grin faltered.

“Hey, Butch.” The guy who’d brought Kate and Claire their BLTs
stood at the end of the hall. “Your lawyer’s on the phone.”

“Thanks.” Butch turned to Kate. “Duty calls. Run into you
another time.” With a goodbye nod, he strode away.

Kate watched him go. The sight of his broad shoulders,
narrow waist, and long legs made her feel like she’d been sniffing Elmer’s glue
all afternoon.

The sound of a urinal flushing cleared the fog in her brain.
Her attraction to Butch faded with the mist. She must have had too much sun
today. Way too much sun.

She headed for the patio and Claire.

The truth hit her like a snow shovel to the head, stopping
her in her tracks in front of the glass door. She stared blindly out at Mac and
her sister. How could she be such an idiot?

The clues were right in front of her like a police line-up.
First, Butch’s eyes were red from being up all night. Second, he had a business
card from the mining company in his wallet. Third, at this very moment, he was
talking to his lawyer.

It couldn’t be any more obvious—Butch was the one trying to
steal the Lucky Monk mine away from Ruby.

Monday, August 16th

“Damn, it’s hot in here.” Claire wiped her brow with her
forearm. Her hands swam inside a pair of yellow rubber gloves, her sweat-ringed,
“Mummy Dearest” monster T-shirt clung to her back like a baby opossum. Even the
concrete felt warm under her knees.

Ruby needed to install fans in the R.V. park’s public
restrooms. After spending the last half-hour in this concrete-lined crock-pot,
heatstroke was just a hallucination away.

Afternoon sunlight glared through the window, spotlighting
the drain in the center of the floor. The florescent light bulbs droned
overhead as an incessant memorial to all of the dead fly carcasses littering
the windowsill and dark corners.

Sitting back on her heels, Claire frowned at the toilet with
the steel “snake” coil still jammed down its porcelain throat. Thank God her
nose was still only partially working.

“Here, mi amor.” Manny squeezed into the toilet stall with
her, patting dry her forehead and cheeks with a scratchy paper towel, and
wiping off her chin. “You had dirt on your face.”

“Thanks.” she blinked sweat from her lashes.

“You sure that was dirt?” Chester’s grin was wide enough to
have its own zip code.

Claire shuddered. It was going to take two bars of soap to
get her fresh and clean again, especially after spending the morning putting
out fires—literally.

Some bozo hadn’t fully doused a pit fire before hitching up
and rolling out of the park. The mid-morning breeze had stoked the smoldering
embers and had carried sparks to a nearby knoll covered with grass, aka
kindling with roots. Luckily, Manny noticed the smoke while on binocular
patrol, and Claire and Gramps were able to douse the flames before involving Yuccaville’s
voluntary fire department.

Finished playing towel boy, Manny returned to his seat next
to Chester on the sink counter. “You guys still haven’t helped me figure out
how to get Rebecca to notice me.”

Chester lit a cigar, his eyes squinty, thoughtful.

It was hard to conjure romantic ideas while splashing
elbow-deep in what Chester kept referring to as “the crapper.” Claire pulled
the snake from the toilet and tossed it on the floor drain.

“I’ve tried some of my best pick-up lines on her.” Manny
continued. “But she won’t give me the time of day.”

Cigar smoke billowed around Chester’s buzz cut. “Just tell
her you have less than three months to live.”

Using the toilet paper holder to pull herself to her feet,
Claire asked, “What happens when he’s still alive in four months?”

“Simple—a case of divine intervention. It’s a goddamned
miracle.” Chester waved his hands in the air holy-roller style.

“Maybe.” Manny leaned back against the mirror, his lips
pursed as if he was actually considering Chester’s suggestion. “No. Rebecca is
too smart for that one.”

Chester smirked. “For all you know, she could have the I.Q.
of a dung beetle. What do you really know about this dame?”

“She’s blonde.” Manny smiled, as if that said it all.

“So was Crazy Carol. Her fetish for sharp knives almost left
you singing in the Vienna Boys Choir.”

Manny cringed visibly. “I still get asked about that scar.”

“What else you got?”

“She has a cute little tattoo of Toucan Sam on her hip,
right above her tan line.”

Claire peeled off the yellow gloves. She didn’t want to know
how Manny found out about the tattoo. She had a feeling Chester’s binoculars had
played a part.

“And she seems really sweet.”

A rusty chuckle rumbled from Chester’s chest. “So did that Flo
dame. Turned out she was sweet like a Pay Day bar—half sugar and half nuts.”

Manny’s cheeks dimpled. “I’ll never play naked leap frog
again.”

Wincing away the images in her head, Claire tossed the
gloves onto the floor next to her toolbox. “Why don’t you just start with, ‘Hello,
my name is Manny’?”

Both men scoffed at her.

She chuckled at their twin horrified expressions. “What’s
wrong with introducing yourself?”

“That’s what you do when you join Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Chester adjusted himself in front of her as if she were just one of the boys.

She really needed to make some new friends.

“Asking a lady out takes more finesse,” Manny explained.

Claire bit back a smile. Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd had
more finesse than these two circus clowns.

“I know!” Chester took his cigar out of his mouth. “Ask her
if she was on a rerun of Baywatch last week. That always makes the ladies
smile.”

“Hey, that’s not bad.” Manny nodded.

“And if that gets your foot in the door.” A grin split
Chester’s face. “Ask if she collects birds, because she sure has a nice set of
hooters.”

Manny’s laugh bounced off the concrete walls.

Washing her hands in the sink, Claire groaned. “Chester, I’m
amazed you found one woman to marry you, let alone three.”

“What can I say? Women want a taste of America’s Most
Wanted.” Chester slid off the counter, shuffled over to the stall, and frowned
at the toilet. “So, did you fix the latrine?”

Claire dried her hands on a paper towel. “No. The clog is
too deep for the snake. And there isn’t an access panel or cleanout anywhere
around here, so I’m going to have to remove the whole damned toilet.”

On the upside, now she had an excuse to go to Yuccaville.
Never mind that Creekside Hardware and Supply had plenty of wax toilet rings.

Her fingers itched to hit the keyboard at the county library
and pin down the age of Joe’s cache of artifacts. She’d worry about where the
pieces had come from in due time—there were only so many plates she could spin
at once.

Manny scooted off the counter as Claire closed her toolbox. “Let
me know when Act II of Much Ado About Toilets starts.” He held out her cap. “I’ll
bring beer and pretzels.”

Slipping on her hat, she said, “Listen, I know Mac told you
two to keep an eye on me, but how much trouble can I get into fixing a clogged
toilet?”

“Who cares?” Manny’s waggled his bushy eyebrows. “We just
like watching a woman get all sweaty and dirty.”