Tainted Legacy (YA Paranormal Romance) (5 page)

“What, precisely, does that mean? Did you get her phone number? Do you have a date planned?” Rafe demanded when it became clear Gabe was not going to offer up any information unless he was forced to do so.

“No and no.” Despite his request that Ava show him around, he neglected to get her number. She had lherr. She ooked slightly disappointed and hesitant when they’d said goodbye. A sure sign, Gabe was convinced, that he’d left her wanting more.

Of him.

“I need you to find out where I can catch up to her next. Not that dump they were at tonight. The malts were fantastic but the place was a hole.” Gabe’s eyes never left the television.

Rafe stepped in front of him and shut it off. “I’ll track her down for you one more time. After that, you’re going to need to step it up. So far, I’m the one doing all of the work. Would you like to report to Father that you’ve only made contact twice with no further plans in place?”

“I
couldn’t
make contact before now. Remember the cuts on my face? The ones I
didn’t
have only a few hours later?” Gabe reminded him, unwilling to take any unnecessary blame.

“That excuses the past few weeks. It doesn’t excuse tonight,” Rafe insisted.

“Tonight, I left her lusting after me,” Gabe said with a smirk.

“Are you sure?” Rafe questioned.

“You have your talents, I have mine. There’s no doubt,” Gabe assured him.

“So which way does this chick blow?” Rafe asked.

“What?”

“Is she a total prude or is she the good girl totally gone wild?”

“I don’t know. She’s just
nice
,” Gabe said, mentally gagging on the word. He’d expected to hate the time he had to spend with Ava. The only thing he found he hated was that wretched girl, Julia. If she hadn’t been there the evening would’ve qualified as more than tolerable, perhaps even enjoyable. In the future, he planned on avoiding that girl at all costs. As it was, she’d sat in the booth, burning holes in his back with her imperious glare while Gabe had let Ava beat him at a game of darts. At least he
thought
he’d let her win. He wasn’t quite sure because toward the end, he tried to catch up and couldn’t quite manage to do so.

He had, however, totally annihilated her when they played a game of pool.

“You should’ve left her with plans for a date,” Rafe scolded him.

“I don’t do dating,” Gabe grumbled. “I’ve never actually dated a girl in my life. It’s too much work.”

“
Just tell her she’s pretty, open the door for her, bring her to fancy restaurants and buy her things. How hard can
that
be?” Rafe scoffed.

“Dating is complicated and confusing with way too much potential for things to go wrong. I’ve decided we’re just going to be buddies instead.
Pals
,” he sarcastically clarified. “I’m the new guy in town in need of a friend to show him around. Dating leads to crap like meeting her parents and trying to keep her happy.”

“Did Father approve this?” Rafe asked.

He shrugged. “I didn’t ask but you have to admit it’s a good idea. It’s a
better
idea. We’ll still have constant access to her. I’m not boyfriend material. I have a lot better chance at pulling the friend thing off if I try. I’ll throw in some flirting to keep her feeling flattered.”

Gabe clenched his teeth, debating if he should admit his weakness to his brother. He finally decided this particular problem wasn’t something he could use against him.

“It’s not just that. She grabbed my wrist tonight and it was all I could do not to snap it right back out of her hand. She has this
thing
around her neck.”

“A thing?”

“Yeah, you know, a…”

“What?” Rafe demanded.

“A cross.”

Chapter 4

“Don’t punch me if this sounds like the worst pick up line ever, but it must be fate that I ran into you tonight,” Gabe said with a wicked grin on his face.

“Exactly who are you trying to pick up?” Molly asked. She unconsciously twirled her curls around her finger as she cocked her head to the side. She returned his wicked grin with one of her own. “Oh, please let it be me.”

Ava choked on a laugh. “Molly, this is Gabe. Gabe, this charming, flirty girl is my friend Molly.”

“I like this friend,” he told Ava as he gave her a playful wink.

Molly let out a girlish giggle. “I heard all about the other night when you met Julia.”

“Is she here?” he asked. He scanned the crowd that had piled into the gymnasium for the Hunter Falls Elementary School Carnival. Little munchkins were running around with plastic bags full of goodies and cheeks plastered with mediocre artwork.

“She’s with Grier. Our two favorite wackadoodles are restocking the booths with more prizes,” Molly told him as she shamelessly checked him out from the tips of his shiny blond hair to the soles of his severely scuffed motorcycle boots. “Dude! How tall
are
you?” she demanded after she’d made her full assessment.

“Six-five,” he admitted with a grin.

“The way Grier huffed on and on about you I was picturing you as some tall, dark and creepy stranger. But you’re more like tall, blond and pretty,” she admitted with a great amount of appreciation.

“Call me ‘pretty’ again and I may be tempted to cut out your tongue,” he said in a tone that may not have been entirely teasing.

“Right, that was rude,” Molly admitted. She turned to Ava. “Beautiful is more like it. I would kill for eyelashes and cheekbones like that. Amazing. Even his eyebrows are perfect.”

“Anyhow,” Ava began as she shook her head and turned away from Molly, “what are you doing here?”

“I just dropped off some donations from the radio station,” he told Ava. “Some prizes for a raffle, I think. What are
you
doing here? Don’t tell me that this town has so little to offer by way of entertainment that two girls as pretty as you live for elementary school carnivals?”

Ava felt the heat flood into her cheeks at the sound of his smooth, teasing tone. “I live for community events that will raise my Civics grade,” she said with a laugh.

“Explain,” Gabe commanded with raised eyebrows.

“It means Ava cannot wrap her pretty little head around concepts like the functionality of technological innovations in the global trading community. So instead, she gets to volunteer at the animal shelter and wrap ribbons around kittens,” Molly told Gabe with an unabashedly flirty smile.

“I’ve never wrapped a ribbon around a kitten in my life,” Ava told Molly as she gave her a playful nudge.

“Uh-huh, sure,” Molly teased. “Anyhow, Oliver just showed up. He promised to win me a box of cupcakes so I’ll see you two children later.”

She shamelessly checked Gabe over one more time. He grinned back at her like he really didn’t mind.

“What it means, is that I have spent almost my entire senior year wrapped up in whatever community service event Mr. Risland decides is worthy,” Ava replied when Gabe returned his questioning gaze to her.

“In other words, you do a lot of community service but you don’t really like it?” Gabe asked curiously. A herd of children and their frazzled parents were working their way toward him. He moved out of the gym to a quieter spot in the hallway and Ava followed.

“No, I do enjoy it. Mostly. I mean, I like the feeling I get when I make other people happy but it’s taken up a lot of my time.  I’d never volunteer this much if my grade didn’t depend on it. This is my last event of the year and I couldn’t be more excited.”

Ava felt herself flushing again at the odd way Gabe was looking at her.

“What?” she asked curiously.

“Nothing,” he answered. “I just…nothing.” He shook his head instead of saying anything.

“Are you sticking around?” she wondered.

“I hadn’t planned on it but if I can spend some time with you, sure.”

“Okay. My friends and I were on the first shift so I’m pretty much done. I just need to go turn in these raffle tickets. Do you want to walk with me?” she asked, not bothering to fight the pleased smile that broke out on her face.

He nodded and followed her through the clusters of people. They darted around wandering children as they worked their way through the gymnasium. Most of the booths were set up in here. A duck pond, a fishing booth, some type of bowling game and a face painting station seemed to be the biggest hits with the cacophonous children.

They exited the gym into another hallway. There was a line leading into one of the classrooms. Some horrific type of polka music wafted out of the open door. Ava knew it was the room set up for the cakewalk. The music stopped and kids squealed.

“Why does she stare like that?” a cruel, female voice asked from the other side of the doorframe. “Kinda reminds me of this lizard my brother used to have.”

Ava felt her spine prickle. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard a comment like that. She knew Grier was delivering boxes of cupcakes for the game. She stopped in front of the door. Gabe nearly slammed into her. She scanned over the groups of people, finding Grier, lost in thought near the cake table as the music played.

“Why do you pick on her like that?” Ava heard Molly growl back. “Kinda reminds me of this bully I beat up in the third grade.”

“You okay?” Gabe asked.

Ava forced a smile. She couldn’t see Molly, or the owner of the other voice. They must be standing against the wall next to the door. No need to step in, she decided. Molly had it handled.

“I’m fine,” she said as she forced a smile at Gabe and kept walking.

“Where are we going?” Gabe wanted to know.

“I need to find Principal McDaniel. These,” she said as she held up an ugly maroon money bag, “are the tickets and the money for the bike that’s being raffled.”

Ava heard a little gasp beside her.

“You have the tickets for that bike?” a little boy with scruffy red hair, freckles and big brown eyes asked.

“Hey, Joshua,” Ava said, flashing him a big smile. “I was wondering if you were here.”

“I was following you,” he admitted. “You dropped this back there.” He held out his palm to show her the tube of mostly depleted lip gloss.

“Oh, thank you, sweetie,” she said as she stuffed the tube back into her pocket. “So you like that bike? It’s pretty cool.”

He nodded. “I really want to win it.”