Awake at Dawn (Shadow Falls #2)(45)

"Oh," he said.

"Oh?" she repeated. And now more than ever she wanted an answer.

"You made me ask, now you have to answer."

He hesitated. "A few."

"That's vague." She pulled her fingers from his.

He breathed in and then out. "Okay, four."

"That's more than a few."

"Sorry." He didn't deny that he'd been lying. "It just feels awkward talking about it with you."

"Yeah, it does," she said, realizing she didn't like knowing. Didn't like thinking about him being with someone else. "Sorry I asked."

"Don't be." He leaned back against the cabin wall and went back to listening to the night. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." A nervous flutter tickled her stomach. But considering how personal her own question had been, she couldn't tell him no.

"If Lucas were still here, would you still be sitting next to me?"

Chapter Fifteen

His question ran across all sorts of nerves and not the good ones, either.

"What kind of question is that?"

"Obviously a hard one." He pulled his knee up to his chest and stared down at his toes.

Something told her he was reading her right now-trying to understand her emotions. But how could he when she didn't understand them herself? "He's not here," Kylie said.

He looked over at her. "Rumor has it that he's coming back."

She felt her breath catch in her throat. "Doesn't matter," she forced herself to say. "He's with Fredericka."

"He'd drop her for you like this." Derek snapped his fingers. "He's not blind or stupid."

She shook her head. "Well, maybe I don't want anyone who'd run off with someone else."

He arched an eyebrow. "It's the 'maybe' in your answer that worries me more than the confusion you're feeling right now." He leaned his forehead down to hers. "Please don't break my heart, Kylie."

Her own heart almost broke right then. "It's the last thing I want to do."

He kissed her softly, then pulled back. "I should get you back to your cabin before everyone gets back here."

She nodded and accepted his hand to help pull her up. They started to walk off the porch when he stopped. "Oh, I forgot. I got something to give you." He ran back inside and returned after a few short seconds holding a piece of paper.

"What's this?" she asked when he put it in her hands. "It's a telephone number of a private investigator."

When he didn't continue, she asked, "And I need it for...?"

"You said you were trying to find your real grandparents. This guy is good at finding people. If anyone can find them, he can."

Kylie looked up from the paper. "Do you really think he could find them after all this time? I mean, I've been trying to just find Daniel's adoptive parents, but I can't even find them."

"He's that good," Derek said.

Her heart started to sink. "And probably that expensive. I can't afford him." She started to give him back the paper.

He caught her hand. "He's not charging you, Kylie. Call him." "Why wouldn't he charge me? You said he was a PI."

"Because he's a friend of mine. And I used to do some work for him on the side."

"You worked for a PI?"

"Yeah. I went to him to see if ... if he could help me locate my dad." That piece of news also surprised her. She didn't think Derek wanted anything to do with his dad. "Did he find him?"

"Yeah," Derek said. "You missed a great pizza tonight," he added, making it clear he didn't really want to talk about his dad.

But Kylie couldn't stop herself from asking. "And did you see him?" "No. I just wanted to know where the bastard was."

Kylie sensed Derek's pain. "So how did you end up working for the PI?"

"He found my skill of reading emotions very helpful."

Still wanting to soothe away the look of hurt from Derek's eyes, she reached up and planted another kiss on his lips. A good one. She pulled him close, so close that her one-cup-size-larger breasts were pressed against his chest. Derek's hands came down to hold her around her waist.

One of his palms slid up under her shirt and slowly shifted upward. He caressed her upper back, stopping right below her bra strap as if not wanting to cross a line. A line she almost wanted him to cross.

When she pulled away, her breathing came faster. "Thank you, for this." She held up the paper.

"Wow," he said, smiling, and touched her lips. "If he actually finds them, what do I get?"

She elbowed him in the ribs. He laughed and then wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they started back to her cabin.

At eight a.m. sharp the next morning, Kylie had one roommate out of the cabin-Della had left for her vampire rituals-and Kylie was working on getting rid of the other. She told Miranda to go on to breakfast without her. Kylie would catch up later. Miranda had stepped out the door but she'd stayed there for five minutes or so performing some kind of ritual.

Kylie finally poked her head out the door to ask, "What are you doing?"