Apple of My Eye (Tiger's Eye Mystery #7) - Alyssa Day Page 0,47

wonder if vampires still fart? If they do, would it smell like blood?" She shuddered. "That would be disgusting."

"Aunt Ruby!"

She leaned over and kissed my cheek and then all but ran out the door. "Ask that nice Carlos, will you?"

"I am not asking Carlos if vampires fart!"

"Love you, bye!"

And she was gone.

Suddenly, I was starting to feel nostalgic for Mayor Ratbottom.

13

The rest of my day was oddly quiet. Not many customers, no texts or calls asking for help spying, and no unexpected gifts showing up.

The thought of gifts made me realize that Jack had said he had a gift for me, but he'd never gotten around to giving it to me with all that had happened. Now I was kind of curious to know what it was.

Singing lessons, maybe?

I grinned at the thought. No, not even Jack would do that.

He'd been busy on his new case all day, according to the quick text he'd sent me around lunchtime, and I realized I missed having him around, but there was still no sign of him at closing time, so I locked up and headed home to get a quart of homemade chicken noodle soup out of my freezer to take to Mellie's. I was worried about her, and she hadn't answered my 'get better soon' text. According to some of my customers, this cold that was going around was miserable for a good week, but then they'd bounced back completely a day or so after the worst of it.

I'd been raised to believe nothing beat homemade chicken soup when it came to getting over a minor illness like a cold, and I doubted Vern got home from a hard day's work in the bakery and cooked soup. Maybe I was doing him an injustice. He might be a world-class chef, for all I knew.

When I got to Mellie's place, Vern answered the door looking surprised. "Tess? What are you doing here?"

I handed him the canvas tote that held the plastic quart container of soup. "I brought Mellie some soup. Well, for both of you. It's frozen; I didn't know when she'd feel like eating. But the reheating instructions are on a card in the front pocket of the tote."

His narrow face broke into a big smile. "Tess. That's really great of you. Do you want to come in? I mean, Mellie has mostly stayed upstairs, so the germs are probably up there…"

"No. I appreciate it, but I can't afford to get sick right now," I said apologetically. The poor guy probably needed some company who wasn't yelling donut orders at him. "I have my family coming over for pizza."

"Oh. Sure." Vern struggled to hide his disappointment, but he was like me: everything he felt showed up on his face.

"Look," I said impulsively. "Come over and have pizza and pie with us."

His eyes widened, and I was sure he was going to accept, but then we heard a series of hoarse coughs coming from upstairs.

Vern sighed. "Thanks so much, but I'd better heat this soup up for Mellie and get her some medicine. The sooner she gets better, the sooner I can give her bakery back to her."

"I understand. Mellie has my number. Call or text if you need anything, okay?"

He gave me a shy smile, and then we said our goodbyes and I headed for Dead End Pizza, which I kept hoping would turn itself into a restaurant but the owners stubbornly kept to carryout. Even a town as small as ours needed more than one sit-down restaurant.

I did a mental headcount. With Aunt Ruby, Uncle Mike, Shelley, and Jack coming over, I was probably going to need five large pizzas.

Maybe six.

But when I got to the pizza shop, the cute teen boy at the counter had the pizzas ready for me. "Six large assorted for Shepherd," he said when I walked up. "Mr. Shepherd ordered and paid for them and told us to watch for a cute redhead in a Dead End Pawn shirt."

Of course he paid for them. Jack was always careful not to make his tiger metabolism cost anybody else money in terms of groceries or dinners out. He had a hoard of gold the Atlantean royal family had forced him to accept for services to the crown, he'd told me once, saying that he hadn't wanted to cause some kind of international diplomatic incident by continuing to refuse them.

But money hadn't turned him into a tiger-shifter version of the Brigham Hammermills of the world. He still drove