He stopped mid-stride and jerked his head around to look at me, his eyes widening. Then he laughed bitterly. "You really are exactly the hero everybody thinks you are, aren't you?"
I was saved from answering that unanswerable question when he stalked out the door, grabbing the keys on the way. I stood, not moving, until I heard the bike fire up and take off, and then I shook my head.
"Man's a fool," Jed observed quietly. "Hot-headed and bitter. He'll come to no good if he doesn't straighten up fast."
"He never will. I'd like to think people can change, but the ones who actually do are so very, very few." I drained my coffee mug and switched the pot off.
"So, nothing's different. The more things change, the more they stay the same," my granddad said, sadness and resignation in his voice.
"Yeah. Maybe. Listen, let's take a break from crisis mode and go for a drive. I bet you'd enjoy seeing what Dead End has become after all these years, right?"
With a visible effort of will, Jed pulled a smile from somewhere and, leaning his weight on the table, slowly stood. "Yes. I'd like that very much. And then, maybe lunch?"
I glanced at the clock. Ten a.m.
"Yep. You're related to me, all right. Let me just make a couple of calls to the school and the bank."
After I worked out a few things, we took my truck and spent an hour doing nothing but cruising around Dead End and its outskirts and talking. I took him through town and pointed out some shops. Also, the food places, because: tigers.
"Lauren's Deli has great sandwiches. Mellie's baked goods are amazing—I'll stop and get you some donuts in the morning, if she's not closed. And Judd's Pizza just opened a shop in town."
"What's pizza?"
I grinned. "You're going tolovepizza." The shop wasn't open yet, or I would have stopped and bought him a large Meat Lover's special to snack on while we drove.
We drove out to the swamp and past the big sign for Swamp Commando Airboat Rides, and I wondered if my friends' business would survive if the queen had her way. Was it far enough outside of Dead End not to count toward the edict of destruction?
No. No maudlin thoughts. We were going to find that dagger.
"We should talk about it," Jed said. "I know you're trying to give me a moment of normality in the middle of a wild storm of chaos, but we need to figure this out. Viviette does not make idle threats, and she never, ever bluffs."
Great. A non-bluffing Fae queen with an army and a grudge. I hadn't been in a spot like this since I'd had to face down a horde of demons in Atlantis.
"I need to see this box," my granddad said. "Maybe it will give me some kind of idea of how to help. How to find this dagger. If Kal'andel took it, though, it could be anywhere in at least two worlds. We'll never find it if—"
"No," I said firmly, making a U-turn to head back to Tess's shop.
"No?"
"No. It can't be impossible, or we're done already. And I won't allow Dead End to be done. This is the only home I've ever known, and I'll be damned if I let it be destroyed."
Jed said nothing, but I could feel him watching me.
Finally, a few miles down the road, I glanced at him. "What?"
"You're in love with that girl, aren't you?"
"I—" The words froze in my throat.
I loved Tess. I'd known that for a long time. And I loved her crazy family, and that little girl, and even her cantankerous old uncle. I just …in love?Whoa.
Love is supposed to be gentle and kind, right? Not smash into a man with the force of a tsunami when he's driving down the road with his three-hundred-year-old grandfather.
I yanked on the steering wheel, slammed my foot on the brake, and pulled over to the side of the road. Then I put my head down and tried to breathe through the boulder sitting on my chest.
I loved Tess.
I wasin lovewith Tess.
