Jackrabbit Junction Jitters (22 page)

He led her away from the jukebox. “I’m sorry to hear about
Mac and you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kate said that Mac and you are no longer a couple.”

Stumbling in surprise, Claire came down on his toes. “Sorry ‘bout
that. What exactly did Kate tell you?”

“He broke up with you and you needed some cheering up.”

Fire ants weren’t going to cut it. Claire drilled Kate with
a glare over Porter’s shoulder.

Kate just toasted her glass of beer.

* * *

Kate emptied her glass in three gulps, partly to draw Butch
back down to her end of the bar, but mostly to calm the horde of butterflies
bouncing off the walls of her stomach. Interrogating suspects was Claire’s
forte, not hers.

Butch pointed at her empty glass. “Another?”

She nodded, trying to dislodge her tongue from the roof of
her mouth as she watched him pull on the tap. “Uh, Butch?”

He placed a full glass in front of her. “Yeah?”

“How long have you lived around here?” Something about him
gave her the feeling he wasn’t born and raised in this corner of Arizona.

“Going on eleven years now.”

“So, you know this area pretty well?”

“Sure, you could say that. Why?”

Kate licked the beer foam from her upper lip and dove in. “I
was wondering if you’d mind taking me on a tour of some of the more interesting
places in the area.”

The bar wasn’t exactly the most private venue to put Butch
under a spotlight. She needed to get him alone, so she could slap on some
lipstick and wiggle her hips until he spilled the truth.

Butch looked at her for several long seconds, his eyes searching
for something, probably her angle after she had tried to screw him over at the
accident. Her stomach knotted, then double-knotted, then wound itself into a
hangman’s knot as she held his stare.

“What about your sister?” he asked.

“Well, I’d rather she not tag along. She’s clingy.”

A hint of a smile flickered across his lips. “I meant, why can’t
she tour you around?”

“Oh. She’s too busy at the R.V. park, fixing toilets,
putting out fires, chasing skunks—you know, typical busy work. She really has
very little time to spare most days.”

His smile crinkled his eyes. “What about Porter?”

“He’s only been here a couple of months. I’m sure he doesn’t
know this area like you do.”

“I know, but how will he feel about you and me spending time
together?” He leaned close, his voice lowering. “Alone.”

The sudden heat in his eyes along with the spicy smell of
his cologne had Kate gulping for air. She coughed, covering her mouth with her
hand so her heart wouldn’t fly out of her throat and hit Butch in the forehead.

“He, uh …” Her voice squeaked like a rusty hinge. She
swallowed and tried again. “He and I are just friends. So, that shouldn’t be a
problem.”

“Okay.” He grabbed a towel from behind the bar.

“You mean, ‘okay,’ as in, ‘it’s a date’?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it a ‘date’—unless you’re looking for
something more than I planned to give.”

“No!”

Butch’s eyebrows shot northward.

“Sorry, I mean, no, I’m just looking for a good time—a nice
time, not ‘good’ like ‘good-time Saturday night.’” Oh, God, she was botching
this up so bad. She took a breath. “I just want you to show me some of the
local sights, please.”

Grinning, Butch asked, “How about Sunday afternoon?”

“No!”

His smile widened. “Are you always this passionate, Kate?”

Was there a double meaning behind that question? Did she
want there to be?

“Not usually, it’s just this weekend is Gramps and Ruby’s
wedding, so that probably won’t work. I have tomorrow open, though.”

“I forgot about the wedding. Okay, tomorrow it is, but we’ll
have to go in the morning.”

“You name the time, and I’ll be ready.”

“How about eight?”

“Perfect.”

A full-figured brunette wearing a tube-top and shorts that
rode low on her hipbones and high on her cheeks placed a plastic pitcher on the
bar next to Kate. She batted eyelashes gooped with mascara at Butch. “Will you
fill me up again, sugar?”

As Butch took the pitcher, the brunette added, “Could you
get me a clean pitcher? Billy sneezed in that one.”

Kate watched the bombshell ogle Butch’s butt as he turned
around and bent over to grab a clean pitcher from a lower shelf. Her fingers
itched to reach out and squeeze the tramp’s lashes together, gluing her peepers
shut.

While Butch filled the pitcher, the tramp asked him, “How’s
the takeover going?”

“According to my lawyer, we should close the deal by the end
of the month.”

“Perfect. Give me a call when the dust settles, and we can make
a play date.”

“Will do.” Butch pushed the pitcher across the bar.

“Thanks, sweetie.” With a wink in his direction, the tramp
bounced back to her table, where two leering cowboys waited.

Kate looked back to find Butch watching her, his gaze
narrowed, assessing. Assessing what, she didn’t know. Maybe her lack of
mascara. She wondered if he liked his women to wear tube tops.

“Kate,” he said, leaning closer, his focus now on her mouth.
“Tell me something.”

She licked her lips, nervous all of a sudden. The flare of attraction
she saw in his eyes made her heart speed up. “What?”

“Hey, Butch.” A guy wearing a baseball hat backwards over a
hairnet peeked out the door leading to the kitchen. “Phone.”

“You want to transfer it out here?”

“It’s Lana.”

“Oh. Can you cover for me for a few?”

The guy nodded.

Butch tapped the bar in front of Kate. “I’ll see you
tomorrow in front of Ruby’s store at eight sharp.”

Kate nodded. Watching Butch walk away, Kate wondered who
Lana was, what Miss Tube Top meant about playing, and if Ruby was going to be
able to save her claim before Butch snatched it away from her at the end of the
month.

She also wondered what Butch had wanted her to tell him right
before “Lana” had interrupted, and if it had anything to do with the heat still
steaming deep inside of her.

Tomorrow, Kate was going to find out some answers.

* * *

Claire’s eye began to twitch from glaring at Kate’s back for
so long.

A sweaty, shirt-covered back bumped against Claire’s elbow,
making her cringe. This sardine can had too many damp, oily, cologne-dipped
bodies wriggling around in it. She huddled close to Porter, earning a couple of
raised brows from him.

She smiled, focusing on the task at hand—drilling him for
answers. “How’s the research going?”

“Good.”

“So, is your book going to be fiction or non-fiction?”

“Fiction.”

“Do you ever read for fun?”

“Sure.”

“Who are your favorite authors?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Dean Koontz and Clive
Cussler, for starters. Stephen King and James Patterson, too.”

All of those authors frequently bumped into each other on
the New York Times bestseller list. She would expect a writer to be more
eccentric, to throw out the names of some up-and-comers, or maybe a
Pulitzer-Prize winner like William Faulkner or Harper Lee.

Claire continued to smile, wishing she had some Vaseline to
make it easier for her lips to slide over her teeth. “Do you like the classics?”

“Of course. What writer doesn’t?”

“Exactly.” Now she was getting somewhere. It was time for
all those English Lit classes to finally pay off. “Mark Twain has to be one of
my all-time favorites, along with Jane Austen, of course. What about you? Name
five of your favorite classic novelists.”

He cocked his head to the other side this time. “Classic,
huh? Let’s see. Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, and ummmm … who else is there
… Hemmingway and Tolkien and … oh, his name is on the tip of my tongue.”

So far, he’d listed only heavy-hitters. Most sixth graders
knew those names. “Steinbeck or Crane?” Claire threw out a couple of authors
whose names any Classic Lit fan or college English student should know.

“No.”

“Verne, James, Alcott.” She purposely threw Louisa May
Alcott in there, playing the one-of-these-authors-is-not-like-the-others game.

“His name starts with an ‘S’.”

This time, Claire listed all females. “Stoddard, Stowe,
Steedman?”

“No. It’s ‘Sh’ something.” He chuckled, the usually charming
grin replaced by a lopsided, nervous-looking, upward tilt of the lips. “I must
have had one too many beers tonight.”

Claire hadn’t seen him drink any yet. “Is it Shakespeare?”
If he couldn’t remember the great poet’s name, he must have been sick his whole
senior year of high school.

“No, not him. I can’t believe I’m forgetting his name.”

She tried to think of male authors whose names began with ‘sh’
and came up blank. “What’s the name of one of his books?”

“Frankenstein.”

“You mean Shelley?”

“That’s it!” His grin was extra-bright and extra-charming,
probably meant to blow all thoughts about classical authors from her head. “I
can’t believe Mac was willing to walk away from such a smart and beautiful
woman.”

Yada, yada, yada, Claire thought.

How could he not know Shelley was a woman? He liked Stephen
King and Dean Koontz, for chrissake; he should at least know Shelley’s first
name was Mary.

She shook off her surprise and threw him another curve. “Being
an author, I’m sure you’re familiar with Robert Louis Stevenson’s work?”

If Porter was really an author (and Claire was beginning to
have serious doubts that he was), he should recognize that name because
according to Jess, he’d been thumbing through
Treasure Island
when she
caught him in Ruby’s office last night.

“Sure.”

“Which of his stories do you like best? Jungle Book or
Gulliver’s Travels?” Neither was written by Stevenson.

The charm in his smile dimmed. “That’s tough. Both are great
stories, but I’d have to go with Jungle Book.”

Of course he would, because if Disney hadn’t made it into a
cartoon, he’d probably never have heard of it.

Claire lowered her gaze, not certain she could keep
suspicion from her eyes.

It was apparent that Porter didn’t know classic literature
from a Chilton’s car repair manual, which in itself wasn’t a federal crime, but
why did he claim to be a fan then? What need was there to lie? It couldn’t be
to impress her, could it?

Now that she’d discovered his knowledge about classic lit
could fit into a shot glass, Claire decided to stop messing around and get to
the point.

“Ruby has quite a collection of classics,” she said, purposely
not mentioning that they were in the basement office, which left Porter the
opportunity to come clean about Jess finding him red-handed.

“I know.”

“You do?”

Finally, a slice of hope for Matthew McConaughey’s twin.
Maybe he’d just been trying to impress Claire after all.

“Her daughter showed them to me yesterday before you
returned from Yuccaville.”

Wowzer. That was a liar-liar-pants-on-fire doozy. While the
diameter of Jess’s open jaws may be measurable on the big-mouth-bass scale most
days, the kid wasn’t a liar. Unlike Porter.

Now that she knew for sure he was lying, she needed to
figure out why, and that was going to take some help.

Good thing Kate was going to be in town for a couple more
weeks.

“Thanks for the dance, Porter.” Claire backed out of his
arms. “How about a drink? Kate’s buying.”

Wednesday, August 18th

“Where are we going?” Kate asked Butch’s backside as she
followed him along a winding trail through a thicket of bushes with hanging
yellow flowers, bean pods, and inch-long thorns that kept snagging her blue
linen miniskirt. This was so not what she’d had in mind for this morning’s
interrogation.

Somewhere overhead, a bird screeched, sounding very
perturbed at having uninvited guests. Not exactly the bluebird of happiness.

Kate flipped it off.

“It’s just a little farther.” Butch plowed ahead. “Where
that tall cottonwood tree rises out of this bosque of mesquite.”

“This what of what?” Kate frantically brushed a cobweb from
her eyebrows and chin, worried its creator was now hitching a ride in her now
not-so-coiled chignon.

“Bosque is the Spanish word for forest, and mesquite is a
type of tree. These are velvet mesquite, to be exact.”

Velvet, huh? She rubbed her nose. The way the thorns kept
scratching her, they should’ve been named porcupine trees.

Dust coated the inside of her nose and crusted her dry lips,
her sheen of lip gloss long wiped away. She plodded onward and upward as the
trail climbed.

Sandals had seemed the best choice this morning, not only to
keep her cool, but also to show off her manicured mauve toenails dotted with
little white daisies. Had she known she’d be traipsing through a “bosque,” she
would have donned the hiking boots Ruby had offered.

If this was Butch’s idea of a non-date, she could only
imagine where he’d take her if it was the real thing. Skydiving? Spelunking?
Cow tipping?

The warm breeze she’d felt when she crawled out of Butch’s
dented old Chevy pickup seemed to have been swallowed by the bramble of trees,
leaving an uneasy stillness.

As the trail steepened even more, the trees closed in around
her, grabbing at her with their bristly arms. Mottled rays of sunshine
penetrated the branches and rows of skinny leaves, alternately highlighting and
shadowing Butch’s white cowboy hat.

With the only sign of civilization being a wispy contrail
high in the cobalt sky, Kate wondered if hiking alone with Butch into the
middle of nowhere was the smartest thing to do. Ditching a body would be an
easy job in this tangled wilderness.

Clearing her throat, she swallowed what felt like a
tablespoon of dirt.