"Tess." Uncle Mike reached over and took my hand. "Wounded pride makes men dangerous."
"Not only that," Jack said, pushing his chair back and standing. "There was, after all, jewelry in that box. Maybe this is escalation."
I stood too. "I don't think—"
"You're probably right. But you also just so happen to know a private detective," Jack said. "I'm going to spend the afternoon doing some detecting."
"But… Okay." He was right. He was the detective, and if he could find out something that ruled Brig out of the suspect pool, that would at least be something. "I'll wait to tell Susan about this until you find something out. No use adding to her work if he's out in Fiji on his yacht or something."
"He has a yacht?" Aunt Ruby looked wistful as she started gathering plates. "I always wanted to go somewhere on a yacht."
Uncle Mike took the plates out of her hands, put them on the counter, and then pulled her close for a hug. "Well, my love. I happen to know a handsome fellow who's crazy about you and has a canoe. How about we go out on the water this week?"
"As soon as we're sure Tess is safe," she said, but she smiled at him. "Now help me get this cleaned up, since Jack has detecting to do."
I hugged them both, and then Jack and I took our leave. When we walked outside, I glanced over at the barn.
"I'm just going to go give Bonnie Jo another apple or two. Are we still on for our date? In spite of all this craziness?"
Jack touched my cheek. "It will take more than dangerous stalkers and Brigham Hammermill the Fourth to drive me away. I'll see you at six?"
I grinned. "I'm almost afraid to say this, but… it's a date!"
All the way over to the paddock, I kept waiting for the meteorite to hit me on the head.
6
Iwas slightly nervous when I went home. I parked as close to my porch as I could without running over my hydrangeas, and craned my neck to try to see if anybody had left anything on my porch. It didn't look like it, but the present the night before had been on thebackporch, after all.
I locked my car—also a new development, locking cars; nobody would have stolen my previous car if I'd paid them to do it—and ran up the stairs, unlocked my door, and hurried inside.
"I hate this," I told Lou, who blinked sleepily at me from her perch on the back of the couch. "I hate that this stalker person made me feel unsafe in my own home."
I hung up my church clothes, poured a glass of iced tea, and then spent some time cleaning and checking my rifle. I tried to practice with it once every couple of weeks these days, and I'd gotten to be a better and better shot. Jack would be surprised when he saw how much I'd improved, and Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby would be proud.
"A woman on her own needs to be able to protect herself," my aunt and uncle liked to say, and they'd done their best to raise me to be strong and independent. I was lucky to have them, even if they still did tend to treat me like I was sixteen instead of twenty-six some days.
Rifle maintenance done with, I turned my attention to a far more important matter: what was I going to wear on our date?
I threw open my closet doors and immediately realized two crucial facts:
1. I had no idea where we were going, and
2. My entire wardrobe was awful.
I sighed. I didn't own much in the way of fancy date clothes. My best friend Molly and I had made a special trip to buy The Dress for the first time Jack and I had tried to have this date. I couldn't wear it again. I needed something new, something with no bad associations connected to it.
Most of my wardrobe, if you could even call it that, consisted of jeans and Dead End Pawn polo shirts on one side of my closet, and a few dresses and pairs of nice pants with tops I could wear to church on the other. I'd been able to wear church clothes on dates with Owen, my ex, because he was a very sweet dentist and, most of all, he'd never made my pulse race to the point where I'd been desperate to wear something sexy enough to make him jump on me.
I had very fond memories of the way Jack had practically swallowed his tongue when he'd seen The Dress.
"Maybe I should just wear it again," I told Lou, who didn't seem particularly sympathetic, but then again, she always wore the same thing and looked spectacular.
"Not all of us have fur coats," I told her, sitting on the edge of my bed and giving her a quick cuddle. She purred and rubbed her cheek on mine, and suddenly I didn't mind so much about not having fancy clothes. I loved my cat, my family, my friends, my house, my small town, and my business.
I was incredibly lucky—I loved my life.
Well, except for my 'gift.' And except for when criminals and dead bodies were involved. I knew how fortunate I was, and I made a mental note to give another donation to Kiva.com, because I loved supporting women entrepreneurs like myself around the world with microloans.
