“Do you really not understand that he was flirting with both of us?” Nathaniel asked.

I gave him a look. “He could smile in your direction looking at me, without staring at you. I think he’d noticed he was only staring at you and it finally embarrassed him.”

Nathaniel looked across me to Micah. “You saw it. What do you think?”

He took my hand and kissed it, gently. “I think she doesn’t see herself the way we do.”

I tried to pull my hand back. “I see myself first thing in the morning, and trust me, I don’t roll out of bed looking that good.”

He held my hand tighter. “Haven’t we proved by now that we find you fabulous in the morning?”

I scowled at him, but stopped pulling on my hand. “I was told all my childhood that I wasn’t pretty, and you guys love me because of vampire powers. You may not be able to help it.”

Nathaniel’s arms encircled me from behind, as Micah came in from the front for a kiss. “You are beautiful, Anita, I swear it’s true,” he whispered. I was tense in their arms, almost panicked; why? My father’s second wife had been blond and blue-eyed, tall and Nordic, as had her daughter from her first marriage, and the son they had together later. I loved my brother Josh, but I’d always looked like the dark secret in the family pictures, and Judith had been very quick to explain to friends that I wasn’t hers; that my mother had been Hispanic. I’d always blamed my lack of self-esteem on that, but now I realized that wasn’t all of it. It wasn’t like a buried memory, just one I hadn’t looked at before.

“My Grandmother Blake took care of me while my father worked for about a year. I’d just lost my mom, and she told me that I was ugly, that I better not count on finding a husband, but get an education and a job and take care of myself.”