Page 37 of Eye on the Ball
I patted my steering wheel in apology. My Mustang was a sweet car, not at all ordinary, and I was delighted to have her.
“Okay. Let me know if you hear anything,” Susan said. “See you at the pub?”
“Probably not. Rose is wiped out.”
I hung up and thought about Truckmans and bad-luck charms and poisoned popcorn on the rest of my drive home but didn’t come to anyEureka!conclusions.
Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. I bet Sherloink Hams never had problems like this.
17
Jack
An enormous wave of relief washed over me when Tess walked back into the house with a bag filled with cookies, and it had nothing to do with the cookies. I was a soldier, not a feelings guy, so it hadn’t even occurred to me to tell Tess about the job offer when it came in, and then I’d promptly forgotten about it.
Maybe I needed to rethink how I handled this couple stuff.
I strode right over to her and pulled her into a hug. Then I took the cookies out of her hands, tossed them on the couch, walked her back outside, and kissed her.
When she finally pushed me away, laughing, I bent to rest my forehead against hers. “Please don’t walk out on me again. Just talk to me.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t. I’m new to a serious relationship, as you know. It just hit me really hard that you might leave for such an important job, and you hadn’t even told me about it.”
“Being a glorified go-between isn’t an important job. What I did before saved lives. That was important. What I’m doing now, building a life with you and becoming part of this community—that’s important.”
“I’m just afraid you’ll get bored and miss adventures,” she murmured.
My mouth fell open. “Bored? In Dead End? Are you kidding? Tess, I’dlovethe chance to be bored around here for even a day.”
She grinned and then burst out laughing. “Yeah. I guess you can’t miss adventures when you live in Dead End.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you anytime I get a job offer, and you tell me every time somebody tries torob your shop.”
“Touché,” she said dryly. “Now, let’s go back inside.”
When we walked in, Rose, still looking sleepy, was up from her nap. She and Alejandro stood in the hallway, talking. They turned to us with identical expressions of remorse.
“Tess, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to cause problems.” Alejandro grimaced. “I’m no good at tact, as Rose tells me over and over again.”
Rose slowly made her way to Tess and took her hands. “We can leave now if you like. We still have access to the portal.”
“No, of course not. I just needed to get gas in my car,” Tess said, smiling. “Now, are you sure we have enough food? I don’t want anybody to go hungry.”
Alejandro and Rose pretended to believe her, and we dove into dinner. While we ate, Tess told us about Susan’s call and her encounter with the Frosts.
“If only,” I said. “We know where they live.”
“How are you feeling, Rose?” Tess asked.
“Huge,” Rose said ruefully, patting her belly. “But refreshed. Jack told us you had an exciting preview evening to go to at the pub. Do you think they’d let you bring a plus-two?”
“This is Dead End,” Tess said. “The more the merrier!”
* * *
The night at the pub wasn’t all that merry.
18