Chosen at Nightfall (A Shadow Falls Novel) (22 page)

“That will be forty-two and ninety-six.”

Kylie went for the bills Holiday gave her. “Shit,” Kylie mumbled when she saw she didn’t have enough.

“Excuse me?” the little old man said, now not only offended that she was pregnant but because of her language.

And he should be offended—by the language. She knew better than to curse in public. But face it, the man’s opinion of her was already in the pits, what was one little word going to matter? But still, she offered, “Sorry.”

“Do you want to buy these or not?”

She nodded. “Yes, it’s just … I don’t think I need three. Just two.”

Frowning, he looked down at the boxes. “Which one would you like to return?”

She took a deep breath, realizing somewhere along the line she’d stopped doing that.

Then, remembering her mom’s credit card—to use only in case of emergencies—she pulled out Holiday’s phone and then the little wallet. “Never mind, I’ll take them all.”

Tossing the card on the counter, she bit down on her lip. She wasn’t sure this was the kind of emergency her mom was referring to, but getting away from this man’s judging eyes seemed pretty important.

He studied the card carefully.

Friggin’ great. Now he was suspecting her of credit card fraud.

“It’s good!” Kylie said. “I swear.”

He didn’t look convinced. “Can I see an ID?”

She heard Burnett and Holiday somewhere a few aisles behind her. Biting her lip, she opened her wallet and let him see her driver’s license. She had never seen anyone take so much time reading a license.

Fear that she was going to let Holiday down had her stomach clenching. “I’m kind of in a hurry,” Kylie said.

Finally, he dropped her license and finished the transaction. She heard someone shift behind her, and her heart tightened. She glanced down to see shoes, praying they weren’t going to be Burnett’s tennis shoes.

It wasn’t Burnett. A pair of dress shoes, the kind businesspeople wore, adorned the feet of the man standing behind her. Thank God.

The cashier pushed a receipt over to her. “Would you mind some informational pamphlets?” he asked.

“Fine.” Kylie signed the receipt then watched him drop sex pamphlets in her bag with the pregnancy tests.

Little did he know, those pamphlets were outdated. She’d read those over a year ago.

When at last he handed her the bag, Kylie swung around to leave, but came to an abrupt stop when she saw the face of the man standing behind her.

“Oh, shit,” Kylie said again.

Chapter Twenty

Holy hell! Of all the people in the world to have witnessed her buy three pregnancy tests, this was the absolute worst.

“They are for a friend,” Kylie blurted out.

“What?” her grandfather asked, and his brow wrinkled with concern when he looked at her little white sack. Okay, so he obviously hadn’t seen her purchases. But now he probably thought she was buying condoms or something. And with this size sack, she was stockpiling them, too.

All of a sudden, Kylie realized a concern bigger than her grandfather thinking she’d bought a bag of rubbers. If Burnett spotted her grandfather, there would be hell to pay.

“What are you doing here?” Kylie’s nervous gaze zipped around praying she wouldn’t spot Holiday or Burnett. She didn’t.

“I wanted to bring you this.” He pulled her the phone out of his shirt pocket. “And to make sure you believed that I wasn’t behind the ploy to keep you from leaving. I gave my word to Burnett. I don’t do that lightly. I will go now.”

Kylie couldn’t help it, she moved in for a hug and she clung to him a fraction of a second longer than she should.

For when she pulled back, she saw Burnett barreling down the aisle toward her.

Thankfully, her grandfather vanished.

“What the hell?” the cashier said behind her.

“This is why you wanted to come here!” Burnett bit out.

“Is there a problem?” the cashier asked, and then added, “Did you see…”

“It’s fine,” Kylie said, and waved at the cashier.

“I wouldn’t say it’s fine,” Burnett said. “I’m tired of these lies!”

“Should I call the police?” the cashier asked.

“No,” both Burnett and Kylie said at the same time.

Burnett took her by the arm and started leading her out.

“Are you okay, young lady?” the cashier called out.

“I’m fine.” Kylie looked back. “He’s my friend.” Never mind he wasn’t acting like it.

“What happened?” Holiday came running up.

“Let’s get out of here first,” he seethed, and glanced at Kylie, eyes bright with anger.

He led them to Holiday’s car parked right out front.

“What happened?” Holiday looked at Kylie because obviously she knew Burnett was being unreasonable.

She clicked open the car locks a fraction of a second before Burnett yanked open the back door. The angry vamp motioned for Kylie to get inside.

Kylie hesitated, not sure what to say. She knew Burnett was furious about her grandfather showing up, but that wasn’t her fault.

She held her shoulder back. “If you will let me explain…”

“Get in the car!” he demanded.

Now angry at him for being so damn unreasonable, she flung herself in the backseat. Burnett reached in and snatched the bag from her hands. And then slammed the car door shut.

Oh, hell! This was not going to go well.

Kylie peered out the window. Burnett shot around to the driver’s side of the car and motioned for Holiday to get in the passenger side.

As soon as Holiday got in, she flipped around to look at Kylie with questions in her eyes.

“My grandfather was there,” Kylie said.

“She lied to you!” Burnett snapped out. “She didn’t need any damn tampons! This was a ploy to see her grandfather!” He shook the sack at her.

“It was not a ploy!” Kylie leaned up and gripped the back of the passenger’s seat.

“She didn’t lie!” Holiday pressed a hand to Burnett’s arm. No doubt to calm the man.

All Kylie could think was she needed a touch, too. Because right now all the anger at the vampire for keeping secrets from her rose back up and was accompanied by her anger at being falsely accused. “I did not know he was going to be here!” she said, her voice an octave too high.

“She couldn’t have known he was going to be here,” Holiday said.

The fierceness in Burnett’s expression lessened, but not enough to make Kylie happy.

He stared at Holiday. “She asked to come here and you expect me to believe it’s a coincidence that he just shows up?”

“I didn’t tell him I was coming here.” Kylie bounced back on the seat and folded her hands over her chest and the whole incident reminded her of being in the car when she was a kid and angry with her parents.

“Wait,” Holiday said. “Did you tell Hayden where we were going?”

The frown line between Burnett’s eyes deepened. “You think he told—”

“You shouldn’t even be upset!” Kylie snapped. “All my grandfather wanted to do was give me my phone and tell me he wasn’t behind the ploy to kidnap me. And you get all vampire pissy on me!”

“I went pissy on you because you already lied to me several times!” Burnett shook the bag for emphasis. Shook it hard.

Kylie held her breath, fearing the worst. Then the worst happened. It almost looked like slow motion. The bag ripped and three pregnancy tests along with a pamphlet on safe sex and one on gonorrhea landed on the front seat with Holiday and Burnett.

Burnett looked down, gasped, and then looked up at Kylie. “For God’s sake!” he muttered.

“Wait!” Holiday spoke up, and then she burped. Really loud.

Burnett ignored Holiday and stared at Kylie. “If you are old enough to have sex, you are old enough to know about using protection!”

Kylie opened her mouth to speak, but she didn’t have a clue what she was going to say. Then it just spilled out. “I know all about condoms.”

He scowled tighter. “Then why the hell are you in this mess!”

“Wait, Burnett,” Holiday said. “You don’t understand. Kylie’s not in the mess.”

Burnett was too focused on giving Kylie hell to listen to Holiday’s confession.

“Actually, condoms are only eighty-five percent effective at preventing pregnancy,” Kylie said, still seething.

“If you use them right, they work! I spoke with Lucas about this very thing a couple of weeks ago. I damned well told him he’d better be careful.”

“Burnett,” Holiday scolded.

Oh, but Kylie wished she’d just shut up and let the vampire bury himself a little deeper. And right then she decided to hand him a shovel. “I didn’t buy them for me,” Kylie said. “I bought them for a friend.”

“You’re not … pregnant?”

“Not unless these pamphlets lie and you can get pregnant by sitting on a toilet. I told you, they are for a friend.”

Burnett’s eyes rounded. “Miranda? Shit! I had the same God damned talk with Perry.”

“Sometimes this just happens,” Kylie said, much calmer now that she had a sneak preview of his comeuppance.

“Just happens?” Burnett bellowed out. “Are you freaking kidding me! If you have sex, you use protection. It’s that simple. This shit doesn’t have to happen! This is nothing but carelessness. It’s irresponsible. It’s unforgivable.”

“Burnett!” Holiday rolled her eyes at Kylie and frowned. The fae knew exactly what Kylie was up to now.

But Kylie wasn’t finished yet. “Maybe we should put a rule in place. Any male who impregnates a girl should be neutered.”

“Enough,” Holiday snapped.

“Actually, that’s not a bad plan!” he growled.

“Burnett!” Holiday said in a stern voice. “Shut up before you embarrass yourself more than you already have.” When the vampire looked at Holiday, she continued, “Kylie didn’t buy the pregnancy tests for Miranda. She bought them for me.”

Kylie flopped back against the seat again, enjoying the look of disbelief on the vampire’s face a little too much. “Would you like a name of a good doctor who will schedule your little snip-snip operation?” she bit out.

Chapter Twenty-one

The thing about sweet revenge was it was never as sweet in hindsight. Burnett was … stunned. He turned around and started the car. He drove back to Shadow Falls without saying one word. Holiday sat there hiccuping and looking as if she might cry. Obviously, Burnett’s reaction wasn’t exactly what Holiday had been hoping for.

Or maybe, Kylie realized, it was exactly what the fae had feared. She recalled Holiday telling her that Burnett wasn’t sure he wanted to be a father. Kylie suddenly wanted to apologize for her part in announcing the fact so … hurtfully, but the moment didn’t feel right.

After parking the car, Burnett saw Perry as they walked through the gate, and called him over and asked him to see Kylie to her cabin.

“What up?” Perry asked, studying Kylie and then looking back at Burnett walking away. “I’ve never seen him looking so … stunned. It’s as if the lights are on but nobody’s home.”

“Nothing,” Kylie said, and she wanted to cry, to smack herself for being so thoughtless.

As soon as Kylie got back to her cabin, she headed straight to her bedroom.

But Della shot across the room and blocked the door. “What’s wrong?” Della asked. “First you come to class crying, then Holiday shows up acting all weird, and now you come in looking like a kicked puppy. And don’t tell me it’s none of my business, I’m your friend, that gives me all the rights in the world to butt into your personal life.”

Kylie gave Della a hug. “I love you.”

“Okay … I … I wasn’t trying to get all mushy?” Della said, and pulled back.

“I know, but you were,” Kylie said. “Unfortunately, I can’t … talk about any of this right now. I need to make a few phone calls.” She motioned for Della to step away from the door. She did, but begrudgingly.

Kylie’s first phone call was to warn Hayden that Burnett might possibly arrive and be on the warpath.

“Why? What the hell did I do this time?” Hayden asked.

“My grandfather showed up at the drugstore. I’m assuming you told him where I was.”

“Oh, damn it! I did mention it, but … I never thought he’d go there. I guess I’ll start packing my bags,” he muttered.

“No,” Kylie said. “Please. Just explain that you didn’t know he was coming. Just … placate Burnett. Say anything. But … don’t leave. I need you here. And … don’t be too hard on him. He … he’s having a hard day.”

“What happened?” Hayden asked.

“He had to put up with me,” Kylie said.

“Oh, that would be rough,” Hayden said teasingly, but Kylie wasn’t in a humorous mood.

Off the phone with him, Kylie called her stepdad. She talked to him a good five minutes, assuring him she was okay, and that she’d lost her phone, but now she found it and was sorry she missed his calls.

She could tell from his voice that he was upset to learn that her mom was in London. Or maybe it wasn’t just his voice telling her this, but his words. “God damn, she should have told me she was leaving the country!”

“I’m sure she just forgot,” Kylie lied, unsure of anything else she could say.

Hanging up with him, Kylie suddenly felt her left pocket vibrate. Oh, crap. She’d completely forgotten she still had Holiday’s phone.

Pulling her phone out, she saw Burnett had sent Holiday a text. Her gut said that Holiday needed to read it. She ran out of the room and hollered at Della. “Let’s go.”

Knowing Della would catch up, Kylie lit out the door. In a matter of seconds, Della was moving beside her.

“Where are we going?”

“To the office. I need to see Holiday.”

“And you’re still not going to tell me what’s going on.”

“Sorry.” Kylie picked up her pace.

She asked Della to wait outside. The vamp rolled her eyes, but did it. When Kylie walked into the office, Holiday’s door was shut. She knocked.

“Who is it?” Holiday asked, and Kylie sensed the fae was hoping it was Burnett.

“It’s me.” Kylie opened the door.

Holiday stood behind her desk. She sighed. Her eyes were a watery mess. The fae didn’t cry much prettier than Kylie. “I’m so sorry.” Guilt caused a knot in Kylie’s throat.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is. He shouldn’t have heard the news like that. I was just so…”