The Great Jackalope Stampede (38 page)

Ronnie winced at the cashier’s lack of a filter with a stranger. She handed the woman two more twenties and tossed aside her years of practiced propriety. “I know Mindy Lou had her heart broken by her rat bastard fiancé who called her ‘fat’ and then left her for a skinny bitch. Now her self-esteem is in the shitter and she’s seeking her self-worth in the arms of any man who will show her an inkling of affection, even if it costs a bottle of whiskey.”

The clerk stared at her like she had grown a horn in the middle of her forehead.

Grabbing her bag of groceries, Ronnie smiled. “You have a nice day now. I hear we’re supposed to get a bit a rain tonight. Lord knows this place always needs more water.”

Swinging her bag while whistling “It’s Raining Men,” she stepped out the supermarket door in time to see Mindy Lou go past. She was sitting in the front passenger seat of a familiar Cadillac belonging to one Steve Horner, aka Jessica’s father, aka the no good, cradle robbing, slick son of a bitch. Crap! She’d assumed Mindy Lou had moved on to her next fix.

Ronnie watched the taillights brighten as Jess’s dad slowed to let a slew of pedestrians pass in front of him. Where was he headed with Mindy Lou? Then she remembered that she had just bought their party supplies with Gramps’s money and cringed.

“Oh, shit!” She ran to Ruby’s Ford, dumped the grocery bag in the back, and climbed inside. She made it out of the parking lot in time to see Horner take a left two blocks ahead. She followed, keeping her distance so that he might not notice the pickup. With Mindy Lou in his car, she had a feeling he was probably a little distracted. At least she hoped so, anyway. She grimaced. Or not, being that it was Mindy Lou.

Jeez-o-petes! This is what she got for wanting to help someone. Every time she put herself out there, she got kicked in the knees.

“Damn it, Mindy Lou! You’re supposed to be having self-loathing sex with some stranger, not Jessica’s father.”

Wait. That didn’t really sound right.

She followed them another half mile until they turned into the parking lot of The Sundown Inn, a two-story, sleazy looking motel a block off Main Street that had seen its heyday back in the late 50s. The honeycomb concrete walls, flat roof, and outside entry doors had the look of something that belonged up on old Route 66. All that was missing was a big, campy … she passed a ten-foot tall, sun-faded jackrabbit. Never mind, this place had it all. She drove on by so they wouldn’t notice her and came to the cross streets right down from the library.

By the time she had circled back around and parked across the street, Steve was leading Mindy Lou up the wrought iron staircase. With his arm around her shoulders and the sleazy grin on his stupid face, Ronnie’s chest ached for Jessica. That was her dad, the man who was supposed to set an example for her.

Ronnie thanked the stars for her father, even if he had let Deborah run ram shod over him more often than not. At least he hadn’t partied with young girls when he was in his late forties. He had ended up leaving their mother for another woman—but she had been even older than Deborah. After spending thirty plus years with her mother, though, it was a wonder he hadn’t joined the monks over in Tibet.

As Ronnie watched, Steve dug out his room key. Mindy Lou glanced around, then grinned and slapped Steve’s butt. He grabbed her and put a sloppy lip-lock on her, then backed into the room while his mouth was still fastened to her face. It was like some creepy, alien, face-sucking foreplay.

Cringing, Ronnie leaned back and closed her eyes, wondering what she should do. Mindy Lou was no kid. She was in her early twenties, which was plenty old enough to be having sex with whomever she pleased. But having sex in seedy motels in the middle of the day was like the first stop on the road to drugs, prostitution, and at the least, a few vaginal yeast sores, as King Louie could probably attest.

Should she go up there and interrupt their party? Would that do anyone any good or just humiliate Mindy Lou even more? Ronnie certainly hoped it would embarrass the hell out of Jess’s dad.

Maybe she should call …

The sound of the passenger door creaking open made her sit upright, wide eyed.

A familiar tan uniform, complete with shiny star, cowboy hat, and chiseled-faced man, slid onto the bench seat next to her. He closed the door behind him, taking off his hat and setting it on his knee.

Ronnie sputtered out a few words before she could clearly ask, “What are you doing?”

Sheriff Harrison leaned forward and peered up at the room where his niece was going to be bonking Steve Horner any minute, if they weren’t already doing the bare-skin boogie. Ronnie really did not want to think about what was going on behind that door too much. It was too soon after hearing Claire talk about their mother and Manny’s good times.

“The same thing as you,” Grady said, sitting back with a frown. “Spying on my niece.”

“I’m not spying.”

“Really? Then what are you doing? Are you into voyeurism? Did I interrupt your kinky fantasy?”

“Gross!” Ronnie slugged Grady in the shoulder without thinking, and then realized she had just hit the Sheriff of Cholla County. Could he arrest her for that? “That’s my aunt’s dad up there with your niece,” she explained and hoped they could conveniently forget that she had just assaulted a cop.

“Your aunt’s dad?” His face paled. “Jesus. She’s sleeping with some old guy now?”

“Well, he’s not that old. Probably in his late forties is all.”

Grady’s face got all wrinkled as he looked over at her. “My math is a bit rusty these days, but I know you’re thirty-five according to your driver’s license, so that doesn’t add up right.”

“My grandfather married Ruby, so Ruby’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Jessica, is now my aunt. Your niece is up there having sex with Jessica’s dad, who is in town to try to get custody of her.” At least that was Ronnie’s conclusion on the reason for Steve’s visit.

Not a muscle moved on Grady’s face. “You do realize that sounds like a running joke from that old show,
Hee Haw
, don’t you?”

She grinned. “I was thinking it sounded like something from a seventies country song, but I didn’t mention anything about a pickup or a hound dog, so your idea is more fitting.”

His gaze drifted down over her shirt, making the pulse in her neck kick it up a notch. “You aren’t dressed right, though, for
Hee Haw
. Not enough skin is showing, and you need to be wearing Daisy Duke shorts, not jeans.”

Was that an observation or a complaint? She was not sure she wanted to know the answer with the way the smell of his aftershave alone had her hormones hopping around like Mexican jumping beans. She looked out the window at the hotel room. “I followed them because it’s my fault that she’s here,” she returned to their earlier subject.

“Your fault, huh? Are you acting as Mindy Lou’s pimp now?”

“Not quite.” She shot him a sideways glance. “But I paid for the whiskey and condoms.”

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “You what?”

“I didn’t realize it was going to be for sex with Jess’s dad.”

“Did you send her off with plastic bags full of heroin and meth while you were at it?”

“Of course not.”

“Damn. That would’ve given me a good reason to break up the party.” He sighed. “Shit. There’s nothing either of us can do. She’s well over the age of consent.”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go up there and stop this.”

“And say what? ‘Mindy, we’d prefer you stop having sex with this asshole because it makes us uncomfortable’?”

“Maybe.” Ronnie clasped her hands together in her lap. “I feel bad for her. She’s in a tough place mentally. I’ve been in that hole. I know how deep and dark it is. I want to help her out of it and get her back on her feet again.”

“Are you back on your feet again, Veronica?” He stared at her with those piercing whiskey-colored eyes, making her feel naked, exposed.

She thought about her answer for several seconds. “Yeah, I think I am.”

“Good.” The hard lines on his face softened into a smile. “But I still think you’re a little nuts.”

She chuckled. “Where’s the fun if I’m completely sane?”

His focus drifted south to her mouth, his smile flat-lining. The air in the cab thickened, making it harder for Ronnie to breathe. She clasped her hands tighter together.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

She shrugged, knowing exactly what he was referring to. “He lied.”

“About what?”

“Pretty much everything.” She looked at the fading tan line on her ring finger. “And omitted the fact that he was still married to someone else.”

“Damn. How did you find out?”

“The Feds told me when they were interrogating me regarding the missing laundered money.”

“Christ.”

Ronnie’s laugh sounded hard and brittle. She couldn’t help it. “Yep. It was good times in that interrogation room. They filled me in on several other details, too. I guess they figured it was their job since they already had Lyle behind bars.”

“What details?”

She glanced at him, not sure why she was baring her soul about this to the Sheriff of Cholla County when she hadn’t even leaked a drip to her sisters. Maybe it was because she was used to feeling naked in front of men with badges and uniforms and suits. Or maybe it was because he hadn’t known her before when she was trying to be Veronica Jefferson, the high and mighty hostess of the rich. She didn’t have as far to fall off her pedestal in his eyes.

“Lyle had been paranoid for a long time. He’d hidden surveillance cameras throughout the house without my knowledge.”

Grady grimaced.

“The Feds thought I was keeping secrets from them. They tried to get me to break by showing me videos of Lyle with other women in our bed.”

They’d all been blondes. Every single one. Young, curvy blondes. Lyle was a cliché through and through. Ronnie had tried so hard to live up to those clichés.

“When that didn’t work,” she continued to pour out her ugly tale, “they showed videos of me.”

“You had an affair?”

She shook her head. “In spite of my husband’s lack of physical attention the last year of our marriage, I found ways to …” She turned her face away, staring out at the motel room door. “To satisfy my needs in what I thought was the privacy of my own bedroom and shower.”

He inhaled a breath through his teeth.

“Yeah. There’s nothing like watching yourself get off on a little black and white television in a room full of strangers.” She laughed again, still brittle, still hard. “I don’t quite get the allure of the whole sex tape business.”

His hand warmed her shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Her smile felt wrong, like a shoe that was too tight. “That wasn’t the worst.” She turned back to meet his eyes. “Lyle warned me that someone would be coming after me.”

“Like the FBI or ATF?”

“No. Someone he stole money from. He said I needed to watch my back, because even though he’d told ‘them’ multiple times that he had spent all the money that he’d stolen, they didn’t believe him. They may think that I have the money stashed somewhere and come looking for me to collect what’s theirs.”

God it felt good to let this out, to confide in someone other than the scared, angry face in the mirror.

He cocked his head to the side. “Do you have something stashed away?”

Only a golden pocket watch, but that was not what he was referring to, nor any of his business.

“No.” She gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles whitening. “On the contrary, Lyle had everything mortgaged and maxed out, so not only do I have no money, I have no savings to fall back on. Did I mention his cocaine addiction?”

“Damn, Veronica.”

“Lucky for me, he kept everything in his name only, so the bankruptcy doesn’t affect my credit. That doesn’t exactly help pay my bills, though.”

“That’s why you were trying to pawn your jewelry?”

“Yes, but it turned out that was all fake, just like my marriage and everything else in my life.” When she saw the sad expression come over his features, she held up her hand. “No, do not look at me like I’m some orphaned, flea-bitten kitten tossed in a dumpster behind the grocery store.” She lifted her chin. “I made my life into this Superfund site and I’ll clean it up. You just happened to come upon me in the midst of the decontamination. In a few months, I’ll have my shit back together and be moving forward again.”

“What about the men who might be looking for you?”

She puffed her cheeks and blew out a breath. “There isn’t much I can do about that except keep watching over my shoulder.”

Her thoughts returned to the cowboy dancing with her last night and his warning about the husky and polar bear. If he hadn’t been a figment of her drunken imagination, maybe he was working for the mob guy hunting her down. Maybe he was toying with her, not warning her. Maybe he liked to play with his prey before going in for the kill. She shivered in the warm pickup, rubbing her arms.

“Veronica.” Grady’s voice sounded velvety, deeper than normal.

“What?” she looked over at him, blinking at the warmth radiating from his eyes.

Her heart tripped over itself.

He started to reach toward her, but then his gaze reverted to the motel. “Mindy Lou.”

Ronnie followed his eyes, watching as Mindy Lou leaned on the railing while she smoked a cigarette. The door to the room stood open behind her.

“Get down,” Grady said, tugging her low so that their heads almost met in the middle of the bench seat. “If she catches me watching her, she may leave town, and neither my sister-in-law nor I want her to go to Tucson or Phoenix. We want her here where we can keep tabs on her while she gets through this.”

If she gets through it, Ronnie thought. That dark hole was not easy to climb out of, but with enough will power, Mindy Lou could do it. In some ways it was nice to reinvent oneself, put away past inhibitions and show a new side to the world. She turned her neck, her face inches away from Grady’s, tempted to take another daring step forward and touch his cheek, feel the contours under her fingertips.

Her eyes lifted and found his. The hunger reflecting back at her made her toes tingle. Or maybe she had a nerve pinched in this awkward position. Whatever it was, she definitely wanted to kiss the Sheriff of Cholla County. Crap, what was wrong with her? Was this some twisted version of the Stockholm syndrome, only she was getting all gooey brained about the lawman with the shiny star instead of her captor?