Cursed (Book 1, The Watchers; Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (3 page)

Brand opened the
car door for me and when I sat in the passenger seat I knew heaven had to exist
somewhere.  The seat seemed to meld with my body enveloping me in complete comfort.

Luckily for me,
there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the university streets that afternoon.  It
only took us a few minutes to reach the science building. 

Without even
asking if I wanted him to, Brand got out of the car and escorted me to Dr.
Barry’s office.

“Well, I don’t
want to make you any later than you already are,” he said when we stood outside
her office door.

Before I knew it
he leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. 

“I’ll see you
tonight, Lilly,” he promised, leaving before I was able to collect my senses
and make a reply. 

It may have just
been a kiss on the forehead, but it was like a match lighting every nerve in my
body on fire.  I tingled in places I didn’t even realize had nerve endings.  Forcing
myself to breath again, I walked into Dr. Barry’s office determined to find a
way to make it until lab that evening.

Chapter 2

I didn’t get off
work until 4pm so I had to dash back to the apartment to grab a bite to eat
before lab.  As I stood in front of the microwave waiting on my supper to cook,
Tara walked in and pounced.

“Girl, I think
every female on this campus hates you,” she declared, throwing her backpack
onto the futon my mother bought us for our apartment.

“Why?” I asked
glancing at her over my shoulder, waiting for my bowl of raviolis to finish
heating up.

“
Why
do you
think?  You have the most gorgeous guy in town panting after you like a dog
who’s been given his first rib-eye steak.”

“You’re over
exaggerating.  It’s not like that.”  I tried to brush what she said off but
deep down I secretly hoped she was right.

“Honey, I was
there in the Common’s today.  That boy sat at that table ignorin’ all the talk
around him, even though most of it was to get his attention.  His eyes were on
the door just waitin’ for you to come in.  You’ve got that man hook, line and
sinker.”

“I didn’t even see
you in there.  If I had I would have introduced you to him.”  I grabbed my bowl
of ravioli’s out of the microwave and a bottle of water from the fridge before
joining Tara on the futon.  “What did you think of him?”

“H-O-T, hot,
girl!  I thought Will was the cutest guy we knew, but Brand puts him to shame.”

I knew what Tara was trying to do.  She was trying to convince me that I needed to leave Will in my
past and look to Brand for my future.  It was the same thing I had been
thinking that afternoon.  But, she and I both knew as far as looks went, Will
and Brand were pretty comparable.  Yet, Brand did seem to have a stronger
effect than Will on the females around him for some reason.

I told Tara about our specially prepared private lunch, the car he drove and where his house was.

“As sweet as honey
and rich too?” She asked feigning jealousy.  “Girl, if you don’t go out with
this guy, I might just have to grab him for myself.”

Physics lab went
fairly smoothly.  All we had to do was determine the density of some objects
the teacher assistant gave us.  I felt really sorry for Michelle though.  It
seemed like every time Brand turned around to ask us how things were going, she
would freeze like a deer caught in headlights on a foggy country road.  To say
she had an obvious crush on Brand was the understatement of the year.  The poor
girl could barely breathe when he looked in her general vicinity.

About an hour
later we were through with the lab assignment. Brand asked me if I wanted to go
get some frozen yogurt from the TCBY station in the Commons.  I accepted
figuring it was a pretty safe public place to go with him.  Odds were we
wouldn’t be the only ones there.

As we walked out
of class, he took hold of my hand so naturally you wouldn’t have known it was
for the first time.  His hand was a lot bigger than mine but the gentle way he
laced our fingers together made me feel cared for, almost treasured.  We walked
hand in hand to where his car was parked.  The convertible top was up this
time, and I noticed it was jet black.  It didn’t take long before we were
parked by the Commons building.  When we got to the TCBY counter, I ordered a
couple of scoops of rocky road and Brand got a waffle cone with raspberry
cheesecake.  We sat down at the closest table available.

Just as we sat
down, another couple walked up to the counter to place an order.  I didn’t see
who it was since my back was to them, but I could hear the girl telling the
server what she wanted and recognized the voice as belonging to Nora. 

“I’ll have a scoop
of vanilla.  What do you want, Will?  Remember it’s my treat so order anything
you want!”

Involuntarily, my
head snapped towards the counter. 

And there he was. 
After almost two years of purposely avoiding him, Will Kirkpatrick stood only a
few feet away from me. 

“I’ll just have a
scoop of rocky road.” He told the guy behind the counter.

As if feeling my
eyes on him, Will turned his head and looked directly at me.

The hostility in the
depths of his light blue eyes shocked me and tore at the stitches holding my
broken heart together.  I’d never seen him look so mad before.  He turned back
to the counter without saying a word or acknowledging my existence any further.

“Do you know him?”
Brand asked, obviously seeing the exchange.

I looked back at
Brand and tried to steady my breathing before answering.  “Yes, we grew up
together, but I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“I’d stay away
from him if I were you,” Brand suggested roughly.

His hostile tone
took me completely by surprise.

“Why would you say
that?  I mean Will’s no angel but he’s not dangerous either.  I’ve known him
all my life.”

“He’s not who he
appears to be,” Brand said keeping a watchful eye on Will and Nora as they made
their way to a table on the other side of the room from us.

“There’s no way
you can make a snap judgment about him like that.  You don’t even know him. 
You just moved here.”

“I know his type,”
Brand eyed Will with undisguised distrust.  “He might pretend to be your
friend, but he’ll stab you in the back the first time you come between him and
what he really wants.”

I don’t know why,
but my temper flared in Will’s defense.  Yes, he had been a complete jerk the
past couple of years but that didn’t wipe away the familial bond we’d had since
we were children and nobody talked badly about my family in front of me.  How
dare Brand judge someone he didn’t even know that well!

“I’m sorry,” Brand
said.  Obviously my thoughts were written all over my face again.  “I didn’t
mean to upset you.  I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

I took a deep
breath before trying to make a reply.  “Listen, Will and I haven’t spoken much
in the last couple of years so you don’t have to worry about him hurting me.  I
basically don’t exist in his world anymore.”

Brand placed his
free hand on top of mine. “Then he’s more of a fool than I thought.  There’s
absolutely no possibility I could ever not know you were in my world.” 

He smiled that
disarming smile at me again.  Good Lord, how was I supposed to stay mad at him
while I was being assaulted with that?

Just then I heard
Nora laugh in the background.  I looked over at their table and saw Nora leaned
in towards Will with a paper napkin in her hand dabbing at a spot of ice cream
on the corner of his mouth.  I quickly looked away.

“Are they
bothering you?” Brand asked.

“It’s nothing,” I
said with a shake of my head, trying my best to block out Nora’s incessant laughter
by staring at my ice cream.

Being so close to
Will again had shocked me more than I thought it would.  I knew I would have to
endure his presence on campus, but I had hoped it would be a while before I was
forced to be in the same room with him. 

“Would you like to
leave?” Brand offered.

I looked up from
my ice cream and saw how worried Brand was over my welfare.  “Would you mind if
we did?”

Without another
word he took my hand, escorting me out of the Commons building and back to his
car.

Brand had just put
the key in the ignition when he turned to me and asked, “Could I ask you a
favor?”

“Well, I guess it
depends on what you want,” I said, trying to conceal my suspicion of his
question.

“There’s a book
store close by that I’ve been dying to go to, but I hate going to places like
that alone.  Would you mind going with me?”

“Now?”

“Only if you don’t
have anything better to do.  It’s not a date.” He grinned at me and I
completely lost track of why I should say no.

“I can only stay
for a little while.  I really need to read the chapter Dr. Floyd assigned
before class tomorrow.”

The bookstore
ended up being only a few minutes away.  It was located a couple of streets
south of campus.

  Apparently,
someone had remodeled an old Victorian home into a bookstore/coffee shop. 
Brand took my hand like we had been dating forever and used to such contact as
we walked through the stained glass front door.

  I’ve always
loved the smell of bookstores, especially ones which sell coffee too.  The
mixed aroma’s of coffee and bound books always makes me feel right at home for
some reason.  There’s nothing like it in the world.  Well, as far as my world
extended anyway, which I had to admit wasn’t far.  The most traveling I’d ever
done was a couple of trips to Biloxi.  I definitely wasn’t the world traveler
Brand was.

  Brand let go of
my hand so we could browse books of our own interest.  I went directly to the
sales rack to see what was there.  Utha Mae had taught me from a young age you
should never buy anything unless it’s on sale.

  “Everything goes
on sale eventually,” she would tell us kids.  “No sense in paying full price
for somethin’ when you can wait a couple of months and get it for half the
money.”

  I saw Brand walk
over to the racks holding books of poetry.  I couldn’t help but stare at him as
he picked up a leather bound copy of something and thumbed through its pages. 
He must have sensed me looking at him because before I knew it he was looking
back at me, capturing me with his mesmerizing silver-grey eyes.  There was a
warmth in the way he looked at me which made me feel like I was the only person
in the world, or at least his world.  He held my gaze causing everything else
around me to fall away into nothingness, all I could hear was my own ragged
breathing. We stared at each other for what felt like minutes but were in
actuality only a few seconds.  I forced myself to look away, breaking the spell
he was weaving around me. 

  Who was he? 
What was he?  Surely he was more than human.  No one, not even Will, had ever
made me feel like every fiber in my body was on fire with just a single
glance.  I was still trying to get my breathing under control when Brand came
to stand by me, putting a casual hand at the small of my back like we’d known
each other for years instead of just two days.

  “Did you find
anything to pique your interest?”  He asked.

  Well, that was a
spot on question but I think he was asking about books.

  “Not really,” I
answered.  “You?” I noticed he still held the same leather bound book in his
hand from a few minutes ago.

  “I’ve been
meaning to read some Lord Byron.  I thought I would pick up a book of his
poems.  Do you like poetry?”

“Some of it,” I
hedged.  “Depends on if it makes any sense to me or not.”

“Come with me,” he
murmured, holding his hand out to me.

“Where are we
going?” I placed my hand in his without a single thought of worry.

He didn’t answer
but led me through the racks of books to a staircase which connected to the
second floor.  There was a maroon leather couch facing a large window which
looked out over the city park.  He pulled me down beside him onto the couch so
we could sit next to one another. 

“I’m sure you’ve
probably heard this poem before,” he said, flipping to a particular page in the
book.

“She walks in
beauty, like the night…” he began.

The rest of the
poem was a bit of a blur for me.  I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Brand’s face
while he read the poem aloud.  His mouth didn’t just say the words like you do
when a teacher forces you to memorize a poem for class and repeat it out loud
in front of your classmates.  He said the words as if he felt the meaning
behind each one.  They left his mouth like he was caressing them with his
tongue and lips.

“… A heart whose
love is innocent.”  He finished and closed the book staring at the leather
front.  “That’s how I imagine you are,” he said, “someone with an innocent
heart.”  He looked up at me.  “Have you ever been in love?”

It was an
unexpected question forcing me to hesitate long enough to quickly evaluate how
Will had made me feel once upon a time.

“I think so.  It
was a one sided love though.  He never returned my feelings.”

“Would it be
presumptuous of me to assume you’re talking about Will Kilpatrick?  Is that why
seeing him with that girl affected you the way it did?”

“It wasn’t really
Will’s fault.  He just didn’t feel the same way about me.  You can’t make
someone love you just because you want them to.  It has to be freely given or
it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Not many girls
your age would see it in such a mature light.”

“I guess if you’ve
thought about it as much as I have, it’s the only way to see it.”

Brand stood,
holding his hand out to me.  “I should probably take you back to your car. 
It’s getting late.”