“What’s she doing in the bathtub?” Claire heard Mac’s voice faintly over the clanging of jingle bells in her head.

“We don’t know.”

Was that Jess?

“Harley found her there this morning when he got up to take a piss.”

Yeah, that was definitely Jess. Piss was her favorite word lately. She kept finding new ways to use it that made Ruby gnash her teeth.

“Take a piss,” Mac repeated. “You don’t talk like that in front of your mom, right?”

“No. Unless I’m mad. Then all kinds of things slip out.”

“Yeah,” Mac said, his voice closer. “Same here.”

Claire considered letting out a grunt or moan so Mac and Jess would know she was alive, but just thinking about using her throat made the back of her eyeballs hurt.

“Has she moved at all?” Mac asked.

“I don’t think so, but the drool is gone.”

“Drool?”

What drool?

“She had some dried on her cheek. Mom probably washed it off when she came to check on Claire earlier.”

Oh, Lord. That was humiliating to hear in front of Mac. Claire would have blushed if it didn’t hurt so much to push blood north of her neck at the moment. Instead, she decided to continue to play dead as she waited for her cognac hangover to truly finish her off.

Something rustled and then jingled overhead. Brightness on the other side of her eyelids followed. Mac must have drawn the shower curtain aside.

“How come nobody got her out of the tub?” Mac’s low voice was right next to her now, taking some of the pain out of the cognac’s lingering bite.

“Well, Mom and Harley and I talked about that, but Claire’s not exactly light as a baby bird, you know,” Jess explained.

Mac chuckled under his breath.

Claire contemplated grabbing something—a bar of soap would do—and lobbing it in the general direction of the bigmouthed teenager. But that meant moving several muscles at the same time, so she held her position as a curled-up corpse.

“And I’m not very strong,” Jess added.

Maybe the girl’s arms and legs weren’t, but her jaw muscles could run non-stop for a week straight.

“Plus, Mom said her shoulder is sore from all of the tamales she’s been making for Christmas dinner, and Harley didn’t want to try because his broken leg is still healing.”

Claire started to roll her eyes about Gramps’s lame excuse but gave up that notion when a stab of pain pierced straight through to the back of her melon.

“We thought about hooking Henry up to Claire,” Jess continued. “You know, like that poor little dog with the fake antlers that has to pull the Grinch’s huge bag of stolen presents up the mountain? But late last night Henry chowed down half of Chester’s plate of chili con carne while the old dudes were playing cards. Woo-wee! Who knew such a small, hairy butt could stink up a room so bad? Gramps tied him up outside on the porch before we all ended up in the tub with Claire. Mom and I had to escape to the kitchen until the room aired out.”

Chester was one of Gramps’s bristly Army buddies who lived at the RV park in a camper next to the old Winnebago Claire and her grandfather had driven down last spring before Mac, Ruby, and Jess were in the picture. Now Gramps was married to Ruby and Jess was his stepdaughter, which meant Claire’s mom had a new stepsister, Claire had a new aunt, and …

Her brain hit the pause button on drawing out the new branches of her family tree. She had more important things to think about right now, like breathing in and out.

“So, you left poor Claire here to weather that smell?” Mac asked.

“Yeah. Truth be told she’s sort of smelly, too. Like someone dipped her in a tub of alcohol, candy-coated her with cheap perfume, and then spritzed her with barf.”

“Not mine,” Claire mumbled between dried lips. She cringed at the loudness of her own voice.

“Good news, Jess.” Mac’s clothes rustled against the tub walls. Claire could hear laughter edging his voice. “Sleeping Beauty has awakened.”

Jess snorted. “Good thing you didn’t have to kiss her. With her stinking like the alley behind Naughty McKnob’s in Yuccaville, you might lose your breakfast if you get too close.”

The rustle of Mac’s clothes stilled. “What were you doing in the back alley behind an adult toy store, Jessica Lynn?”

“Uhhhh, there was a stray cat that I was trying to catch while I was walking to Dad’s hotel room after school.”

Claire heard Mac grumble something not very nice about Jess’s dad, and then he took her by the arm and tugged gently. “Come on, Slugger. Time to return to the land of the living.”

“Don’t want to,” she mumbled, snuggling into the bunched-up towels under her head. “Everything hurts.”

Mac didn’t take no for an answer, lifting her under the arms until she was sitting upright in the tub—make that mostly upright. “Let’s get you into the spare bedroom and … Claire, why are your wrists tied together with tinsel garland?”

“I don’t want to remember.” She opened her eyes to look down at her wrists, but then had to close one to stop seeing double.

“Is that blood on your shirt sleeve, Slugger?”

She opened the other eye and tried to inspect the dried, dark red spots on her shirt. “I don’t want to remember that either.”

Mac carefully lifted her up and helped her out of the tub, brushing her hair away from her face.

He looked good this morning in a dark green flannel shirt that made his eyes more green than hazel. And he smelled even better. Fresh from the outside. Sun-washed and air-dried. His hair seemed lighter, too, but maybe that was thanks to the new LED lightbulbs she had installed in the bathroom last week.

He pulled her into a hug, kissing the top of her head. “Sweetheart, what happened last night?”

“Bad things.” She shuddered against his chest. “Very bad things.”

“Jess,” Gramps hollered from somewhere in the house.

“I’m in the bathroom with Mac and Claire,” Jess yelled back.

Claire flinched. Somebody needed to turn Jess’s volume knob down several notches. Heck, turn the whole world down while they were at it. And shut off the lights for a bit longer, too.

Mac pulled back, lifting her bound wrists. “Is it your blood?” he asked, pulling up her shirt sleeves. His touch matched his tone, warm and gentle as he inspected the skin around her bound wrists.

Claire squeezed her eyes closed, replaying bits of what had happened. Bawdy images of sweaty-faced Santas, bouncing bazongas tipped with jingle ball pasties, and half-naked elves dancing around candy canes flashed through her thoughts, nauseating her all over again.

“No,” she said, swallowing fast a few times. “I’m pretty sure it’s Mom’s blood.”

“Is Claire awake?” Gramps’s gruff voice in the doorway made her shoulders tighten. He needed to bring the noise down a level … or five, same as Jess.

“Yep, but she still stinks,” Jess told him. “I think Mac should give her a good hose-down while she’s in the bathtub.”

Gramps snickered. “Probably a good delousing wouldn’t hurt either.” To Mac he said, “They were at Dirty Gerties last night, and according to Chester, it was a full house.”

Claire scowled. How did Chester know about North Pole Nudie Night? Had he been hanging out there flirting with the owner again?

“Dirty Gerties?” Mac hit Claire with raised brows. “You were at a strip club for your mom’s party?”

Jess’s jaw gaped. “Oh my God! Were there naked people there and everything?”

“Yeah.” Claire swayed again, clinging to Mac’s shoulder. “And too much of everything.”

“Hey!” A tinny, high-pitched voice came from behind Gramps.

Who did he have tucked away back there? Jiminy Cricket?

They all looked Gramps’s way. “Oh yeah.” He pulled a phone from his back pocket. “Katie’s on the line. She wants to talk to Claire.”

Claire shook her head when Gramps tried to hand her the phone, pointing to Mac. “Give it to him.” She lowered her butt onto the edge of the tub.

“Why am I talking to Kate?” Mac asked, taking the phone and sitting next to her.

“Put her on speaker,” Claire instructed, adding a “please” and holding her head in spite of her bound wrists.

He punched one of the buttons and held the phone toward her. “Talk away.”

“Claire?” Kate said too loudly.

Claire jerked away from the phone. “What?”

“Are you alive?”

“Barely.” She held up her hands as if Kate could see them. “Why are my wrists tied with tinsel garland, Kate?”

“For the safety of the residents in Yuccaville,” her sister shot back.

“Real funny, spudnut. Whose blood is on my sleeve?”

“A three-hundred-pound plumber named Bluto who you decided needed an etiquette lesson.”

“What?” Mac asked, his eyes widening. “You didn’t get in another bar fight, did you, Slugger?”

Jess gaped while Gramps scowled.

Bluto?

“I don’t think so.”

Several more nausea-inducing images skipped through Claire’s memory, starting with one involving a Santa sans pants, then jumping to a sexy North Pole elf spraying the crowd with a dildo glitter gun, and ending on more hooters with bouncing jingle ball pasties.

She covered her eyes, trying to make the sordid flashes go away. “So many boobs,” she complained behind her hands.

Jess giggled again.

“I don’t remember anyone named Bluto,” Claire told Kate, still hiding behind her hands.

“That’s because there was no Bluto,” Kate said, snorting in laughter. “It’s Mom’s blood on your shirt.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“She accidentally cut herself last night at the table and you tried to help her, only you two made a big mess before I could get the first-aid kit from behind the bar.”

Mac looked away, a smile trying to round out his lips in spite of his obvious attempts to quell it.

Claire lowered her hands. “Why did I wake up in the bathtub?”

“Because I was going to steal your kidneys to sell on the black market,” Kate said. “But I changed my mind due to it being Christmas and all.”

Mac laughed at that, grunting when Claire elbowed him.

“You left your sister asleep in the tub,” Gramps said, this time his scowl aimed at the phone.

“I had to.”

“Katie,” Gramps warned, undoubtedly getting ready to go into a full-blown lecture.

“I swear, Gramps. At first I put Claire in her bed,” Kate explained. “But she said the room was spinning and she might throw up, so I moved her to the bathroom.”

Claire grunted. “And then what? You just left me here in a cold, hard tub?”

“Sheesh, you want some stinky toe cheese with that whine?”

“I’m going to cram my stinky toes in your—”

“You didn’t expect me to babysit you all night, did you?” Kate scoffed. “I made you a nice pillow out of Ruby’s fluffiest towels, which I think was pretty darn nice of me considering you still sort of smelled like Santa puke.”

“Santa puke?” Mac leaned away from her. “Please tell me that’s just a random holiday-flavored comparison.”

Claire shuddered. Honestly, she couldn’t quite remember if there had been a vomiting Santa or not thanks to the cognac taking the sleigh reins after her mom cut herself. Nor did Claire remember leaving Dirty Gerties, riding back to Jackrabbit Junction, or being dumped in the tub, so she must have been really out of it by then. But she did have a cloudy memory of something about Ronnie and a bunch of Grinches.

“Besides,” Kate continued her rebuttal. “I had Ronnie and Mom in the car yet. At least I didn’t leave you in the condom-littered alley behind Naughty McKnob’s.”

Mac’s focus whipped to Jess. Claire looked toward the teenager, too.

With a fake smile way too big for her freckled face, Jess backed out the door. Her footfalls thudded down the hallway as she made her escape before further questioning could take place.

“If you’re done bitching and moaning,” Kate continued. “You need to get your butt to The Shaft.”

Claire leaned into Mac, thinking about how soft their bed was. “I don’t think I’ll be much use serving drinks for a few more hours at least.” She’d need several gulps of chalky antacid and a Christmas miracle to stand upright while balancing glasses of liquid on a tray anytime soon.

“I don’t want you to come help at the bar, you hungover hairball.”

Glaring at the phone, Claire huffed. “Why do I have to come to the bar then, Crazy Kate?”

Silence came from the line for several seconds. Then in a cackling, scratchy voice, Kate said, “I told you last night to stop calling me that name, remember? Why do you think your wrists are tied?”

Claire exchanged a frown with Mac. “I’m not sure why my wrists are tied, not-crazy Kate. Things are pretty mixed up in my head.”

“Well, let’s hope for the sake of your currently gum-free hair that your brain straightens things out on your way here.”

“If you put gum in my hair, Preg-zilla, I will hold you down and tickle you until you pee your pants, which won’t be hard these days.”

“Look how you talk to me after I took such good care of you last night. I should have left you up on that stage.”

What stage? Another flash of lewd images rippled through her memory, making her flinch. Oh yeah, that stage. “Why do I have to come to The Shaft right this moment?”

“Because Dad’s going to be here soon.”

“Oh.” Claire looked at her grandfather, whose gaze narrowed into a flinty glare.

With Gramps’s ex-son-in-law in town, his daughter’s head would likely explode and then acid rain would fall over the land. Joy to the world and all of that happy family holidays jazz.

“But first,” Kate continued, “You and Mac need to go get Ronnie and bring her with you.”

Go get Ronnie? At Grady’s place? “We’re not driving clear to Yuccaville to get Ronnie. Tell her to catch a ride from her boyfriend in one of the county’s paddy wagons.” Their dad needed to meet Grady anyway, same as he did Mac and Butch, even if Ronnie was trying to keep the sheriff at arm’s length.

“Ronnie is not in Yuccaville.”

“You didn’t leave her at the sheriff’s?”

“No, she was rather adamant about Grady not seeing her like that.”

Mac frowned at the phone. “Like what, Kate?”

“Uhhhh …” There was a breathy pause, and then, “Mac, just go get Ronnie and drive my sisters here ASAP.”

“Kate,” Claire growled. “Where did you leave our sister?”

“Where do you think? I left her passed out in bed.”