First a thank you to my reviews:
piperspeanut – I'm not one hundred percent sure what she will say either. I thought I was, but this story is not going where I thought it would, so who knows what will happen.
FirePony16 – I hope that it was. It seemed like the thing that would make sense.
du1387 – Yes, they were both quite unhelpful. Drinka slightly more than Callie, because she knew who she was talking to, but still not much help. All she did was tell him to think about what his mom would do. And yes, Alanna and Janice are quite ignorant. With magic not being available, even the magic that was available wasn't much discussed. The twins know that they can't do any whitelighter things and know that their brother can do any whitelighter things they could come up with. They know their cousins can orb, but that's about it. They have some knowledge of spells and are having a blast learning their powers, but they don't know a whole lot about what any of their cousins can do.
JadeAlmasy – I hope that I did that right. Piper will get her chance to decide for herself, but we'll see how she responds to that idea. After all she did give Wyatt free reign to hire if he thought she would work out.
TaintedDarkInuShemeeko – We'll have to see how that goes. I know the ultimate result, but I don't quite know how Piper will react. I know how Chris will . . . he'll tease his brother.
I hope everyone enjoys the next chapter. You finally get another chance to see what Leo is up to. Most of the next few chapters will be back and forth between Leo and Chris. The story started careening out of my control about two chapters from here and there have been casualties. No deaths, so far, but injuries.
I have a favorite line in this chapter. Anyone want to guess what line that is?
Remember, Leo looks like Chris and has Wyatt's powers. Not that the powers are going to come into play in this chapter . . . later, but not here.
Chapter Thirteen – Tricky Lady
Leo had been doing a fairly good job of keeping people from being suspicious and of doing Chris job. It had been a busy morning, so keeping occupied had been a fairly easy task. As his son left The Manor, Leo was talking to a customer, a woman who seemed to be trying cause trouble.
Jody had been running one of the cash registers all morning, but when she finished with the customer she was on, she walked over to Leo and offered a quarried look at the woman Leo was helping. "Mrs. McGrath, are you giving Chris a hard time?"
"Would I do that?" the customer, Mrs. McGrath, sounded more amused than annoyed. "Really now, girl. Didn't your mama teach you better than that?"
Leo looked between the two women. Is she a regular or someone Jody knows?
As if to answer his question, Jody introduced them. "Chris, this is my neighbor, Adela McGrath. She likes to come in and play pranks on my coworkers. What was she asking for?"
"Something that hasn't been made in a while," Leo informed her. Mentally he added, Something that hasn't been made since my mother was a little girl.
Jody gave Mrs. McGrath a look. "Quit messing with him. He may not be his self today, but this guy is one of my bosses. He could get me in trouble." She pursed her lips and gave a good impression of a pouty child right down to the high pitched tone of her voice as she said, "Please, Mrs. McGrath."
Mrs. McGrath laughed. "All right. I'll leave this one alone."
Jody grinned. "Great. Is there anything you actually want, Mrs. McGrath?"
Mrs. McGrath shook her head. She smiled as she walked away.
Jody turned her attention back to Leo. "So you have been acting kind odd lately. Today, yes, but for over a month. Is everything okay?"
How do you answer that? He thought as he looked at the young woman in front of him. Obviously this is about more than just today.
"Come on, Chris," Jody looked at him searchingly. "You've more or less turned over responsibility to David most of the time. That's not like you. Or it wasn't before New Year's. Did something happen then?"
This is something that my son is going to have to deal with. If he hasn't been doing his job, I can't fix that. Not sure what to say, Leo looked at her and said, "I can't give you the answers you want, Jody." I don't know them. He was relieved at the site of a customer approaching the register. It was time to get back to work.
As I said above the next few chapters are mostly back and forth between Leo and Chris. This next one is Chris at Wyatt's office and is called "Lunchtime".
Anyone wanting to read more, my site has through chapter seventeen posted for members to read. I finished chapter eighteen, but it's not on the computer yet. If I get a lot of reviews by the time I get off work tomorrow, I'll post after work tomorrow, otherwise, I'll wait a while, because at the moment, my pen is what seems to be working the best, not my posting. As long as this story is coming I need to work on it.