Apple of My Eye (Tiger's Eye Mystery #7) - Alyssa Day Page 0,59

that at least it didn't smell like flatulence anymore, but there was a definite whiff of moth balls and dry cleaning chemicals.

"One more load of jars, Tess, if you would," Lauren called out from where she was restocking the shelves of the booth. I rolled the costume up and stuffed it in the corner behind my tote bag for now. The parade didn't start until seven, so I still had time.

I studied Lauren. "Hey. You're short. You'd fit perfectly—"

"Forget it," she said. "The mayor already tried."

When I was working my way through the early crowds to Lauren's van for more jams, I passed Jack going the other way with several cases of water.

"It's handy to have the strength of a shapeshifter, huh?"

He grinned at me. "Most of the time, yes. But we do have a tendency to be asked to help set up festivals in small towns an awful lot."

I shook my head, smiling, and kept going. Shelley was with Aunt Ruby, and Uncle Mike was helping with the 4-H barn. Breathing in the scents of hot oil and cotton candy made me remember that I planned to find the biggest funnel cake imaginable as soon as I was done loading jam jars and eat the entire thing myself.

I deserved it if I was really going to have to wear that darn costume.

I grabbed another crate of jams and locked Lauren's van, and then I turned around and ran into a big guy who'd stopped right behind me.

"Excuse me," I said automatically, glancing up at him. I didn't know him, but that wasn't unusual for festival week.

He didn't move, though, and I couldn't get around him.

"Excuse me," I said again, starting to be annoyed. It was too early for people to be drunk already.

He pulled his ball cap further down but then he took off his sunglasses, sneering at me. "Of all the people I had to run into at this pathetic event, why you?"

"Hello, Brig," I said, managing to sound calm. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, just hanging out, waiting for my investments to mature," he said, and he was exactly as arrogantly offensive as I remembered. "I thought I'd waste some time here, instead of holing up in the house, for a change. And lo and behold, who do I see in the first ten minutes I'm here, but you."

"It's a pretty small town. You're likely to run into everybody you know in the first ten minutes. And why would you ever want to come back here?" I tried to edge to one side, but he moved to block me.

"Why not? There's sure as hell nobody looking for me in this Podunk town."

"You might be surprised," I muttered, trying to shove my way past him.

But he was bigger than me by quite a bit, and he easily blocked me again.

"Why'd you do it?" He moved closer to me and studied my face.

"Do what?"

"Why'd you return my gifts? You're nothing special." He blatantly looked me up and down with utter contempt. "You should have been honored that I wasted my time and money on you."

Suddenly, stalker or not, killer or not, I'd had quite enough of Brigham Hammermill the Fourth. I shoved the crate of jam jars at him, hard, catching him in the abdomen. He reflexively grabbed it, and I slipped past him and backed away several steps.

And then I started shouting.

"JACK SHEPHERD, THIS WOULD BE A GOOD TIME FOR YOU TO USE YOUR SUPERIOR TIGER HEARING! HELP!"

Brig gazed wildly around us and then dropped the crate on the ground, flinching at the sound of glass breaking. "Why did you do that? Who is Jack Shepherd?"

I listened for a couple of seconds and then—oh, yeah—there it was. The feral roar of an enraged tiger.

"You're going to find out very soon."

Brig stalked forward and grabbed my bare arms, hard. "You stupid woman. Do you think I'm afraid of you? I've built and destroyed entire companies. I've caused titans of industry to cower at my feet. I—"

I started to shiver but managed to stay on my feet and stay conscious, in spite of what my gift was telling me about his future.

"You're about to be lunch," I said, yanking my arms out of his grasp and stepping to the side. "Putting your hands on me was a very bad idea, Brig old boy.

At just about that moment, a quarter-ton of angry tiger flew through the air and slammed into him, so Brig didn't hear me, because he was on the