She bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. "Um, yeah, I'd… Right. Resized."
My mind still felt sluggish, but I got that tickling feeling on the back of my neck that boded nothing good. "Is there a problem?"
A low growl sounded from the front of the shop, near the shelves of small electronics. The customers, who had been chattering and laughing, fell silent. The girl suddenly dropped the ring from shaking fingers and whirled around. I retrieved the ring, put it back in its tray, replaced the tray in the counter, and locked the case, shaking my head and sighing.
Because I recognized that growl.
Even in human form, Jack could make a sound that told everyone in hearing distance that here was an apex predator.
"Jack?"
"Caught a shoplifter, Tess. Do you want to call the sheriff?" Jack walked out from behind the shelving unit, holding a fairly scruffy boy up in the air by the back of his oversized jacket.
The boy was about the same age as the ring girl, and it did not surprise me to see her run to him. Shoplifters often worked in pairs. Unfortunately, petty theft was a big problem for any small business, and thieves seemed to be especially drawn to pawnshops—or at least to mine.
"Put Jimmy down!" She skidded to a stop just out of Jack's reach, and I could see that she was about to cry. "He didn't do anything!"
Jack raised an eyebrow and gave the boy a shake. A cascade of items rained out of his jacket and hit the floor. I sighed. "Not the video games again. I really need to move those to a locked case."
Jimmy, who looked terrified, finally spoke up. "I'm s-sorry. I didn't mean it. Please, just let us go. I'll never come back."
Jack looked at me, his unsmiling face giving nothing away. "Tess? Do you want to press charges? Or I can take him out back and teach him a lesson he won't forget."
Jimmy and the girl both gasped, and I could tell from the way Jack pressed his lips together that he was trying to keep a straight face. He was tough on hardened criminals, sure, but he'd never hurt kids.
"No lesson necessary. No real harm done," I told him and then pointed a finger at Jimmy and his accomplice. "Theft is not a victimless crime, guys. I don't just work here; I own this shop. And every month, I have to make enough money to keep the place open, pay my employee, and pay my bills. Maybe think about that the next time you try to rob somebody."
They both babbled agreement, so I nodded at Jack, who released Jimmy. The two ran out the door and we heard a car start up and squeal out of the parking lot. Jack bent down and scooped up the games and handed them across the counter to me.
"You should have thrown the book at them," growled an elderly man who looked like a garden gnome crossed with a bulldog. "Lousy criminals are getting bolder and bolder. Trying to rob you in broad daylight. What is this world coming to?"
A pleasantly rounded woman who'd been browsing with him sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, Dad, the world is going to hell in a handbasket—"
"I blame the vampires," he muttered. "What kind of country allows vampires to walk around in broad daylight?"
"Not actually in broad daylight," I ventured. "What with the catching on fire and all."
He pointed one stubby finger at me. "Don't interrupt me, young lady. A person who allows a criminal to get away with the crime is no better than the thief."
Oh, no, he didn't.
"Listen here," I began hotly, but Jack put a hand on my arm.
"Maybe Tess's big heart and forgiveness will put those two reprobates on the right track," he said, his gentle tone at odds with the hard stare he was giving the man.
"I—" the man blustered, but then he got a good look at Jack's face and his own turned pale beneath his sunburn. "Well. Sure. Forgiveness is an excellent quality in a young woman."
His daughter's eyes widened, and her mouth fell open. Then she turned to Jack. "Will you move in with us?"
Jack threw his head back and laughed, and the tension in the shop went down about a thousand degrees.
Jack had a wonderful laugh.
He was also gorgeous.
Six feet four inches of hard muscle, bronze hair, green eyes that turned amber when he was angry, and the wicked grin of a true scoundrel. Jack was a former soldier who'd first served and then commanded in the rebel army that had fought rogue vampires. Since he'd retired from that job, after the country and the world had calmed down from the more-than-a-decade-old announcement that creatures of myth from humanity's nightmares were real, like vampires and shifters and even the Fae, he'd moved home to our little town of Dead End and was beginning a private eye business. Tiger's Eye Investigations hadn't been busy or particularly profitable so far, but since Jack had a horde of gold from services he'd performed for the formerly lost continent of Atlantis, he didn't seem to care.
My boss, Jeremiah, had been Jack's uncle. When Jeremiah died, he'd left the pawnshop to me and Jack, who'd deeded the entire thing to me and built his offices next door. Now we were friends, sometimes partners in crime solving, and dating.
