Boy oh boy, there was no rationalizing with insanity. “Okay, so you were just making a suggestion, I get it. But you do realize that you can’t go around ramming people with shopping carts, especially sheriff’s deputies, right? If you’d hit Ernie with that cart, he probably would’ve slapped you with something absurd like an attempted vehicular manslaughter charge.”
Kate waved her off. “Once Sheriff Harrison gets here, we’ll clear up this little misunderstanding and be on our way home again.”
Easy for Kate to say, she wasn’t the one facing an attempted battery charge from a Cholla County sheriff’s deputy. “What makes you so sure Grady will look the other way this time?”
“Because he’s been roughing up the suspect.” She gave Claire an exaggerated wink.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know, sinking the two ball in the middle pocket.” When Claire continued to frown at her, Kate added, “Paddling up Coochie Creek with our big sister.”
Claire recoiled. “Coochie Creek?”
“Rummaging in Ronnie’s root cellar.”
“Enough, I get it already.” Claire shook her head. “Kate, your brain is trying to knit baby booties these days with one damned needle. You have to stop locking horns with Grady’s deputy. Ernie is the mayor’s son, you know.”
Kate’s eyes narrowed in a squint that would make Billy the Kid shudder. “I don’t care if he’s the Grand Poobah of Fred Flintstone’s Loyal Order of the Water Balloons.”
“It was ‘water buffaloes,’ not balloons.”
Kate pointed at her. “Ronnie’s right. You watched too much television as a kid.”
“I was educating myself in pop culture.”
“This never would’ve happened if you’d have let me go to the store on my own. I told Ronnie and you before, I don’t need a babysitter.”
A dog started barking in Kate’s yoga pants.
Claire’s gaze dipped southward. “Why is your crotch barking at me?”
“It’s not my crotch, it’s Butch.”
Valentine “Butch” Carter was the man responsible for Kate’s baby bump. He’d headed to California after Christmas to spend a few days with his family. Kate was supposed to go with Butch, but at the last minute she’d changed her mind and stayed behind to run The Shaft, the bar Butch owned, which happened to be Jackrabbit Junction’s only watering hole.
Kate claimed someone had to keep The Shaft running during the busy holiday time, but Claire hadn’t just crawled out from under a boulder. Kate was too chicken to meet Butch’s family, plain and simple. Claire couldn’t blame her. If she’d been in Kate’s shoes, she would have hightailed it across the border and hidden in a Mexican mountain village until the baby was due. Commitment and all of the entrapments surrounding it had always given Claire night sweats and hives. Although she had been making progress on staying put in a long-term relationship in spite of these side effects thanks to …
Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!
“Butch is barking in your pants?” Claire asked. That sounded like a punch line in one of Chester’s dirty jokes.
Kate stuck her hand down the front of her pants and fished out her cell phone. She grinned at Claire. “Deputy Dipshit should have done a pat down before tossing me in the clink.”
“He probably figured you’d have bitten him.”
“He’d have figured right.” The barking continued. “Here, answer it, but don’t tell Butch we’re in jail.” She held the cell phone toward Claire. “He doesn’t need to worry about me while he’s visiting his family.”
Claire reared back. “I’m not touching that after it’s been bumping uglies with your girlie bits.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “I’m wearing underwear, doofus. I’m not Ronnie.”
Their previously refined older sister, Veronica, had somewhat recently been dragged through hell and back. The culprits? Ronnie’s piece of shit ex-husband and a pack of determined Feds trying to humiliate the truth out of her about money laundering, drug deals, and other illegal shenanigans that she’d been clueless about during her five years of marriage. These days, Ronnie lived life on the edge, which included screwing around with Grady Harrison, the sheriff of Cholla County, and not wearing skivvies under her yoga pants, much to her family’s discomfort on both counts.
“Take it!” Kate grabbed Claire by the wrist and slapped the phone in her hand.
“Ewww, it’s warm.”
“Grow up, weenie.”
Grimacing, Claire hit the answer button and lifted the phone, holding it a couple of inches away from her ear. “Hello?” she whispered, shooting a worried glance toward the front office at the other end of the hall from the holding cells.
“Kate?” Butch asked.
“No, it’s Claire,” she continued whispering.
Stop whispering! Kate mouthed.
Claire pointed toward the open door to the sheriff’s office where Deputy Dipshit was hanging out, waiting for Sheriff Harrison to show up and smear another layer of law and order all over Kate and her.
“What’s going on, Claire?” Butch’s tone sounded wary.
Kate’s recent temporary insanity plea was his fault and he knew it. It turned out Carter babies spurred hormones that ensured their mothers one-way tickets to Wacko Island until they exited the womb.
“Nothing is going on.” Claire faked a cough. “I have a cold and lost my voice.”
Kate leaned in close, her hair tickling Claire’s cheek as she listened in on the conversation.
“Right.” Butch wasn’t buying her line. “Where’s Kate?”
“Um, she’s busy right now.”
“Oh, no. What kind of trouble is she in?”
Kate made a slicing motion at her throat.
“She’s … uh … slicing some turkey and can’t come to the phone because there is … uh … turkey fat on her fingers and in her mouth.”
Kate rolled her eyes so hard that her legs almost cartwheeled along with them. Claire flicked her sister on the forehead. If Kate didn’t like her excuses, she could shove her phone where the sun didn’t shine along with that stupid shopping cart.
There was a moment’s pause on the other end of the line filled with Butch’s breathing. “Claire, what’s going on?”
“Nothing is going on. Everything here is peachy keen.”
“Do I need to call Grady?”
Kate shook her head, her expression one big wince.
“No!” Claire shouted. The sound of movement out
