Born at Midnight (Shadow Falls #1)(83)

"I'm okay," she muttered, and pul ed back. Her sinuses stung, but the tears didn't fal .

"Is this one of your friends?" her father asked, motioning to Holiday.

Kylie looked at Holiday's camp-leader badge and wondered if her dad's dye job had fried his eyesight.

"I wish." Holiday held out her hand. "I'm Holiday Brandon, one of the camp leaders."

"You're kidding me," her dad said. "You can't be a day over twenty. And you don't look like any camp leader I've ever seen." His smile widened and his gaze shifted down Holiday's shapely form.

"No kidding." Holiday eased her hand from her dad's.

Kylie gawked at the man who had been her rock, who had been there through skinned knees, mom arguments, and even boy problems. The reality rol ed over her like a dump truck. Her father was flirting. With Holiday. Holiday who was ... wel , at least fifteen years younger than her dad.

"What happened to the gray in your hair, Dad?" Kylie blurted out.

Her dad looked back at her. "I ... I don't know."

"Wel , excuse me," Holiday said, and Kylie could swear she saw a smile appear in the woman's eyes. "I'l let you two visit."

Or not, Kylie thought. She didn't know this man, and she wasn't al that sure she wanted to get to know him, either.

* * *

"He wasn't like that before," Kylie said a little over an hour later, stil fighting the urge to cry. Kylie's dad had stayed less than an hour. Holiday, as if sensing Kylie was upset, asked her to go with her on a run into town to buy some supplies.

"Divorce is hard on people," Holiday said. "Trust me, when my parents divorced, they went total y bonkers, too. Mom even got breast implants and started borrowing my clothes."

"How did you survive?" Kylie asked.

"You just do. Of course, large ice cream consumption helps." Holiday smiled as she pul ed into the ice cream shop parking lot. "What do you say?

Wanna feed our worries with creamy, sweet, cold stuff?"

Kylie nodded.

Holiday reached for the door. "Fol ow my lead. First we have to sample at least five flavors each, then we order a triple scoop."

Kylie laughed. "What worries are you feeding?"

"Are you kidding? Do you know how many hours I've been stuck with Mr. Big, Bad Vampire?"

"Burnett," Kylie said, understanding. "Why don't you just say yes?"

"Yes? Oh, no. Over my dead fairy body. He's as irritating, rude, and obnoxious as he is ... hot."

"So you're in love, huh?" Kylie teased.

Holiday pointed a finger at her. "Keep this up, and you won't get any ice cream."

As Kylie and Holiday fed their faces with everything from chocolate mint to banana chocolate fudge, Kylie, hyped up on sugar, let a question slip that she normal y wouldn't ask. "How do you know you're in love?"

Holiday licked her spoon clean of her cotton candy-flavored ice cream. "You don't ask easy questions, do you?"

Kylie spooned up a bite of butter pecan. "Nope."

Holiday studied her ice cream. "I've thought I've been in love several times. A few times with my heart and even more times with my hormones."

Holiday's answer described Kylie's situation with Lucas and Derek perfectly. Kylie spooned up a bite of ice cream. "And none of those worked out?"

"Nope. That's the tricky thing about love. It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and smel s like a duck. But after you sleep with it a month or so, or get dumped at the altar by it, it starts smel ing more like a skunk."

Kylie leaned forward to ask. "Is this your fancy-dancy way of tel ing me I shouldn't sleep around?"

Holiday pointed her spoon at Kylie. "Nope, it's my fancy-dancy way of saying you gotta be careful." She leaned in. "Just because a guy rings your bel , doesn't mean you have to toot his horn."

Kylie laughed and so did Holiday.

Holiday stirred her ice cream. "If I could go back, I wouldn't have slept with three of the guys I did. But you can't go back. And the memories. Bad, bad memories are tattooed on my brain." She tapped her spoon against her forehead. "You can't even get them lasered off."

Kylie nodded. She had a few bad memories of her own that she couldn't shake, so she total y related. When they finished their ice cream, they walked next door to the used bookstore. Kylie happened to catch the title of a book that had been left on a shelf. Overcoming Dyslexia. Picking up the book, she flipped through it and wondered if Miranda had ever read it. She walked over to the counter and asked if they had any other books on this subject. The lady took her to a whole section of books about different disabilities. Kylie selected three more on coping with dyslexia and paid for them. Holiday was stil browsing, so Kylie stepped outside and took in the smal town's main street. It was quaint. Antique stores, specialty shops, and even a candy store-the kind of place her parents used to drag her to when she was a kid.

A couple walked past holding hands and Kylie tried to remember if, on any of those trips, her mom and dad had ever acted like they were in love. She couldn't recal ever seeing them holding hands. They always did their own things when they were out. Her dad played golf. Her mom shopped. Kylie had just moved over to Holiday's van when she spotted another couple step out of the bed-and-breakfast. They were kissing. Not the quick, touch of lips kind of kissing, but tongues moving in and out of each other's mouth like they were in heat or something. The kissing quickly progressed to the butt-grabbing stage. Find a room, Kylie thought, wondering if they knew they had an audience or if they even cared. Ahh, but wrong or right, Kylie couldn't look away.