Thankfully, it had been an uneventful night, and now we were on the way to a wonderful day, other than the obvious swamp cabbage costume issue.
We were almost done with a giant breakfast Aunt Ruby had "just thrown together" when Jack knocked on the kitchen door.
"That boy has an uncanny knack for showing up when there's food on the table," Uncle Mike grumbled.
I laughed. "That boy is thirty-two years old."
"Thirty-three in December," Jack said, walking in. "Can I do anything to help?"
Aunt Ruby fluttered a dish towel at him. "You just sit down, and I'll fry you up some eggs."
"You're really old," Shelley said, her eyes wide. "How old is your tiger?"
Jack put a hand on his heart and winced before he sat down between me and Shelley. "Ouch. I'll have you know thirty-three is not old. And my tiger is the same age as me, because we're the same."
She put her fork down. "How are you the same?"
"We're two sides of the same person." He flicked the end of one of her braids. "You know how Tess is grumpy and kind of funny-looking in the morning when she just wakes up?"
"Hey!" I poked him in the arm with my finger. "How did I get pulled into this?"
"Yep! But she doesn't turn into a cat. Lou is her own person."
"That's right. But you could say that grumpy Tess and cheerful Tess are just two sides of the same person, right?"
She nodded, her face screwed up in concentration.
"Well, I'm like that too. It's just that my other side is a tiger."
"Which side is the grumpy side?"
"Both sides," Uncle Mike said, snatching three more pieces of bacon off the platter.
"Speaking of grumpy," I said, grinning at my uncle.
"Yeah, yeah. Well, Jack, at least you have good timing. We can use an extra pair of hands to set up booths downtown," Uncle Mike said.
"Absolutely. Whatever you need. I just need to run an errand at some point, as soon as Dallas calls me with the information I need."
Aunt Ruby handed Jack a plate of fried eggs. "What information is that?"
He glanced at Shelley.
Aunt Ruby leaned over and kissed the top of Shelley's head. "If you're done eating, sweetheart, why don't you go brush your teeth? We'll be leaving for the fair in about twenty minutes."
Shelley carefully carried her dishes to the sink, rinsed them, and put them in the dishwasher. Then she raced up the stairs to get ready, singing all the way.
"It's great to see her so happy," Jack said.
Uncle Mike nodded, his eyes warming. "Thanks to you, in part."
Jack shook his head. "Thanks to all of you and the incredible amount of love in this family."
As much fun as it was to watch the two of them find common ground for once, I wanted to find out what information he was waiting for before Shelley came back downstairs.
"Jack?"
"Dallas found a shell corporation related to Hammermill that's still active and has been making investments in Argentina. Brig is almost certainly alive and spending money. And you're not going to believe it when I tell you where we think he's been hiding."
