Secrets of Foxworth by V.C. Andrews

my father when he went to do an evaluation for the bank.”
    â€œWell, how was it?”
    â€œHow was what?”
    â€œBeing there.”
    â€œI took a nice walk to the lake on the property and then just watched my father and Todd Winston go through their inspection of the foundation. It’s the original one. Someone might buy the property and build on it again.”
    â€œMy father’s always toyed with that idea, but my mother gets the shakes just talking about it.”
    â€œThere’s nothing to get the shakes about. It’s just an overgrown tract of land with rubble.”
    â€œSafe place for lovers to park at night, maybe, huh?” he asked. I was sure that his mind was full of imaginary scenarios.
    â€œI gotta go, Kane. I’ll write Friday in big block letters on my calendar.”
    â€œSee you at school.”
    â€œOkay,” I said, and hung up.
    There was a lot about Kane that I liked. He was one of the better-looking boys in our school, but Ithink what I liked most about him was his casual, relaxed manner. I rarely saw him hyper or upset. He was famous for his James Dean shrug. About two years ago, there was a James Dean revival in one of the movie theaters, and many of the boys were trying to imitate him, but Kane really did have that offbeat smile and relaxed way about him. When he smiled at me now, especially since the last time we had spent time together at the mall and he took me home, it was as if he and I were sharing some big secret. I knew most of my girlfriends, especially Lana and Suzette, were more than a little jealous and were dying to know what had happened between us. I didn’t say anything, because I knew they would be disappointed. Not enough had happened to please them.
    It wouldn’t be hard to break new sexual ground with Kane. He kept his light brown hair midway between the top and the base of his neck. Strands were always falling over his forehead, threatening to block the vision of his soft hazel eyes. Sometimes I thought his self-confidence had just a little more arrogance than I appreciated, but part of that was also just what everyone assumed the son of one of the wealthiest men in Charlottesville would possess, although his older sister, Darlena, was not stuck-up by any means. Kane was an above-average student, athletic, and, as Lana would mutter sometimes, “drop-dead gorgeous.” She said it was her mother’s favorite expression for every stud she saw in real life and on television.
    No matter what, though, I didn’t want to be taken for granted by any boy. Actually, I thought that whatattracted Kane to me most was my fairly obvious indifference. It challenged him to work harder at winning me over, and for now, that was the most interesting thing about our new relationship.
    I did everything I told Kane I was going to do. Dad and I went shopping at the supermarket. Every time we did, he never failed to tell me how much he had depended on my mother to do the week’s grocery shopping.
    â€œYou know, I can do it all by myself now, Dad,” I told him. “I drive.”
    â€œThat’s all right. I don’t have that much opportunity to spend time with you, Kristin.”
    â€œThis isn’t spending time with me, Dad. It’s spending time with chopped meat and potatoes,” I told him, and he laughed.
    I think he wanted to shop with me because it kept my mother’s memory vivid for him. More and more these days, he was telling me how much I resembled her. He said that any father wants his daughter to look more like her mother than like him. “After all, she’s the one he fell in love with, right?”
    Thinking about this reminded me about Christopher’s sister Cathy, who he said wanted more than anything to look like her mother. It was clear from what I had read so far that his mother really must have been very beautiful and also very aware of that. From the way he was describing her, she