Apple of My Eye (Tiger's Eye Mystery #7) - Alyssa Day Page 0,21

tend to treat me like I was sixteen instead of twenty-six some days.

Rifle maintenance done with, I turned my attention to a far more important matter: what was I going to wear on our date?

I threw open my closet doors and immediately realized two crucial facts:

1. I had no idea where we were going, and

2. My entire wardrobe was awful.

I sighed. I didn't own much in the way of fancy date clothes. My best friend Molly and I had made a special trip to buy The Dress for the first time Jack and I had tried to have this date. I couldn't wear it again. I needed something new, something with no bad associations connected to it.

Most of my wardrobe, if you could even call it that, consisted of jeans and Dead End Pawn polo shirts on one side of my closet, and a few dresses and pairs of nice pants with tops I could wear to church on the other. I'd been able to wear church clothes on dates with Owen, my ex, because he was a very sweet dentist and, most of all, he'd never made my pulse race to the point where I'd been desperate to wear something sexy enough to make him jump on me.

I had very fond memories of the way Jack had practically swallowed his tongue when he'd seen The Dress.

"Maybe I should just wear it again," I told Lou, who didn't seem particularly sympathetic, but then again, she always wore the same thing and looked spectacular.

"Not all of us have fur coats," I told her, sitting on the edge of my bed and giving her a quick cuddle. She purred and rubbed her cheek on mine, and suddenly I didn't mind so much about not having fancy clothes. I loved my cat, my family, my friends, my house, my small town, and my business.

I was incredibly lucky—I loved my life.

Well, except for my 'gift.' And except for when criminals and dead bodies were involved. I knew how fortunate I was, and I made a mental note to give another donation to Kiva.com, because I loved supporting women entrepreneurs like myself around the world with microloans.

"Which are the only ones I can afford, anyway," I told Lou. "But it's important to share when I can. I helped a woman in the Philippines buy stock for her tiny store the last time."

My phone buzzed, and I put Lou back down on the bed and reached for it, happy to see Molly's smiling face on the screen.

"Molly! It's like you're psychic! How did you know I was desperate for fashion advice at this very moment?"

Molly's lilting laughter sounded in my ear, and I felt myself relax for the first time since I'd opened that box. My best friend Molly Chen was an actual rock star, and her band Scarlett's Letters was on a national tour of small venues, which was the first step toward international fame, I was absolutely sure.

"Hey, Tess, glad to hear your voice. It has been nonstop here. Rehearsal, performance, rehearsal, performance, recording studio. The label seems to think we're the next big thing, but I'm still having to keep Dice from bashing one of the suits over the head with her guitar. That anger management class is wearing off, for sure. And she never was good with stress."

I rolled my eyes, glad Molly couldn't see it. She was a loyal friend, even to people I wasn't sure deserved it, like her perpetually troubled bass player. But, as Molly had reminded me more than once, if she dumped friends for being trouble, I'd be at the top of the list. Given how wild my life had been recently, I couldn't argue with that.

We spent a little bit of time catching up—mostly on her part; there was no way I was going to tell her about the stalker—and then she cut me off in the middle of my story about what had happened at church.

"Why fashion advice?"

"Jack's back."

Silence.

"Molly?"

"Tess, you know I like Jack, but I love you, and if he's going to jerk you around by disappearing and then reappearing with no notice, is that really what you want? You like reliable people and situations—"

"You make me sound very, very dull. Or a hundred years old!"

"You like reliable because your dad wasn't, this isn't hard to figure out; we've talked about this, and especially with your 'I see death' thing. So all I'm asking is this: Is Jack the right guy for you?"

She was