Cursed (Book 1, The Watchers; Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (12 page)

“Well, I did just
buy it from a guy I didn’t really know.  I haven’t had it that long.  It could
have happened before I bought it from him.”

“That’s probably
it.”  Brand said, but I could tell he was still uneasy about the car being
tinkered with.

After dinner Brand
took me to his house so I could retrieve my car.  It was almost eight by the
time we got there and Brand asked me in for a piece of a chocolate bourbon
pecan pie he made that afternoon.

When we stepped
into his house, I saw Abby at the curved green marble topped kitchen counter
eating what looked like a piece of his pie.

“Hey, Lilly!” she
chirped. 

  I knew it was
Abby, but she looked completely different.  Her hair was hot pink and in a bob
style with bangs.  When I looked at her eyes, they weren’t the vibrant green
they had been the night before, now they were pale lavender.  She was wearing a
white tank top and a hot pink spandex miniskirt with white calf high boots.

  “Abby likes to
change her appearance almost daily,” Brand explained, seeing my confusion.

  “Yeah, you
should see all the wigs and colored contacts I have,” Abby said stabbing the
last bite of her pie with her fork.  “I like to dress for the mood I’m in.”

  “I see you’re
feeling a bit rebellious today,” Brand said with an almost disapproving tone.

  Abby shrugged. 
“Just felt like being different.”

  “Hey,” Abby said
looking over at me as I sat on the stool next to her.  “Sorry about Rose Marie
last night.  You just caught her off guard is all, love.”

  “Don’t worry
about it.  I should have waited outside until someone answered the door.  Where
were you at when I came by?”

  I saw Abby give
Brand the briefest of glances.  “I was down by the lake taking a swim.  You
know the neighbors don’t complain as much if you skinny dip when they can’t see
you.”

  Once again, I
was pretty sure I was being lied to but didn’t push the matter.  It wasn’t
important enough.  Besides, if they both felt the need to conceal what Abby had
really been doing, then she must have been doing something extremely private.

  “Well, I need to
get back to my house.” Abby picked up her plate and downed the rest of the milk
in her glass before depositing them both into the sink.

  “Have a good
night,” Brand said and kissed Abby on the forehead.

  Abby smiled up
at him with a look of adoration on her face and said bye to me as she left out
the front door.

  Ok, have I said
what a good cook Brand is?  Not only were his pecans caramelized to perfection
but it was the best pie I had ever eaten in my life!  And that’s saying
something from a person who was raised on Utha Mae’s cooking.

  Utha Mae!  I had
almost forgotten.

  “Are you free
for dinner tomorrow night?  Tara’s grandmother wants to meet you and she
invited us all to her house for dinner.”

  “Will I get a
chance to meet your mother while I’m there?”

  “Yeah, she’ll be
there,” my lack of enthusiasm about Brand meeting my mother must have been a
little too evident.

“Don’t you want
her to meet me?”

“It’s not that. 
It’s just that she’s a lot different from me.  You might find her to be a bit
out there.”

“I see.”  He said,
but I could tell he really didn’t see.

“Utha Mae
practically raised me.  She’s more like my mom than my real mom is.  Cora had
me when she was eighteen.  Most people think we’re sisters and not mother and
daughter, which is just fine with my mom.  I don’t think she’s ever thought of
herself as being old enough to be someone’s mother.”

“Well, I’m sure
we’ll get along.”

“Oh no, she’ll
love you.  That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Brand looked at me
completely at a loss.

With a sigh, I
explained, “My mom’s all about free love.  Well, more like loving freely.  I
just hope she doesn’t make a pass at you.”

Brand laughed.  “I
doubt that would happen.  She’ll probably just be happy you found someone who
makes you happy.”

I sincerely hoped
he was right.

After I finished
my piece of pie, I told Brand I should go home.  It was almost nine by then and
I wanted to make sure Tara got back from her date at a decent time.

Brand called for
Carl to bring my car around to the house.

Before I got into
my car, Brand kissed me on the cheek and told me to be careful on the road.

“Call me when you
get home so I know you got there safely,” he requested.

I told him I would
try to remember and if I didn’t to just call me at the apartment or on the
phone he had given me.

On the drive back
home, I wondered why Brand kept kissing me on the cheek and forehead.  Why
hadn’t he even attempted to kiss me on the lips yet?  I knew he was attracted
to me.  What was the problem?

Before I had time
to dwell on that question, a set of headlights with their bright beams on came
up behind me, nearly blinding me.  I flipped my rearview mirror away from my
face to get the light out of my eyes.

I really hated it
when people were rude like that.  It just wasn’t very nice.

The next thing I
knew I felt a slight tap on my rear bumper.  Looking at the rearview mirror on
the side of my door, I could see the car behind me was right up against my car
now.  I felt another tap.

What was going
on?  What was this person trying to do?

Scared now, I sped
up some.

The person behind
me sped up too and rammed into the back of my car with such force my chest hit
the stirring wheel.  My heart hammered so hard inside my chest I thought I was
going to pass out from the rush of blood. I pushed the gas pedal to the
floorboard and went as fast as my little Corolla would go to get as far away
from the maniac behind me as I could.

I watched in my
side view mirror as the car behind me slammed into the back of my car so hard I
immediately lost control.  The next thing I knew my car was skidding into the
four foot concrete ditch on the side of the road.  I completely blacked out as
my airbags deployed.

The next moment
there were unbearably bright lights shining in my eyes.  Was I still in my
car?  Was that maniac still trying to force me off the road?  Fearing for my
life, my body involuntarily jumped as my eyes flew completely open.  It was
then I saw the florescent lights hanging over my head.

“Lilly!”  I heard
Brand and Will yell at me at the same time. 

I closed my eyes
and put my hands to my head to stop the ringing.  “Please,” I pleaded weakly. 
“Don’t yell.”

I could hear two
apologetic murmurs.

When I opened my
eyes again I realized I was in a hospital bed.  It was a private room with a TV
mounted on the wall right in front of the bed. Brand stood on one side of me
and Will on the other.

“How are you
feeling?” Will asked, concern evident in his voice. 

I did a quick
mental inventory of my body, nothing appeared to be missing.  “I’m a little
sore and my head hurts but other than that I seem to be ok.  What happened?”

Will looked to
Brand to let him explain.

“We were hoping
you could tell us that, Lilly,” Brand sat down close to me on the side of the
bed carefully taking one of my hands into his.

“When I got onto
the highway, a car came up behind me,” I began, trying to remember all I could
of the accident through the haze of pain in my head.  “It had its high beams
on.  Then it started ramming me from behind and forced me off the road.  I
remember the airbags going off in the car and then nothing.  How did I get
here?”

“When you didn’t
call me, I called your apartment. Tara said you hadn’t made it home yet so I
went to look for you.”  Brand’s voice and face showed noticeable strain from
the ordeal.  “When I found you, you were unconscious.  I got you out and
brought you to the hospital.”

“Thank you,” I
said squeezing his hand.

“Lilly,” Will sat
down on the other side of me.  “Did you recognize the car?  Did you happen to
see the person behind the wheel?”

“No, like I said
they had their high beams on.  All I could see were their lights.”

Will and Brand
exchanged a brief glance at each other but said nothing.

“Lilly!”

Tara came running
into the room and practically threw Brand off the bed to get to me.   She
hugged me so tight I thought my lungs would bust through my chest.

Tara didn’t say
anything else, just hugged the life out of me.  I could feel her shake in my
arms and knew she was crying.  I let her cry and tried to be as reassuring as I
could that I was ok.

“You just don’t
know what went through my mind, girl,” she said wiping tears from her red
rimmed eyes when she finally let me go.  “Don’t ever do that to me again, you
hear?”

“Ok.”  I didn’t
add I didn’t exactly ask for some maniac to drive me off the road and nearly
kill me.  She was upset enough.

I was informed I
was going to have to spend the night in the hospital because my doctor wanted
to make sure I didn’t have a concussion or develop any complications they
weren’t able to see. 

Tara also informed
me Cora and Utha Mae were on their way.

“Do you feel up to
talking to the police?” Will asked me.  “They wanted to take your statement as
soon as you woke up.”

“Sure.”  I tried
to sit up a bit straighter and felt four hands underneath my back at one time. 
I tried to smile my appreciation to both Brand and Will.

The officer’s name
was Lewis.  He asked everyone to leave the room before he took my statement,
but Tara informed him he’d have to make an exception for her.

“I ain’t leavin’,”
she informed him standing by my bed as if she were rooted there.  “You’re just
gonna have to talk to her with me in here.”

Not wanting to
cause a scene, Officer Lewis said that would be fine, but asked Will and Brand
to leave.  They didn’t object.  In fact, I got the distinct feeling they wanted
to be alone to talk over what I had told them.

About fifteen
minutes later, the officer finally left.  I don’t know how many ways I could
have told him the same story.  He kept trying to prod something from my memory which
I might have missed; but honestly, I couldn’t remember more than what I did. 
Finally, he said it was probably just some drunk driver.  They’d put out a
bulletin to watch for a car with front end damage but couldn’t do much more
with the sketchy information I gave him.

Tara sat on my bed
holding my hand the whole time the officer took my statement.  I don’t think
I’ve ever seen her so protective.

“What’s that fool
think?” she said when Officer Lewis finally left.  “That you’re not tellin’ him
somethin’?”

“He’s just doing
his job, Tara.” I leaned my head back onto the pillow of my bed.  I was sore
all over and getting more tired by the minute.

“I hope I don’t
have to put those boys in their place again.  If they can’t behave any better,
I’ll just tell them to go home.”

“Who are you
talking about?”  I asked at a complete loss with the sudden change of subject.

“Will and Brand,”
she said as if it should be obvious.  “When I got here I thought they were
gettin’ ready to tear each other’s throats out.”

“Why?” I was so
sleepy I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stay awake to hear her answer.

“Well, one was
blamin’ the other for what happened to you.”

“That’s stupid. 
They couldn’t have done anything.” I closed my eyes and felt myself drifting
off to sleep.

“I know that, but
I swear if I hadn’t come when I did, one or both of them would probably be
right beside you in a bed himself.”

I’m not sure how
long I slept, but the next time I woke up, Utha Mae was sitting in a chair
beside my bed reading her bible.

“Hey child,” she
said marking her page with the slim red silk ribbon that comes in most bibles. 
She stood up and walked over to me.

I was never quiet
sure how old Utha Mae was, but I assumed she had to be pushing eighty by now. 
She was a slim black woman with grey bouffant hair.  I often thought Utha Mae
had been a beauty when she was younger.  Even through the wrinkles she wore now
you could see the delicate bone structure underneath.

“You had us all
worried about you.”  She put her fingers to my hair as if straightening a
wayward strand.

“I’m sorry.”

“Child, you don’t
have a thing to be sorry about.  I just hope the police catch whoever did this
to you.”

Just then my
mother walked through the door carrying what looked like two cups of coffee. 
She was dressed in a sleeveless wild psychedelic print dress that only
stretched down to mid thigh with white thigh high leather boots. Brand held the
door open for her.

“Oh sweetie,” she
said putting the cups on my bedside table to give me a hug.  “We were so
worried about you.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“Are you feeling ok? 
Does anything hurt?”

I tried to
reassure both my mother and Utha Mae that I was fine.  They hovered over me
like two mother hens.

Brand stood at the
foot of my bed with a solemn look on his face.  I couldn’t quite tell what he
was thinking.

I asked where Tara had gone.

“She and Will went
back to your apartment to get you some clothes to travel home in when they let
you out,” Utha Mae said.

I could tell by
the way she said Will that she was happy she got a chance to see him again. 
She hadn’t seen him but a few times in passing the last couple of years.  If
anyone had missed Will more than me, it was Utha Mae.

A little while
later, Brand convinced my mother and Utha Mae to go down to the cafeteria for
breakfast.  He promised he would call for them if they were needed.  I could
tell my mother was taken with Brand.  What female with a pulse wasn’t?  Even
Utha Mae blushed a little around him which was something I had never seen in my
whole entire life.