“I guess I’ve been a little too busy freaking out about all of the killers gunning for me.” She admired a crystal vase with a flock of hummingbirds etched on it. “Outside of her sabbatical to avoid getting involved with any guys, she seems like the same old Natalie.”
“She’s sad and lonely.”
She glanced Katie’s way. “Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t have to. I can see it in the way she frowns toward the horizon when she thinks nobody is watching.”
“Maybe she’s worried about somebody coming after her, like that detective. I frown at the horizon all of the time, but I’m not sad.” On the contrary, Ronnie was scared as hell, yet pissed at the same time. Her piece of shit not-husband had left her in one hell of a predicament.
“And last night at the bar, I mentioned to Natalie that Mississippi is single and probably not looking for any long-term commitments if she felt like hooking up with him to blow off a little steam.”
Ronnie wasn’t sure Mississippi was human enough to be interested in copulating with a female. Sure, he was good looking in a tall-drink-of-whiskey sort of way, but he was still an FBI agent. Didn’t they fit his kind with cyborg parts in the academy? “What did Natalie say to that?”
“That she didn’t need any more law dogs messing with her head.”
“What makes you so certain this Detective Cooper is the law dog Natalie was talking about last night?”
“Because I had to ride back to Jackrabbit Junction with the two of them today and there was some serious sparking going on in the cab of that pickup.”
“Sparking? Are you sure that wasn’t your brain short-circuiting?”
“That’s it. I’m going to shave your head down the middle while you sleep.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” Ronnie crossed her arms. “What did Natalie and the detective talk about on the ride back to Jackrabbit Junction?”
Katie shrugged, brushing some lint off her work shirt. “At first it was sleep-worthy stuff about the weather and the drive south. Then Natalie asked about Violet and her boyfriend, mentioning some other names I didn’t recognize who are probably friends of hers in Deadwood, and he filled her in with monosyllabic answers for the most part.”
“Did she ask the detective why he was down here?”
“She asked that before we even left the jail cell.”
“What was his answer?”
“He was all cryptic, telling her he needed a vacation after the long shifts he’d been pulling at the police station over the holiday and decided to come down to Arizona after hearing her talk about how relaxing it is.” Katie snorted. “Silly man. That was the perfect opportunity to tell Natalie that he’d come to see her, but he chickened out.”
“He didn’t seem like much of a chicken to me when I checked him into the RV park.”
Something about Detective Cooper reminded Ronnie of Grady. Maybe it was the way they both stood like they were on guard, waiting for a criminal to run past them. Or it could be the take-no-shit attitude implanted in their brains during law dog training.
“He had another opportunity to come clean a few miles later,” Katie continued. “Natalie asked him if there was anything he wanted to see while he was down here. He didn’t answer right away, shooting several glances at her instead. I thought for sure he’d mention wanting to see her, but then he looked in the rearview mirror at me and I could see his face clam up. He threw out some crapola about being curious where Cochise Stronghold was located.”
“Isn’t that south of here?”
“Yeah, it’s down by I-10. Mac will tell you all about it and the geology in the area if you’re looking for something to put you to sleep.”
Ronnie didn’t need sleep so long as she had Grady by her with his bedside arsenal. She was looking for more help with staying alive each day when the sheriff was too busy doing his job to keep an eye on her.
“What did Natalie say then?” she asked, returning to a less heart-pounding subject.
“The big bozo told Detective Cooper he should check it out and let her know what he thought. When I suggested Natalie go with him to see it for herself, she mumbled some excuse about needing to help Claire build the deck.”
Ronnie returned to the counter, joining Katie again. “Did anything else happen between them?”
Katie shrugged. “I don’t know. We’d reached The Shaft by that time and they dropped me off.”
“It’d be a shame for this guy to drive all of the way down here from Deadwood and have nothing come of it.”
“It’d be more of a shame if Natalie doesn’t wake up and realize that he’s perfect for her.”
“Perfect? What are you talking about? He’s a cop. Natalie is like Claire. They’re both allergic to law dogs, remember?”
“That doesn’t matter. This one is different.”
“Different how?”
“I’ve been around Natalie with other guys she’s dated. She acts all flirty and changes into someone else—sort of like you and this silly dress-up game you’re playing with Grady.”
Ronnie wrinkled her nose at Katie. “It’s not a game.” With his ex-wife in town telling everyone she’d returned to Yuccaville to get Grady back and Katie making him pull out his hair every day, Ronnie would probably lose if it were a game. The odds were stacking up against her in record speed.
“But today with this detective of hers,” Katie continued, “she wasn’t putting on any acts. She was plain old Natalie, sans makeup and sex-kitten song and dance. He couldn’t stop sneaking peeks at her either. I’m telling you, this could be the real deal with these two if they would both just take a chance.”
That was the tricky part of this relationship two-step, wasn’t it? Paddling through quicksand seemed less risky some days.
Katie pointed her phone toward the window. Tank was parking her Volvo up next to Claire’s Jeep.
“Natalie needs to get laid,” Katie said, pocketing her phone. “Between you and me, I
