Page 20 of Eye on the Ball

Great. I was almost robbed by a snack cake.

“Joe Bob? You’d better try to give me one good reason not to call Sheriff Gonzalez right now to arrest you.”

“Aw, Tess. Don’t do that. I’m really sorry. I was desperate.” He ran a hand through his thick, wavy blond hair. The man was pretty enough to be a model on one of those man-of-the-month calendars, but he wasn’t—as Uncle Mike had said once or twice—the sharpest tool in the shed.

I was working my way up to a good mad, though. What right did he have to pull this stunt in my shop? Another thought crossed my mind, and I gasped.

“Joe Bob! You have no idea how lucky you are. If Jack had been here …”

Joe Bob turned so pale, I thought he might pass out. “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Tess, please, please don’t tell Jack. I swear I’ll do anything. I’ll … I’ll clean your shop for a month!”

I sighed. “I can clean my shop. How about you just explain why you did this, and I’ll decide what to do after that?”

A group of Orlando tourists came in just then, all of them sunburned and wearing theme park T-shirts and funny hats.

I pointed at Joe Bob. “You. Sit right there on that stool until I have time to deal with you.”

He rushed right over and plopped his butt on the stool, the fear of Jack probably uppermost on his mind.

The group spent about twenty minutes—and three hundred dollars—in my shop. After they walked out the door, I turned to Joe Bob.

“All right. Spill.” I was a little worried that he’d had time to think up a good story, but not horribly so. This was Joe Bob, after all.

He hunched over on the stool and clasped his hands between his knees. “My girl said she’d leave me if I didn’t give her an engagement ring by next Saturday.”

“Are you still dating Donna?” Donna Portnoy was a very nice woman. She’d been married to a pro golfer, but it hadn’t worked out because he traveled all the time. After the divorce a couple of years before, she’d moved home to Dead End with her young son. I seemed to remember that she worked as a medical transcriptionist and volunteered at the elementary school.

I wasn’t sure what she saw in Joe Bob, beyond his good looks. On the other hand, when he wasn’t embarking on a life of crime, he was a nice guy who’d stay home with her instead of traveling the world playing the most boring sport in the history of sports.

I forced my mind back to the criminal at hand. “You couldn’t just come in and buy a ring? Joe Bob, you know I would have worked with you on a price.”

He ducked his head, the picture of abject remorse, like Pickles when she got caught peeing on the rug. “I know. I didn’t want you to think I was a loser.”

“But it’s okay if I think you’re a criminal?”

“I’m so sorry, Tess. I wasted most of my paycheck playing online poker, trying to make enough to buy a ring. And then this morning, Donna kicked me out and said I was disrespecting her since we’d been dating for more than a year and I still hadn’t proposed.”

That caught me off guard. Was there a time limit? Jack and I hadn’t been officially dating for a year, but … Did I even want to get married? What if … I suddenly realized Joe Bob was talking to me.

“What?”

“I said, would you please be willing to forgive this as temporary lovestruck-ness? I’ll do anything. You can have the Twinkie, too.”

He looked so miserable that I was tempted to tell him everything was okay, but then he wouldn’t learn anything.

“Argh!” I smacked myself in the forehead. Now I was hearing Uncle Mike’s life lessons in my brain.

Uncle Mike was usually right about life lessons, though.

“Okay,” I said, deciding. We needed to get this over with before customers showed up. “Here’s what we’re going to do. First, do you really love Donna? I mean, really, really love her and her son? And keep in mind that she will not want to marry a criminal.”

He jumped up from the stool and nodded. “I love her more than I’ve ever loved anybody in my life, Tess. And I’d die for that little boy.”

Since Joe Bob was such a terrible liar (and thief), the opposite was true, too. His sincerity shone in his face and voice loud and clear.

“All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. First, we’re going to write a statement about what you tried to do today, and you’re going to sign it. I’ll stick it in my vault and forget about it. Forever.”

“Oh, Tess, you’re the best?—”