Mac stuffed the tip he’d been left in the community tip jar and joined her at the window. The smell of grilled burgers and fries greeted him along with Kate, whose hair was poking out all around her face, looking like her head was unraveling. Her cheeks were extra pink and her nose shiny. This pregnancy business was rough on the poor girl.
“I need you to give Natalie a message for me,” she hollered out to him.
“Okay.” He glanced toward the pool tables where he’d seen Natalie talking to Ronnie’s FBI buddy prior to Claire showing up with her drink order. Natalie was taking an order from two twenty-somethings in Northern Arizona University sweatshirts and jeans.
“Tell her I said the bomb was a dud.”
He frowned at Kate. “Come again?”
“The. Bomb. Was. A. Dud!” she enunciated like a kindergarten teacher.
“I heard you the first time.”
“Then why did you make me repeat it?”
“Because that doesn’t make any sense.”
“She’ll know what I mean. Just do it, please.”
He muttered under his breath about the crazy shit he put up with for Claire.
“If you call me crazy again, Mac,” Kate said, pointing a spatula at him, “I’ll spray paint a bunch of hearts on your pickup.”
“Don’t touch my truck, Kate.” After nailing her with a hard squint, he turned to find Ronnie waiting for him at the end of the bar. Her polka dot dress from last night had been replaced with a black shirt with laces up the front under her unbuttoned work shirt and black jeans. She seemed to be flip-flopping between June Cleaver and Catwoman. Something about the way her gaze was darting left and right had Mac wondering if the stress of waiting for the hammer to fall had her teetering at the edge of sanity along with her youngest sister.
He almost asked if she was okay, but she shoved her order at him before he could speak. He frowned down at the scrap of paper. “You need to stop scribbling orders in cursive, Ronnie.” Her writing seemed to be getting worse as the night wore on, too. What were the outward signs of a panic attack?
“There’s nothing wrong with my writing.”
“Your letters E, L, and I all look the same; your Q looks like a G; and what the hell is this?” He held the paper out toward her, pointing at the first letter of the last word.
She craned her neck. “That’s a capital S.”
“It looks more like a dollar sign.”
“Wait, it is a dollar sign.”
He set the paper down on the bar. “You can’t even read your own writing.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll try to write clearer for you, Mr. Graphologist.”
“What’s a giraffe-ologist?” Claire asked, joining them at the wait station. “Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“Not giraffe, graph. You know, someone who studies handwriting. Sheesh, clean the peanuts out of your ears.”
“Keep running your yap-trap, dingleberry, and I’ll cram peanuts up your nose and start calling you Dumbo.” Claire took a closer look at Ronnie’s scrawls on the order sheet. “Jeez, Ronnie. How is Mac supposed to read this sloppy shit?”
“You’re taking his side because he’s your boyfriend.”
“That’s not true. I’m taking his side because I’m having wild and crazy sex with him.” Claire winked at Mac, handing him her own order.
“I’ve had enough ‘crazy’ tonight,” Mac said. “Let’s just stick to the wild and wooly fun stuff, Slugger.”
“Don’t call me crazy!” Kate hollered from the kitchen order window.
“We aren’t talking about you!” Claire yelled back.
“How did she even hear that?” Ronnie asked. “Is one of you two wearing a wire? Or has pregnancy made her like that robot chick on The Six Million Dollar Woman?”
“You mean Jaime Sommers on The Bionic Woman,” Claire told her, frowning toward the jukebox, which was now playing Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” “You really need to study up on your pop culture.”
“You need to get a new childhood, TV junkie.”
“That doesn’t even make sense, peanut brain.” Claire thumbed over her shoulder. “Did either of you notice who picked the last few songs?”
“No, why?” Ronnie asked, making a weird snort-laugh sound as she peered around the bar. “Are you feeling more paranoid than usual tonight?”
Claire glared at her sister. “That biker babe at table seven is trying to get your attention again.”
“My drinks come before Claire’s,” Ronnie told Mac before diving back into the sea of patrons.
“She’s high-strung tonight,” Claire said.
“I noticed.” Mac searched her face for stress fractures, too. “How are you doing, Slugger?”
“Okay, I guess. It helps having you here.” She scanned the dance floor. “I just wish whoever was on this creepy music kick would stop pumping the jukebox full of money.”
“I could unplug it and put an out-of-order sign on the glass, if you’d like.”
She shook her head, focusing back on him. “So, how long are you going to be gone this time?”
Mac grabbed the cocktail shaker, starting on Ronnie’s drink order for a tequila oasis and a bourbon smash.
“I’ll try to be back Monday evening.”
“New Year’s Eve? You’d better be. I have naked plans for ringing in the New Year with you.”
Before he could prod her for some naked details, Natalie joined them.
“How’s it going back there, Mac?” she asked, leaning on the bar next to Claire.
Something was different about Natalie tonight. Maybe it was her clothes. Instead of a T-shirt and jeans under her bar apron, she had on one of Kate’s fancy pink beaded blouses—make that a “tunic.” That was what Claire had called it when she’d borrowed it from her sister for a dinner-and-a-movie date with him weeks ago. He searched Natalie’s face. Her eyes looked darker, sort of smoky, and her lips were shimmering. Makeup, too?
He was about to ask her what was with the makeover, but then remembered the two times he’d dipped a toe into Kate’s feelings and ended up somehow making her cry. Instead, he took the order
