Awake at Dawn (26 page)

Yup, she wanted to cry all right. The tightness in her throat made that crystal clear. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.” Was that enough of a reason to walk away? “You should have told me.” The loving father look on his face quickly changed to an unhappy father look. “I would have told you if you’d taken my calls,” he said in a dis-gruntled voice. It was a voice he didn’t use a lot, because her mom had always been the heavy.

“I’ve been busy,” she answered.

His eyes tightened. “We both know I left you about seven voicemails, two texts, and a couple of e-mails. And I don’t think you’ve been so busy that you couldn’t have returned just one of them. I even called your camp leader.”

The tears she didn’t want to come started filling her eyes just as anger started filling her chest. But she welcomed the anger, because it crowded out the hurt. She looked into his eyes. He had no right getting angry at her. No right to tell her what she’d done wrong when his wrongs had totally ruined her life. Ruined her mother’s life, too.

“Do you really want to talk about right and wrong?” she asked.

To his credit, his expression went from annoyed to ashamed in zero flat. “I guess your mom’s been talking to you. Damn it! She really shouldn’t have told you about our problems.” 215/375

“What? Are you kidding me? Are you seriously going to stand here and blame this on Mom?”

He blinked. “I just … I don’t think she should have said any—”

“Stop.” Kylie gripped her hands to keep them from trembling … or from punching him in the nose. Right then, she wasn’t sure which was more likely to happen. “Mom didn’t tell me anything.” Tears spilled down her face. “Mom didn’t have to tell me anything.
You
told me. No, wait. I misspoke. You didn’t
tell
me anything. You showed me.”

“What are talking about, Kylie?” He leaned in and lowered his voice as if hinting she should do the same.

But she was too mad, too hurt to care who heard their argument. He’d left her. He’d left her and her mom for some bimbo. The vision of him and his slutty little intern making out in front of the downtown B&B filled her head.

“Well, first you hit on Holiday when you came to visit me,” she said.

“That was embarrassing enough, but then I saw you in town later that day. You hadn’t come alone. And I saw you and your intern standing in the middle of downtown Fallen. You want to know why I remember it so well, Dad?”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out.

So she continued, “Because you had your
tongue
shoved down her throat while she had her
hand
jammed down your pants.” Kylie blinked and felt more tears spilling over onto her cheeks. “Lovely,” she seethed.

“It was such a lovely sight, seeing your dad practically get a hand job in public.”

Instantly, she realized that the entire room had gone deadly silent.

Damn!
Had she really screamed that out in the middle of the entire camp and their parents?

She glanced out at the crowd. Staring at her and her father. And from the look on everyone’s face, yeah, she had.

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Okay, now she really,
really
wished she’d taken her dad’s hint about lowering her voice. Turning around, not looking at her dad, not looking at the crowd, she walked out of the dining room, hoping she could get outside before she started crying in earnest.

She would have run, but exhibiting her superfast supernatural running skills would have caused even more of a scene.

So she walked slowly toward the exit and pretended she didn’t feel the tears gliding down her cheeks.

She pretended her heart wasn’t breaking.

She pretended that she didn’t know that about one hundred pairs of eyes were watching her go.

But pretending could only take her so far.

This … this was too damn real, and it hurt her too much.

Chapter Twenty-one

The knock sounded on her bedroom door not three minutes after she crawled into her bed and pulled the covers over her face and continued to cry. “Go away,” Kylie called out.

The door opened. She yanked the cover from her face, expecting to see Holiday. But nope, Derek stood there with a heck of a lot concern for her shimmering in his eyes.

Seeing it only made her start crying harder. She cried because of her dad, and she cried because she felt bad about the dreams she’d had about Lucas. Derek rushed over to the bed and pulled her against him. If he read any of her emotions about guilt, he didn’t say it. He just held her.

And she loved him for doing that, too.

She buried her head on his shoulder and continued to sob in his arms.

She didn’t care that she was getting tears and snot all over his shirt. His arms felt so good wrapped around her and while he didn’t say it, the way he held her said he didn’t care about his shirt, either. Good thing, because when she got through crying, it was really going to be a mess.

“Hey?” Another voice came from the open door.

Kylie pulled away and saw Della and Miranda standing there.

“I could turn him into a toad if you want,” Miranda said, waving her pinky. “Or maybe a skunk. I could use the practice.” Socks, who’d been sleeping at the foot of the bed, raised his head, meowed loudly as if in agreement, and then shot off to hide under the bed.

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Della snarled. “I could pick him up and drag him up a tree and then drop him on his head a few times until he comes to his senses.” Kylie cried harder and then for some reason she started laughing. She wiped her eyes and looked at three of the most beautiful people in her world right now. “Did I really say that in front of all your parents?”

“Yup. I think my dad had a stroke,” Della said, grinning from ear to ear. “It came just at the right time, too. He’d been grilling me about drugs again.”

“My mom passed out cold,” Derek teased.

Then they all started laughing. Kylie collapsed against Derek again.

When she pulled back, she wiped her face and looked up.

And that’s when it happened. That’s when Kylie’s whole world opened up in a way it never had opened up before.

She blinked. At first, she thought there was just something wrong with her eyes. But nope. There was no mistaking it. She could see inside their foreheads. She could see into them the way she’d seen into Daniel’s head in the vision. She, Kylie Galen, could finally see supernatural patterns.

“I’m doing it, guys! I’m finally doing it!” She started bouncing up and down on the bed. “Holy crap, I’m really doing it.”

“Doing what?” a familiar voice asked from the doorway.

He didn’t call her pumpkin this time, but she recognized her dad’s voice. He stood beside Holiday, who glanced at Kylie with a huge apology in her eyes. Obviously, her father had demanded she bring him here.

“Can I have a word with my daughter alone?” He stepped inside her bedroom.

“Only if that’s what she wants,” Derek said, sounding defensive and older.

Kylie rested her hand on Derek’s arm. “It’s okay.” Derek stood from the bed, but he didn’t stop glaring at her dad for one minute. To her dad’s credit, he just stood there and took Derek’s angry 219/375

stare as if he knew he deserved it. Della actually growled, and Miranda twitched her little finger at him.

Kylie hoped she remembered to give each of them a big hug later.

“Come on, guys,” Holiday said, and motioned for them to leave. They all stepped out of the room. Then Holiday reached in, her concerned gaze meeting Kylie’s eyes right before she closed the door.

* * *

Kylie pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. Her heart must have dropped to her stomach because she could feel it pound in the pit of her gut. She stared at the top of her jeans-covered knees and not at him, because looking at him hurt too much.

Besides, if she looked at him, she might start crying again, and she didn’t want to do that.

He sat down beside her on the twin bed. From the corner of her eye, she saw him fold his hands together in his lap. She heard him breathe.

She heard herself breathe, too.

She closed her eyes.

Sooner or later, one of them had to talk. But for once Kylie decided not to be the bigger person here. Let him do all the work.

“I screwed up,” he finally said. “I never dreamed I could screw up so badly.”

Opening her eyes, she forced herself to look at him. The first thing she noticed was that he looked like her dad again. He wasn’t wearing those tight jeans. His hair was combed like it should be and not spiked. He still had the highlights in his hair, but alone, they weren’t so bad.

“I don’t blame you for being furious at me, but I do love you, Pumpkin.” He rested his hand on her knee and his touch sent tiny pinpricks of pain rushing to her heart. Tears filled her eyes.

She blinked, but didn’t trust her voice to say anything just yet. And even if she did trust it, she wasn’t sure what to say.

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“I never wanted to hurt you,” he continued. “I never dreamed that you’d be in town that day.” He shook his head, closed his eyes, and when he opened them back up, she saw something she’d never seen before. Her dad was crying. Real live tears, too. The ache in her chest doubled.

“I don’t know what got into me, Kylie. I lost my head. I turned forty and then your grandmother got sick and she died.” He inhaled. “All I could think about was getting old. Then Amy—the girl at the office—she started flirting and it made me forget everything for a little while.” His breath caught. “It made me forget that the most important people in the world to me are you and your mom.”

Kylie knew it was her turn to talk, but she still didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t say she forgave him, because she didn’t. Then a thought struck.

“Did your girlfriend break up with you?” Was that the only reason he was here now?

“Yeah.” He looked embarrassed. Kylie was surprised he hadn’t tried to deny it. “But that’s not why … I’d already realized how badly I’d screwed up before we broke up.”

She remembered her mom telling her how her dad had deserved someone to love him as much he had loved her all those years. That’s when Kylie felt a small part of herself give in. She couldn’t stay mad at him forever. She just couldn’t. Maybe she
was
ready to forgive.

He reached over and ran his hand over her head, the way he’d done all her life. “I love you, Kylie. You’re my daughter.”
No, I’m not.
She remembered that he’d made her mother promise not to tell her about her real father and her anger returned.

She batted at her cheeks to remove her tears. Then she offered him the only thing she could. “I’m hurt and I’m really mad at you right now. As soon as it stops hurting so much, I might be able to forgive you. But not now.”

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He nodded. She watched a tear slip from his lashes. He wiped it away.

Then he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss on her forehead. “I love you, Pumpkin. Just remember that.”

As Kylie watched him get up to leave, she realized that just because you couldn’t forgive someone didn’t mean you stopped loving them. She bounced off her bed and wrapped her arms around her daddy. He hugged her back. He hugged her so tight. And it felt so good, she wept on his shoulder. Big tears. Dinosaur tears he’d called them when she was young.

She knew that in just a second she was going to have to let go, and that she still wouldn’t tell him he was forgiven, because he wasn’t. But for just a few seconds she wanted to feel that her daddy loved her. And while she wasn’t up to saying it yet, she hoped he understood she still loved him, too.

* * *

A few minutes after her dad left, Kylie was still stretched out on her bed when Holiday knocked on her door.

“You okay?” Holiday poked her head in the door.

“I’m working on it.” Kylie had stopped crying. Something about her daddy’s hug had eased some of the ache.

“You mind company, or would you like to be alone?”

“Company would be nice.” She tried to see around Holiday. “Is everyone still out there?”

Holiday stepped into the room. “Just me. I made them go back and visit with their parents for a while.”

“Good,” Kylie said, and then recalled the scene she’d caused in the dining room. “I’m sorry about everything. I just lost it.”

“Please.” Holiday dropped onto the bed beside Kylie. “We needed a little excitement. I mean, if something crazy doesn’t happen every fifteen minutes, it just doesn’t feel right.” She giggled.

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Kylie grinned and then she remembered, excitement buzzing in her chest. “I did it. I…” She twitched her eyebrows and looked at Holiday.

“I’m doing it now. I can see your pattern. You’ve got some horizontal lines and then … and then triangle shapes on the left.”

“That’s great!” Holiday hugged her. “I knew it would happen for you.

Congratulations.”

“But does this mean I’m opening up, too? That people can read me now and I won’t come across like a snooty bitch anymore? And can … oh, man!” Hope started to build. “Can you see what I am? Look and tell me.” Holiday stared at Kylie’s forehead. Her expression told Kylie the answer before Holiday spoke.

“Sorry. You’re still a snooty bitch.” Holiday grinned. “But it will happen any time now. Opening up takes more practice. Are you still doing your visualization exercises?”

“Not as often as I should,” Kylie admitted. “But I’ll start being better, I promise.”

“Have you experienced any more of the sensitive hearing?”

“No. Why? Does that mean anything?” Did Holiday know something she wasn’t saying? Did she think Kylie was back to being a werewolf now?

“No. I was just curious.” Holiday reached up and tucked a strand of Kylie’s hair behind her ear. “Are you really okay? You’ve had a rough few days.”

“Tell me about it.” Kylie’s thoughts went back to the girls who were killed. She looked at Holiday. “What if … What do I do if those girls from town—their ghosts, I mean—come to me to help them?” Holiday gripped Kylie’s hand. “That won’t happen.”

“How can you be so sure? If their spirits are still here and—”

“It won’t happen,” Holiday said with more certainty this time.