Lost Bird (5 page)

Mandaline waited her out.

“Okay,
fine
,” Sachi grumbled. She told Mandaline about John’s aura, and waited for the grinning to commence.

Mandaline surprised her by not responding how she’d anticipated.

She simply nodded. “Now I understand why you’re acting like this. Would you prefer I have someone else help us with the prelim on Sunday? And do you want me to call him for you?”

“What?”

“I’m not going to make you explain yourself beyond that, sweetie.”

Sachi stared at her. This was why she loved this woman so much, like a sister, maybe even more. She had a connection with Mandaline the way she’d had with Julie…before.

She felt the prickle of tears in her eyes and quickly blinked them away. “No, I’m good,” she quietly said. “I’ll call him and talk to him.”

Mandaline didn’t reply.

“Seriously, I’m okay,” Sachi insisted. She took a deep breath. “Julie once told me I’m not the sum of my scars. Maybe it’s time I start listening to her and stop putting up walls.”

Mandaline reached out and gently took Sachi’s hand. “You’re not agreeing to marry the guy. Maybe this is the Universe telling you it’s time to start facing other fears now that you have the biggest one banished from your life for good.”

Sachi stared at her friend’s hand as she laced fingers with her. “I’m not sure I know how,” she whispered.

Mandaline squeezed. “Yes, you do. One step at a time, the way you do everything else.”

“Maybe he’ll hate skeet, or guns in general. That’s a hard limit for me, you know.”

“Maybe he’ll love them.”

“Maybe he’s gay.”

Mandaline smiled. “Maybe he’s not.”

Sachi wouldn’t lift her gaze. “Maybe he’s not interested in me.”

“Maybe he is. Or will be.”

“What if he’s not? Or he doesn’t even like me?”

“Would it be so bad if he did?”

Sachi didn’t move to pull her hand free from Mandaline’s. “Did Julie ever tell you about Tom?” Julie had been the only one she’d ever told about Tom. Her relationship with him had happened before she’d started working at the store.

“No.”

“He had the same aura,” she said. “And damn, did I love that man.”

“What happened?”

Sachi shrugged. “
I
happened. I got scared. I loved him too much, and I was afraid he might get hurt because of what happened to me. So after I realized how much he loved me, I told him it wasn’t him, it was me, and let him go.”

“Where is he now?”

Sachi sadly smiled. “Last time I saw, he was posting pics of their new baby daughter on Facebook.”

“Ouch. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. My choice.” She finally met Mandaline’s brown gaze. “I never told him all the deets about what happened to me. Just enough that he didn’t think I was a total weirdo without cause. But just before I broke up with him, I had a weird hang-up call on my house phone that left me with a serious case of the heebie-jeebies, and I freaked out.” She shrugged. “I was still looking over my shoulder all the time. I couldn’t have lived with myself if he’d gotten hurt because of me.” She smiled. “That’s why I took a bullet for ya.”

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.”

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.