Apple of My Eye (Tiger's Eye Mystery #7) - Alyssa Day Page 0,5

other hand, I don't know if it's fair to ask you for more, when I have responsibilities that may pull me away like that again. And, yes, it was dangerous, and that's not fair to you, either, is it?"

I rolled my eyes, even though my heart was thumping in my chest. "I live a life where dead bodies regularly show up at my shop's back door, alligators get left on my front porch at home, and I can see how people will die just from touching them, so definitely, let's worry about poor fragile Tess and what's fair to me."

"I never called you fragile." He grinned at me. "I know better. I've seen you shoot. And park your car. You're deadly."

I narrowed my eyes, and he laughed.

"I'd better shut up now, or you'll never let me take you to dinner."

I didn't want to have dinner with him. I also really, really wanted to have dinner with him. I settled for a non-answer.

"I need to finish decorating the shop."

"We're almost done. The rest can wait, can't it? "

"I'm doing it now." I realized I was being unreasonably stubborn but didn't seem to be able to stop myself.

"Then we'll finish it up and go get some dinner. I'm really starving."

"You're always starving," I pointed out. "Because, tiger. And, anyway, I'm sure you have better things to do. For example, your mail has really piled up…"

"Which is probably all junk, anyway. Tess, let me help. Maybe if I work hard enough, you'll start to forgive me for leaving."

I shrugged. "Maybe. It could be a Swamp Cabbage Festival miracle."

"A what?"

"You don't remember Swamp Cabbage Festivals?"

He looked blank and then groaned. "Oh. This town has more festivals than Germany during October. We don't have to do anything for it, do we?"

I started laughing. "Oh, Jack. You are in so much trouble. You're a business owner in Dead End, now. You are an integral part of the Swamp Cabbage Festival."

I opened the final box of decorations—the outside ones—and turned the music up, contenting myself with humming along, in consideration of Jack's much-vaunted Superior Tiger Hearing.

My singing really was that bad, much to my regret—dogs howled, children ran screaming, even old, deaf Mr. Russell in church had asked me once to "Stop singing, for the love of the dear Lord, Tess."

I'd indignantly told him I was offering up a joyful noise unto the Lord. He'd muttered that maybe I didn't understand the meaning of the word 'joyful.' I'd given up then, because the "Amens" coming from the people around us had been disheartening.

On the bright side, I'd evidently healed his deafness. I should hire myself out to magic shows or reality TV. Also, the Lord gave me this voice, so I maintain that at least He must like my singing, but I also thought I might be on shaky theological grounds with that one, so I hadn't said it out loud.

"What's going on in that twisted brain of yours, Tess?"

"Religious philosophy."

He blinked. "Oh. I don't know if I should ask, but maybe we could it discuss over dinner?"

I put the last candle next to a taxidermied skunk—no, it didn't smell too awful, and yes, tomato juice really works—and blew out a sigh. "Okay. Beau's? I don't have much in the way of groceries at home."

"Sure, but not if you want to hear about my trip. It was… difficult. And most of it isn't my story to share, but what I can tell you isn't anything I'd want overheard at Beau's."

I could understand that. Anything overheard at Beau's, our little town's only sit-down eating establishment, may as well have been printed in the Dead End Gazette. We might have more quirks than other small towns—for example, how we'd always known that supernatural creatures and people existed, long before they came out to the rest of humanity—but we could rival any of them for gossip.

"Okay. Let's go to my house. We can order pizza or eat sandwiches."

Jack followed me in his truck over to my house, which was a very short drive, because Dead End was a very small town.

I turned onto the driveway I now shared with my new neighbor, the sheriff's brother Carlos, who was a vampire, and honked my horn once to let him know it was me. It was just a thing I’d started doing to be neighborly, and he hadn't told me to knock it off yet, so I figured it was OK. I figured he was probably asleep during the day, anyway.

I loved