Apple of My Eye (Tiger's Eye Mystery #7) - Alyssa Day Page 0,6

my little house. I'd purchased it all by myself, with some help from my mom's insurance for a down payment. It was everything I'd always wanted. Cozy, comfortable, and homey—perfectly, exactly me.

Uncle Mike was always available to help with repairs or renovations, but I was learning a lot from YouTube as well. I'd recently re-tiled the floor in my bathroom all by myself and was pretty proud of it. Granted, it had been way harder than they'd made it look on TV, but I'd persevered.

Small victories, which were definitely big enough for me after the year I'd had. Solving mysteries was not my main goal in life, especially when they involved dead bodies or pirate ghosts showing up in my pawnshop.

I parked in my little graveled parking area, and Jack was right behind me in his truck. He parked and stepped out, carrying a backpack.

"You're not staying overnight," I blurted out, feeling my face get hot. Jack had stayed at my house before, plenty of times, but they'd almost all involved danger, or murderers, or protecting me from dangerous murderers. Once, we'd fallen asleep together on the couch, no bad guys in sight, and I'd woken up in his arms. I thought about that more than I wanted to admit. But he'd been gone for weeks, and there was no reason he'd need to protect me now, except maybe from overeating pie.

He nodded. "I wouldn't impose. I just have something for you that I didn't want to leave in the truck."

I sighed. "Great. I'm snapping at you that you can't stay here, and you have a present for me. How is it that you left me with hardly any word, but now I feel like the bad guy?" I walked up the stairs to my porch, pulling out my keys, and a thought struck me. "It better not be a birthday present. You can't give me that until November."

I could hear him clear his throat behind me, and realized I'd just told him I expected a birthday present. I knocked my forehead against the door a few times before opening it. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

"It's not a birthday gift, Tess, or a Christmas gift. It's a 'just because I missed you' gift."

I spun around. "You're not planning to be gone for Christmas, are you? This was going to be your first Christmas with us, after all. You didn't make it here last year."

"No, I took the long way home, since I didn't know the details about Jeremiah." The ghost of a grin crossed his face. "Did I ever tell you that story? About how I had to find out who shot Santa in the middle of my trip?"

"No, you never did. But we were pretty busy, saving Shelley from the witches. I'd like to hear it, though."

He reached out and pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear, which made me shiver a little. "And I'd like to tell you about it, but first we'd better go inside, so Lou can show me exactly how pissed off she is at me for leaving her."

Oh, boy. He was right. I hadn't even thought about it, but Lieutenant Uhura was definitely going to show her disapproval. My cat, who'd shown up on my porch as a stray when she was a tiny kitten, felt that she was the queen of the house. She had been pretty skeptical of a new cat the size of Jack's Bengal tiger showing up and spending time at what she considered to be her house, but then she'd fallen in love with him pretty quickly.

Falling in love. My breath got stuck in my throat, and I suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe. Just at the idea of falling in love with Jack.

Nope. Not going there. It was way too early to think about falling in love, especially when we'd never even made it to our first date yet.

When I opened the door, Lou ran up to meet me and jumped in my arms. She started purring, but then her entire furry little body stiffened and she raised her head to look over my shoulder. When she caught sight of Jack, she screeched and leapt straight up into the air, leaving claw marks in my shirt.

Jack was unperturbed though. With lightning-fast shifter reflexes, he reached out and snatched her out of the air before she could fall and hurt herself on the wooden floor.

"I'm glad to see you, beautiful girl," he crooned, but Lou was