Read Online The Golden Chance by Jayne Ann Krentz - Free Book Online

one of those places? You didn't have any other family? No one who would take you in?”
    His genuine shock was almost humorous. “Don't look so horrified, Nick. Lots of people wind up in ‘those places,’ as you call them. There are some very good, kind people running them. It's not so bad, given the alternative.”
    “But wasn't there anyone ?” he persisted.
    “I think there are a couple of distant relations out there somewhere. But they didn't bother to come forward when they heard of my grandmother's death. My caseworker tracked down one of them, an aunt on my mother's side, but she said she couldn't possibly afford to take me in. She had her hands full with her own three kids, and her husband had just walked out on her.”
    “Jesus,” Nick said again, making it sound halfway between a prayer and an oath.
    Phila shook her head, smiling thinly. “You say that as if you can't imagine a world in which you would have been sent into foster care.”
    “I can't,” he admitted. “As long as I can remember there's always been family around, Lightfoots and Castletons both. If something had happened to my parents when I was younger, the Castletons would have taken me in and raised me as their own. My folks would have done the same for Darren. There would have been no question about it. Hell, if anything happened to Darren and his wife tomorrow, I'd take their little boy.” He shrugged. “It's just understood.”
    “Not everyone has an extended family clan like that, much less the financial resources to raise a relative's orphaned kid.”
    “You think I'm a little naive on the subject, don't you?” he asked wryly.
    “Not any more than I was when I first went into foster care.” Phila closed her eyes briefly. “I was so scared in the beginning. Then I met Crissie. She was the same age I was, but years older in some ways. She'd been through the wars. In and out of foster care most of her life. She preferred it to living with her mother, who tended to have the kind of boyfriends who abused helpless little girls.”
    “Things must have been bad at home if she actually preferred foster care,” Nick said quietly.
    “They were. At any rate, for some reason neither of us ever fully understood, she took me under her wing and helped me find my feet that first year; helped me to survive, in fact. I owe her, Nick.”
    He got up to pour coffee from the pot into two mugs. “And that's why you feel you can't let go of her now that she's dead? You feel some sense of obligation?”
    “We were a team. As close as sisters. She was all I had for a long time. And now she's gone.” Phila felt the familiar burning sensation at the back of her eyes. She seemed to cry on the slightest pretext lately. She found this new tendency extremely annoying. This morning she refused to let the tears fall.
    There was a long silence before Nick spoke again. “Come to Port Claxton this summer, Phila. Find out what the families are like and what really happened while Crissie was with them.”
    “What if no one in the families will talk to me, let alone answer questions?”
    “They'll talk to you.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because you'll be with me. They'll have to be polite to you. Besides, you said yourself, you need a vacation. The coast will make a nice change from Holloway, I guarantee it.”
    Phila wondered if he was even remotely aware of the arrogance in his words. She downed the last of the egg sandwich and brushed crumbs off her turquoise pants while she tried to think.
    There were several advantages to the strange, unexpected offer. Going to Port Claxton would get her out of Holloway, and after last night's meeting with Ruth Spalding that seemed more desirable than ever. And Nick was right. It would give her a chance to meet the people Crissie had thrust herself upon last year. It would give her a chance to learn what she could about the long-lost family Crissie had discovered. Phila knew she would be better equipped then to make