Many Blessings

Chapter Twelve

When Mandaline left, Brad went upstairs to work but left the attic door open. A few minutes later, Ellis followed him upstairs. He found Brad sitting in front of an easel with a large sketch pad open on it. He held a sketch pencil in his hand and looked deep in thought.

Ellis turned around to go back downstairs but Brad spoke. “It’s okay. That’s why I left the door open.”

Ellis cleared his throat as he stepped into the doorway. “Look, I’m sorry about last night.”

Brad nodded, but he had a faraway look on his face. The pristine paper seemed to hold his interest, but whatever he saw was still locked inside his brain and hadn’t made it through his fingers to the page yet.

“I don’t know if I even want to know what those visions or whatever they are…are,” Ellis said.

“Just believe.” Brad reached out and drew a few lines, quickly, with short, confident flicks of his wrist. “That’s all you have to do.”

“I’m not like that. You know how I am.”

Brad slowly nodded. It was almost like he was caught in a dream state between two worlds. “I know. You’d rather have evidence than faith.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…” He didn’t know what it was. “I need a rational explanation for things. I need proof.”

“Like with what I’m seeing and feeling.” He finally focused his gaze on Ellis. “You need proof there’s nothing in this house causing my symptoms so you can force me back to the VA.”

Brad’s tone sounded gentle, but the words bit through Ellis’ heart. “Buddy, please. You know I’m worried about you.”

“But I’m not worried about me right now. That’s my point.” He returned his attention to the sketch pad, where he added a few more lines. “You do more worrying than you need to.”

“I just want to take care of you.”

“I know, and I appreciate it. But you have to take care of Ellis, too.”

“I do take care of myself.”

“You use me as an excuse to avoid the truth.” He looked at Ellis again. “Believe. That’s all you have to do. Trust me, trust Mandaline, and believe.”

He stared at Brad for a few moments. “What do you want from me?”

Brad set the pencil down. Then he stood and walked over to Ellis and leaned against the other side of the doorway, his thumbs hooked in the front belt loops on his jeans. “I want you to open your mind and your heart. I want you to see that the only thing missing in our lives is right there for the taking. I want you to believe and have faith and trust in me, in her. In yourself, even if you don’t have answers. Answers are irrelevant.”

He tried to keep his voice steady. “It’s not that easy for me, buddy.”

“Are you afraid you can’t share her with me? Are you jealous of me?”

“I…no.” He frowned as the realization hit him. His gaze dropped to the floor. “No,” he mumbled.

Brad reached out and touched his upper arm, not letting go until Ellis finally looked up and met his gaze. “Remember when we were kids? We used to say we’d marry the same girl so we could always be together?”

Ellis dropped his gaze again, his face heating. Yes, he did remember that. He also remembered how his parents shutting that innocent childhood fantasy down made him shut it down in his heart as well. “Yeah.”

“We’re adults,” Brad said. “We don’t need parental approval to have a relationship that we define. She’s in a lot of pain, too. So much that I don’t know if one man could handle it, or her, alone. It’d be a hell of a lot to deal with. Let’s be fricking honest with each other. Do you seriously think we’ll ever find two women who could tolerate the relationship you and I have? Who wouldn’t resent the other? Who would be able to accept us and the other man’s woman? Really?

“You and I are already like an old married couple. We bicker, we love each other, and we never have sex. One woman, yes. A second woman? She’d be the ultimate fifth wheel even if there were only four of us.”

Ellis nodded as he toed at the floor. “Probably wouldn’t,” he mumbled.

Brad didn’t speak for a long moment. Ellis finally looked up again. “Believe,” Brad said. “That’s all I’m asking. Just…believe.”

“She probably hates me now.”

“No, she doesn’t hate you. She’s angry and upset over what happened, yes. But you heard it for yourself. She forgives you. She might not forgive you doing it again. You need to stop fighting this and let it happen and see where it leads. Can you do that? If not for yourself, for me and her.”

“But I don’t believe in all that witchy stuff—”

“Do you believe in me?” he calmly asked.

Ellis studied his friend’s face. In all their years together, he’d never sensed Brad be so…serious or determined about anything in his life.

“Yes. I believe in you.”

“Then that’s all you have to believe. Just believe in me. Ignore or discount everything else if you want, but believe in me and let me show you how good this could be. I’m tired of sleeping alone every night. Aren’t you?”

He nodded.

He pulled Ellis in for a hug. “I know we’re straight. But I love you. You’re my brother. I can easily see myself spending the rest of my life with you and her, together. Julie was like a sister to Mandaline. Think of how much pain she must be in. Think of what you’d feel like if I’d died. Just imagine how much love and joy we could bring back to her life. She’s willing to be open-minded. But you’re going to have to earn her trust back before we can move forward.”

“I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Brad waited to shut the attic door until Ellis returned downstairs. He needed time alone. He’d felt pretty good all morning and afternoon until coming up here. Now his head already felt fuzzy, musty, clouded.

He left the sketch pad where it was and turned on the TV. Then he stretched out on the sofa. He didn’t feel like doing any work on the house today, and based on the things beginning to rumble around in his brain, he really didn’t want to do any more sketching.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to see the images trying to birth themselves from his subconscious.

Julie had also gone quiet again.

He just wanted to close his eyes and wish the bad away and relive the feel of Mandaline’s mouth on his cock right there on that very couch.

That brought a smile to his face.

Well, that memory made him smile, in addition to knowing that maybe tonight he might be able to make Ellis finally see the light regarding what was going on with Mandaline.

If he doesn’t screw it up. Again.

They would meet Mandaline at the store and pick her up there and do the driving. He couldn’t wait to see her again.

Since work was out of the question, he headed down to the bathroom for a shower. Just that seemed to help clear his head. He felt a lot better after getting out. He heard Ellis moving around downstairs. “Hey, I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up if I’m not up by five, please?”

“Will do.”

Wasn’t the only thing he had in mind. He closed the bedroom door and stretched out in bed, naked, to rub one out, with Mandaline on his mind.

Mandaline drove back to the shop with her mind and heart in turmoil. Giving Ellis another chance seemed like a good idea at the time with Brad’s sweet eyes boring holes through her defenses.

Alone in the Element, she wondered now if maybe she hadn’t made a bad mistake.

A billboard just north of the city limits caught her eye. For one of the churches in town, it proclaimed BELIEVE IN CHRIST! HE BELIEVES IN YOU!

She nearly choked on her laughter. “Okay!” she yelled inside the car. “Julie, knock it off. I’m going to give him another chance.” She let out a snort. “Ellis, I mean. Not JC.”

Sachi gave Mandaline an upraised eyebrow when she returned. She followed Mandaline into the office. “Weeellll? You don’t look freshly fucked.”

“Down, girl. They’re taking me out to dinner.” She coughed. “Then they’re coming tonight.”

She grinned. “They’re…” Her smile faded. “Oh. You mean the literal form of coming, as in coming to coven?”

“Yes.”

She scrunched up her lips. “I only reloaded three boxes of shells last night, and I’m shooting three rounds of skeet at five with the gang. I could buy a couple of boxes from—”

“Stop.” Mandaline glared at her.

“I can’t commence wit da shoosting?”

She let out a snort. “No shoosting, no snoot-pounding, no tossing out of doors. And absolutely no hexing.”

Sachi jammed her hands on her slim hips and stomped a foot. “Darn it, Mom! You never let me have any fun!” She spun on her heel and stormed out of the office, leaving a laughing Mandaline in her wake.

She knew Sachi had to be hurting almost as badly as she was. Even though she hadn’t known Julie as long and wasn’t as close to her as Mandaline had been, she’d looked up to Julie. Loved her. Yet other than a few brief times, Sachi had tightly bound her grief away, instead looking after all her friends, especially Mandaline.

She also knew Sachi would rather let someone pull all her teeth without the benefit of anesthesia than impose her grief on her friends when she thought they needed her more. She would keep a ramrod up her spine, a smile on her face, and a comforting shoulder at the ready.

And a handy joke or snarky comment to incite a smile or laugh.

But she wouldn’t break. Not publicly.

Not Sachi.

I need help with her, Julie, Mandaline silently entreated. Help me help her heal.

Sachi had a lot of emotional junk in her trunk. Rightfully so, considering some of the things she’d been through in her life. Mandaline actually felt relieved that Sachi was going out shooting today. Blasting clay pigeons out of the sky was a healthy way for Sachi to get some of her grief and anger out of her system.

Not to mention it kept her from literally turning her gun on a real person.

Or herself.

Mina, Paige, and Makenzie were in charge of closing the store. Since all three of them were staying for coven, they didn’t mind working the shift. Mandaline grabbed a shower and changed into a cami top and long peasant skirt and was downstairs waiting for Ellis and Brad when they showed up at seven.

Both men were freshly showered and shaved. Instead of jeans they’d both donned slacks, button-up shirts, and loafers.

They looked good, like a couple of lawyers fresh out of the office. She wouldn’t deny her heart fluttered even as heat flared deep in her body, between her legs, ignited by her clit.

I reeeeally need to get laid.

Hell, even if they weren’t relationship material, hot kinky sex might be just the thing she needed to distract her for a while. She grabbed her purse and a crocheted shawl and let the men escort her to their car. Brad held the front passenger door open for her before climbing into the backseat.

“So where are we going?” she asked.

“There’s a new Irish pub on State Road 50, on the way to Spring Hill,” Ellis said. “A couple of guys in my office were talking about it this week.”

“Sounds good to me.”

She felt his tension and didn’t miss how he’d avoided touching her. She was okay with that, because she realized how difficult this was for him.

“How many people work in your office?” she asked.

“I’ve got a receptionist who’s our office assistant, another lawyer, and a paralegal. But I rent some of the other offices out to a couple of attorneys and others.”

“What did you do with your apartment there when you moved out?”

“One side of it is now rented out to a guy doing graphic arts design. The other part is storage.”

“I guess practicing law here is different than in Tampa.”

He shrugged as he made the turn onto SR 50. “It’s a good kind of different. It’s quieter. I mostly handle family law, civil cases. The occasional minor criminal case for some of my existing clients. I gave up criminal law.”

“He’s too modest,” Brad piped up from the back. “He would have made partner in five years or less if he’d stayed with Kantly, Jessom, and Powell. They’re one of the largest firms in the Tampa Bay area.”

She watched how Ellis glanced in the rearview mirror. “It was a shark tank,” he said. “No way in hell could I juggle everything. Life’s a lot easier now.”

“In some ways,” Brad countered.

She looked over her shoulder and spotted the playful smile on his face. He radiated triumph. For him, getting Ellis to come along to dinner and coven had equaled a rousing success.

Maybe it was. She’d withhold judgment until the night was over.

At the restaurant, the hostess showed them to a booth. Ellis and Brad slid into one side while Mandaline sat across from them. It only took Brad a few seconds to start playing footsies with her. His brown eyes bored into hers as a playful smirk quirked his lips.

Ellis, however, had his face buried in the menu. “Please, order whatever you like,” he said. “I meant it. This is on us.”

She briefly considered ordering a pint of ale before nipping that thought in the bud. No booze for me tonight. Or maybe for the rest of the year. “Iced tea, please,” she said to the waitress waiting to take their drink orders.

Brad did order a pint of ale, while Ellis stuck to Coke.

Ellis seemed at a loss for conversation starters. Brad, however, apparently felt no qualms about jumping right in. Even as he rubbed the toe of his foot along her calf under the table, he met her gaze. “How did you end up working at the shop?” She gave him credit. His smile only faltered for a split second. “I meant, before.”

She offered him a smile in return. “Well, like any good story, the road took many twists and turns that I didn’t expect to get me to my current destination.”

Ellis opted to let Brad carry the conversational weight. He desperately didn’t want to screw things up. If not for his own sake, for Brad’s. Yes, he was attracted to Mandaline in ways he couldn’t fathom. He didn’t understand the pull she had on his heart. He barely knew her, but if he closed his eyes and let his thoughts wander, he, too, could see himself spending his life with these two people.

Happily so.

“How so?” Brad asked her.

She shrugged. “I tried doing things the traditional way. College, job, relationship. My craft was part of me, but I made the mistake of not making it the center of my soul. I tried to fit it in around everything else instead of the other way around. I tried letting my mind instead of my soul mold myself.”

“What’d you study in college?”

“I have a degree in accounting.” She smiled. “Not many people believe that. Numbers and what I do seem at cross-purposes.”

Ellis tuned in a little more. She’s an accountant? He wouldn’t have guessed it about her considering what she did.

“How long did you know Julie?” Brad asked.

She sadly smiled. “We’ve…we were friends since high school. She’s the one who taught me how to read Tarot cards back then. I was maybe fifteen. I was really, really good at it and we just clicked.”

She clasped her hands in front of her on her menu and let her gaze drop to them. “I know a lot of people don’t believe what I believe in, and that’s fine. It’s like when I was a kid, I never felt like I fit in. My mom made me go to church and I hated it. I didn’t believe in it. I had to keep my mouth shut and sit there, bored to tears every Sunday. I always felt tuned in to other things. Like I could tell things about people without them saying it.”

She looked up at Brad. “Julie’s the one who told me about empaths. She was one, too. She loaned me books and helped me learn about all of that. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had a place, a calling.” She laughed. “Then we went to college together. She was always a better student than I was. I got by. She excelled. She went on to be a Rhodes scholar.”

Ellis spoke up. “And she ran a New Age shop?” He felt Brad glare at him but ignored it.

“Yep. It was her passion. She used her business training to make the shop profitable.”

“Did you open it with her?” Brad asked.

“No, she did that on her own. I was working for an auto dealership in Dade City and bored out of my freaking mind. She coaxed me into doing Tarot readings for people on the side, in my free time. But I was pretty hit and miss for a while with that.”

“Why?”

“I was always afraid to admit to others what I did. I was so busy working and trying to find a relationship that I forgot to keep myself centered. I eventually met a guy and he proposed and I stupidly accepted.” She smirked. “He wasn’t particularly religious, but his family was. They didn’t like me at all. His mother snooped once when she was over at our place and demanded to know why I had ‘devil worship’ stuff in my jewelry box.”

Brad’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Mandaline nodded. “Ohhh, you wouldn’t believe the stuff that bitch did. She’d found my pentacle.” She pulled it out from under her shirt. The silver, five-pointed star inside a circle hung from a delicate silver chain. “Julie gave it to me in high school.” She looked down at it, a sad smile on her face “Contrary to my ex-mother-in-law’s hysterical rantings, it has nothing to do with devil worship in most cases.” She snorted. “I don’t even believe in Satan, so how can I worship him?”

Ellis spoke up again, curious. “What’s it mean?”

“It represents the elements. Earth, air, fire, water, and spirit as the fifth point.” She smiled. “Pretty evil, huh?”

He laughed. “She sounds like a piece of work.”

The waitress brought their drinks and took their orders.

“Oh, she definitely was,” Mandaline continued once they were alone again.” Her expression turned sad. “I thought I loved Carl, but I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I know most Christians are really nice, sweet, live-and-let-live kinds of people. I even have plenty who I read Tarot for. She wasn’t.”

Her expression darkened. “And Carl wouldn’t even stand up to her for me. So I ended up divorcing his ass. His parents had money and paid for his divorce, meaning I got screwed. I finally ended up just walking away and signing everything over to him. I had my clothes and stuff from before I met him and that was it. He got everything. I spent my free time at the store, with Julie, getting reacquainted with myself and my beliefs until I was happy with me. Then I realized my job made me miserable. Julie offered me full-time here, plus reading and teacher fees. Not as much as I made working in the office at the dealership, but for the first time in a while I woke up happy every morning, eager to get to work. It was well worth the money trade-off.”

Ellis realized he envied her a little. He also completely understood what she meant about being happy to go to work.

It was how he now felt. “You must really like what you do.”

“I do. I’m content, and I think that’s important. Enough about me,” she said as she sat back. “How do you like Brooksville?”

Mandaline tried to pay close attention to Ellis, which was difficult with Brad playing footsies with her under the table. She’d finally slipped off one sandal and placed her foot on his seat, between his knees, so he could reach under the table and massage it for her. She eventually slipped off her other sandal and placed her other foot there as well, allowing him to give them equal treatment.

It did fabulous things to her libido and mood, but horrible things to her powers of concentration.

“Brooksville’s nice,” Ellis said. “Quiet. Peaceful.”

“Except for owning a possessed house?” she teased.

He had a nice smile when he chose to use it. “Exactly.”

They had a pleasant dinner. Once she was able to draw out Ellis in conversation, she was able to more easily look past the angry, frightened man she’d encountered in her apartment after their dinner.

“How about,” she said as they were waiting for the check, “I come over tomorrow evening with equipment to check out the house. Say, around six? That way I can be there both during daylight and at night.”

Brad eagerly nodded. They looked at Ellis.

“I’m fine with that,” he said.

She glanced at her phone for the time. “We need to get going. It’s after eight thirty.”

She kept an eye on Ellis for any signs of him changing his mind, but he nodded.

“Anything I need to know so I don’t put my foot in my mouth?” he joked.

She smiled. “Just remember that if Sachi mentions skeet shooting, or shotguns, or anything like that too many times, she’s just being very protective.”

“Um, oh. Okay.”