LEAD ME ON by Julie Ortolon (best pdf ebook reader TXT) 📗

her adults-are-so-stupid look. “As long as I keep up with my assignments, I don’t have to actually be in the classroom. So, please, Uncle Scott, let me stay.”

“I don’t know ...”

“Please. You don’t know how bad it’s been. Mom’s seeing this new jerk and he’s all she cares about. Ralph this, Ralph that. Well, excuse me, but Ralph is married. How can she do that? She always goes on and on about how much she hates John for cheating on y’all’s mom, and how much she hates my dad and the others for cheating on her, and then she turns right around and dates married men. It doesn’t make sense.”

I know. How could he begin to explain the psychology behind his sister’s obsessive need to be the center of a man’s attention? How Diane had felt neglected as a child because her father had lavished his lovers with attention that should have gone to his family. And how in some twisted way, this was her way of making up for that neglect. “It doesn’t make sense to me, either.”

“If you want my opinion,” Chloe said in a deadly serious, adult voice, “Mom needs psychotherapy.”

“Either that or a frontal lobotomy.” He smiled slowly, making her laugh.

“Agreed.” Her expression turned worried. “So can I stay with you awhile? Just until this thing with Ralph blows over? You know it won’t last long. Her affairs never do.”

Scott let out a long breath thinking the word “affair” shouldn’t even be in a twelve-year-old’s vocabulary. “Okay, I’ll talk to your mom. I’m not promising anything—”

“Oh, thank you, Uncle Scott! Thank you!” She threw her arms about his neck. “You are the best uncle in the whole world!”

“Just don’t strangle me for it, okay?”

“Okay.” She pulled back to smile at him. “I love you.”

Oh man. His insides turned to mush. How did she always do that to him? Shaking his head, he pulled her back against him and rubbed his knuckles on her head. “I love you, too, brat. But this isn’t a done deal yet, okay?”

“You’ll work it out. Once you decide to do something, you always do it.”

If only he had her confidence, Scott thought as he left the room. He found Allison in the music room, setting out cookies on the rococo grand piano. On the frescoed ceiling, cupids took aim at frolicking women and mermen from behind pink and gold clouds. Two guests sat at a Victorian card table working on a puzzle while a TV played quietly in the background. He noted the computer on the small desk in the corner, and realized that solved one of his problems; Chloe would have e-mail access and a place to do homework.

He pulled Allison aside and asked if there was a room available. She said the First Mate was open for the next two weeks. After that, they’d be booked solid for a while.

Nodding, he went to the office and braced himself for another conversation with his sister, who was still in full Drama Queen mode. Only the memory of how close they’d been growing up kept him from losing his patience. Halfway through the hour-long call, Chloe ventured into the room. She’d changed clothes and looked more like herself in ratty shorts, a New Orleans Saints T-shirt, and her hair pulled through the back of a ball cap. She paced before the windows, chewing her nails and listening to his half of the conversation. Finally, he hung up with a sigh, completely drained.

“Well?” Chloe asked.

He gave her a smile. “You get to stay for two weeks—”

“Yes!” She bounced over to him and threw her arms about his neck. “I knew you could do it.”

“But we need to set some ground rules.” He glanced around to be sure they were alone, then lowered his voice. “First, you have to keep something to yourself. The St. Claires don’t know Lawrence isn’t the name I was born with, and I want it to stay that way.”

“What’s the big deal about that?”

“I’ll explain more later, but basically our family used to own Pearl Island until John lost it in a bank foreclosure last year. Now he’s trying to get it back, so the current owners don’t like anyone connected to him very much. So, not a word, okay?”

“Sure.” She shrugged, all trace of anxiety gone. “Hey, do you think we can go scuba diving while we’re here?”

“Chloe...” He stared at her, dumbfounded. “If you think you just earned yourself a two-week, fun-filled vacation, think again. You’re staying with me to give you and your mom a short break from each other. But I am not going to reward you for what you did. In fact, in addition to keeping up with your homework, I want you to write a ten-page paper on why it was wrong to run away.”

“Ten pages?” Her jaw dropped. “You gotta be joking!”

“Do I look like I’m laughing?”

“Mom never makes me do extra assignments.”

“I’m not your mother. You want to stay with me, you follow my rules.”

She scrunched up her face. “Okay, but if I do the paper, can we go scuba diving?”

“I’ll think about it. But diving around Galveston isn’t going to be like Cozumel. The water’s murky and there’s no coral reef nearby.”

“But other people are diving out in the cove. See?” She turned back to the window. “I’ve been watching them.”

“They’re just going down to see the old shipwreck.”

“There’s a shipwreck? Wow, how cool is that!”

He started to tell her the bare bones of the legend, about Marguerite and her lover, the rumors of pirate treasure, when suddenly it hit him, like a lightning bolt straight through his forehead, filling his mind with images.

“That’s it!” he shouted. “That’s it!”

Chloe frowned at him. “That what?”

“The idea for my next book!” He scooped her up and twirled her around. “That’s it! That’s it! That’s it!”

“Scott, what’s wrong?” Allison rushed in. “Has something happened?”

He released Chloe and grabbed Allison to waltz her about the room. “I have an idea. I have an