by Alyssa Day
"Mood, shmood," I sang out to Fluffy, who, as usual, didn't answer. "It's time to put out the autumn decorations!"
In the course of the next ten minutes, I pulled the boxes of decorations out from the back, cranked the music up to high, and climbed my not-lonely-at-all self up on the stepladder, hanging pinecone wreaths, putting out pumpkin spice candles, and getting in the Swamp Cabbage Festival mood. I was singing loudly along to Kesha We R Who We R when the bells over the door chimed, signaling a customer.
"I'll be right with you," I called out, concentrating on trying to thread a bit of glittery gold ribbon through a rather plain-looking wreath.
"No rush," a very familiar voice drawled. "I'm just glad to discover that the noise was you singing and not the terrible shrieks of tortured tourists."
That was just mean. Accurate, maybe, but mean.
I focused—really hard—on not falling off my stepladder.
Jack was back.
I refused to turn around to look at him until I knew I could keep the emotion off my face. "Gone all this time, and the first thing you do when you get back is criticize my singing?"
I heard two fast footsteps, and then his hands were on my waist, and he plucked me off the ladder and pulled me to him in a long, tight hug.
"I thought I'd start with the 'I'm so glad to see you' kiss, but I figured you'd punch me in the face," he said, when he finally let me go.
"Good call," I said, narrowing my eyes.
And then I punched him in the stomach.
2
"Ow!" I winced and shook out my hand. Punching a tiger shifter in the hard-muscled abs is like punching a tree. Not recommended and far more likely to hurt the puncher than the punchee.
His jade-green eyes sparkled down at me. "Um, ouch?"
"Jerk." I backed away from him. "So, how have you been? Where have you been? Why didn't you—"
I clamped my mouth shut. No way was I going to ask why he hadn't called me more often. It felt pathetic, and I wasn't.
I was a little bit hurt, though.
Okay, maybe a lot.
"Now that the punching is over, can we get to the kissing? I really missed kissing you," he said, his green eyes flashing with sparks of amber fire.
Well, what would it hurt? After all, I'd really missed kissing him too, and… I caught myself leaning forward and wanted to punch myself in the face.
"Not a chance, my friend. You don't get to take off with almost no word, making me—us—worry about you, and then take up where you left off."
I forced myself to back away from him, in spite of my traitorous hormones.
But he smells so good...
And definitely out of hugging or kissing range.
But he looks delicious…
Dang. He really did.
Jack, in human form, was six feet, four inches of hard-bodied, gorgeous man. He had wavy bronze hair that was a little long, since they apparently didn't have anybody who cut hair wherever he'd been. His eyes were green when he was human, mostly, except when he was furious or… um… feeling frisky. Then they flashed with hints of the amber of his tiger's eyes.
As a tiger? Terrifying, beautiful, and deadly.
Jack's tiger shape was five hundred pounds of orange, white, and black ferocity, except when he was curled up on my floor to protect me. Then he almost looked kind of cuddly.
I've really been missing cuddles… and he's so tan, and gorgeous, and…
"No!"
I hadn't planned to shout, but it takes a lot to overrule your own worst instincts. Human nature is funny that way.
"Got it. No kissing." He backed away, holding his hands up in the air, but the amused glint in his eyes made me suspicious.
"So. Are you back, back, or are you just stopping by to get your mail?"
His smile faded. "I'm back. We finished the job."
I waited, but he didn't say anything else. I might never know what exactly the job had been. Jack wasn't much to disclose what he considered to be other people's secrets. There was a 'sacred clown trust' adventure I'd never learned a thing about, for example.
I brushed my hands off on my pants and turned back toward my ladder. "Okay. You said hello. I've got to get back to work."
"I can help. See? Don't even need a ladder." He took a wreath out of the bin and held it up to the wall. "Do you want this here?"
Decision time: I could be grumpy about him not calling me, or I could get help decorating. It wasn't a tough choice.
"If we can get through these last two bins, I'll call it a day. Thanks."
We hung decorations and chatted, mostly him asking me about my family and our friends. After a quarter hour or so, I couldn't take it any longer.
"Are you ever going to tell me where you were? What you were doing? Was it dangerous?" I put my hands on my hips and fixed him with a steady stare. "Whatever this… friendship is between us, it's not fair to disappear like that and leave me—us—to worry about you like that."
He sighed and put the battery-operated miniature hay wagon back in the bin. "I know. I… I hope this is more than a friendship we have, Tess, but on the 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, Te
ss?"
"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 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 having none of it.
She yowled again and shot out of his arms, leaping all the way to the couch in one bound.
"I bet you have claw marks on your shirt too," I said, smiling in spite of myself.
Good for you, Lou.
"I know. I deserve it, Lou." He glanced at me, laughter sparkling in his eyes. "I probably deserved it from you too, but I guess that's the cat equivalent of punching me in the stomach."
I dropped my stuff on the couch and then froze, as a horrible thought crossed my mind. "You can never, ever tell Aunt Ruby about that. I'd get a two-hour lecture on Southern manners."
"Scout's honor."
"You were a Boy Scout?"
"Cub Scout."
"Really?"
"Tiger cub." He burst out laughing, and I groaned and headed for the kitchen to find food. I hadn't had much lunch, and I was suddenly starving. Amazing how having your hot tiger return to town and try to kiss you jolted the appetite.
"Do you have any pie?"
"Nope. I also am down one pie pan, after the death skull cooties. We can order pizza, or I have sandwich fixings and soup."
"The what cooties? And sandwiches are fine. Great, even. Too much pizza and junk food on the road."
I pulled sandwich stuff and leftover homemade chicken noodle soup out of the fridge, telling him about Lucky and the skeleton, while Jack got out the plates, bowls, and silverware. We moved around the kitchen like we had so many times, during so many meals, but it felt a little awkward.
A little off-rhythm.
There's a synchronized choreography you fall into with someone you care about when you're doing ordinary tasks—a ballet of the mundane, given grace by the harmony between the people involved.
Jack and I'd had that before he left, but we were off the beat now—missing steps in the dance. I wondered if we'd get it back.
Hoped we would.
Was scared we wouldn't.
"Tea?" He held up the glass pitcher I'd found at a flea market.
"No, I'll just have water. Sorry, I don't think I have any beer."
"Tea is fine for me."
I put the soup in a pan and turned on the stove. "This won't take long. If you want to make yourself a sandwich, I can—"
"Tess."
"The weather has been nice," I said, babbling away and realizing that now we were here, alone in my house, all the emotions I'd had burbling around inside me while he was gone were churning into a roiling mass in my stomach.
Loneliness.
Worry.
Fear.
And now he was back. And trying to act like we could take up where we'd left off. Could we?
Should we?
Why did relationships have to be so hard?
I opened a can and fed my cat, who stalked into the room when she heard the can opener, haughtily ignoring Jack.
"You have it easy, my friend," I murmured, petting her silky head. "No tom cats to worry about."
Jack started laughing. I hadn't had to worry about Superior Tiger Hearing for a while, so I'd gotten out of practice in keeping my thoughts to myself.
"No tom cats, hmm?" He put the silverware down on the table and started toward me. "I missed you, Tess."
I froze. "I… I missed you too. I just—"
"You just what?"
"You left me! For almost two months! I was worried about you. How can I be involved with somebody who does that?" I backed away from him when he moved closer. "What if you do it again?"
This time, it was his turn to still. He was silent for a long moment, and then he sighed. "I can't promise that I won't. There are responsibilities… obligations. Promises I made. I wouldn't be the man you let into your life if I didn't stand by my word."
I didn't know how to answer that, because… he was right.
I'd leave a relationship in a heartbeat to help Aunt Ruby or Uncle Mike if they needed me.
But, still…
"I'd call." I poked him in the chest. "Yes, I'd go, but I'd call. I wouldn't make you worry all the time, like you did to me."
"I don't know what to say, other than you're right."
"And—what?"
"You're right. I'm so used to compartmentalizing my life that I didn't want the ugliness of what was happening there to touch you here."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing, just put out plates and bowls. We sat down to dinner, mutually coming to a silent agreement to avoid difficult subjects while we ate. And it worked. Little by little, chatting about nothing at all important, things between us started to feel better. Almost back to normal.
Until Jack stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence. His eyes locked on the back door, his body tensed, and he inhaled a long, deep breath.
I knew that reaction, and it didn't bode well. "What? The rifle is in the closet… I'll go—"
