The Great Jackalope Stampede (15 page)

Leaning back in Chester’s chair, Claire tipped up the bottle Ruby handed her. The first mouthful of Coke washed away the taste of solder smoke.

“Where’s Natalie?” Ruby asked, taking a sip from her own bottle.

“She had to run to Yuccaville. A couple of the J-boxes cracked while she was nailing them in place. Plus, some of the wire had splits in the casing.” Creekside Hardware Store down in Jackrabbit Junction closed early on Sundays, so Natalie had to head up the road to the mining town where a national chain hardware store stayed open until dark every day of the week.

“Do you think someone messed with our supplies on purpose?” Ruby asked.

Claire did a double take. Was Ruby getting as paranoid as she was? “Nah. Extreme heat for a prolonged period can do that to the wire casing and make the plastic on the J-box brittle. Nat figures Creekside had the supplies sitting in the sun for too long at some point, either outside or in their front window.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Natalie said she’d stop at The Shaft on the way back to eat with Kate during her break, so I don’t expect her back until later.”

Considering that several of The Shaft’s male clientele had been trying to use free drink offers to coerce Natalie into playing pool the last time Claire was there with her, she wouldn’t be surprised if Natalie sneaked in with her work boots in her hands and her underwear tucked in her back pocket long after everyone else had crashed. A single woman with Natalie’s good looks and long legs drew men like fruit flies to a ripe, juicy peach. While Natalie had been avoiding men since her arrival for some unspoken reason, Claire knew her cousin well—abstinence did not make Natalie’s heart grow fonder. It only lowered her scruples and resulted in bad bedfellows and horrible hangovers.

Ruby took another sip, her green eyes creased and somber in thought as she gazed across the campground.

Shifting in her chair, Claire stretched her legs out in front of her, resting one tennis shoe on the upside down five-gallon bucket her grandfather used as a footstool. “Where’s Gramps?”

Was he still playing cards in the rec room? Was he smoking a cigar? Did he have something to do with the reason for Ruby’s visit?

“He’s runnin’ the store.” Ruby squeezed the back of her neck, but she still held back from sharing what had her all bunched up in the shoulders.

A thought hit Claire, almost taking her breath away. She jackknifed upright. “Is everything okay with Mac? Did he call to say he made it home okay?”

“Yep. He told me to let you know he’s fixin’ to call you tomorrow night when he gets home from work.”

Whew!
Claire relaxed back into the lawn chair again. Her world returned to its regular programming. Maybe she would borrow Natalie’s cell phone later and whisper some more sweet nothings in his ear.

Ruby sighed. “Claire, I have a problem and I need your help.” The dam holding back whatever was bothering her had finally given way.

Just one problem? From where Claire sat, Ruby had a shitload of them. “What’s Mom doing now?”

Ruby waved in the air. “Deborah is a pain in my ass, but she’s not a threat.”

A threat?
Had Claire’s nightmare finally come true and another one of Joe’s not-so-chummy buddies contacted Ruby about wanting his share of the fenced goods back “or else”?

Claire stuffed a sock in the mouth of the panicky voice yelling in her head about the sky falling. Tapping her bottle against her inner thigh she waited for Ruby to explain more about this threat.

“My problem has to do with my baby girl.”

Claire’s heartbeat returned to its steady chug-chug. What a relief. It was just Jessica again. She wondered what the kid had done now. In the few months Claire had known the teenaged spitfire, Jessica had caused some whopper headaches for her mother.

“I need you to do me a favor.” Ruby turned her creased forehead in Claire’s direction.

“Sure.”

“You should probably hear me out before you agree, honey.” Ruby patted her knee. “I’m not real proud about this, but I’m at the end of my rope here.”

Short of killing or dismembering someone, Claire still stood by her “sure” response. Although, using Ruby’s shotgun to dismember a few of the vulgar jerks at The Shaft might not be such a bad idea, like that fake cowboy with the fancy new hat and big ugly mouth from the other night. If Claire ran into him again she couldn’t be held responsible for where her knee decided to plant itself.

Ruby finished her bottle and set it down on the gravel, staring out at the twilight filled R.V. park. “I hate to ask this of ya, but I need you to keep a close eye on Jessica.”

Babysit a teenager? Claire had suffered through worse jobs, like that veterinarian at the dog kennel who’d assigned her the task of expressing anal glands. One dog later and Claire had been sitting back in the unemployment office with a number in her chapped hands.

“Also,” Ruby added with a grimace, “I want you to find out what sort of things she’s tellin’ her daddy.”

Claire planted her elbows on her knees, letting her almost empty bottle dangle between her legs. It was her turn to stare out across the campground with a wrinkled brow. “You think Jess said something to him about that stash of cash we found?”

It wouldn’t make Claire blink twice if Jess had told. The girl’s filter seemed to be permanently damaged, letting secrets leak out here, there, and everywhere. Then again, maybe Jess was too naïve to realize the trouble her chattering could get her family into thanks to Joe’s long history of thieving hands.

“That and then some,” Ruby said, her voice edged with a growl. “I think the reason that horse’s ass is finally visitin’ his daughter is because there’s money to be swindled. Of course I can’t even look at the guy funny or my daughter will crawl down my throat for trying to ruin what she thinks is the best thing since bubblegum was invented.”

Claire would have to make sure to keep her mouth shut about Jessica’s father when the teenager was within hearing distance.

Ruby continued, “His wife left him, ya know. Then he went and lost his job and pissed away his savings bettin’ on dog races.”

How did Ruby know that? Who was her source?

“I’m ninety-nine percent certain the lousy rat is here because he caught a whiff of some cheese, and now he’s gonna try to take every piece he can get his damned hands on.”

“Has he asked you for money outright?”

Ruby shook her head. “He knows better. But it’s not my money that I’m worried about with him.”

Claire shooed away a lingering fly. “You don’t think Jess was silly enough to tell him about what’s in the safe, do you?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I figure that he’s fixin’ to line up something more long-term.” She turned to Claire, her face creased with what looked like a volatile mix of heartache and fury. “I’m worried he’s gonna try to steal my baby girl from me.”

After years of pretty much ignoring every attempt Jess made to contact him, the ass had some nerve. She remembered her conversation with Gramps last week. “You’re thinking this is all about getting child support, right?”

Ruby nodded. “He’s not down here out of the goodness of his rotten heart. The way he’s buying Jessica clothes and nail polish—did you see the cell phone he gave her? It’s one of those smart ones. As if that child needs another distraction from her homework.”

Claire could not help but notice the expensive phone earlier this afternoon when Jessica shoved it in her face and danced a jig in front of her.

“The son of a bitch knows I can afford to pay him support now. If he can buy Jess from me with all of these trinkets, he’ll drag me back to court quicker than beer turns to piss. With your grandfather’s savings and that money we found, plus the value of my land, I’d bet my momma’s lucky toad’s foot that Jess’s daddy is fixin’ to really take me to the cleaners.”

“Shit.”

Claire had been so busy trying to figure out the history behind the pocket watch and Joe’s other fenced treasures that she had not thought about how figuring out their value could screw Ruby financially in this whole other way. Her focus had been on the enemies they could not see, not those standing right in front of them, wooing Ruby’s kid.

“Yeah, ‘shit’ sorta covers it and then some.” Ruby lowered her head into her hands. “I can’t lose Jessica, Claire,” she said through her fingers. “That girl may push me to my limits some days, but she’s all I’ve had for years.” Her voice hitched. “During the tough times, when money was as scarce around here as a jackalope and keepin’ my head out of the sand took all the gumption I could muster, her little freckled face kept me goin’. She was the sole reason I dragged my butt out of bed each morning and faced off with one creditor after another instead of scurrying down to Mexico for good. The notion of her bein’ across the country from me turns my guts inside out.”

Claire squeezed Ruby’s shoulder, understanding why Mac dropped everything to help his aunt the few times she had broken down and asked. Seeing Ruby hurting like this made her want to grab a cannon and blow Jess’s dad to smithereens.

“If he’s planning to use Jess for child support,” Claire said, “he’ll probably revert to treating her like crap after he gets what he wants, too.”

Ruby looked up at Claire with watery eyes. “You and I both know he doesn’t care one lick about her. All she is to him is a cash cow.”

Claire set her bottle on the ground and kicked it over. “Makes me want to tie up the jerk, slather him in honey, and bury him up to his neck in one of those red ant hills back in the ravine.”

Sniffing, Ruby dabbed at the corners of her eyes with the hem of her shirt. “I’d love to fill him full of buckshot for messin’ with my kid’s emotions like this, but your grandfather keeps hidin’ all my shotgun shells.” The fire was back in Ruby’s voice, replacing the wavering pain.

Claire chuckled. “I’m happy to help you with Jess, Ruby. I don’t want to see anything bad happen to her or you.”

“There is one more thing.” Ruby sniffed again, and then cleared her throat.

Claire picked up one of the other soda bottles Ruby had brought and opened it. “What’s that?”

“There is a young man from the archaeology crew who has taken a shine to Jess.”

“You mean that beanpole with the glasses and braces?” Claire had seen Jess and the skinny Mariachi lifeguard walking around the R.V. park’s drive a couple of days ago, Jess’s mouth running a mile a minute while the beanpole smiled down at her like a big goof.

Ruby smirked. “Yeah, the beanpole who just happens to be twenty years old and smokes a pack a day.” When Claire shot her a raised eyebrow, Ruby shrugged. “I made him show me his I.D. to buy cigarettes.”

Smart thinking. Claire could use a cigarette herself right about now, but she had made a bet with Gramps earlier this afternoon that she could hold out longer than he could for a cigar. Little did he know that she had extra motivation at the moment.

“Jessica thinks they are just friends,” Ruby said. “But I’ve seen him watching her.”

“You think he’s stupid enough to make a move?” Statutory rape could lose him his pecker out here in a land full of shotguns, power tools, and over-protective old men.

“I don’t know. But I think Jessica might be stupid enough to get herself in a pickle and not have a way out.”

After having had to get out of a pickle or two in her younger years, Claire could see that happening. Some boys did not like to be rejected, nor did they take kindly to a fist to the nose or a knee to the groin.

“I could see that happening with her,” Claire said and tipped her drink.

What Claire did not bring up for Ruby to also worry about was that the twenty-year-old might have caught wind from Jess about the money and antiques her mom had stashed away in the house. His interest in Jess might go beyond boy-meets-girl. Claire would have to ask Natalie if Beanpole were the same one Nat had overheard talking on the phone last night. Maybe the artifacts he was planning to transfer were not from the Lucky Monk. Maybe they were from Ruby’s basement.

Ruby stood and stretched. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me, Claire. Jess thinks the world of you.”

“She’s a good kid.”

“If she finds out you are ratting on her …” Ruby trailed off.

“I know the risks, Ruby. I also know that Jess is a naïve teenager and I don’t want to see her hurt—physically or emotionally. The poor kid’s been jerked around by her frickin’ father for too long. It’s bullshit that he thinks he can come down here and steal her from you with a bunch of lies, expensive toys, and jewelry.”

“Jess showed you the father-daughter heart necklace he got her, huh?”

She nodded, remembering the bright glow in Jess’s eyes at the time and how it had made Claire’s throat tight. The kid was so hungry for her father’s love it was heartbreaking. “Was that a real emerald?”

Ruby’s laugh was harsh. “I doubt it, but your mother made quite a commotion about it, goin’ on about how your grandfather never did anything so nice for her.”

It was no wonder Gramps’s cheek had ticced this afternoon when Manny asked if anyone knew how long Deborah planned to stay this time.

“Ruby, I’m sorry I left you alone with Mom last night.” Claire had wanted to catch Ruby alone and apologize ever since Mac had made her feel like a heel earlier today.

“Honey, you don’t need to babysit me when it comes to your momma.”

“It’s not babysitting. It’s more like tag-teaming or forming a collective front.”

She shook her head. “Your momma does have a way about her that could test the patience of one of those Himalayan monks. I don’t know how your daddy dealt with her all of those years to be honest.”

“He didn’t. He avoided her.” Thinking back, all of the overtime he had worked and late nights with his bowling buddies now made sense. The connection to Mac and his overtime since Ronnie had arrived on the scene would have been similar if it had not made Claire pace the bedroom floor more nights than not until he made it home.

“I suppose that’s one thing I should thank Jess’s dad for today.”

Claire frowned up at Ruby. “What do you mean?”

“Steve and your momma.”

“What about them?”