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  Mandaline arched an eyebrow at her, a corner of her mouth curling in a smile. “You know that’s over, right? That you don’t need to look over your shoulder anymore?”

  Sachi’s smile faded. “Yeah.”

  “So how about this—just leave yourself open. You don’t need to go chasing him, but don’t put up a wall against something that might or might not happen.”

  “But what if something does happen and I get hurt?”

  “But what if it doesn’t?”

  “But what if it does?”

  Mandaline squeezed her hand again, this time covering Sachi’s with her other hand, the warmth from her touch washing through Sachi’s flesh.

  “If it does, you’ve got a safety net here to catch you. Me, Brad, Ellis, your dad, everyone. You won’t hit the ground, I promise. But you have to start somewhere. If you live the rest of your life like this, then you let Jacob and Jackson Clary win. You’re too tough and too good a person to let that happen. I know you are.”

  “You and your damn logic,” she muttered.

  Mandaline smirked. “Maybe we should resurrect Dildous at the next coven.”

  That made Sachi burst out laughing at the thought of the dildo and its corresponding and made-up deity Sachi had used for comedic effect to invoke some healing at the first coven gathering at the store following Julie’s murder. “Okay, you have to admit, that was damn funny.”

  “I know. That’s why I brought it up. Hey, who was telling me to take a chance on Brad and Ellis, hmm?”

  “Do as I say, not as I do, witchypoo.”

  “If you spent this much time and energy not fighting the Universe, you might actually find happiness, sister.”

  Sachi drew in a shaky sigh. “I’m not sure I know what happiness is. Much less how to find it.”

  “Just let it find you.”

  “You make it sound easy.”

  “It is easy, if you let it be.”

  Chapter Four

  Sachi nutted up and finally made the call to John Evans before her dad arrived to take her to the skeet field. She had two students that afternoon, and she knew she wouldn’t even be able to sneak in a round herself. Her father would plant himself under the shelter and watch her give lessons, making sure she didn’t pick up a gun other than to demonstrate proper technique.

  She’d never felt such a war of love and frustration before, but she wouldn’t deny it was a nice problem to have for a change.

  Tammy had given Sachi John’s cell phone number, in addition to his work number. Sachi closed herself in one of the private reading rooms to make the call with the shop phone. Her pulse raced, fingers trembling as she dialed his cell and waited for him to pick up.

  Almost hoping his voice mail would grab it, she had to swallow to form spit when he answered. “John Evans.”

  Nut up. “Um, hi. This is Sachi Wolowitz. You worked on my water heater the other day?”

  “Sure, how are you? Is everything okay?”

  She closed her eyes, but then she imagined his face and that delicious blue aura surrounding him.

  Not helping.

  She opened her eyes again. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’m actually calling about your aunt.”

  “My aunt?”

  “Yeah.” Sachi found it easier to get into the conversation as she turned her focus to the business at hand. She told him what happened and waited while he processed it.

  She liked that he sounded concerned and wasn’t trying to blow her off. “Did she act like she was feeling okay? I know a couple of times she mentioned things being moved, but I thought maybe it was just normal memory stuff. She still drives and takes care of her own bills and banking. I helped her put all her stuff together for her CPA for taxes this year, and she’s got her act together better than I do.”

  “Well, that’s why I wanted to bring you into the conversation. We’re going to have a preliminary walk-through at her place on Sunday evening, if you’d like to be there. In fact, we’d prefer it if you could be there.” In more ways than one…

  Stop that!

  She chewed on the inside of her lip and forced her focus back onto his voice.

  “We’ll be there.”

  Her heart sank. “We?”

  “My roommate, Oscar. She’s known us both all our lives and sort of adopted us. He spends as much time with her as I do.”

  Her heart soared again, Sachi cursing it the whole dang way. “We’ll see you at her place at six on Sunday night, then.”

  “Thank you, Sachi. I appreciate you calling me.”

  She hung up the phone, her fingers tightly curled around the receiver. He hadn’t mentioned a girlfriend. And from the way he talked about Oscar, she didn’t think John was gay, either. At least, not with Oscar.

  Sachi closed her eyes. Goddess, please give me strength and hope and faith and wisdom to do what I need to do and get through this. If there’s anything to get through. So mote it be.

  * * * *

  Sachi’s dad gave her a strange look as he walked around the counter when he arrived to pick her up. “Are you feeling okay, Miki?”

  “Yeah, sure. Why?”

  He studied her. “You look…different.”

  “I changed clothes for my lessons.”

  He frowned at her. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  “I’m fine, Daddy. Let me get my purse.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then what happened?”

  That was the only drawback to having her dad there all the time. He had a keen eye for her moods. “We have a new investigation on Sunday.”

  His frown darkened. “Is it safe?”

  “Yes, very. A lovely woman in her late seventies. In fact, coincidentally, the aunt of the guy who fixed the water heater.” She headed for the office to grab her purse from the cabinet.

  “Oh.” The clouds cleared in his expression. “Okay then.”

  Whew. The last thing she wanted to do was have that conversation with her dad. He’d been really good about not asking her those kinds of personal questions. Let’s not ruin a great run.

  Fortunately, she was able to completely put all thoughts of John Evans out of her mind during her skeet lessons. The first was a fifteen-year-old girl who’d been shooting for several months and showed a lot of promise. Sachi had to teach her international style for her competitions, and it was fun to watch her student make progress.

  Even more fun was how her supportive parents sat under the shelter with her own dad, chatting and cheering their daughter on.

  Her other student was an older man who’d shot trap for a number of years and now wanted to switch to skeet. Fortunately, he was an easy student and had the basic mechanics down.

  By the time she finished a little after seven, she was ready for dinner. They had to stop by the grocery store on the way home. When they reached Publix, her dad took a cart and went one way while Sachi went another. She wanted to hit their bakery to satisfy a massive donut craving.

  Her dad silently tsked but didn’t chastise her for it. As she homed in on the donuts, the rest of the world disappeared.

  Dooonuuuts…

  That’s why she wasn’t paying attention when she accidentally bumped into a guy who was carrying a hand basket. She turned to apologize, her throat locking up, the words seizing before they could pass her vocal cords.

  Dark brown hair and devastatingly blue eyes, the hunk looked like he clocked in around five eleven.

  And he also had a gorgeous blue aura surrounding him.

  Fucking Goddess, what the hell are you doing to me?

  He offered her an apologetic smile. “Sorry.” He reached for a box of donuts on the display table.

  She rapidly nodded as she tried to pry words from her throat, finally managing an, “Uh-huh.”

  He put the box of donuts in his basket. “They’re pretty good, huh?”

  She nodded again. “Yeah.” Smile, idiot! She managed one and hoped it didn�
�t make her look like a manic female, half-Japanese version of Sheldon Cooper.

  What were the damn odds? She glanced around. No one else within sight bore the same deep, beautiful blue aura he did, nearly identical to the one John Evans sported.

  “Well, have a nice evening,” he said with a friendly smile.

  She nodded harder, eventually coaxing, “Thanks. You, too,” out of her throat.

  She stood there, watching him walk away and head for a checkout line when she finally mentally kicked herself.

  You dumb bitch! There was a perfect opportunity to turn on the snarky charm and maybe take the chance Mandaline was completely right that she should take.

  And she’d blown it.

  Grabbing a box of glazed donuts, she started to step away from the table when she grabbed a second one as well and stormed off to find her dad.

  * * * *

  Oscar tried to slow his racing pulse. He knew who the woman was. He and John had both seen the news reports a few weeks ago about Sachi Wolowitz.

  He just hadn’t expected her to be so pretty in person. Or look so vulnerable, in a way that made him want to step up and beg her to point him in whatever direction she wanted him to go to slay bad guys for her.

  I don’t need any complications in my life right now, and I’m sure she doesn’t want a loser like me, either.

  There wasn’t any way to deny how he’d felt when he’d locked eyes with her. Like there’d been a connection.

  Yeah, you felt like that with Karen, too, and look where the hell that got you.

  It was tempting, too tempting, to step out of line and go find her. Then again, she didn’t have a hand basket or a cart, so maybe she was there with someone.

  And how pitiful is that anyway, to pick up someone in a grocery store? She’d probably think I was a creep.

  As he paid for his groceries, he tried to focus on that thought. The poor woman had been through enough. She didn’t need some random stranger coming up to her in Publix and hitting on her.

  When he got home, John wasn’t there. It wasn’t unusual for John to work late on Fridays, helping his guys finish up jobs so they didn’t have to work on a Saturday, except for emergency calls. He browned a pound of ground beef and cobbled together a pot of half-store-bought, half-homemade spaghetti sauce to simmer on the stove.

  It would only take a couple of minutes to boil the pasta, and the two of them would easily make a meal of just that.

  He walked over to where he kept his laptop on a TV table next to the couch and got it powered up. Sachi Wolowitz stubbornly kept filtering into his thoughts.

  I wish I’d tried to talk to her more.

  On the heels of that, the thought that he didn’t have his own shit together enough to hold up his end of a relationship. And probably the last thing the poor woman needed after what she’d been through was someone like him.

  When John called and told him he was on the way, Oscar got the pasta boiling and gave the sauce a stir. The two of them had settled into a fairly boring routine. Tonight, they’d end up watching a couple of shows on TV before they parted ways for the night and went to bed. Tomorrow, unless John was rousted out of bed by an emergency call, they would both end up sleeping late, putter around the apartment and do some housework, and then debate going out. Maybe to play darts, maybe shoot some pool, maybe bowling. Or a movie.

  Or…whatever.

  They had other friends they sometimes hung out with, single and not. Both men had long since waved off their friends’ many attempts to fix them up on dates. Oscar knew he’d been asked two or three times if he and John were an item, and wondered if John had received the same question.

  If so, they never discussed it between them. It seemed more than pathetic to discuss their love lives, or lack thereof.

  It wasn’t like they needed to ram it into the other’s face, that was for sure.

  It just…was.

  John arrived home and grabbed a quick shower. Within a few minutes, they were both sitting in front of the TV, plates of spaghetti and bottles of beer in front of them, and watching the evening news.

  To make conversation more than anything, Oscar said, “You won’t believe who I saw in Publix tonight.”

  “Who?”

  “You know that woman who got shot a couple of weeks ago? Sachi Wolowitz?”

  John froze.

  “What?” Oscar asked. He didn’t understand the sudden shift in his friend’s demeanor.

  “Yeah?” John sounded wary.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. What about her?”

  “I saw her in the bakery department at Publix. What’s wrong?”

  John put down his fork. “I replaced her water heater on Wednesday. And…she called me today.”

  Oscar didn’t understand why he suddenly felt a little surge of jealousy roll through him. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Aunt Tammy went into the shop Sachi works at. The New Age place on the square downtown? Sachi called me to tell me they were going to do an investigation Sunday night at Aunt Tammy’s and they asked if we could be there.”

  “Huh? What kind of investigation?” Oscar listened as John related his brief conversation with Sachi.

  “Of course I’ll go with you,” Oscar said. “I love Aunt Tammy. You know that.”

  No, she wasn’t related by blood, but his grandparents were dead and she was the closest thing he had to a grandmother. His own parents had moved out to Arizona a few years earlier. Being an only child, and with no other close family, he welcomed the connection.

  Another thought hit him. “You don’t really think she’s got Alzheimer’s or anything, do you?”

  John shrugged and took another bite of his pasta. “I hope not. You see her as much as I do. Her house is always tidy, her banking stuff seems okay. I don’t know.”

  Oscar knew his friend didn’t believe in the supernatural. He didn’t exactly, either, but he was more open-minded to the possibility. “What if it is her husband?”

  John arched an eyebrow at him but didn’t reply.

  “Seriously,” Oscar said.

  “Seriously? Maybe I should get you checked out.”

  “Keep an open mind.”

  “I am. That’s why I agreed to be there with them. Any debate about what’s really behind stuff is kind of a moot point at this time. Whatever happens on Sunday, happens.”

  Oscar didn’t know what would happen, but selfishly hoped it meant he could have some time to talk with Sachi again and redeem himself.

  * * * *

  “You all right, sweetheart?” Sachi’s dad asked as they drove home from the grocery store.

  “Yeah.”

  “You seem lost in thought.”

  No shit. But she couldn’t admit that to her dad. She also couldn’t believe that twice in the space of a few days she’d seen not one, but two men with those auras.

  The Goddess has a really funky sense of humor.

  No one else in the store had borne the same vivid aura.

  Why now?

  She didn’t want to call Mandaline and talk to her about it. There wasn’t any way to do it without her dad possibly overhearing.

  It would have to wait until she got into the store tomorrow afternoon. She had three skeet students in the morning, in addition to the juniors squad meeting for their first organized practice since she’d been shot. She couldn’t miss that.

  Later that evening, alone in her bedroom, she grabbed her favorite deck of Tarot cards and sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed.

  She closed her eyes as she shuffled, trying to clear her mind.

  Goddess, please quit screwing around with me. I need a sign, and more than just random hunks with really sexy auras.

  She cut the deck, eyes still closed, and laid out three cards, waiting to open her eyes until they were all down.

  The Sun. Ace of Cups. Three of Cups.

  She puzzled over that. Seeing the Sun card didn’t really surprise her. New beginnings, a
brighter future, sure. Okay. Ace of Cups with this deck tended to signify the start of a new romance, or new fortunes.

  Again, fine.

  But the Three of Cups…

  She cocked her head and stared at it. It felt a little odd in the context of the other two cards and the question she’d asked.

  Deciding she was too tired to think about it anymore, she quickly gathered the cards, shuffled them, and put them away before crawling under the sheets. As she drifted to sleep, her mind recalled John Evans and the mystery donut hunk.

  They are cute…

  * * * *

  The next morning, no matter how hard Sachi tried to focus, her mind kept trying to return to the two men.

  Damn, I wish I’d asked donut guy’s name.

  She managed to hold it together, somehow, despite almost flubbing pulls several times because her thoughts had started to drift and she nearly missed the shooter’s call.

  It hadn’t gone unnoticed by her father. “What’s going on?” he asked her when they were back in the car.

  “It’s hot and I need a shower,” she said. She’d grab one at Mandaline’s apartment over the store.

  “No,” he said, watching her. “Something’s going on in your mind. What is it? Your focus was not out there today.”

  She struggled against the blush threatening to sweep up into her cheeks. “I’m fine, Daddy. I’m just…tired.” Okay, that was the truth. Especially since it felt like she’d tossed and turned all night long, between dreams of John Evans and Donut Hunk.

  It would be a loooong day today, and tomorrow, until she saw John Evans again.

  When she got to Many Blessings, she’d hoped to dash upstairs to Mandaline’s apartment and pull herself together before her friend spotted her.

  No such luck.

  Mandaline stuck her head out the office doorway as soon as Sachi stepped through the back door. Then Mandaline’s gaze narrowed and she quickly walked to the back to block Sachi’s progress.