Page 5 of A Dead End Fourth of July (Tiger’s Eye Mysteries #14)

Jack

Any trip out to visit the boys started off with acquiring food.

Lots and lots of food.

None of them were shapeshifters; in fact, they were all plain-vanilla humans, but they were guys, and ex-soldiers, and hard workers who put in full days at their tourist airboat business.

And I needed a favor, so it needed to be great food. I planned to hire the Fox twins officially and pay them, but I’d be asking them to move my request to the front of their busy queue, so … food.

I parked my truck and walked into Lauren’s Deli, smiling at the owner.

Tess’s friend Lauren had dyed her long, spiral curls red, white, and blue for the holiday, and she wore a T-shirt with a sequined flag on the front with her denim shorts.

She grinned at me, her dark brown eyes flashing with good humor, and I realized she wasn’t just Tess’s friend anymore.

She was now my friend, too.

Every time I realized I had a home and friends and family, it hit me in the chest with a kind of baffled wonder.

During all those years as a soldier, I’d made a few friends and a lot of allies, but they’d all felt temporary.

We knew we might only see each other a few times a year, with different assignments.

Or, worst-case scenario during the vampire wars, we might never see each other again.

I shook off the melancholy memories. "Hey, Lauren, looking festive! How are you?"

"I’m good." She slid a tray of fresh sandwiches into the glass counter, stood, and brushed off her hands. "But how are you? I didn’t realize you were back from the honeymoon already."

"Two glorious weeks. I tried to talk Tess into a month, but she didn’t want to be gone from the shop longer."

She sent me a wry look. "The joy of being a small-business owner. I don’t like to be gone from the shop for more than a week at a time, no matter how capable my stand-in might be. Are you here to chat or looking for lunch?"

I studied the display case. "Always a pleasure to chat with you, but definitely need lunch, too. I’m going out to see the boys."

"Say no more," she said, laughing. "Luckily, I stocked up in case of a pre-holiday crush. How many and what kind?"

I ordered enough sandwiches, bags of chips, and giant cookies to feed everybody and added in a case of soda and one of water.

"Did you meet the new doctor?"

I glanced up from my phone, which I’d been checking to see if Sam had texted me the picture of his granddaughter yet. "New doctor?"

"The town got an anonymous donation to build a health clinic, and they’re hiring a doctor to run it. She came in for lunch, and she’s totally hot!"

"No, I didn’t meet her." I grinned at her. "Is she as good a doctor as she is hot?"

"I doubt Mayor Ruby would have invited her for an interview if not. Who knew Tess’s Aunt Ruby would be such a good mayor, right? I wonder how she wrangled enough in donations for a health clinic?"

I shrugged. "Hard to say. She’s definitely a great mayor, though."

Of course, I knew exactly who gave Dead End the anonymous donation, because it had been me.

Tess had insisted she provide part of the funds, too, from the gold the fairy queen had given her.

We’d used an out-of-town lawyer to set up the whole thing, since we didn’t want anybody, not even her family, to know it was us.

I was looking forward to meeting the doctor and hoped she was exactly what we needed.

Tess was one of the strongest people I’d ever met, but she was human, and she’d been hurt too many times in the past year.

Having a full-time doctor and a fully stocked health clinic in town would take a weight off my mind.

Not that I planned on her ever getting hurt again, but just in case.

Just in case.

While Lauren packed everything up, she moved on from the doctor and asked me about our trip.

Everybody always wanted to know about Atlantis.

Hard not to be interested in a formerly lost, thought-to-be mythical continent that suddenly popped up to the surface of the ocean after eleven thousand years.

Especially when it came fully equipped with magical warriors, a library filled with scrolls that made historians weep with joy, and a king who’d made an American woman his queen.

The king, queen, and several of the elite warriors were friends of mine, but that was too long of a tale to share over a lunch pickup.

"I’d love to go visit one day," she said wistfully as she rang up my purchases.

"I’m sure I can get you an invitation." I handed her enough cash for the lunch plus a hearty tip, said my thanks, and headed for the door with the water under one arm, the soda under the other, and the bags of food in my hands.

"I’ll hold you to that," she called after me.

On the way out, a young boy of about twelve held the door for me while his parents beamed at him for his politeness.

"Thanks, buddy."

He grinned. "Is all that for you?"

"You bet! Tigers get very hungry," I said solemnly, just for the pleasure of seeing his eyes widen.

As I headed for the truck, I heard the three of them whispering with excitement. Dead End had known about the secret supernatural elements in the world long before everyone else, but tiger shifters were rare. Everybody in town knew about me, though.

I didn’t have to hide who I was anymore.

It was a great feeling, having a home.

I stuffed the lunch supplies in the truck, and then my phone rang.

Tess.

"You know, I was just thinking how great it is to have a home," I said when I clicked to answer.

"I—what?"

"You. You’re my home, Tess," I told her, just for the joy of being able to say the words.

Because I meant them.

Because I loved her.

She sighed. "Oh, Jack. I love you, too. So much. But we don’t have time for romance now. You need to get to my Aunt Ruby fast, before she causes any chaos!"

I closed my eyes, and it was my turn to sigh. "What is it now?"

I didn’t bother to say, "But we just got home," or anything foolish like that, because: Dead End.

"She’s wearing a magical truth-telling brooch—"

"A what?"

"It’s a piece of jewelry. Actually, it’s a really ugly piece of jewelry. A pin. She’s wearing it on the lapel of her jacket, and the magic in it is forcing her to tell the truth. All day."

I climbed into the truck. "I don’t understand why that’s going to cause chaos. She’s the mayor, and she’s Ruby. She pretty much always tells the truth, doesn’t she?"

Tess groaned. "No, you don’t get it. This … it’s like she was drunk. Not just telling the truth, but bringing up things from the past that she never would have said out loud, certainly in front of Shelley."

"Like what?"

"Like how she danced in her underwear—"

"STOP!" I did not, under any circumstances, want to hear about Ruby—who was practically my mother-in-law—dancing in her underwear. "Okay. If I get it off her, do the effects stop? Will it affect me when I touch it?"

"I … don’t know."

I could almost see her biting her lip.

"The sellers told me just touching it isn’t enough to activate the magic, and that you have to wear it, but I admit I probably didn’t do proper due diligence.

Just pick it up with gloves or a cloth to be safe.

But please get to her now, Jack. She said she had to get to work to meet the new doctor she wants to hire for the clinic.

If this doctor meets Aunt Ruby in full, magically induced truth mode, she or he might run fast and far. "

"It’s she. She’s hot," I told her.

Silence.

"Excuse me?" she finally said in a cool voice.

I laughed. "I picked up lunch at Lauren’s, and she told me the new doctor is hot."

"Oh. Oh. Please, Jack. Get going. Cut Aunt Ruby off before she says something we’ll all regret."

"On my way." I ended the call, turned on the truck, and headed for town hall, hoping fervently that I could get the jewelry thing away from Ruby before she said something to me that embarrassed both of us.

Or that Tess’s Uncle Mike would kick my butt for.

Sadly, I was about five minutes too late.