"Damn!" His eyes filled with contentment for her. "You'll finally get your answers. Kylie Galen will know what she is. No more mystery."
"I hope so." An odd thought hit: What would her life be like when her quest changed? A wash of cold moved in behind her. She glanced back and just as quickly turned back around.
"I heard about your grandmother," Derek said. "And the rogue vampire. He really sacrificed himself for you?"
"Yeah." Her emotions took a nosedive. "All I saw in him was evil, Derek. But it wasn't true."
"It wasn't just you," he said. "That's what I saw, too. So I get how that makes you feel."
She sighed. That was the thing about Derek. He always understood her feelings.
"Thanks." Someone walked past, and for a crazy second she thought it was Ellie. But of course, it wasn't.
"I miss her, too," Derek said, reading her again.
Kylie looked up toward the sky. "Sometimes, I just wish heaven wasn't so far away."
Things grew quiet. When she looked back, Derek was staring at her. Staring at her the way the old Derek used to stare. The gold flecks in his eyes brightened against his green irises. She felt the world go fairy tale around her, and she noticed things. Things like how his shoulders looked like a soft place to rest her head.
"You were right, you know."
"Right about what?" she asked.
"Me pushing you away. It was the stupidest thing I've ever done. Then the mistake with Ellie, I ... messed up, Kylie, and it hurt you. I'm sorry. So damn sorry."
"That's history," she said, and another silence fell upon them.
"I talked to Holiday," he whispered.
His soft-spoken words had Kylie realizing that Holiday and Burnett weren't arguing anymore. Were they busy doing something else?
"Talked to Holiday about what?" she asked.
"About why I was feeling supercharged emotions around you."
Kylie bit down on her lip. She didn't need to know this now, did she?
Derek sensed her feelings. "I'm not expecting you to do anything. I just want you to know."
"Know what?"
He hesitated. "Holiday said that sometimes, when a fae really cares about someone, their emotions can become blown out of proportion. Most times, the problem goes away after they accept their feelings. So that's what I'm doing. Accepting it."
She opened her mouth to speak but didn't have a clue what to say.
He cupped his jeans-covered knees in his hands. They were jeans that fit him really well, too.
"I'm in love with you, Kylie." He looked almost embarrassed by the admission. He jumped up, took one step away, then swung around and faced her again. "I don't expect you to say it back, and I don't think this will change your mind about anything. But you deserved to know. And I needed to tell you because ... I've never felt this way before-for anyone."
Kylie sat there, his words running around her head, feeling ... Okay, what did she feel, exactly? First was confusion. Then came fear. Derek loved her. Her heart tightened.
She glanced up into his eyes and saw he was reading her emotions. Every one of them.
"I should leave now," he said, but he leaned down and pressed the quickest of kisses on her cheek. It reminded her of how Perry had kissed Miranda that night in the parking lot. Romantic. Sweet.
She just watched him leave. Then she fell back in the rocker and tried to decipher the emotions swelling in her chest.
"How can everything feel so right and yet wrong at the same time?" she muttered.
"Life's weird like that." The rocker beside her, the one Derek had just left, creaked slightly.
Kylie glanced over at the reclined spirit and frowned. "Things aren't going to get any easier, are they."
The spirit chose not to answer.
"Look," Kylie said, and pulled her knees up in the chair. "I don't have a lot of rules. But I told you, you're gonna have to do something about that face."
The ghost's face magically started healing, becoming normal. Kylie gasped. It wasn't seeing it happen that shocked her; it was the face. She recognized it.
"God, no."
The ghost disappeared. Kylie shot up to go find Holiday when another voice spoke behind her.
"Kylie?"
Recognizing Daniel's voice, she swung around. "Daddy," she said, and hugged him.
His cold arms came around her. When she pulled back, she saw he had tears in his eyes.
"That's the first time you called me that."
"I guess it just took me a while," she said.
He smiled and touched her face. "I met my real mother for the first time. She sure was proud of her granddaughter."
"She seemed sweet. She loved you so much."
"I know," he said. Suddenly he faded a bit. "I don't have much time, Kylie. But I found the answer you wanted."
"What answer?" she asked, scared to believe.
"What we are. My mother finally remembered."
"And?" Kylie held her breath.
"We're chameleons."
Kylie shook her head as she tried to grasp what he meant. "We're lizards? What does that mean?"
He faded a bit more. "I don't know."
"We can change our patterns. Is that what it means?" she asked.
"I have no more answers," he said. "But soon. Soon we will discover this together."
"Together?" she asked.
He nodded, and the cold and what vapor was left of his visual spirit faded even more.
"I'm going to die?" she asked as the icy tremors prickled her skin.
He didn't have the chance to answer, but she could swear she saw him shake his head. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.
She stood there on the porch, trying to breathe, trying to come to terms with what she had learned. She was a chameleon. She might be about to die. And ... she remembered the face of the ghost-the one who showed up before her father. She might not be the only one who was going to die.
"Holiday?" Kylie called out as she stormed back into the office.
Life really wasn't going to get any easier.