Paranormal Realities Box Set (43 page)

The greasy cheese smell made me feel
sick. The idea of putting anything in my rolling, lurching stomach didn't seem
smart. Puking all over Keagan would hardly be the romantic date of anyone's
dream—if romance were even what we were going for here. I laid the slice
down on the box lid but pulled at the tab of the soda can. The familiar fizzy
burst sound of it opening made my parched mouth water so I took a heavy swig.

My date was halfway through a slice.
Eyeing me, he finished chewing and then swallowed.

"Are you cold?" Without waiting
for an answer, he tossed the remainder of his slice down on top of the box and
retrieved the second blanket from where he'd dumped it.

"No." I said.

He wrapped the blanket around my
shoulders anyway.

"Okay, thanks." I pulled it
tight around me.

He sat back. "You're not eating your
pizza."

"Maybe later."

He picked up the slice and pushed it
toward my mouth. "Come on. Take it."

"No," I replied in a belligerent
tone.

Keagan pushed it closer with a smile and
a gleam in his eye. "Doesn't the wittle baby wanna eat? Open up the itty
bitty tunnel and let the choo choo train come in."

"Stop that, silly." I pushed it
away. "You'll make me laugh then I'll choke on it."

"You have to eat. We don't want you
getting anorexic." His serious tone made me laugh.

"No chance of that," I scoffed.

"You're too thin."

"Thanks so much," I said.
"You're just full of compliments tonight. First I look 'terrible' now I'm
'too thin'."

"You know you're gorgeous," he
said softly. "The most beautiful girl in school."

"Now you're buttering me up." I
slapped the pizza slice out of his hand so hard it landed in the sand.
"Don't lay on the flowery stuff so thick. It just makes me mad."

His brows converged into a vee and he sat
back on his heels. "I'm not buttering you up. Jeese. I'm trying to give
you a compliment."

"An insincere one," I accused.
"I already told you I'd sleep with you. You don't have to lie to me to get
in my panties."

Except that we were on the beach we
would've heard crickets in the silence that followed my crass statement.

"Sorry," I said after a few
long seconds. "I didn't mean to be so bitchy. It's been a difficult
night."

"Yeah," he acknowledged with a
nod. "But I wasn't being insincere. I do think you're gorgeous."

"Right." Sarcasm dripped from
my response like the sweat drops off the soda can.

"You shoulda won the Miss Savannah
contest last year," he said.

"Now you're just being mean," I
shouted.

"No I'm not."

"I'll have you know I didn't want to
enter that stupid contest. My grandmother wanted me to because of the
scholarship the winner got."

"What are you so mad about? I said
you shoulda won. I'm not the only one who thinks you're beautiful. You're a
cheerleader. They don't choose ugly girls for the squad."

"I didn't say I was ugly. But I'm on
the squad because I'm really good at being enthusiastic and perky."

Keagan's gaze drifted down to my boobs.
"You are perky."

"Hey," I said wrapping the
blanket across my chest. "I thought we were in a lewd-comment-free zone
tonight."

"Sorry. Habits die hard," he
said, shrugging. "But my saying you're gorgeous wasn't lewd. Why can't you
take a compliment about your looks?"

"Okay. Okay." I rolled my eyes.
"I'm gorgeous. I should win a dozen beauty contests. All right? Can we go
on to another topic?"

"Okay," he said. "Eat some
pizza."

"Aghhhhhhhhhhhhh," I growled.
After grabbing another slice out of the box, I pushed half of it in my mouth
and bit down taking a huge chunk between my teeth.

While chewing I said,
"Satisfied?" And it sounded more like "shartifish."

"Gorgeous," he said with a
laugh.

I swallowed hard, pushing the glop
halfway down my throat. A swig of soda pushed it the rest of the way. "I'm
gorgeous and I have excellent table manners."

"But not so great beach blanket
manners."

We both laughed at that.

After eating in silence for a few
minutes, I managed to get through the rest of my one slice as Keagan finished
off a second.

"Billy and Quinn are going to tell
Liam about us even if my parents don't, you know," he said.

"They already did. Liam texted
me."

"Crap."

"Don't tell me you're sorry," I
said. "You insisted I tell your parents."

"I know. I guess I didn't think
things through about how this would affect you. I just thought about
myself." His eyes locked with mine.

The shadows of the night made it
impossible to see too deeply into their depths. How I wished I could. What was
he feeling? Sheesh —What was I feeling? Too much for sure. I'd crossed a
line.
No
turning back now, Tara
.

"Don't worry about it," I
whispered. "I asked
you
out remember?"

Keagan didn't answer. Turning his gaze
out to the ocean, he shivered.

I held one side of the blanket in
invitation. "You're cold. Why don't you get under here? The dog hair will
warm you up."

With a nod, Keagan moved to my side. We
fumbled with the fabric until we were huddled together, both wearing it like a
shawl. Arm-to-arm, hip-to-hip, and with our heads close together, the faint
scent of shampoo and cologne invaded my senses. We were wrapped in an intimacy
that made my breath hitch. I struggled to keep to a smooth in-and-out pattern
so he wouldn't notice my reaction to his nearness.

Our hands—his left and my
right—rested side-by-side on the blanket and I longed to twine my fingers
with his. What would happen if I reached over and just ran an index finger over
his? What if I let my finger drift up his arm? What if I brought my touch to
his face?

"This is a strange night,"
Keagan said, breaking into my thoughts. "Starting with my parents. That
was just surreal."

"I've known you and Liam for so many
years and I've always wanted to know something. Why do your parents act the way
they do towards you?"

Keagan stared down into his lap.

The longer the time between my question
and an answer, the more uncomfortable I became. Obviously, the topic hurt him.
"You don't have to—" I started.

"They hate me," he blurted out.
"They hate me because...I killed my sister."

"What? No," I objected. Keagan
might have done a lot of bad things but they'd been in the category of naughty.
I knew he couldn't be so evil. "I don't believe you did any such
thing."

"It's true."

"Prove it to me. What
happened?" I demanded.

"My mother was six months
pregnant..." He struggled out the words and choked on the last one.

I touched his hand now, tangling my
fingers with his until he could continue.

"The baby was a girl. They knew
because of one of those ultrasound tests." The words were tumbling out now
so fast they were like a runaway train. "One day I left a toy truck on the
stairs and mom fell over it. She went into premature labor and the baby
died."

The train crashed and left silence.

"How old were you?" I asked
after a few moments. "You must've been young."

"Four," he said.

"What? Then it definitely wasn't
your fault." I squeezed his hand.

"Yes it was. They'd told me before
to pick up my toys and I didn't do it."

"No." I reached up with my
other hand to cup his face with my palm. Staring into his eyes, I tried to
convince him. The blanket fell away with my movement and I didn't care.
"Anyway, how do you know it wasn't Liam who left the truck? He was four
too. I bet you two shared the toys."

"I never thought...They just always
said it was me."

"Kids that young leave stuff around
the house. You weren't to blame and neither was Liam. It was just an accident.
You shouldn't blame yourself for that."

"Well you blame yourself for your
parents. I've heard you say so. But you never say why."

My hand dropped from his face.
"That's different. I just...I just..." I tried to turn away from him
but Keagan took me by the shoulders.

"What?" he asked.

"I should have kept them from going
out the night of the accident and I didn't," I finally admitted.

"You're more ridiculous than
me." He gave me a little shake. "How could you know something would
happen that night?"

"What if I did know?"

"You mean like a premonition?"
With a touch to my chin, he brought my face around and our eyes met.
"That's not possible."

"But assume I did have a vision.
Assume I saw what was going to happen."

"You still wouldn't be to blame. You
were a kid. What were you? Five? You couldn't stop them."

I tried to look down but the lock he had
on my eyes wouldn't let go.

"I'm not buying that you were to
blame," he whispered. "You're too compassionate and loving. You would
never let someone you loved get hurt if you could stop it."

"I told them. But they didn't
believe me. Then the accident happened."

"See. I was right," he said.
"You told them about your vision. You did what you could. You were too
young."

"A year older than you when your mom
had her accident."

He seemed to consider this for a few
seconds as the ocean lapped one, two, three, four times against the shore.

"We were both too young to be to
blame," he finally pronounced. Keagan took my face between his palms and
planted a light kiss on my lips. That kiss was like an absolution. A kiss that
was a balm that seemed to, if not heal, at least start a scab over the wound of
my guilt.

"Neither of us has anything to feel
guilty about," he insisted. "I won't feel guilty any more if you
won't. Agreed?"

"Agreed," I replied.

He smiled and then leaned in for another
quick kiss. But this time when our lips touched, mine moved under his. Instead
of pulling quickly away as before, his lips lingered, soft and tentative.
Leaning up and forward, I moved onto his lap. His arms wrapped around me,
clutching me to him as I deepened the kiss, putting my own arms around his
neck. One hand went to his nape while the other sifted through his hair. Then
our mouths were moving, each on the others', searching and devouring. The kiss
included a generous amount of tongue. So much tongue I couldn't tell were his
ended and mine began.

This kiss wasn't absolution. This kiss
was sin. But right now I didn't care. I gloried in it. No more Goody for me.

Keagan was the first one to pull away,
pushing me back. "Stop," he said, lifting me off his body and placing
me back on the blanket. "If we don't stop now, I won't be able to."

"I don't understand. Did I do
something wrong?" My question couldn't hide my burgeoning humiliation.

"Jeese, no. You did everything
right." He framed my face with his hands, caressing my cheekbone with his
thumb. "Too right. It's getting dangerous. You must know what I
mean."

"But I thought that was what you
wanted?"

"Yeah. Me too," he mumbled,
releasing me and sitting back. "But it's going too fast. Too fast for you.
This is your first time, right?"

"But I want you to do it," I
said and was surprised to realize I meant what I'd said.

My mind raced. How could I want to have
sex with Keagan but not with Liam? Liam was the brother I was in love with,
wasn't he? I was just doing this for him, wasn't I?

"Okay, but let's take it slow."
Keagan reached for our fallen blanket/shawl. "Let's just lie here a while
and talk."

As he wrapped us in the blanket, his arm
went around my shoulder. A little scooching and we were prone, me with my cheek
against his chest and the sound of his heart in my ear. He began rambling on
about his new science teacher and how his idea of teaching was a surprise pop quiz
every day.

"Not quite a surprise," Keagan
joked and the rumble of his laugh vibrated against my face, making me want to
kiss his chest. I restrained myself. "My math teacher is even more
lame," he said. "He has to make everything into a story problem. Sometimes
I'd like x just to be an x without representing the quantity of farm animals or
tinker toys. What the hell is a tinker toy anyway? Couldn't he at least choose
something cool like iPads or cars?"

The next thing I knew, my eyes were
fluttering open. I had only a second to realize I'd just woken from sleep, when
a vision hit me with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. An old man, gray and
wrinkled but with a full head of hair, was walking next to an old woman in a
park under bright sunshine. He smiled down at his companion, but then his smile
turned to a grimace and he reached up a hand to his chest. He was having a
heart attack. The woman cried out when he fell to one knee. As he clutched at
the fabric of his shirt, I saw the tattoo around his wrist.