Apple of My Eye (Tiger's Eye Mystery #7) - Alyssa Day Page 0,48

an old truck, lived in an old house, and wore faded jeans like most of the rest of us in Dead End.

I admired him for it.

I also sometimes secretly wondered just how much money a 'hoard' was, but I kept that to myself.

I also didn't mind the "cute redhead" bit.

The pizza guy helped me carry the boxes out to the car, and I gave him a ten-dollar tip, holding the bill by the very edge of one side so as not to accidentally touch his fingers.

"Thanks!"

"We working people have to stick together," I told him, and he flashed a confident smile and leaned against the side of my car, striking a casual pose. Tall, blond, tanned, and with serious muscle, you could tell this kid thought he was something special.

"Hey, if you'd be interested in going out sometime, you could come to one of my games," he said, in what I'm sure he thought was a smoothly charming way.

I blinked. "Your games?"

"Football. Dead End Manatees. I'm the best quarterback the team has ever seen, or so everybody says. I'm too modest to say it myself." He tried a self-deprecating chuckle that I was too startled to appreciate.

"Oh. You're in high school," I said, trying not to laugh. The male ego was very fragile at this age. "Ah, it's very nice of you, but I'm way too old for you… Um…"

"Vince," he said, holding out a hand. "And I like older women. Especially when they're as pretty as you."

Older women. Oh, brother.

It was getting harder and harder to hold in the laughter.

"I'm sorry, Vince, but I don't shake hands," I said gently. "Are you new in town?"

"Yes." He raised an eyebrow. "How did you know?"

"Most people know me on sight. It's the hair," I said, almost apologetically, pointing to my fiery red ponytail. "I'm Tess Callahan, and you really, really don't want to shake my hand."

I could see the realization dawn in his eyes. Somebody must have told him about me.

"Oh," he said hastily, taking a step back. "I, um, I'm sorry. I didn't, I mean, I hope I didn't offend you."

"Not at all. Thanks, Vince." I smiled at him, but he was already rushing back inside.

I sighed and started the car to head home. I hadn't been much older than Vince when my gift first manifested. A customer named Annabelle Hannah Yorgenson had come into the shop on my first day running the store on my own. I'd shaken her hand and blurted out how she was going to die—horribly, at the end of her husband's shovel—and then I'd had a seizure and almost died. She'd screamed and run away and, much later, we'd found out that she'd died exactly as I'd seen.

The problem was, it wasn't like I was having a hazy vision when it happened; it was more like I was standing there in real time, watching someone die. This is almost never a fun thing—it's usually hideous. Often, it knocks me down, although I'd become better about not losing consciousness over the years.

In a rare exception to all the horribleness, I’d seen how my ex-boyfriend Owen would die, and it had been… nice. He would be a very old man, surrounded by loved ones, when he passed on. On the other hand, I'd seen how Jack had died the first time, and it had scared me to death. There was a long story.

Some people could touch me and I never saw a thing. And I only saw the vision the very first time I touched someone, if it was going to happen.

Fuzzy rules, or maybe guidelines, for how and when it would happen just meant that I did my best to keep people from touching me and spent a lot of time considering wearing gloves full time. And the truth was that I wasn't sure if all my visions would come true or not. I mean, only once had someone died within minutes of my seeing a vision of his death, and the memory of that still gave me bad dreams. But with most people, their deaths would be a long time coming, and questions of free will and fate meant that I just wasn't sure.

Sometime, maybe, if he turned out not to be a dangerous stalker, I might talk to Pastor Nash about it and get his take.

I blew out a breath and cranked up the radio, so by the time I reached my road, I'd cast off my melancholy. I honked for Carlos and continued