The Great Jackalope Stampede Read Free Page B

Chester asked. “They are going to be having more of that wild and woolly sex in your old bed.”
    “We are not going to have sex.” Not with Natalie on the other side of the paper-thin walls.
    “Why not?” Manny asked.
    “I refuse to discuss my love life with you three.”
    “If Mac is having trouble getting his soldier to stand at attention, I have some leftover Viagra he could take,” Chester offered.
    Claire’s neck warmed. “Mac is doing just fine in that department. No Viagra needed thank you very much.”
    “Oh, mi amor , so it is you who’s not feeling romantic anymore. What’s wrong? Isn’t he taking care of your needs first?”
    “I can’t believe you opened this door,” Natalie said, chuckling.
    “I tried to bar it shut, but they kicked it in.” Claire shook her head. “Mac’s and my sex life is fine and dandy, okay everyone?”
    “Ewww, gross!” Ruby’s daughter, Jess, joined the three clowns below. Her face matched her words while her jaw worked on a piece of gum. “Can we not talk about you and my cousin getting naked for once? I swear; that’s all you guys talk about—Claire and sex.”
    “I try not to talk about sex at all, especially when it concerns me.”
    “Not you, Claire,” Jess squatted and scratched Henry behind the ears. “I mean these old dudes.”
    “When were you guys discussing my sex life?”
    “More importantly,” Natalie said. “Why?”
    “ We weren’t,” Gramps said. “I’d rather spend a week under fire in a foxhole with your mother than think about that topic.”
    Deborah and Gramps had a love-hate relationship—he loved Claire’s mother living thousands of miles away because she hated his new wife.
    “I was,” Manny confessed. “But only because Chester thought you were being so pissy last night because you hadn’t gotten any in a while.”
    “Which Ronnie confirmed after you left,” Chester said in his own defense.
    “What?” Claire scratched her head. True or not, why would Ronnie say that?
    “I told Chester you weren’t pissy,” Manny said. “Just missing Mac. When’s he rolling in again?”
    “Tomorrow,” Jess answered for Claire. “After he picks up my stepsister from the airport.”
    The Earth stopped on its axis.
    Gramps’s head spun toward the teenager. “What did you say, girl?”
    Claire cocked her head to the side. “Your stepsister?” Please, God, let her be talking about some child from her father’s extended family and not …
    “I said Mac will be here after he picks up my stepsister—you know, Claire, your mom.” Jess blew a bubble and popped it as if she hadn’t just announced the angel of death was flying in tomorrow.
    Claire stumbled back a step, feeling like she’d caught a two-by-four smack dab in the gut. She reached in her back pocket for her cigarette lighter but came up empty, then remembered that she’d given up smoking again before coming back to help Gramps.
    “She called a little bit ago and asked Mom to pick her up, so Mom called Mac to come to the rescue.”
    Mac was Ruby’s nephew and had been her knight in shining armor before Gramps came into the picture.
    Claire groaned for Mac’s sake. First a month of Ronnie, now a two-hour drive with her mother—he was going to need a whole lot of coaxing not to drop Deborah off, then race back home and change the locks.
    “Well, shit,” Natalie murmured. “If I’d known Aunt Deborah was coming, I would have stayed back in South Dakota.”
    “Why is the Evil Witch of the North flying south?” Chester asked.
    “The Witch of the North was a good one, idiota .” Manny cracked another beer and handed it to Gramps, whose face looked like it had been slathered with beet juice. Claire checked his ears for steam as he chugged the beer.
    “She was sexy in that fancy pink dress,” Manny added. “How old is Deborah? She always looks good in pink.”
    Henry barked at the sound of Claire’s mom’s name—a trick Chester had taught him since the last