She's Got a Way (Echo Lake #3) - Maggie McGinnis Page 0,21
desperate for some alone time. She’d spent two days trying to stay one step ahead of the girls, but it had taken almost inhuman effort to find things for them to do, while preventing them from killing each other. Luke had kept a wide berth, only joining them for quick lunches, and she hated that her eyes had kept looking for him all day long, despite the fact that he was obviously trying to steer clear of them.
As she listened to the frogs and loons, she felt her breathing slow and her shoulders relax. Water lapped softly against the sandy shore, and the moonlight made a shiny path from the end of the dock to the other shore. It wasn’t Barbados, but she had to admit it was peaceful, and pretty.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the chair, but she snapped back up when she heard soft footsteps in the sand.
“Mind if I join you?” Luke paused beside the other chair. In the darkness, his face was in shadow, which added delicious definition to its planes and hollows.
“Um, okay?” Her fingers flew to her hair, which she knew was already at its wildest and curliest since she’d arrived, thanks to lake water and organic shampoo. She didn’t want to care what he thought of how she looked, but she could be forgiven a tiny slice of pride, right?
“Girls asleep?”
“They were when I snuck out.”
He nodded. “Hard to resist the pull of a well-made Adirondack chair on a beach.”
“It’s quiet.” She pulled her knees up to her chest. “And as you may have noticed, the rest of my day generally isn’t.”
“Hard not to notice.” He smiled at her. “The lake ought to start warming up at some point, so at least the cold-water squealing might ease. Can’t speak to all of the other squawking that goes on.”
She sighed. Even though she’d spent the past three days resenting Luke for either giving her unwanted advice or steering clear of her altogether, right now she felt like she owed him an apology. She couldn’t imagine it felt like anything but a whiny, screechy typhoon had blown in, but wasn’t leaving anytime soon.
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t at all what you expected your summer to look—or sound—like.”
They sat in silence for a long moment before he cleared his throat. “So tell me about the girls.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Well, I’ve got them a little bit pegged, having listened to them for the past few days…”
“They’ve not been at their best, just in case it matters.”
He shook his head. “Wouldn’t expect them to be. But I imagine they’re not acting too far out of character, either.”
She sighed. “Unfortunately, no.”
“Let me see what I can guess. Madison’s your ringleader, obviously.”
“Classic mean girl.” Gabi nodded. “Collects her posse, discards at will, rules by fear of being the discarded one.”
“Any redeeming qualities?”
Gabi sighed. “I think, deep inside, she’s actually a very kind person. But for some reason, she’s afraid it’s a weakness.” She put up a second finger. “Next—Waverly. Biggest fear is being cast out of the crowd, so she’ll pretty much do anything Madison asks, whether she likes it or not.” Gabi tipped her head. “And by my estimation, she rarely likes it. Basically, the girl needs to grow a spine, but it’s a long process.”
“We carry those here, if it’s of interest.” He winked.
“Good to know.” She put up a third finger. “Eve.”
Eve was Gabi’s second scholarship choice, straight out of another tiny apartment teeming with kids. Bars on the windows, six dead bolts on the door, and a frightening collection of young, sneering men sitting on the stoops up and down the street. After Gabi had gotten her settled at Briarwood, she’d placed a call to social services, since it had been painfully obvious that fifteen-year-old Eve had been more a parent in the household than the adults.
She sighed. “Eve’s a pleaser and a caretaker, though she’d be loath to admit either of those things. My suspicion is that she ended up on their little escapade because she figured the other three needed someone to make sure they stayed safe.”
“And that brings us to Sam. Is she your resident hotwiring expert?”
Gabi sighed, picturing the spunky, freakishly intelligent girl who’d come to Briarwood with her clothes in a garbage bag, despite the fact that Gabi had hand-delivered a suitcase to her foster home so Sam could pack her things.
Obviously her foster mother had had different plans