Paranormal Realities Box Set (40 page)

Going to the Ellsworth house that night
was the first step in my campaign. But I soon found that sitting through the
uncomfortable tension between the brothers and their parents was an almost
insurmountable challenge. How successful would I be in changing fate when I
couldn't even manage to change the heavy mood of dinner conversation?

Keagan sat on one side of the table opposite
Liam and me. He scowled down at his plate as he pushed the mashed potatoes
around, trying to form a perfect circle with the gloppy substance. With one
turn of the fork, black ink peeked out from beneath the cuff of his shirt.

Omigod, he'd gotten a tattoo circling his
forearm a few inches above his wrist. I glanced around the table, hoping that
none of the others had seen it.

Their father loomed at one end of the
table, stuffing his face. In between bites he sipped a scotch. He wasn't drunk,
just buzzed. Mrs. Ellsworth hovered about, mostly occupying the space between
her seat and the kitchen. And it wasn't only her legs getting a workout.
Whenever Mr. Ellsworth would make some nasty comment, Mrs. Ellsworth would
treat it like a turd in a cat box. She'd giggle nervously and let loose a
barrage of inane chatter as if she were trying to bury his comment so deep
beneath her own words that we wouldn't realize how stinky his words were. The
only blessing was that so far most of his jabs had been criticisms of
politicians and work colleagues. Only a few had been directed at the family.

At the moment we were all sitting in a
merciful pocket of silence between the turd laying and the scratching.

As Mr. Ellsworth finished chewing a bite
of the meatloaf, he glanced at Keagan and then at his son's plate. He swallowed
and his lips twisted into a displeased curl. He opened his mouth and I knew we
were in for a smelly one.

"So Keagan. Flunked any tests at the
new school yet?"

Keagan flinched, the slight movement so brief
I would have missed it if I hadn't been looking at him. His eyes met mine and
the corner of his lip curved upward into a wry smile before he turned his head
toward Mr. Ellsworth.

"No," he drawled.

"Just no? Are you disrespecting me
boy?" Mr. Ellsworth picked at his teeth.

"No...sir."

"I see you've got a new tattoo
there?" Mr. Ellsworth pointed his knife at his son's arm. "Did you
get one of your biker friends to do it with an infected needle?"

"No."

"Maybe septicemia's already setting
in. Ever think of that?"

Mrs. Ellsworth jumped up and grabbed a
water pitcher from the sideboard. "It's so nice to have you here tonight,
Tara." She grabbed my glass, which was three-quarters full already, and
began pouring. "We haven't seen you in so long. Isn't that right? A
longtime. How's your grandmother? I haven't—"

"Minnie, stop." Mr. Ellsworth
picked up the saltshaker and waved it around in the air. "I'm trying to
talk to my son."

"You don't need to talk to him
now," Mrs. Ellsworth said with a wan smile in my direction.

"Why not? You're always talking
about the family conversing at dinner."

"But we have a guest."

"Tara's hardly a guest," Mr.
Ellsworth scoffed. "She's like one of us."

Mr. Ellsworth smiled in my direction and
I mumbled, "thank you."

"She's aware Keagan's a delinquent
screw-up."

Liam stifled a laugh, disguising his
snort with a cough into his napkin as I pierced him with a glare.

I wanted to shout at Mr. Ellsworth to
shut up. But he was an adult and, no matter what he said about it, I was a
guest in his home. Mr. Ellsworth's verbal abuse of Keagan was bad enough but
lately Liam had been getting more and more infected by the attitude.

My eyes returned to Keagan who was
playing with his potatoes again. He drew two eyes with the tip of his knife at
the starchy circle center before he directed his gaze back to me and drew a
frowny mouth.

"Well?" Mr. Ellsworth demanded
of Keagan.

The mental vibes of "I'm keeping my
promise but it's damn hard" were wafting my way in waves from across the
table as he answered his father.

"No, sir," Keagan finally
replied.

"Been expelled yet?" At his
son's shaking head, Mr. Ellsworth continued, "If you're not flunking out
or getting in trouble, what are you doing?"

"I'm playing football. I'm the
team's new middle linebacker."

"Linebacker? Hmmmm." Mr.
Ellsworth took another bite and chewed. With his mouth still full of food he
said, "You're a decent football player. I'll give you that."

Mr. Ellsworth was a fiend for football.
Figured his only half decent comment to Keagan was about that sport.

"Thanks," Keagan drawled.

"'Course with Liam as running back,
you don't stand a chance," Mr. Ellsworth continued.

"Yeah. The Flyers are gonna win
whether you're on that pathetic team of not," Liam piped in.

"Oh really? The Hawks are a great team.
We're gonna murder you."

Keagan's words took my breath and turned
the food in my mouth to rock salt.

"I'm personally gonna score at least
one TD by breezing right by you," Liam shouted.

"Dream on, bro," Keagan shot
back. "You won't get one play past me, let alone a touchdown."

"You can't touch my speed,"
Liam yelled, clutching his dinner knife as if it was a stiletto he was about to
stab his brother with.

"You move in slow motion. Your team
sucks and so do you," Keagan said.

"Don't talk to your brother that
way," Mrs. Ellsworth shot out at Keagan.

With a glare at me, Keagan threw down his
napkin as he pushed the chair back.

"I'm so outta here," he said,
before stomping his way to the front door.

"You come back here, young
man," his dad shouted.

The words had no effect and Keagan
continued out, slamming the door behind him.

Mr. Ellsworth turned to Liam with his
fork upturned as he waved it almost like an epee. "Just make sure you play
a good game, son. I hear there'll be a scout there from the University of
Georgia."

"Yes, Dad."

The rock salt dropped from my mouth to
the pit of my stomach. The chance of convincing Liam not to play in Friday's
game had just officially gone from slim to none.

* * * * *

Sitting and holding hands with Liam on
the Ellsworth's porch swing after dinner would have been a peaceful bliss, a
respite after the family hostilities, if not for the fact that my mind was
churning. Liam's voice blah blahing droned on about some subject...I didn't
even know what. My ears were blocked by the locomotion of the freight train in
my brain. Ways to try to convince Liam not to play in the football game, now
less than forty-eight hours away, kept turning over and nothing seemed likely
to succeed. Oh well, I had to try.

"Liam." I interrupted him mid-blah.
"Don't play in the game on Friday."

"What?" His expression went
from relaxed to wide-eyed shock. "Why would you say that?"

'Cause I'm a banshee and I know you're
gonna die if you play in that game. Na. Saying that was my last resort. The one
I'd take just before they had me drug tested. The one I'd take right before the
men in white coats came to put me into the straightjacket.

"Ummm. I—" The argument
I'd planned suddenly didn't seem that good an idea but I went with it. "I think
you shouldn't fight with your brother. This game is escalating the war between
you two."

"Who cares," he scoffed.

"I do. You have the power to
convince your dad to change his mind and send Keagan back to school at the
Academy. Then you wouldn't be on opposite teams."

He released my hand and it dropped in a
thud on the seat of the swing as he jumped up to move to the edge of the porch.
"Why are you so concerned about my brother? You into him or
something?"

"Of course not."

"You are," he accused.
"Just like every other girl. You think he's hot."

"Nnnnnno," I sputtered.
"He gives me the creeps. I wouldn't let him touch me—" I
stopped myself mid cliché. What was that quote about protesting too much?
Keagan gave me the shivers but not the creeps. However, saying that wouldn't
help my cause.

"I'm concerned about you, not
him." I got up, crossed to Liam, and then placed a hand on his arm.
"All this with your brother—It's making you into a person I don't
recognize. You aren't you."

He jerked his arm out of my light grasp.
"Because I won't let Keagan get away with his bull? Because I stand up to
him?"

"No." I shook my head.
"You don't just stand up to him, you gang up on him."

"Gang up?"

"With your parents. Yes. The three
of you gang up on him."

Liam's face reflected a shocked kind of
betrayal that made me cringe inside.

"Nice, Tara. Real nice," he
mumbled.

"I'm sorry, but it's true," I
defended. "And you can stop it right now by not playing that game on
Friday."

"I've gotta play. You heard Dad.
There'll be a scout there."

"Is that the most important thing in
your life?" I shouted. "What if I said I'd go to the reserve with you
on Friday?"

The meaning of my words dawned and a slow
smile turned to a grin. "Really?"

"But only if you
don't
play."

"I'm not gonna be manipulated into
giving up a chance for a scholarship to UGA." Shaking his head as if to
clear it, Liam said, "This makes no sense. What's the real reason you
don't want me to play on Friday?"

Time for the last resort
, I thought.

"I had a vision that you're going
to...going to get...get hurt if you play."

"Now you're just being
ridiculous."

"Are you saying I'm lying?"

"Either that or crazy."

Now it was my turn to be hurt. "Is
that what you really think?"

"No." His jaw moved with the
clenching and unclenching of his teeth. "I think you enjoy teasing. I
think you enjoy trying to wrap me around your little finger. And I've let you
do it. But no more. I'm not gonna be whipped."

"Whipped! By me?"

"That's what the guys on the team
said and they were right."

"Yeah. Billy and his band of
jerkwads are real authorities on women," I said with more than a dollop of
sarcasm. "If that's who you want to listen to, then I can't stop
you."

"Good," Liam shouted. "I
will."

"Fine," I shouted back.

With one last glare at me, Liam marched
to the front door, tugged it open and stormed inside the house. The slam of the
door behind his departing back caused the porch to shake under my feet.

That went well.

Long seconds later, I acknowledged to
myself Liam wasn't coming back out. I trudged my way down the steps to the
sidewalk before starting toward the street in the direction of my parked car. I
was about halfway there when a low, teasing voice came from behind a bush.

"Whew. You sure made him mad."

Startled, I jumped and whirled to face
Keagan.

"How long have you been hiding
here?" I demanded, my mind furiously racing over the conversation Liam and
I had.

"Long enough," Keagan said,
stepping out and under the full force of the streetlamp. "Long enough to
hear you making a very provocative offer."

A blush caught fire in my cheeks. Thank
heavens for the cover of the dim light. "I don't know what you're talking
about."

"Sure you do," Keagan drawled.
"My brother is a real fool. If you offered me a night of passion at the
reserve I wouldn't turn you down for football."

"I bet." Managing to make my
statement a monotone and keeping all reaction from registering on my face,
while my heart was doing more flips than an Olympic gymnast, was one of the
harder things I'd ever done.

"Yeah. I'd have jumped at that offer
in a heartbeat." Keagan's low, sensual baritone teased as if he knew
exactly what I was feeling. "A chance to pop the cherry of a gorgeous and
notorious virgin weighed against a mere football game? No contest."

"You're crude and disgusting."
Turning on a heel, I presented a stiff back to him before walking away.

"And you love it." The low
rumble of his laugh burned my ears. "You were my little champion back
there. Trying to get Liam to go to bat for me with Dad."

"Like I said to Liam, that was for
him and not you." My car parked at the end of the block seemed like a mile
away.

Keagan grabbed my arm and pulled me to a
stop. Turning in reluctance, I saw his face set in a serious frown.

"Sure," he said. "I know
it's Liam you love and Liam you want. But no matter who you did that for, you
shoulda saved your breath."