Awake at Dawn (Shadow Falls #2)(65)

Kylie turned around and went to the table to start pouring glasses of iced water.

Ten minutes later, the noise in the dining hall rose as more parents arrived.

Kylie looked around and her thoughts went to her mom again. Not that her mind lingered on Mom too long. Nope. She had better things to knock around in the batting cage of her mind. Like the realization that Kylie had been barging into Lucas's dreams and handing him a dream script that read: let's get naked, go for a swim, and make out. Not that he'd exactly been complaining about it.

Oh, and the best part, according to Holiday, was that Lucas would remember these dreams, too. So when he came back to the camp-if he came back-she'd have to face him.

Nope. She definitely didn't want to think about that.

She grabbed another tray and started lining up glasses to fill with water.

"It's Kylie, right?" A soft voice spoke beside her.

Kylie glanced up from the tray. The woman appeared to be in her early fifties. She wore her dark hair short in a classic older lady cut, and her soft green eyes studied Kylie with a smile.

"Yes, it's Kylie." She forced herself to smile back and she was glad she did. It took her only another second after noticing the eye color to recognize the woman. "Hi, Mrs. Lakes."

Kylie looked around to see if she could find Derek, thinking his mom was obviously looking for him. "I haven't seen him, but I'm sure-"

"Oh, he's right over there." She pointed in the opposite direction from where Kylie looked. Kylie was tempted to turn around and find him, but something kept her from it. She recognized the emotion right off the bat.

Guilt. Guilt about her dreams.

Please don't break my heart. Derek's words echoed in her head and she realized it would break her heart if she knew Derek was skinnydipping in his dreams with some other girl.

Staring back down at the plastic glasses lined up like dominos on the tray, she hoped Derek wasn't close enough to read her emotions.

The woman put a hand on Kylie's arm and leaned in. "I told him I wanted to snag a glass of water."

"Oh, here," Kylie reached down and picked up a glass.

"Thank you, dear," Mrs. Lakes said, but she winked. "Actually, I just wanted to say hello and tell you..." She leaned in again. "You are practically all he ever talks about."

The guilt in Kylie's chest doubled, but this time she couldn't stop herself from looking over the woman's shoulder at Derek. He made a face at her as if he was worried about what his mom might be saying.

"I think my son is sweet on you," Mrs. Lakes said.

Kylie shifted her focus back to Mrs. Lakes but she didn't know how to answer. "I..."

The woman smiled. "I'm so glad he found nice friends here." She looked down at her glass. "Now, I'll leave and stop embarrassing you. Thank you for the water."

As Kylie watched the woman walk away, she muttered, "I'm sweet on him, too." And she was. What wasn't to like about Derek? She liked him for his easygoing ways, she liked the way he was nice to everyone and didn't think he was better than anyone else. She liked him in other ways, too.

The vision of him standing naked in the shower filled her mind. She was really, really sweet on Derek.

So, why hadn't she barged into his dreams? Why wasn't Derek the one whom her subconscious went to for fulfilling some kind of naughty fantasy? Feeling her face heat up just thinking about this in public, she looked back down at the glasses of ice water.

"Hi, Pumpkin."

Thoughts of fantasies immediately took flight. Hi, Pumpkin. Hi, Pumpkin. Realizing who stood right behind her, she froze. Even if she hadn't recognized the voice, only one person called her pumpkin.

She turned and lifted her eyes to her dad ... stepdad. "What are you doing here?" she blurted out, and damn it if she didn't want to drop to the floor, curl up in a ball, and start to cry.

"What do you think I'm doing? I came to see my girl." He smiled and looked at her the way he used to when she did something cute, or when she showed him a good report card.

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 disgruntled 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."