Off! Off! Off! She mentally jabbed at the off button in her mind. Derek shifted and dropped down in the chair beside her. She didn't want to look at him, afraid that her doing so would increase the leakage of hormones, but not looking at a person was exceptionally rude. Or so said her mom.
"Everything okay?" Derek asked, probably aware she still hadn't looked at him.
"Don't be rude," she could almost hear her mom say. "It's fine." She looked at him. And because she'd been avoiding him for the last few days, she practically gobbled up his image. Her breath caught. Holy moly, did he look good.
Oh, yeah, she was so gonna blame this on her mom!
He was a tad sweaty, not yucky sweaty, but yummy sweaty. His skin glowed a bit, and he smelled a little like sunshine, as if he'd soaked up all the good scents from his hike. She figured his skin would taste a little like salty sunshine if she pressed her lips against it. His brown hair curled up on the tips and looked windblown. He wore a dark green T-shirt that hugged his torso. And the jeans he wore were his favorite. Or at least, it was the pair he wore more than others. She recognized them both because the knees were faded and they fit him snugger than most. And snug looked really, really good on him.
Della's snicker drew Kylie's attention away from Derek. The vampire grinned and waved a hand in front of her nose. Realizing what she meant, Kylie felt her face turn red.
When she stole another glace at Derek, his gaze had shifted and was now glued to her boobs. Which probably meant that he was at this second polluting the air with all kinds of pheromones as he tried to figure out how the girls had grown overnight.
"I ... I gotta go find Miranda." Kylie popped up from her chair and shot out of the dining room like someone wearing white and in desperate need of a tampon.
"Miranda, you here?" Kylie called out as she entered the cabin five minutes later.
Her friend came scurrying out of Kylie's bedroom. She had panic plastered on her face and tears filled her eyes. Tears in Miranda's lovesick eyes had pretty much been the norm these last few days, but something appeared different. Kylie sensed it right away. And yeah, it had a little something to do with the fact that she'd stormed out of Kylie's bedroom immersed in a cloud of guilt.
"I'm so sorry," Miranda said, and hiccupped. "Really, really sorry."
"Really, really sorry about what?" Had Miranda found Lucas's letters and read them? Purposely invaded her privacy?
"I didn't mean to do it."
"Didn't mean to do what?" Kylie insisted, feeling her patience seep out like a balloon with a pinhole. Those letters were private. Heck, she hadn't even read the second one. When she'd returned from the falls, she'd stuffed it in her drawer with the other one. Told herself she'd read it tonight, or maybe tomorrow, or maybe even never. She wasn't sure her heart could handle dealing with whatever Lucas might say on top of everything else she had on her plate.
"I've done it dozens of times before, and I never had a problem undoing it until now. Please, please don't be mad at me."
Kylie suddenly got the feeling this wasn't about Lucas's letter. "What did you do?"
Miranda's gaze shot back to Kylie's bedroom, but when Kylie took a step, Miranda moved in front of her. "I'll fix it. I swear I will. I'll figure it out. I won't sleep or eat until I fix this."
"Fix what?"
"Please don't be mad."
Kylie physically moved Miranda. Then she walked into her bedroom to find out what Miranda didn't want her to see and swore she would fix.
Kylie's gaze shot first to the bedside table where she stored her most private things. The drawer was closed. No letters were strewn on the nightstand. A movement on her bed caught her eye. She shifted her gaze.
She blinked.
She screamed.
Then she hauled ass out of her bedroom in less than a flicker of a second.
She ran right into Miranda, who caught her by her forearms. "I'm sorry. So sorry."
Kylie caught her breath. "Why...?" She inhaled. "Why is there a skunk in my bed?"
Kylie felt a familiar brush against her ankle. She looked down expecting to see Socks. But nope. No Socks.
Kylie screamed again and jumped clear across the room.
The skunk raised its pointed little head in the air, meowed, and came scurrying after her.
"I'm so sorry," Miranda cried.
Kylie looked up at Miranda and then down at the skunk quickly approaching her. Its paws pranced up in the air in a very familiar and very cute feline kind of way.
Socks?
"No," Kylie said. "Tell me that's not ... Oh crap, you didn't!"
"I'll fix it. I will," Miranda said.
Kylie had just returned from art hour with Helen and Jonathon.
Pacing, she stood in front of the office, waiting for her two o'clock appointment with Holiday. How was Kylie going to tell the camp leader that she'd ratted out her past romance with a vampire?
By the way, did you know that Burnett didn't know you used to date a vampire? Nope, that wouldn't do.
Hey, Burnett and I were talking and I happened to mention how you had your heart chewed up by one of his kind. That didn't sound like it would go over too well, either.
"Kylie?" Derek called out to her.
Oh, crappers!
She saw him walk though a crowd of campers waiting to sign up for kayak classes and she resigned herself to facing him. However, she did take several steps away from the crowd.
"Hey." He stopped in front of her and studied her carefully. "Hey." She moved in backward steps, continued to motion him to follow her another ten feet away from the crowd.
His gaze stayed glued to her eyes as she continued to move in reverse. "Have I done something wrong?"
"No." She shook her head.
"Then have you been smoking something? Because you're acting really weird."
She completely understood why he thought she'd lost track of reality. However, in her defense, her reality for the last six weeks was completely different from the one she'd grown up believing in.
"It's not ... it's..." She glanced around to make sure no one with superhearing powers was in close range. "I'm embarrassed, okay?"
"Embarrassed about what?" His gaze lowered to her breasts. "That?"
She reached out, put her finger under his chin, and brought his face up. At least he had the decency to blush.
"Sorry. It's just they ... you're..."
"Bigger. I know."
He reached out and caught a handful of her hair. "And your hair is longer."
"I'm taller, too," she said.