Page 4 of A Dead End Wedding

“BACON. COOKIE. BACON.”

“Alexei is her littermate,” he told us, before turning back to the dog. “Anastasia, do you like Alexei?”

“ALEXEI BAD DOG. STINKY FARTS. GIVE COOKIE.”

I was starting to see what he meant. I wasn’t sure I needed to hear my cat talk about stinky farts.

“Does it work on cats?” I asked.

“How would I know? Do you think a cat could get anywhere near my place?”

I mean, it wouldn’t hurt to try. Maybe Lou had preferences about salmon versus chicken I needed to hear about.

“Okay. If you’re sure you want to sell it, I’ll take it. I can only give you this much, though.” I named a figure lower than the one he’d hoped for, and we started haggling. Haggling is one of the fun things about owning a pawnshop if your customers are nice people.

A quick primer on pawnshops, for the uninitiated:

We take items as collateral that banks would never touch, for loans so small banks would never lend them. For example, your house is collateral for your mortgage, but your antique sewingmachine can be collateral for a hundred bucks (or more, or less, depending on its value) at a pawnshop.

We write up the pawn. The person pawning has ninety days to come back and pay up to get their item back, at which point we make a small profit in interest for overhead, storage, etc. If they don’t come back, we can sell the item to recoup our lost money from the loan.

Another facet of my business is that we buy things that people never want back. My old boss had built up a reputation for collecting the wild, wacky, weird, and wonderful, especially magical items. When I inherited the shop, I continued the tradition, except I refuse to buy vampire fangs.

Ever.

I even posted a sign.

The magical items buying is part of why my life had been so …interesting… for the past year and a half.

I gave Anastasia another cookie, Mr. Volkov gave me the collar, and the two of them headed out. My Aunt Ruby came in just as they were leaving, and she and Mr. Volkov exchanged a few pleasantries while Anastasia politely sniffed Aunt Ruby’s shoes, no doubt picking up the scent of my sister Shelley’s new pug.

When the Volkovs, Sergei and Anastasia, left, Aunt Ruby bustled over to the counter.

“Hello, Mayor Callahan,” I said, grinning. “How can I help you?”

She sniffed. “If this town had nearly as much interest in actual town business as they do in your wedding, we’d solve all of Dead End’s problems in a day.”

“Dead End has problems?” I frowned. “What now?”

She shook her head, her “Only my hairdresser knows,” blonde hair flying. “A bit of an issue. We need to talk about your wedding later, though.”

I groaned.

Aunt Ruby was everything a TV casting director would want in a “grandmotherly lady next door” role. She was pleasingly plump, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed, and about four inches shorter than my five eight.

She was also the woman who’d raised me after my mom died, and she loved me more than the universe. Since I felt the same way about her, it worked out well.

That didn’t mean I wanted to talk about the wedding with her.

Again.

The woman had definite ideas, and she was busily trying to steamroll me to go along with every single one of them.

“We’re not releasing doves. Or butterflies. Or any other living thing. And yes, the king and queen of Atlantis are coming, and no, they don’t eat any special Atlantean delicacies. Queen Riley is an American. They eat normal food, not … squid pudding or whatever,” I said, counting off on my fingers the answers to some of the many, many questions she’d texted me that morning.

“No, forget that. This is an emergency,” she said, her brow furrowed. “Mike is at his engineering alumni meeting in Orlando, Susan is out of town on business, Andy is taking his mom to the doctor, and Jack didn’t answer his phone, so I came straight out here.”

Mike was my uncle and her husband, Susan Gonzalez was our sheriff, Deputy Andy Kelly worked with Susan, and Jack was my former soldier, shapeshifting tiger fiancé. So, I was only fifth on the list of “people to consult in emergencies.”

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