Reunion Beach by Elin Hilderbrand (best ebook reader under 100 .TXT) 📗

it as Daisy’s face fell with disappointment, biting her bottom lip. “I didn’t either, so I guess there’s some saving grace. But . . .” She shuddered. “We have been sleeping with the same man. I am horrified.”

Beatrice took a long swig of her sangria and shook her head. “Maybe we should get together more often. Who knows what else we’d find out.”

Victoria walked over to Daisy and lifted her cell phone. “A selfie of the two of us. We’ll send it to him, and I don’t think anything else will need to be said.”

Daisy leaned into Victoria’s shoulder, and Victoria snapped the photo. “When I have service, I’ll send this beauty right off.”

Daisy shook her head. “I think I need a little walk.”

Rose nodded toward the shoreline. “There’s not very far you can go. Walk in a circle?”

“True, but . . .” And off she went, disappearing around the corner only to appear less than thirty minutes later when they had all returned to their blanket and their books, to their quiet afternoon.

Daisy plopped down and Beatrice set down her sketchpad where she’d been drawing the horizon of scrubby brush across the water. “I’m sorry, friend.”

“Well, that’s what I get for falling for a guy whose life I know nothing about while I pretend we know each other because we texted for months and months. It’s gross. I’m embarrassed of myself, but I get . . . lonely.”

“We all do.” Beatrice fell back on the blanket. “It’s part of it, isn’t it? Finding our way while finding if we can ever love again.”

“Doesn’t seem so worth it to me right now,” Daisy said.

“It’s worth it. It’s always worth it,” Beatrice said. “We try anyway. The odds are always against it working out, but there we go—”

“Coming from a woman who loves a good man.” Daisy smiled sadly. “You’re answering your own questions.”

Beatrice wasn’t quite so sure.

6

The Last Night

Their last night fell quiet with the thick aroma of pluff mud as they reconvened once more at the water’s edge.

Victoria broke open an aloe leaf from a nearby shrub and rubbed the gooey insides on Daisy’s sunburned shoulders while speaking to Beatrice. “What’s most important for this gathering, for now, is this: Did we help you figure anything out, Bea? Our grand Pegasus, do you know how high you can fly?”

Beatrice dug her toes into the sand. “I know this love between all of us sustains me. Sometimes we have to be surrounded by something to be reminded of what it really truly is—love, I mean. I love Lachlan. He loves me. It’s beautiful. That’s all I know for now. When I get home, I will go to him and if he’ll listen, I’ll tell him I love him. I have and I will. Marriage, if it’s important to him, is important to me. I’ve been selfish . . . and scared. But my fears have nothing to do with him and everything to do with the past. We carry these things, these burdens from the past, forward and hurt those who had nothing to do with it.”

“Will he listen?” Daisy asked.

Beatrice allowed the question to sink in. “I don’t know. He might be done with me and that would hurt. But I am still who I am. There’s something inside I want to show to the world, and I was afraid that getting married again would keep me from finding it,” Beatrice said. “Like your swan maiden, Victoria.”

“Did Tom keep you from it when you were married?”

“Yes.”

“Has Lachlan ever?”

“Not even once.” Beatrice held up her hands as if in surrender. “Not even close. You know, when I chose Pegasus, I thought it was because she could fly, but it’s because she’s unafraid, she lifts herself up even as the world tells her to stay on the ground. Now . . . I know.”

Daisy’s voice came choked with emotion. “And the starling, me, always needing to be in a crowd, always needing approval, always needing someone around. I thought that the best thing in the world was having more and more people around, but it’s kept me from flying, literally and figuratively. That murmur has kept me in a safe place. I don’t know what that means yet, but I don’t need to know. I fell for that idiot Bumble guy under the pretense that I need constant companionship.” She turned to Victoria. “And you, our beautiful Bird of Paradise . . . where were you last night and parts of today? Flying on those fancy feathers?”

“The opposite.” Victoria sat quietly, now wearing a simple shift of dark blue, her hair in a ponytail and her face free of makeup. “I’ve been talking to Red. I know you don’t believe me—and I wouldn’t either—but we’ve just been talking. It’s true. He’s been living out here and telling me about it, and I’ve been just listening. A simpler life . . .”

Rose laughed. “Right, Victoria.”

Victoria shrugged, sat back on the towel. “I’m telling you the straight up truth, with a splash of vodka.” She lifted her drink. “But still the truth.”

Daisy sighed. “Why did we ever think men were the answer?”

Rose was quiet before she said, “Because sometimes they are?” But this time Beatrice heard it in her voice—she wasn’t so sure anymore.

“No,” Beatrice said. “They are never actually the answer, but they can be part of something greater in our life.” Beatrice spoke slowly and quietly, wanting to find the truth that was slowly arriving in lessons from their bird icons. “Those movies—they were right in some ways: love is worth the chance. But after that—it’s up to us. We have to keep our eyes open. We have to pursue our own true self. Sometimes love isn’t what we thought. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Sometimes it shatters our hearts. But it is always worth the chance with a good man.”

“Yes!” Rose stood up. “I have to tell you a story. All of you.” She stood to face them, backlit by a moon more subtle than the night before, hidden behind the clouds. Only a week ago it had been