Born at Midnight (Shadow Falls #1)(98)

"Mom, would you get real? I'l be seventeen in a few months. You've already raised me." Kylie hesitated and then added, "Besides, you should be dating and stuff."

Her mom's eyes widened. "I don't think I'm that brave."

"Why not? You're beautiful and with a new wardrobe, you could be ... hot." Her mom was much prettier than the tramp her father was involved with right now.

Her mom sighed. "When did my little girl grow up?"

"I don't know." Kylie grinned and lay back on the blanket. Her mom fol owed her lead and lay back. They listened to the creek water flow and stared up at the blue sky peeking out through the white cotton-bal clouds. Maybe it was Kylie's imagination, but she could almost hear the fal s even from here.

Final y, Kylie sat up. Her mom did the same. "Mom, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, hon."

Kylie looked at her mom and just blurted out the question. "Who is my real dad?"

Chapter Forty-two

Kylie saw her mom flinch. She didn't look at Kylie, almost as if trying to decide what lie to tel .

"The truth, Mom," Kylie said. "I need to know the truth."

Her mom final y looked at her. Both tears and panic fil ed her big brown eyes. "Who? Did your dad ... tel you?"

Which dad, Kylie thought, but didn't say it. She knew the one her mom meant.

Relief flowed through her. Her dad knew. Kylie hadn't wanted to believe her mom could have lied to him al these years. Then Kylie's relief vanished and she wondered if this was what the divorce was real y about. Had her dad just discovered he wasn't Kylie's biological father? Her heart tightened at the thought that the divorce was her fault.

"No, Mom, I promise. He didn't tel me. It was just ... a feeling." That much was true. She didn't have proof, she hadn't even asked Daniel. But the odd feeling that Daniel looked like someone she knew had final y made sense.

He looked like the girl she saw in the mirror every morning when she brushed her teeth-the same blue eyes, the same blond hair, the same bone structure. They even walked like each other.

And then there was his brain pattern. She kept seeing it in her head and then she remembered how Helen had described Kylie's pattern. But she couldn't tel her mom any of this.

"Plus, I don't look like Dad at al ," Kylie said instead.

Tears dampened her mom's cheeks. "Oh, baby. I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."

"What happened?" Kylie asked. "Please tel me the divorce isn't about this."

"No, baby." Her mom wiped her tears, and started talking. "I met him, Daniel Brighten, at the gym. He worked there. He was ... I don't even know how to explain it, but to say he was charming. Almost magical. I fel in love with him the moment I laid eyes on him."

Her mom stared off at nothing as if remembering. "He asked me out. On the first date, he told me that in three weeks he was set to ship out for the Gulf War. Three weeks was al we had. I know it sounds so wrong, and I'l lock you in your room if you ever do this, but ... after that first date I knew he was the one. By the third, I was ... There was nothing I wouldn't do for him. We were inseparable.

"When he left, he told me that when he came back, he was going to marry me. That he'd introduce me to his family. They lived in Dal as, so I'd never even met them."

Her mom's breath hitched. "Two weeks after he was deployed, I realized I was pregnant. In my next letter, I told him." She bit down on her lips, and more tears flowed. "He stopped writing. I thought..." Tears rol ed down her cheeks. "At first I thought it was because he didn't want the baby."

Drawing in a deep breath, her mom wiped her face. "About two weeks later, I saw his obituary in the paper. Now I don't even know if he got the letter."

Kylie's heart clutched and she remembered seeing Daniel pul the letter from his pocket to his lips. Tears fil ed her own eyes and she fought the need to tel her mom about her dreams, about Daniel coming to see her.

Her mom wrapped her arms around her knees as if she was cold. Kylie knew he was here. He stood beside her mom, looking at her with so much love in his eyes that Kylie's own tears came faster.

"I was ... only eighteen years old," her mom went on. "My mom might have understood, but my dad, he was ... it would have kil ed him. Your dad

-I mean your stepdad-we had dated off and on through high school. He ... always claimed he loved me."

She held her head up. "He cal ed me right after al this happened. I told him it wasn't a good time. He didn't take no very easily. He showed up at work and I went out and had coffee. I told him. I don't know why I did. But I needed a friend."

Her mom turned and looked right at Kylie. "He did what most men wouldn't do. He got down on his knees and asked me to marry him, right then."

Kylie thought about her dad, how much he must have loved her mom to have done that. But what happened to that man now? How could he be the same man who ...

Her mom continued. "He asked for one thing, one promise. He never wanted anyone to know that you weren't his." She pressed her hands against her lips again. "Your real father was gone. I was desperate. I never ... never realized how hard that promise would be to keep."

Kylie reached for her mom's hand.