The Great Jackalope Stampede by Ann Charles, C. S. Kunkle Page A

two at a time, wondering if Claire had been inside eating breakfast with Natalie when the devil had walked in, or if she’d escaped before all hell had broken loose.
    Inside the store, Mac found Ronnie sitting behind the counter, a half-eaten candy bar and a can of root beer in front of her. It was not exactly her usual grapefruit and granola she had insisted on back in Tucson.
    “Mornin’, Mac.” She tucked away a bunch of loose strands from her crooked ponytail.
    A ponytail? He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to remember if he’d ever seen her wearing a ponytail before. Usually if her hair was up, it was secured all tidy and neat in one of those French curl thing-a-ma-jobs.
    A cacophony of yelling rang from the other side of the green velvet curtain, sounding like someone had thrown a snake into a chicken coop. For a moment he thought he heard Claire’s voice in the mix. The slamming of a door ended the commotion and all was silent in the other room.
    Ronnie grimaced at the curtain and then took a bite of the candy bar. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked.
    “I slept like shit.” And it was her fault.
    “Yeah, me, too.”
    He had trouble scraping up any sympathy for her. She hadn’t had to listen to Chester’s grunts, burps, and farts all night long. Mac swore that man lived on canned chili con carne and Velveeta cheese. Judging from the sulfur vapors seeping from Chester’s bedroom in the back of the Brave, he was dying from it, too.
    “Did you have to sleep on the table bed?” he asked. It seemed a fitting punishment since she had caused his exile to the Isle of Chester.
    “No, Claire drew the short straw. Kate felt sorry for her, though, and let her share the couch bed.”
    That didn’t surprise him knowing Kate. She had told him once how much she admired Claire and her screw-it spirit, especially when it came to dealing with their mother.
    “But she must have hogged the bed,” Ronnie continued, “because Claire was sleeping on the table this morning when I got up to go pee.”
    Poor Claire. On the bright side, maybe she would need some of her kinks massaged … and then some.
    Ronnie nodded her head at the keys in his hand. “Where did you go this morning?”
    “To fill up my pickup.”
    After listening to Chester’s wake up routine through the Brave’s thin bathroom wall, the urge to put Jackrabbit Junction in his rearview mirror had spurred Mac to top off his gas tank.
    He’d almost taken a detour on the way back here to hike up to Ruby’s Lucky Monk mine and check if the No Trespassing signs and barriers at the main adit entrance had been tampered with by anyone. With the university’s archeological crew accessing their dig site through a back door into the Lucky Monk, he was being extra careful about keeping the front entrance to the mine blocked.
    After Natalie’s comment about the “situation” with the archaeologists, he needed to talk with Claire. Depending on what “conspiracy stuff” she was whispering in Natalie’s ear, he might be paying a visit to the Lucky Monk before the day was out after all.
    “Filling up, huh?” Ronnie glugged down some root beer, then slammed the can on the counter, burping into her fist. Two of her fingernails had the paint half peeled off. Another one looked ragged, like it had been torn or chewed.
    Mac could not help but gape at her. He had never seen Ronnie anything other than perfectly poised with her hair coiffed, her nails polished, and her smile fine-tuned. It looked like Jackrabbit Junction was working its dusty magic on her, leaving her pucker faced and sour tempered.
    “Don’t tell me you’re planning to leave paradise so soon.” Sarcasm laced her tone along with something he could not pinpoint. It almost sounded like a touch of desperation, or maybe fear.
    No, it couldn’t be fear. That made no sense. What did Ronnie have to fear besides a missed spa appointment? Whatever it was, Mac had no time for this. He needed to see