by Alyssa Day
"If you can't see them, then O'Sullivan's men can't see them," he said, and it made sense, so I leaned back in the seat and took deep breaths, trying not to hyperventilate, until we got home.
We put my father, who was barely able to walk, in the guest room, and I made him take a pain pill with some water. He fell asleep so fast it made me wonder, again, just what O'Sullivan had done to him.
"I want to hurt him," I said quietly, standing at the doorway and watching my father move restlessly under the light blanket.
"Your dad?" Jack was a shadow in the dark. He'd insisted no lights until we were sure the perimeter was secure.
"No."
"Trust me. I want to hurt him, too. And we will. We'll hurt him by getting him and his entire organization locked up in a dark hole with the previous Dead End sheriff."
I turned and headed toward the kitchen. "I need some coffee, if we're going to be up all night."
"Sounds like a good idea." He followed me into the kitchen and started making coffee when I stopped suddenly and forgot what I'd been about to do.
"I don’t recognize my life," I told him. "Ever since …"
"Ever since I came into it?" His voice was as dark as the shadows surrounding him. "Maybe I should leave, too, once we get past this crisis. I don't want to bring violence or danger into your life, Tess, and mine has been shrouded in both of those for so long I don't know if I can ever escape it."
"No!" I whirled to face him. "I was going to say ever since Jeremiah died, but that was about Sheriff Lawless and the Kowalskis. Nothing that has happened has been because you caused it, Jack. You have only been a friend and—and—and someone I don't really know how I ever lived without."
Confessions made in the dark don't count, right? When someone can't see the emotion that must be naked on my face, then I won't have to live with the consequences if he rejects it.
Rejects me.
The silence stretched out until I thought I'd scream, but then finally he spoke.
"You'll never have to live without me again, if you don't want to," he said roughly, and I followed the truth of his words across the room, until I stood in front of him.
"It's not looking good for our date," I whispered. "But maybe you could kiss me now, anyway."
His sharply indrawn breath was my only answer at first, but then … "Are you sure?"
"Very sure." I put my hands on his shoulders and raised my face to his. "Please."
It was almost as if the word broke something in his control. Jack wrapped his arms around me, pulled me against his hard, muscular body, and took my mouth with all the heat and skill and passion I'd known he'd possess.
And I kissed him back.
I raised my hands to his face and pulled him closer, and I kissed him until my knees went wobbly and the world around us disappeared. Until it was just the two of us, alone in the dark, wondering why we hadn't done this before.
Why we didn't do it all the time.
Until my father limped into the room and turned on a light.
"What the hell are you doing with my daughter?"
I rested my forehead on Jack's chest and started laughing. "You picked a heck of a time to start playing Dad."
"Turn off that light. You're making us clear targets," Jack commanded.
My dad switched off the light. "You're not good enough for her," he said bitterly. "And I ought to know about not being good enough for Tess."
"That's the difference between us," Jack said. "At least I'm trying to be."
"I'll decide who's good enough for me," I told them both. "And now, I'm going to take a shower. Feel free to argue amongst yourselves while the bad guys are out there hunting us down."
By the time I got out of the shower, put on an old T-shirt and shorts to sleep in, and went back in my bedroom, Jack was in tiger form and standing on my bed, looking out my window.
"You're lucky that's a sturdy bed."
He tilted his head and then jumped off the bed and headed for the door.
"You're going on patrol?"
He dipped his head.
"Is it safe for me to sleep for a few hours? I got very little rest last night, and I'm almost too exhausted to even think."
He turned and nudge me toward the bed, which made me laugh, in spite of everything. "I get it. Go. Wake me up if there's anything or anyone going on out there."
He turned back toward the door.
"Hey. Jack. Next time you want to avoid the 'let's talk about that kiss' conversation, you can just say so. You don't have to shift shapes to get out of any feelings talk."
Before I could think of anything else to say about it, he was gone.
I walked over and touched the Donald Duck that I'd moved from the couch to my dresser. "Men, right?"
Donald said nothing.
"For a duck, you're kind of a chicken," I told him, and then I fell onto the bed and immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When I woke up, the sun was shining through my window, and it took me a moment to reorient my brain to the big, honking pile of problems facing me. I glanced at my phone and got the first good news in awhile: a text from Susan that said O'Sullivan and his goons had left town.
"Another day, another dollar, Donald. I guess I'd better get ready for work."
Donald again said nothing.
Jack, on the other hand, who sounded like he was in the kitchen, did say something.
He said no.
"You are not the boss of me," I said, like a big dang grownup. "I told you what Susan said. They're gone. They gave up.
Jack said something about danger.
I ignored him. If he could kiss me like that and then avoid me for the rest of the night, I was certainly capable of ignoring his warnings that it was too dangerous to go to work.
"Look," I finally said. "Susan said they're gone. She said she had a deputy follow them clear across I-4 to I-95, and then a hundred miles up 95. In an unmarked car. Just to be sure. They're gone, Jack. And if I stayed home from work every time there's even a hint of danger, I'd be bankrupt."
He had no answer to that.
"Thomas, are you ready?"
My father—who was feeling even worse today in the grand tradition of 'the morning after,' according to Jack, my father himself, and even Lucky, who'd come in for a cup of coffee, shot one look at Thomas, and said, "Dude. Ouch" before heading home—slowly and painfully stood from the kitchen table and nodded.
"Are you sure you don't want to go to the doctor and get checked out?"
A smile touched his lips but didn't quite reach his eyes. "No, I don't need a doctor. It's just a surfeit of bruises and stupidity. I'll need to heal both of those on my own."
A wave of longing swept through me. I wanted to spend the day with him. I wanted a chance to get to know him, outside the craziness he'd brought with him. In spite of everything he'd done and hadn't done, he was still my dad.
"And you'll still be at Uncle Mike's when I get off work?"
This time, the smile reached his eyes. "I promise. Go to work. We'll catch up at dinner. I'm not going anywhere."
Jack walked up behind me and tugged a strand of my hair. "I've got him. I'll take him to Mike and Ruby's, and you can go to work. It will be easier for him to climb into my truck than your car."
The idea of my poor, bruised, father contorting himself to get in the Mustang made me wince. "Okay. Thanks. I'll see you later, then. Both of you. Jack, please thank everyone again for me."
Sadly, when I got to the shop, the Doltar was still there, blocking the center aisle.
"Got any advice for me today, Doltar the Magnificent?"
Doltar said nothing. He didn't light up, either.
"Fickle," I told him and then headed in the back to start more coffee.
When I came back out front, Doltar was lit up like the cockpit of a 747, and a sturdy-looking man with a shaved head was walking all around it, smiling and stroking the wood of the cabinet.
"Good morning," I called
out, before walking behind the counter. "Are you interested in the Doltar?"
"Hey, Tess. This is fantastic! What would you ask for something like this?"
Hey, Tess?
"Oh, have you been in the shop before?" I know people liked to think that I could memorize all the faces that had ever shown up in my shop, but it was impossible. There were hundreds—thousands—of them, and just one of me.
He whirled around to face me, his eyes widening. "Don't tell me you don't recognize me without my suit! Tess, it's me. Bob. Bob Galianakis."
Bob … "Blue! I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you at first. You look so much different out of costume."
He grinned. "Yeah, I get that. I stopped by to tell you that we got the job!"
"That's fantastic! Congratulations!"
"Yeah, I'd give you a hug, but, well, we found out about you." His mouth drooped in a very clown-like way, which fascinated me for a second until I realized he was feeling sheepish or bad about 'finding out' about me.
I sighed. "Gossip or research?"
He stared at his feet. "Gossip, I guess. We stopped for donuts on the way out of town the other day, and somebody mentioned we'd been at your shop, and somebody there asked if we'd touched you, and … it just went from there."
"Well. Okay." I never knew what to say in these situations. I usually felt like people were waiting for me to demonstrate my 'freaky' powers, just not in a way that affected them personally. But with Blue—Bob—it didn't feel like that, which was kind of nice.
"Anyway, I wanted to thank Jack personally, but nobody answered at his place." He pointed a thumb at our adjoining door. "I called, but he didn't answer his phone, either."
"Yeah, he's not big on phones. Or thanks, for that matter."
Bob laughed. "I got that the other day. Anyway, listen. We figured out a way to say thanks that might mean something more. We've lined up a benefit gig. We're going to do a show in the Dead End town square this evening, donations only, and all proceeds go to the library here in town."
Doltar, lurking ominously behind Bob, suddenly lurched into full-on lights and action life. Bob jumped, and I shook my head.
"Here we go."
Doltar opened his plastic mouth. "Pick a card, Pick any card."
A single card slid out of the slot.
Bob and I looked at each other and shrugged.
"Guess you get to pick that one,"
"You pick it," he said.
"I already tried that. It won't let me take a card that isn't meant for me."
The clown looked at the fortune teller. The fortune teller looked at the clown. They both looked at me.
This had the makings of a great joke, but I didn't know where it would go from there.
I rolled my eyes. "Watch." I slowly extended my hand toward the card, and it started to slide back into the machine.
I took my hand back, and the card slid back out.
"That is just freaky," Bob said.
I did not disagree. On the other hand, I probably had a much higher threshold for 'freaky,' after the year I'd had.
He grinned at me. "Why not?" Then he grabbed the card, flipped it over and read it, and then he stumbled back a couple of steps from the Doltar.
"What is it? Blue! What is it?"
Blue—Bob—slowly held out the card, in a hand that was shaking. This one was in an elegant script font, with an illustrated border of red balls and ribbons.
A clown and another guy are walking
through the forest at night.
The guy says to the clown "Man, this forest is really creepy at night". The clown says "No kidding, and I have to walk all the way back by myself."
"That's … oddly specific." I didn't know whether to put the card back in the machine or tear it up, salt it, and burn it, like you did for black magic.
"And oddly pinpointed. How did he know I was a clown?" Bob's face was pale, and this time it had nothing to do with makeup.
"It must have been a coincidence," I reassured him.
That my creepy machine, which was still not plugged in, just gave a clown a creepy clown joke. Sure, let's call that a coincidence.
"Are you still interested in buying it?"
The color slowly returned to his face. "Maybe. We kind of like odd things. Let me get together with the group and see what we'd be willing to bid. What are you asking?"
"I don't know yet. But the more unusual it becomes, the more I can ask. There are collectors out there who are crazy for the wildly unusual with a touch of the magical."
Bob, who'd been reaching out to touch it, yanked his hand away. "Magic?"
I couldn't lie to him. "Could be. As you can see, it's not plugged in, and Jack says there isn't a backup battery. So, who knows?"
Bob backed away from the Doltar, but I could tell he was intrigued. I'd learned early on to read the customers.
"Maybe," he finally said. Then he smiled at me. "Coming tonight?"
"I wouldn't miss it!"
"Later, Tess. Please tell Jack if you see him. Also, you might warn him that he's going to be getting a flood of crayon drawings from the kids at the hospital saying thanks."
Awww.
Maybe I'd frame a few for his office. He currently had all bare walls, a bare desk top, and bare book shelves, except for a framed picture of Shelley driving the airboat, a huge smile on her face and the wind in her hair.
About an hour and five or six customers later, I texted Aunt Ruby to see how my father was doing.
Resting. Are you coming over for dinner again?
Why don't you come to my place? And then we can go see the clowns.
My phone rang two seconds later, as expected. I told her about the clowns and the benefit, and we made plans to go together. She offered to make pies for dinner, and I accepted, because Yes!, and then the bells over my door chimed, so I told her I'd see her later.
Jack walked in, carrying donuts, and all my lady hormones that had woken up and started singing during That Kiss the night before tuned up for a concert.
Down, ladies.
"Did you see Bob on your way in?"
"Bob who?"
I blinked. "How easily you forget the man you handed fifty thousand dollars to so recently."
"Oh." He grinned. "Blue. Yeah, in the parking lot. He invited us to a benefit show, so I invited him to dinner."
"Oh. But—I was going to have a barbecue at my house."
"Right." Jack tapped on the Doltar's wooden cabinet. "I invited him to your house."
"Sure. Wait. What?" I stared at him. "Jack. We're going to need to talk about boundary issues. You invited Blue to my house without even asking me?"
"No."
"Oh." I was getting confused. Maybe not enough coffee.
"I invited all seven of them. Plus the boys."
"You're lucky you brought donuts."
14
I shoved Jack out the door to buy more groceries. A lot more groceries, if we were going to have ten—eleven, I shot a quick text off to Molly—eleven more people than I'd planned. He insisted on paying, this time, and I let him, considering his wild clown-inviting ways.
Then I texted Aunt Ruby to bring Lou with her. I'd missed my sweet cat the night before. She liked to curl up with me at night and hiss at Jack when he slept over in tiger form on the rug next to my bed.
Just like her namesake, Lieutenant Uhura, Lou feared nothing.
I spent some time talking to some of my Saturday regulars who stopped by, all of them marveling at the Doltar (who stayed silent, for a change), Windexed my glass counters, and took in a few items in pawn. (A laptop, an Xbox, and a taxidermied raccoon playing a tiny fiddle).
Obviously items in pawn were not for sale, so they went in the vault, but I kept the raccoon out so he could keep Fluffy and the Jackalope company. As I was writing a NOT FOR SALE tag to put on its foot, I missed Eleanor and her lovely handwriting, which made me reach for my phone again and text her to invite the two of them to dinner, too.
Then I texted Jack to tell him I'd added three more to the dinner count, and to buy accordingly. He sent me back a photo of his Super Target cart packed to the brim with meat.
Fruit and vegetables, too, you lunatic carnivore!
He sent back a frowny face emoji.
The world was getting curiouser and curiouser, when rebel leader tiger shifters were texting emojis. Which made me think of another question.
I texted Jack again.
Do Cheshire cats actually exist?
Not that I've seen, but I wouldn't discount anything after I saw Siberian unicorns on Atlantis.
I read that message twice, and then I put my phone away.
"Top that, Doltar."
Doltar, apparently, could not.
I rewarded myself for all my industriousness with a second donut. When it hit noon and the shop was empty, decided to close up for the weekend.
The advantage of owning my own business was that I could set my own hours.
The disadvantage of owning my own business was that I could set my own hours. Any more weeks like this one, and I'd be going bankrupt.
But it was a rainy Saturday afternoon, which historically meant almost nobody came out to the shop, so I didn't feel that guilty about closing up at lunchtime. I locked up and headed home, where I walked right past the vacuum cleaner and climbed straight back into my bed.
An hour and a half later, I woke up to the sound of a tiger singing in my kitchen.
Well, technically, it was Jack in human form singing and—darn him—he had a great voice. I lay there and listened to him sing along with my Elvis playlist until I realized A Little Less Conversation was making me think of action and satisfaction and that kiss.
Oops.
I jumped out of bed, brushed my scary hair back out of my face, changed into shorts and a relatively nice T-shirt that asked people to support the Humane Society, and headed out to find out what Jack Elvis Shepherd was up to.
I tried sneaking down the hall, so I could surprise him for a change, but he wasn't kidding about superior tiger hearing.