Whispers at Moonrise

learn who and what you are.
    Realizing Holiday was studying her, Kylie blurted out, “I said terrible things. I don’t like John.”
    “Well, if it makes you feel any better, right now, neither do I.” Holiday pressed a palm to each of Kylie’s shoulders. “Just go talk to them. I think they’re all in agreement that they’re the ones in the wrong. Your dad’s in my office and your mom and John are in the conference room. Can you do this?”
    Kylie nodded.
    As she walked away, Holiday pulled her back for another hug. “It’s going to be fine, okay? There’s nothing we can’t figure out.”
    If only that were true.
    *   *   *
    Kylie stepped into Holiday’s office. Her dad, sitting on the sofa, rose and met her face-to-face. And his face showed his emotions. Remorse. Sadness. A lot of sadness.
    “I’m so sorry, baby. I behaved like an idiot. It won’t happen again, I promise you.”
    Kylie nodded. “Everything just got out of hand.”
    He nodded. “But it wasn’t all in vain. It forced me to face the truth. I needed that.”
    Did his voice just shake, or was she imagining it? “What truth?”
    “I’m giving your mom her divorce. She wants it; she’s got it.”
    Defeat filled her stepdad’s eyes. Defeat, like she could never recall seeing before. One word came to her mind. Broken . He was a broken man. Seeing it hurt so damn much!
    “Dad, I think Mom’s just—”
    “No.” He held up his hands. “I didn’t mean … I’m not blaming your mom. I accept I messed up. I don’t even understand how I could do it, when I loved her so damn much from the first time I saw her in high school.” Tears filled his eyes as he pressed his palm to Kylie’s cheek. “Don’t ever fall in love, princess. It hurts too damn much.”
    His words echoed in her head as she recalled the pain she’d felt when she turned for Lucas and he wasn’t there. She wondered if her stepdad wasn’t too late in offering that piece of advice. But she pushed her own emotions aside to deal with his. He needed her.
    He took another deep breath. “Losing her kills me, but I deserve it, and I’ll learn to live with it, but what I can’t live with is … losing you. From the day the doctor dropped you into my arms, I loved you.”
    Tears filled Kylie’s eyes. “You aren’t going to lose me.”
    “Good, because I’m your father and I don’t want you to ever forget that.”
    But he wasn’t her father. The words “I won’t forget” rested on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say them. She looked away. She hadn’t meant that cut of her eyes to mean anything.
    Yet it had. She heard his sharp intake of air. She glanced back and saw it in his eyes. He knew. He knew that she knew.
    “Your mom told you,” he said.
    Hurt filled his eyes and the same feeling swelled in Kylie’s chest. “No.” My real father came to see me from the grave. She had to come up with a lie and quick. “I found your original marriage certificate and learned she was already pregnant, and everything else fell into place.”
    “I couldn’t have loved you more if you were mine. I never wanted you to think I didn’t love you because of it.”
    “I know,” she said. “And the fact that you loved me when I wasn’t yours meant something.” She spoke the words to soothe him, because his pain filled the room, but then she realized how true they were. He’d loved her when he didn’t have to.
    He’d done all the daddy/daughter things with her: sold Girl Scout cookies, helped her build a matchbox car to enter the school race, and gone on all the father/daughter trips. Then there were the hugs, when her mom wasn’t good at giving them. She leaned into him, needing a hug now, and thinking he could use one, too.
    She savored his embrace. He’d always been good at this. She heard his breath shake, and she cried into his shoulder like she had so many times as a child. That’s when she realized she’d forgiven him. He wasn’t a bad man; he’d just made some bad mistakes.
    He was, after all, just human.
    *   *   *
    After her dad left, Kylie pulled herself together, and walked into the conference room to face her mom and John. Like it or not, she had some apologizing to do, so the sooner she got it over with, the better.
    Kylie’s mom shot up from her chair. John followed. “I’m sorry,” Kylie said. “I—”
    “We’re sorry, too. Aren’t we, John?” her mom blurted out.
    “Yes, I spoke too freely.” The apology