Ronnie would beg to differ. “Listen, Mr. Tank. If you could just tell us how much we owe you for towing Katie’s Volvo, we’ll get out of your hair.”
Tank grabbed a clipboard from the desktop and slid it in front of Katie. “Just sign this,” he said.
Katie scanned the paper and then smiled up at him. “Are you a dealing man, Tank?”
Oh no. Here we go. Ronnie winced. She could hear the sirens coming already. Grady was going to drop them off at the county line and tell them not to come back until Katie had the baby.
“What do you have in mind?” Tank asked.
“If you give me a break on the cost of getting my car out of your jail, I’ll give you a free meal and drink of your choice at The Shaft over in Jackrabbit Junction.” She patted the bar’s emblem stitched on her shirt.
“Katie,” Ronnie whispered. “That’s not how this works. You’re going to get us in more trouble.”
Katie pointed her thumb at Ronnie. “Ignore her,” she told Tank. “She’s sleeping with the sheriff and gets all tense about any even slightly shady business that doesn’t include dotting i’s and crossing t’s.”
Tank gave Ronnie a once-over, making her wish she’d dressed nicer than jeans and a white tank top under her matching black work shirt. “She’s Grady’s girlfriend?”
Katie nodded. “Normally, she’s not this uptight.” She winked at Tank and added, “Hell, she doesn’t even wear underwear most days.”
Ronnie’s cheeks burned. “I do, too!” Well, most of the time. Her yoga pants were made to be worn sans underwear.
Tank laughed, showing off a pair of impressive choppers. “And here I thought Grady was getting back with his ex-wife.”
What? “Why would you think that?”
“Because Elizabeth told me so herself just the other day when I ran into her at the gas station.”
That little bitch! Ronnie growled in her throat. As if she needed to deal with an overzealous ex-wife right now with all of the other crap raining down on her.
Katie reached out and patted Ronnie’s hand. “Now, now. Down, girl.” She looked back at Tank. “Between you and me, little Miss Elizabeth is about to realize there’s a new version of this fairy tale she’s spinning around town.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yep. Morgan sisters don’t take kindly to poachers.”
“You’re a real spitfire.” Tank’s grin almost reached his ears. “I’ll tell you what, Kate Morgan. You give me three meals with drinks at The Shaft, and I’ll give you back your car for the cost of gas to tow it here.”
Katie slapped the counter. “Deal!” She held out her hand.
He looked at it and then back up at her. “Don’t you need to ask Butch about this first, bein’ it’s his bar?”
Of course Tank knew Butch. Everyone here knew everyone else plus their first cousins once removed.
“Nope. I’m sure he’ll agree.”
Tank’s huge hand wrapped around Katie’s, making it look like a toddler’s. “What makes you so certain?”
“Because I’m having his baby and I said so.”
“Well, I’ll be. Butch Carter is a lucky man. I’ll meet you two out front. Just give me a minute to finish up what I was doing when you showed up.” Tank left, ducking back through the same doorway.
As soon as he closed the door behind him, Ronnie punched Katie’s shoulder. “What the hell? Why’d you go and blab about Grady’s and my relationship?”
Katie scoffed. “Tank doesn’t give a ring-a-ding about you playing hide the Ping-Pong paddle with the sheriff, so relax.”
“We are not playing hide the … gah!” Ronnie threw up her hands. “You didn’t have to bring up my lack of underwear, damn it.”
“It makes you more of an interesting character, which you normally are even with your underwear on, when you’re not trying to be all goody two-shoes. Besides, we’re in Yuccaville, not on Rodeo Drive. Hell, I bet half of the folks around here don’t wear underwear either, especially in the summer. It’s too dang hot.”
“Claire’s wrong. You’re not crazy. You’re frickin’ insane.”
Katie punched Ronnie back. “Don’t call me insane!”
Before she gave in to the urge to twist Katie’s arm behind her back and make her cry “uncle,” Ronnie walked away to inspect more of Tank’s hummingbird collection while her blood pressure returned to normal.
“Whose bright idea was it to send that dang detective from Deadwood to come get Natalie and me out of jail?” Katie asked, still leaning on the counter.
“Claire’s.”
“Figures. She probably thought it would be funny.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, it wasn’t. Not for me and especially not for Natalie.”
“What’s your problem with him? You barely even know the guy, right?” Ronnie picked up a glass hummingbird, admiring the craftsmanship.
“He’s a cop.”
Ronnie rolled her eyes. “You’re starting to sound like Claire.”
“And he’s the reason Natalie ran away from home.”
She shot Katie a frown. “What do you mean, she ran away from home?”
“You don’t really believe she came down here just to help Claire tear apart the back deck, do you?”
“Well, I sort of did until now. I mean, for that reason and to hang out with her family over the holidays since her mom and dad are visiting her brother.”
“She was with family—Violet Parker is like a sister to her, remember?”
That was true. Ronnie set the glass hummingbird down.
Natalie had quickly become best friends with the neighbor kids when they all were young, hanging out at the Parkers’ house as often as she did Ronnie’s. Violet’s family had basically adopted Natalie as one of their own by the time she was a teenager.
“What makes you think Natalie was running away? Is it something she said?” Ronnie flashed back to this morning in Gramps’s Winnebago and Natalie’s odd comment about gray eyes. The detective had gray eyes—something she’d noticed when she’d handed him the receipt tag to put in his camper window for the week.
“No, not something she said,” Katie answered. “Haven’t you noticed
