Page 1 of More Than Meets the Eye

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Tess

Something strange was happening in my pawnshop.

And if you knew anything at all about Dead End Pawn, you’d understand that it took alotfor me to label something “strange.” If it wasn’t a mutant zucchini plant, a gift-stealing Christmas tree, or a dream catcher that only caught nightmares, I wouldn’t bat an eye at it.

This, though?

This was weird.

Mr. and Mrs. Frost, who’d seen a combined hundred and eighty years on the earth, were in my shop, which was normal.

They were looking at my small selection of antique weapons: also, normal.

But they were dancing the Foxtrot while they looked, which was definitely not.

Granted, Mrs. Frost was seeing much better after a friend from Atlantis had healed her cataracts, and Mr. Frost got around easily these days with his new hip. But dancing?

Dancing the Foxtrot?

In my shop?

Nope. Definitely weird.

Also, I couldn’t figure out where the music came from.

Dancing Cheek to Cheek?

“I take five minutes to make a cup of coffee, and you two turn my shop into a dance studio,” I called out, smiling. “You’re great, too. Nigel should ask you to give lessons.”

Nigel the ogre ran a dance studio just outside of town with his dangerous wife, Erin, who was a river nymph. He’d had to tell her she couldn’t drown the students when they misbehaved, but after that, things went fine.

“Tess! Make that infernal disco ball stop playing this music, or I swear I’ll shoot it with my crossbow when I get a chance,” Mrs. Frost shouted at me. “I love Doris Day, but I don’t want to hear this song one more time!”

“Oh, no,” I groaned, looking up. The disco ball hanging in the center of the shop was the last thing my best (and only) employee, Eleanor, had bought before she got married and left on her honeymoon.

Until today, it had seemed to be a perfectly normal, overly large, tacky disco ball. I should have known better. The seller took way too low of a price for it. Granted, Eleanor was a brilliant negotiator, but this had beenreallylow.

“Let me grab my stepladder, Mrs. Frost.”

“My bladder is none of your business, young lady,” Mr. Frost said sternly.

“I didn’t—” I sighed and went to get the ladder. Between the loud music and the fact that the Frosts preferred to live life “on the edge”—also known as without their hearing aids turned on—it was a conversation I couldn’t win.

When I trudged back out, lugging the only ladder tall enough to reach the ball, the music had changed. Now the Andrew Sisters, one of my Aunt Ruby’s favorite groups, were telling us about theBoogie Woogie Bugle Boy.

And the Frosts were jitterbugging.

Really, really slowly.

If you’ve never seen two ninety-plus-year-old people jitterbugging, I don’t recommend doing so before you’re had your first cup of coffee of the day.

“Tess!”

“I’m coming, Mrs. Frost!”

My boyfriend Jack Shepherd, who was in his human shape instead of his alternate, and fluffier, Bengal tiger shape, walked through the connecting door between my shop and his office and rushed over to take the ladder for me.

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