“You should take a day off and show him around.”
“I can’t leave you to build the porch alone. Besides, you need my help catching a killer.”
“I have the three old biddies here itching to show me all of the things I’m doing wrong on this build. I can last a day without you so long as I have a six-pack at my side.” They tossed another board into the pickup bed, returning to grab the last one. “As for the other problem,” she said in a quiet voice, glancing toward the hills behind the back fence, “Mac is going to stock me up with some self-defense weapons.”
“Like what? A gun?”
“No. Not with Kate throwing bananas around like a mad monkey.”
They dumped off the last board.
“Your sister twitched several times while we were at the sheriff’s office this morning.”
Claire tugged off her leather gloves. “What were you two really doing there? And don’t try to blow smoke up my ass. I know my sister. She wouldn’t go willingly into a cop shop without a darn good reason.”
Natalie lowered her voice. “She wanted to search Deputy Dipshit’s desk.”
“For what?”
“She didn’t say, but she found a flash drive and pocketed it before we were thrown behind bars. She planned to look at what was on it when she got back to The Shaft. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her since then to find out more.” After Kate had returned to The Shaft from getting her car at the towing company, she’d gone in the kitchen to help prep for the evening dinner rush.
“We’ll have to ask her about it when we head over to help with the Saturday night crowd.”
“You probably shouldn’t mention this to Ronnie until we know what’s on the drive,” Natalie said. “She’s already stressed enough about being the perfect girlfriend for the sheriff.”
Claire nodded, frowning toward a pair of older women leaving the laundry building. “If you’re not careful, you might end up in the same boat as Ronnie.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned back to Natalie. “The law is the law, whether you’re having sex with a sheriff or a detective.”
“I’m not having sex with Coop.”
Claire smirked. “Not yet, anyway. But you and I don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to resisting men.” She pulled the pickup keys from her pocket.
“I’m not going to sleep with Coop.”
Claire chuckled. “Who said anything about sleeping?”
Natalie smacked her on the arm. “I mean it, Claire.”
“I’m sure you do, but twenty bucks says otherwise.”
“Make it fifty!” a familiar voice said from behind them.
Natalie turned, her heart skipping a beat.
“Who’s that?” Claire asked under her breath.
Why didn’t Coop say anything earlier about … ?
“Harvey!” Natalie smiled, happy as hell to see Cooper’s uncle. Dressed in jeans and a button-up shirt with saguaro suspenders, he smelled fresh as a daisy when she hugged him. “What are you doing down here?”
Willis Harvey’s two gold teeth glinted in the sunlight behind his recently trimmed gray whiskers. His salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back; his blue eyes twinkled.
“Taking a vacation from the snow.” He glanced around at the other campers, leaning in closer to add, “I hear Arizona is full of pretty birdies this time of year. How about you introduce me to a few with extra-long legs and cute tail feathers?”
Chapter Eight
“Don’t fear the reaper,” Mac sang along with Blue Öyster Cult on the jukebox as he filled another glass with beer from the tap. “Baby, take my hand.”
The Shaft was packed tonight—again. Butch’s usual bartender had called in sick, which translated into Kate desperate for someone to tend bar. Claire was needed out on the floor with an order pad, so Mac was manning the pumps.
“Someone needs to change this song,” Claire said from the wait station at the end of the bar where she lingered while he filled her order. Her black shirt sporting The Shaft’s logo hung open over her yellow Dancing Winnebagos RV Park tank top. Her brow was lined yet again as she watched him work.
Mac handed her the beers she’d ordered, singing to her, “Baby, I’m your man.”
She put the beers on her tray next to the two tequila sunrises he’d made for her table. “I’m serious, Mac. This damned song is making me want to duck and cover.”
“Come home with me to Tucson,” he called above the music and din of conversation.
Her mouth thinned. “You know I can’t do that.”
“You can, but you won’t.”
She lifted the tray of drinks. “I don’t want to get into this right now.”
“Neither do I.” He nodded at a cowboy who was summoning him from the other end of the bar. “But I have to head back to Tucson in the morning and it would make me a lot happier if you’d come with me.”
“What?” She frowned, setting the tray back down on the bar. “I thought you took vacation next week.”
He had, but sometimes work trumped holidays. “There’s an emergency at the jobsite south of Tucson.”
“What kind of emergency? You build walls for chrissake, not dams. Wait, did Humpty-Dumpty fall off the blasted thing again?”
The cowboy was waving money in his direction. “I need to go settle a bill, Slugger.”
He left her to take care of business. He didn’t want to leave either, damn it, but last week’s big storm caused all kinds of problems on the jobsite, washing out backfill and causing structural cracks in one of the new walls. As project lead he had certain responsibilities, especially with the foreman on vacation in the Bahamas until after the New Year.
He heard his name called while he was giving the cowboy his change. Kate peered out at him through the kitchen window. She was helping prepare orders in back tonight, which Mac figured meant she’d made it past
