“What do you mean?”
Kate shot a frown in her direction. “Why did you come down to Arizona?”
To escape. Natalie returned to the passing scenery. “Claire asked me to come help her with Ruby’s back deck.”
“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it, huh?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
She didn’t feel like baring her soul on a trip to Yuccaville about what it was back home that had sent her running like hell. That was a conversation best served with tequila and lime with sides of pool tables and classic rock tunes thrown into the mix. Besides, like she’d reminded her wide-eyed self in the middle of the night, she’d come to the desert to clear her thoughts and start the next chapter of her life. Re-reading the last chapter over and over was not helping her on her journey.
“I don’t believe that’s it,” Kate said as they passed the Yuccaville City Limits sign.
“I’m not going to talk about this right now, Kate.”
“You’re running from something,” she said, rolling right through the roadblock Natalie had erected. “You try to act like everything is copacetic in your life since you went on this so-called sabbatical from men, but there’s a burr under your saddle.”
She scowled at Kate. “Of course there’s a burr. I like men. I like how I feel when I’m with a man who likes me. I don’t like being lonely, and watching you three with your perfect relationships is like having salt dumped on my wounds.”
“Our relationships are not perfect.” Kate slowed as they passed in front of the sheriff’s office, peering out the side window as they rolled along.
“Close enough.”
“Not even.” Kate sped up again. “Claire and Mac have a big problem on the horizon with her inability to commit and his job being two hours away.”
“That’s just logistics. They love each other, that’s easy to see.”
“Ronnie’s love life is an even bigger cock-up.” Kate hit the blinker and waited for a van to pass to make a left turn.
“ ‘Cock-up’? Are you British now?” Or was this one of Kate’s new multiple personalities? The one that twitched?
“Ronnie’s trying to be the type of woman she thinks Grady wants. In reality, this fake woman is the polar opposite of who she really is, so there’s no way she can keep up this shit show for long. And on top of that, Grady’s ex is in town and we both know how Ronnie deals with conflict.”
“Buries her head in the sand.”
“Exactly. Burying her head isn’t going to save her ass this time—not with those goons who are hunting her down and certainly not with Grady. He’s a damned bulldog, and I should know. She’s going to have to stand and fight for once, and even then there’s a lot at risk.”
Kate turned right into the drugstore parking lot. “And then there’s Butch and me.”
“What about you two? You seem to be doing okay.” Except for Kate’s bouts of temporary insanity and growing list of misdemeanors, but those weren’t Butch’s fault. Well, not entirely. The list had been long prior to Kate getting pregnant. Butch just added a drop of fuel to the bonfire. Explosive fuel. Or maybe it was straight-up TNT.
She parked in front of the store. “Butch and I are okay at this moment in time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. Relationships are gambles from start to finish. There’s no guaranteed happily-ever-after, only sweat, love, and sex.”
“Who are you and what have you done with the real Kate?”
“There are two of us in here,” she shot back with a grin.
Natalie started to smile back, but then Kate’s left eye twitched several times.
“Uhh, right.” She grabbed the old camera and her wallet. “I shouldn’t be long. Hell, I don’t even know if they can develop this kind of film anymore.” She stared down at the camera. There was really only a slim chance that anything would come of the film inside of it. Even though it had been tucked away in the junction box, after decades in the summer heat, the film had to be ruined. “You know, Claire thought this was a 1970s-era camera, but I think she’s a decade off. I’d place my money on a 1960s model.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Remember I was in the photography club in high school? We had a project that required researching older cameras and styles. In the 1970s, they started making more of the camera bodies with plastic to make them lighter to carry.” She held up the camera. “But this puppy has a metal body. It’s an antique.”
“This is so exciting!” Kate’s left eye twitched again. “What if the film has pictures of a dead body?” She spoke those last two words in a Vincent Price tone.
Natalie frowned. “I’m not sure I’d call pictures of a corpse exciting.”
“If that film contains more naked pictures of Joe, I might lose my bacon and eggs.”
“More naked pictures?”
“Never mind that. Claire can tell you later.” She pointed at the store. “I have to be at The Shaft in an hour and we need to make one more quick stop after the grocery store, so you’d better get going.”
Inside the drugstore, Natalie walked straight to the photo department counter, which bumped shoulders with the pharmacy. The teenager working the counter for the pharmacist came over and took the film from her, but he wasn’t sure if they’d be able to develop it or not. He needed to ask the manager, who would be in around noon. After giving him Kate’s cell phone number, Natalie returned to the car.
“Well?” Kate asked as she pulled out of the parking lot.
“The manager isn’t in and the kid behind the counter thought the camera was an old-fashioned Walkman.”
“Kids these days,” Kate said, sounding like Gramps and his cronies.
They hit the grocery store and made it back out in fifteen minutes, loaded down with buns, pickles,
