She turned to Mac. “Will you help me out in the supply room for a minute?”
He left Grady to watch the register, following Claire through the batwing doors. In the supply room, she closed the door behind him and leaned against it, her expression full of doom and gloom.
“We have a problem,” she told him.
A harsh laugh escaped his throat. “Fuck. Now what?”
Chapter Nine
Sunday, December 30th
Mac woke Claire too freakin’ early, damn it. She tried to bury her head under the covers and go back to sleep, but he pulled them down.
“Come on, Slugger.” He kissed her forehead. “We have a spooky old house to check out.”
Groaning, she sat up and watched him pull on his jeans. “You were amazing last night.”
“I’m amazing every night, woman,” he shot back, grinning. “Just ask that biker babe from table seven.”
She threw a pillow at him. “I meant behind the bar, McStudly.” He’d looked calm and at ease back there, even when they’d hit him with multiple orders at once.
He slid his arms into his green flannel shirt, the one that made his eyes look all dreamy. Or was it her eyes the shirt turned dreamy? Ugh. It was too early to form correct sentences. Thank the grammar gods that Kate wasn’t here to pick apart her punctuation or Claire would have to stuff a pillow down her sister’s throat.
“It wasn’t my first time tending bar,” he said, buttoning his shirt.
“Yeah, but you were a natural. I half-expected you to start juggling glasses like those fancy bartenders in Vegas.”
“I’m full of hidden talents, baby,” he said with a wink. “Like the one I showed you last night.”
Her laugh sounded groggy. “Is that what you call that? A hidden talent? I thought it was an accident.”
He gave her a mock glare. “Bite your tongue, wench, or I’ll tie you up and raid your chastity tool belt again.”
She went up on her knees, her wrists held out toward him. “Come and take me, my evil and dastardly black knight.”
His gaze drifted south over her faded pink Daisy Duke T-shirt and underwear. He sucked air through his teeth. “Damn, Claire. I’m going to hit pause here, but we’ll come back to play out this little fantasy another time.” He bent down and grabbed her jeans from the floor. “Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen, temptress.” He tossed her jeans on the bed at her knees and left the room.
Ten minutes and a tooth brushing later, she joined Mac in the kitchen. He handed her a travel mug full of coffee. “You want some toast?”
She shook her head. “Too early.” The coffee was milky and sweet, the way she liked it. She moved in closer and kissed his bristly jaw. “You sure you don’t want to go back to bed?”
“No, but I’m sure I’m going to think about you in that see-through T-shirt all day.” He finished his coffee and kissed her on the forehead. “Let’s go.”
Claire yawned in the dark pickup cab almost every other mile on the way to Yuccaville. She rested her temple against the cool window as the tires played a rhythm on the tar-crossed highway. She and Mac had made it home and to bed around two a.m., leaving Natalie and Kate to finish up the last of the mopping since neither of them had to be up at the ass-crack of dawn this morning.
“Your sister needs to tell Grady about this new bullshit move by the FBI,” Mac said as they hit Yuccaville’s city limits.
Claire leaned forward and turned down Foghat’s “Slow Ride” on the radio. She’d like to “take it easy” along with them, but the FBI had managed to crank up her stress level another notch. Being a good girlfriend last night, she’d shared the bad news with Mac in the supply room that Mississippi had given to Ronnie and her, and then buried her nose in his chest until she’d stopped quivering with rage and could return to serving drinks with a smile.
“I told Ronnie that very thing, but she dug in her heels.”
“Damn it.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “Doesn’t she understand that this is not the time to be withholding key information from Grady?”
“She doesn’t feel like it changes the overall game much.”
“What the hell is wrong with her? How is the FBI trying to tie her ex-husband’s suspiciously missing diamond cache to the box of hidden diamonds you two found under that RV not a major fucking change?”
Claire shifted, facing him. “Trust me, Mac. I said the same thing to her last night, only with more cuss words and a couple of snarls thrown in for emphasis. But she made Mississippi and me pinkie-swear we wouldn’t say a word to Grady about this latest news.”
“She didn’t make me swear to silence,” he said.
“No, but I did.”
He glanced her way twice before sighing and shaking his head. “Yeah, but you cheated on that front, forcing a vow of silence out of me before you’d spill.”
“I had to.” She lifted his knuckles to her lips. “The posse’s rules clearly state that we keep each other’s secrets.” But Ronnie hadn’t said Claire couldn’t tell Mac, only Grady. “Besides, as far as I’m concerned, you’re in a need-to-know position, especially when it comes to Mississippi’s advice about shooting to maim, not kill, if given the opportunity.”
Mac cursed under his breath, same as he had when she told him about needing the diamond killer alive to clear Ronnie of any ties to Lyle’s missing diamonds mess.
“Those bastards at the Bureau are itching to pin something on Ronnie, damn it.” Claire ground her teeth at the panic that she’d seen in her sister’s wide eyes when Mississippi had delivered his bomb and blown Ronnie’s thin level of calm to smithereens last night. “According to Mississippi, if they can put her in prison along with her ex, they can close this particular case and wrap it in a pretty bow.”
“What’s his
