Hopeful Leigh (Literal Leigh Romance Diaries Book 3)

by Melanie James

  “Take it. It’s all yours, Sunshine.”

  “Sunshine?” I gave Brad my puzzled eyebrows look, but I actually thought it was sweet.

  “Brad calls me Sunshine.” Gertie smiled and looked down at her feet with slight embarrassment.

  “Look at her. She’s like a walking sun beam. Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong.” Brad smiled at Gertie and then he gently lifted her chin up with one finger. I don’t think he planned to kiss her, but when their eyes met it was if I had become invisible. He pulled Gertie close and gave her a soft kiss on the lips.

  “Okay, you two. Should I just leave for a couple hours? Days?”

  “No. We are getting together at Kelly’s. Shoot! We only have an hour to get there. Go get ready, Leigh! We have to be there.”

  I looked at what I was wearing. A pink and white sundress with pink flats. “I’m still dressed from what I wore when I went shopping today.”

  “So what were you out looking for?” Asked Gertie.

  “Camping supplies for my upcoming trip with Hunter.”

  Brad looked at me as if he were trying to picture me on a camping trip. “Camping?”

  “Yeah, camping. Why?” I asked with a hint of indignation.

  “Nothing.” Brad replied. His short answer told me that he got the hint.

  “Good.”

  Then he whispered. “The bears might finally get to eat Goldilocks.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Italian Night With a Twist

  We arrived at Kelly’s right on time. When the door opened, we were greeted by Lindsey. She had an assortment of Kelly’s rambunctious nieces and nephews clinging to her legs. A very hyperactive Chihuahua announced our arrival, in soprano yelps.

  “Oh, I thought you were Luke and Derek.” Lindsey mumbled with disappointment.

  “Nice to see you too, Lindsey!” I replied before she could correct her manners. “Luke and Derek? What am I, chopped liver?”

  “Sorry. Good to see you. Hi Gertie. Brad.” Lindsey avoided making eye contact with Brad. Of course, she hoped that Brad wouldn’t see right through her, so to speak.

  Once the children raced off with the little dog, we gathered in Kelly’s kitchen. Randy was helping her with preparing one of their family marinara recipes. He nodded to me and said, “Good, just what we need. Would you stir this sauce while I get the salad together?”

  I didn’t want to be responsible for burning the sauce, so I offered to take on the salad. “It’s fine. I’ll do the salad. I’m pretty sure I can toss a salad as good as you.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” Randy said flatly as if he were waiting for me to respond. He broke out into laughter, but even now I don’t know why. Kelly gave him a smack in the back of the head and we moved on. We worked together to finish preparing the feast.

  Gertie broached the subject of the cat that Brad had rescued and the interesting tag it wore. “I’ve been thinking about this tag quite a bit. I can’t seem to put my finger on it. There is just something familiar about the design.” She took it out and set it down on the counter for all to see.

  Randy took a look. “I know I haven’t seen that on any of your other cats. Then again, you have an assload of cats at the plantation, I doubt that I’ve seen all of them.”

  “Well, would you mind leaving it with Lindsey and me? We are going to be doing some research on that old witch for you.” Kelly quickly glanced at the tag.

  Brad looked confused. “Witch?”

  “Oh, yeah, I mean she is an old historical figure that Gertie would like us to research. It’s just a figure of speech. Of course, there’s no such thing as a real witch.” Kelly quickly covered up her slip of the tongue.

  After everyone had looked at the symbol on the tag, and dinner was ready, we rounded up the children and enjoyed an excellent Italian feast. We retreated to the living room and the children went back to tormenting the dog, who reciprocated by snapping at them.

  “Now, check out this old book!” Lindsey pointed to a very old book that looked like it was written in Latin. It had many little symbols with other writing that was a mix of Hebrew and Greek. “Randy, Kelly, and I went out today and stopped by an antique shop. We found this there. Isn’t it the coolest thing? The owner of the store didn’t even know he had it. We found it in the bottom of a box full of odds and ends. We bought it for thirty bucks. Ten bucks a piece! I’m willing to bet it’s worth a hell of a lot more. Just look at how old it is.”

  Gertie picked it up and looked closely. The look on her face was one of incredible astonishment, as if she just found proof that aliens were real. She quietly said, “This is very old. It’s amazing you found this, because it means something very important.”

  Brad took a look at it, and to our surprise he seemed quite familiar with antiques. “I know exactly what this is. It’s called a grimoire. A grimoire is a medieval book of magic. Like a spell book. They are really fascinating, but I would imagine they would be difficult to translate. Even if you could, it might not make sense because it could be in code.”

  Gertie’s eyes and mouth were still wide open. She looked at each of us. “This looks a lot like my book. The one I found long ago. It’s not the very same one, but it is the same kind. Brad’s right. This is a spell book. You know what this means, right?”

  “It means that Brad really knows his antiques?” Lindsey replied.

  “No, it means that now the three of you have been chosen. Chosen by this book to become witches.”

  Brad shook his head. “No, I don’t think so Sunshine. I mean, it’s cool and all. But, you do know that there is no such thing as real magic, or witchcraft. That stuff is just myth and—”

  Kelly interrupted Brad. “You know Gertie, she is quite a comedian. Witches? Now that’s a good one.” Then she tried to move the conversation in a different direction. “And by the way, how do you know so much about antique books?”

  “My grandmother collected all sorts of antiques. I learned quite a bit from her.” Brad explained.

  “I think it’s cute, that he calls her Sunshine.” I whispered to my friends.

  Gertie pointed to Kelly, Lindsey and Randy. “Listen to me. You all have to be very careful with this. Things are bound to start happening. We don’t even know if this book is good or bad. There are different kinds of magic out there. Since all three of you found it, it could mean something for each of you.”

  “Seriously? Sunshine, I don’t think this is anything that they have to worry about. Come on. Magic? It’s nothing.” Brad said to Gertie as if he wanted to soothe her.

  The little dog was barking from another room and the children were laughing and squealing at some new game. I heard their tiny little voices. “Where did it go?” and “The doggie must have gotten it!” Then I noticed something moving on the back of the couch where Kelly was sitting. Something pink, something snake-like had moved up behind Kelly and was peeking through her hair that hung onto the back of the couch. I tapped Gertie’s foot with mine to get her attention and then I nodded towards Kelly. Gertie squinted a little and then when she realized what was happening, she covered her mouth.

  It disappeared before anyone else noticed it. I got up and excused myself. “Gertie, would you come with me for a minute. I wanted to talk to you about something.” I took her by the arm and we went into the kitchen. “Did you see that? That looked like Kelly’s pink damn sex toy! Was that what you meant about playing a joke on her?”

  “It’s sort of what I had in mind, but not quite like this. I thought it would happen when she was alone with it.”

  “Well, we better find it before anyone else sees it.” I looked around the living room from our vantage point at the kitchen island. “There! It’s moving towards those curtains!” I could see it clearly, the long pink dong moved like a giant obscene inchworm. It stopped and looked around, if that was even possible, and then kept moving.

  Gertie crawled down low, ducking under the table and chairs in order to remain unseen as she snuck ov
er to where I had noticed it. I slowly strolled on the other side of the room so that together we could corner it. Just as we should have predicted, the little Chihuahua zipped through the room, looking for its new toy. The pink worm turned back towards me and I tried to grab it. The dog snagged it first, and ran with it dangling from its little mouth and dragging the ends of it across the floor. It headed towards Gertie. When she tried to reach out, she accidentally lifted herself up, knocking her head on the table tipping a couple of dining chairs over.

  The children ran into the room, their voices cheering the dog on. The dog ran right to Brad and presented the sex toy to him. “Hi little guy. You wanna play? You like tug of war? Huh?” Brad took the long rubber toy from the dog. He held it by the end and waved the tip over the leaping and barking animal. The rubber dong began to squirm wildly back and forth. Brad looked at it and made his observation. “Wow! They sure come up with some high tech dog toys now. Look at this thing squirm!” He waved its entire two foot length around. Every adult, except Brad, knew that this was a sex toy, Kelly’s sex toy. And to our astonishment it was a long double ended dong. Everyone gasped at the sight of Brad, who was now standing up and waving the writhing, soft silicon masturbatory play thing. Everyone got a good look at the object that Kelly apparently fulfilled her threesome fantasies with.

  “Holy Christ!” Lindsey yelled. “Is that what I think it is?” From the look on Lindsey’s face, you would think someone had just dumped a bag full of rattlesnakes on the floor.

  “Let me get my phone, I have to record this!” Randy scrambled away to find his phone.

  “Give me that! Its mine.” Kelly barked at Brad and grabbed the end of it. It wrapped around her hand like a python ready to kill its prey. “Ah! Goddamn it!”

  “Wait, is this thing a—Holy shit!” Brad realized what it was and quickly released his hold on one of the penis shaped heads. “I think it’s malfunctioning.”

  Kelly shook her wrist and beat it against the wall, in an attempt to subdue the coiled python of love. The kids had made it into the room and scolded her. “Aunt Kelly! Don’t wreck doggie’s toy!” But Kelly had no intention of letting the animated dong survive. With another crushing blow, it let go and squirmed wildly along the floor. I grabbed the dog to keep it from being strangled by the rubbery twin lovers.

  “Lindsey, open the door! Kids, stand back!” Lindsey jumped up and opened the front door. With a swift kick that would make the Chicago Bears special teams coach proud, she booted the toy through the door. It flew across the yard, like a flying squirrel launched from a slingshot. Lindsey slammed the door shut. “And the kick is good!” she shouted. The kids all moaned with disappointment.

  “Well.” Kelly puffed and blew the hair that dangled in her eyes. “Hey, what can I say? Now, don’t start thinking any one of you can embarrass, me by saying something. Trust me, I have enough dirt on all of you.”

  “Nothing wrong with doubling your pleasure, sis. I’m not saying a thing.” Randy winked.

  “Okay then. Kids, go start getting ready for bed and stay out of Aunt Kelly’s bedroom.” She looked at us. “I was bribed into watching them for tonight.”

  Conveniently, Brad had to be heading home to prepare for his next shift. He took Gertie out into the privacy of the front yard, but that didn’t prevent all of us from peeking out of the windows to see how it went. It was quite romantic, to see Brad kissing his little piece of sunshine goodbye. In the distant intersection I could see flattened and shredded bits of pink silicone. The playful partners of Kelly’s fantasies had been reduced to road kill by heartless motorists. Kelly noticed it too. “So, which one of you was behind that little trick tonight?”

  “Honestly, it wasn’t either of us. I’m telling you, Kelly. Gertie’s right about that book. It’s already causing chaos.” I wasn’t really sure if Gertie was behind the prank. At least that’s what I reminded myself so I wouldn’t feel like I was lying. I was glad Kelly never brought it back up when Gertie came back inside.

  Before Gertie and Randy headed back to the Paranormal Plantation, we had to talk about the newly discovered spell book. “Do you really think that we’ll all be witches now too?” Lindsey asked.

  “Definitely. This is a witch’s book, and it found you. Until you know what it can do, you really shouldn’t take any chances with it. It’s up to you, but I think the best thing would be for Randy to take it with him. We could have Esmeralda or Marie Laveau take a look at it. They can tell us things that would take the rest of us forever to find out.”

  “So, let’s go over everything.” I was trying to keep some sort of sense of what the plans were. “Kelly and Lindsey will research Elspeth and the tag on that collar. Gertie and Randy will prepare Elspeth’s interior design plans, and research the spell book. And I will be enjoying myself with Hunter. Once I’m back we can go to Elspeth’s castle and see what secrets she has about my magic desk.”

  “I’m starting to think that there is a lot more going on here than just that desk. I don’t know what, exactly.” Randy turned the cat collar around in his hand. “But if you ask me, it seems magical things are suddenly showing up. Quite coincidentally, it all started once we discovered that painting in the castle.” Randy nodded towards the tattered old grimoire on the coffee table, and for once he seemed to be genuinely concerned.

  Lindsey threw her hands in the air, and with mix of sadness and confusion, she added to Randy’s remark. “For some reason, the only magical things that we hoped to show up, never did. Luke and Derek better have a damn good story for not being here.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Until the Cows Come Home

  “Only four more days until Hunter’s graduation.” I said out loud, as I looked at the calendar on my refrigerator.

  “Meow.” Luna could tell I was fudging on the count.

  “Okay, five. But I’m not counting today, we’re already awake.”

  My phone began buzzing. “Ugh. Already?” I hesitated to answer. Lindsey’s name appeared on screen. I took a breath and picked up the call.

  “Leigh, we have a problem.”

  “Unless you have a mouse in your pocket, you have a problem. What is it?”

  “Here, just listen and you tell me.” I could hear Lindsey moving her phone around and talking to someone.

  “Moo. Moooo.”

  “What? Is that a cow?”

  “Technically, it would be a bull. A bull calf. It just so happens that I have two of them. I am pretty sure one is named Luke and the other is named Derek.”

  “Oh shit!”

  “Oh shit, is right, Leigh. They’ve been Cowpoked.”

  “The story for turning Luke and Derek into the cowboy types. Damn it. What the hell happened? There is nothing in that story about changing them into cows—or bulls, or whatever. Besides the fact that I don’t have the power to shift people into animals, at least as far as I know.” I thought about it for a few seconds and wondered if Lindsey was wrong. “Are you sure? I mean, how can you really tell that it’s Derek and Luke?”

  “The shreds of their clothes hanging on them. Think about it. Cow boys. Boy cows? I don’t know what you did. Typo? Something happened. Could you take a look at what you wrote and then come over to my place? Kelly is on her way too. And pick up some baby formula on the way.” She hung up before I could question the need for formula.

  I ran over to my desk and opened the laptop. After my initial flurry of writing, and subsequent computer crash, I hadn’t even looked at my stories. I opened the file for Cowpoked. Going through the short manuscript, I read the section that detailed the transformation of Luke and Derek into masculine, rough and tumble, cowboys. I noticed that a few times I referred to them as “the boys” and then I saw it. Lindsey was right. The first time I intended to type the word “cowboy” I simply typed “cow” and in other places I had completely messed up the spelling. I had apparently underestimated my powers and inadvertently turned Luke and Derek into young bull calves, just as Lindsey h
ad figured.

  Before I closed my laptop, I noticed that all of my other stories, Regurgitant, Bangin’ the Billion-were, and Steel Stetsons were all opened. I knew I had closed them and it seemed odd to me that someone had obviously been looking at them. I had to assume that Kelly had opened them when she used my laptop to show porn videos to Gertie. Perhaps the girls just wanted a sneak peek, I thought.

  I went off to Lindsey’s, making a stop on the way for baby formula. When I let myself in, I found Lindsey in the kitchen with a pair of black and white calves. They were eagerly licking up what appeared to be milk, from mop buckets. If it wasn’t so serious for Luke and Derek, this absurd scene would have been worthy of a few pictures.

  “Holy cows!”

  “Leigh, what do we do? We have to fix this!” Lindsey was already a nervous wreck.

  “I’m not sure how. We’re going to need to get ahold of a seasoned witch on this one.” I noticed the looks of despair on the faces of my worried friends. “Don’t panic. I’m sure it can be reversed somehow. I’ll call Gertie and see what she says about it.” I tried to sound confident, but really, I had no idea what we were going to be able to do. “I’ll call Randy’s number, he’ll be able to get Gertie. I just never know if she will actually answer the call.”

  I made the call and Randy answered immediately.

  “Randy, I need Gertie! Is she around?”

  “I’m not exactly sure where she is. Last I saw, she had her hands full with trying to wrangle another weird creature she created for her pet shop. A special custom order. She was delivering it to a witch in Burma. Or maybe it was Thailand? I don’t know. In fact, I’m guessing. All I know it is someplace where dragons are a popular theme, pretty sure it’s Asia. You know, I told her to not mess around with reptiles. She always ends up with some goddamned terrifying dragon or some freaky Godzilla looking—”

  “Never mind that, Randy. We need help here.” I went on to explain what had happened to Luke and Derek due to my witchcraft.