Read Online Thirteenth Child by Karleen Bradford - Free Book Online

at her for a moment. Kate shrugged.
    “Nothing. Forget it.”
    Angie went on into the other room. Seconds later the TV blared out.
    Kate looked down at her hands. Her nails were chipped and broken. There was a hangnail on her thumb. She pulled at it with her teeth. The piece of flesh ripped off and there was sudden pain, a pain too great and out of all proportion to such a small wound.
    The heat wave didn’t let up in spite of a couple of thundershowers that just turned everything into a steam bath. Half the time Kate felt she was dragging herself through air as viscous and heavy as soup. On the first of July there was to be a parade and fireworks on the town beach at night. She had no intention of going, but Barney turned up after lunch with other ideas.
    “Come on, Kate,” he said. “Get your mom to take over and grab your bathing suit. We can swim, stuff ourselves silly with hot dogs, and watch the fireworks. Everybody will be there.”
    “I don’t want to, Barn,” she said. “I’m going to bed early.”
    “Kate, I haven’t seen you since school let out. You can’t just spend all your time here. Come on—it’ll be fun!”
    The more she argued, the more he insisted. When he even went so far as to get Angie to agree, albeit reluctantly, to take over, she finally gave up.
    “You win, Barn,” she sighed. “You really know how to get what you want, don’t you?” For a moment she wondered why he
did
want her to gowith him so much, then pushed the thought out of her mind. Understanding Barney was just too much work.
    “Get what I want?” he echoed. “I wish!” The tone of his voice was joking, lighthearted, but for a moment his eyes went as hard and blank as Mike’s. Kate was suddenly disconcerted.
    When they reached the town, however, Barney’s enthusiasm returned to the point where it was almost feverish. It was contagious, and, despite her conviction that she wasn’t going to enjoy herself, when the parade started she found her feet keeping time to the music in spite of herself.
    “Now aren’t you glad you came?” Barney asked later on, as they sat side by side on the beach after their swim. The lake was still chilly enough to make the sun actually feel good.
    “I guess,” Kate admitted. “Thanks, Barn, for dragging me out. You’re a good guy.”
    “You bet,” Barney agreed. “The greatest. Now, if you could just convince Melanie Davis of that, you’d be doing me a real favor.” He looked over at a group of kids sitting on blankets near them.
    The group had parked their car as close to the beach as possible, taken the stereo speakers, and propped them up on the roof. Music blasted out at an unbelievable level. Any other day the police would have turfed them out in seconds, but this day they could get away with it, it seemed. Melanie Davis was one of them, and Barney’seyes were fixed on her. Melanie, fully aware that most of the boys around her, as well as Barney, were looking at her, lay back with an exaggerated sigh. She flipped her hair away from her face, loosened the straps of her bikini top, and slipped them over her shoulders.
    So that was it. That was why he’d been so insistent on her coming here with him. He just wanted to see Melanie. And have Melanie see him. With her. Was he hoping to make Melanie jealous? Lots of luck. The corners of Kate’s mouth twitched down. She brushed sand off her legs irritably and tugged at her grungy green bathing suit. As if anybody would be jealous of her in
that,
anyway.
    Why should I care, she thought. It’s not as if I had a crush on him or anything. He’s just a friend. But still, deep down inside, no matter how ridiculous she told herself she was being, she felt betrayed.
    The fireworks were to begin as soon as it was dark. Kate and Barney found a spot from which to watch them and settled down. As Kate glanced around, waiting for the show to begin, she saw Mike sitting by himself near the dock. He saw her at the same moment. For an