The Perfect Liar (Last Stand 5)

It's not your grandmother that's making you nervous, she'd scoffed and begun touching herself.

That had distracted him, but he'd stil been terrified. I can't do it with you. My parents would have a coronary.

Why would they have to know?

What if they found out?

Take a chance, scaredy-cat.

I would if you were any other girl, but--

But what? What's wrong with me? Look. How many girls do you know with tits this big?

He'd looked, all right; he wasn't afraid to do that. She could tell he wanted her. But he'd stil argued. It's not your body. It's your screwed-up mind. Everyone says you and your sister are weird.

That comment had made her feel like a leper. But it wasn't her first snub. She wasn't blind. She saw the way people watched her whenever she went to the library or the drugstore, how they whispered behind their hands. Is that what you think? she'd asked.

I don't know, Shane had hedged.

He was a year younger than she was. Where did he get off acting as if he was too good! And that was when she'd decided to enslave him, to make him think of her constantly, to crave her. I'l show you weird, she'd said and backed him into a corner.

He hadn't had any complaints about her after that. Ten minutes later, he was sighing in ecstasy and telling her she was the only girl he'd ever love. But then her father had walked in and ruined everything. Shane was never allowed over again. And if she bumped into him in town, he wouldn't even look at her. He'd turn bright red and stare at his feet.

Then, when she was seventeen, there was the twenty-six-year-old her father had hired to help out around the grounds and drive the hearse.

Mark Cannaby. He'd loved her, would do anything for her. But she couldn't forgive him for what happened with that hitchhiker chick. She'd only stuck with him because it upset her parents.

Mark gave her quite an education before her parents caught on and put a stop to it. They played "hide the salami" everywhere--in the yard, in the coffins, on the embalming table. It was Mark's fault she'd had to have her first abortion. When she was a couple months along, her mother had heard her on the phone, trying to find an abortion clinic close to home and had dragged her across town, where no one would know them. She'd had to claim she was a runaway without the means to pay or Norma would've thrown her out. And her relationship with Mark had stalled shortly after.

Why she'd gotten involved with him, she had no idea. At least he'd kept quiet about the hitchhiker they'd secretly kil ed and cremated.

He should have kept quiet. It was his fault. She never would've done it without him.

"I know of at least two guys you slept with," Tati said.

"That was it," Kalyna responded, but there'd been a number of sexual conquests after Mark, including the postman. She stil laughed when she remembered him showing up at the door on any excuse, hoping she'd bring him to her room. She couldn't remember why she'd bothered with that old man in the first place. It wasn't as if she didn't have better candidates, especially once her e-mail address started circulating among the football players at the local high school. During what would've been her senior year, she met a group of boys at the cemetery down the street almost every Friday night and did them all. One time she had ten different boys taking turns with her. She'd wanted to do the whole team for homecoming, but someone spread the rumor that she had herpes and only a few showed up.

She got pregnant for the second time during those two months. She'd had no idea whose baby she carried, but she stil wished she'd told Logan it was his. Logan was the quarterback, but he never joined the group. He couldn't show up at the cemetery or someone would rat him out to his prude girlfriend, who'd barely let him kiss her, never mind get her naked.

He'd have Kalyna come to his house every few weeks, instead; he'd sneak her in through his window while his parents slept.

She liked being in his room, his bed, his space. Liked pretending she was his girlfriend. It made her feel as if she belonged with him, as if she was part of something good. His family was just an average middle-class American family, but he and his siblings went to public school, played sports, had lots of friends. She'd envied them and everyone associated with them.

Being pregnant and not using it to snag Logan was definitely a missed opportunity. She realized that now. But she'd been young and naive and so afraid of her mother finding out. She'd thought there'd be other opportunities, but she hadn't gotten pregnant since her second abortion.

"Anyway, the number doesn't matter," she told her sister. "Just because I've had sex with a few guys doesn't mean I wanted to have sex with this one."

Tatiana had reseated herself in the corner. "But you told me yourself that he was handsome. You said if I saw him, I'd stand in line to be with him. What was it about him you didn't like?"

Nothing. That was the problem. Luke Trussell was everything she'd ever wanted. Luke was Logan, only better. The way he'd made love to her had been different than all the others. He hadn't been quick or rough or selfish. He'd treated her with respect, made her feel like he cared about her. And that was the worst cruelty of all because his gentleness made it so difficult to settle for less.

"I wasn't in the mood for sex and he forced it, okay?"

"Fine," Tati said with a sigh. "Forget I said anything. I--You're my sister, and I love you regardless. So, come on. I have to prepare a lady who came in yesterday for her funeral on Monday."

"I think I'm going to leave." Kalyna fingered the frayed hole in her blue jeans. What kind of vacation was this? Taking shit from her parents again, helping her sister work. Besides, she really wanted to see Luke again, wanted to see how her actions were affecting him.

"Leave when?" Tati asked.

"Tonight."

"No!" Her sister got up and came over to take her hands. "Not so soon, Kalyna. I'l be sad if you go. Talk to me while I work. Then we'l go out to dinner, my treat, and you can tell me what it's like in California."

"What about Mom and Dad? Wil they let you out of their sight?" The Harters were so worried she'd somehow corrupt Tatiana that they wouldn't be happy to see them go out alone. You're nasty, her mother had once told her. Weird. Don't you dare put evil thoughts in your sister's head. She's a sweet thing, got a chance of being normal.

"They can't object if we invite them," Tati said.

"I don't want to invite them." Kalyna wasn't sure how much more of her parents she could tolerate. Do you know what a court-martial is?...Damn it, girl, we should've turned you over to the state when we had the chance...Oh, for crying out loud! You weren't raped! You can't rape the wil ing, Kalyna...How many abortions have you had, anyway?