Page 45 of More Than Meets the Eye

“Don’t care,” he said into my hair, and then he kissed me as if he’d almost lost me.

When I realized hehadalmost lost me, I kissed him back, ignoring Susan, the stalker, and even Sheriff Reynolds for a minute.

After that, it was all about the details.

Susan and Andy took Kay into custody, since it would be a conflict of interest for Reynolds to do it.

Reynolds apologized to me and thanked me, over and over, until I signaled Jack to steer him out of the shop and get rid of him by promising we’d come to a barbecue soon and look at his sports memorabilia.

When Jack came back in, I was cleaning up. Kay the stalker had knocked some things off the shelves when she attacked me.

“I ought to send her a bill,” I said darkly.

“I’m sure Reynolds would pay it,” Jack said. “He’s so thankful you caught her. She was threatening to kill his wife next.”

“I know.” I put the broom aside and sighed. “Life’s too short for all that drama, you know? Why couldn’t Kay just find somebody new and leave Reynolds alone?”

Jack stared at me as if I’d started speaking an alien language.

“Jack?”

“You’re right,” he said slowly. “Life’s too short. Tess, can you wait here at the shop? It’s four-thirty, and I need to make a couple of phone calls.”

“Well, I was planning to close up now. You have your truck here, so you don’t need me to drive, and?—”

“Thirty minutes! Thanks! Don’t go anywhere.” He kissed me, hard, and hugged me. And then he raced out to his truck, but he didn’t drive away, he just picked up his phone.

Shrugging, I started cleaning again. I wasn’t sure what he was up to, but thirty minutes wasn’t very long. If it made him happy for me to wait, I’d do it.

I put the CLOSED sign on the door, though.

I’d had enough excitement for one day.

Fifteen minutes later, cars started streaming into my parking lot. When I walked out to the porch to see what in the world was going on, Jack ran up the stairs, kissed me again, and went back inside the shop. I followed him in, only to see him haul the ladder out and set it up directly beneath the disco ball.

“Jack! What are you doing?”

He looked at me and pointed to the earplugs in his ears. “Can’t hear you,” he shouted.

I held my hands over my ears, just in case, and watched in astonishment while he lifted the heavy ball off its hook, carried it carefully down the ladder, and walked out the door with it.

“Oh! Don’t get rid of it, Jack! I can sell that to a magical items collector.”

But he carried it over to his truck, which now sat in the middle of dozens of cars, with more driving into the parking lot every minute. There were even cars parking on the shoulders of the road and people walking from there toward the shop.

Two men—were those the Petersons?—were helping Jack put together an odd metal-framed tripod-looking thing in the bed of his truck. When they accomplished that, they carefully hung the disco ball from a hook at its apex.

I just stood and stared, my mouth hanging open, while what looked like most of the population of Dead End arrived at my pawnshop.

Then my Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike showed up and parked right in front of me on the sidewalk, since there wasn’t any other room for his truck, and Shelley jumped out and raced over to Jack.

“IS IT TIME? IS IT TIME, JACK?”

Jack smiled at me with his heart in his eyes. “It’s time, Shelley.”

He reached over and switched on the disco ball.

And then hundreds of Dead Enders did the Chicken Dance right there in my parking lot.

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