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

shook her head. “I’ll be there for the meet and greet. But I think the two of you have a lot to say to each other without anyone else around.” She paused then asked, “Is she bringing anyone?”

“She said this was a journey she wanted to take alone.” She released a short laugh. “Rather like that hatchling.”

“I was watching you. You were thinking of her, weren’t you?”

“Seeing that turtle go off alone, it all came back. The hospital. The delivery. Maeve . . .” Elinor’s voice hitched. “Watching my baby being carried off . . . It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I never really got over it.”

Maeve’s face went still, her eyes laden with sympathy. Then in a swift move she turned toward the beach and, in a change of tone, declared, “I’m turning into a prune. Let’s go home.”

Elinor scoffed and joined her on the trek back. “Just my luck I’ll be bitten by a shark before I meet my daughter.” As they walked side by side out of the sea, Elinor added, “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“For being my friend. For keeping my secrets. For understanding.”

Maeve slipped an arm around her friend’s shoulders, comrades in arms. “I’ve been thinking . . .”

“Yeah?”

“About the hatchling this morning. The one you were fixated on. I get why. Your little girl was your hatchling, and you had to watch her swim off on her own. But here’s the thing to remember. When a hatchling matures at twenty-nine years, she swims back to the beach she came from.” She stopped and faced Elinor. “So think . . .”

Elinor shuddered and released a long sigh. “My hatchling is returning home.”

“Right.” Maeve spread her arms wide. “The cycle of life continues.”

Chapter Two

Daughter

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Kristina Hurst repeated this quote from Lao Tzu for the hundredth time that morning. It was her mantra to calm her nerves and to battle the urge to call her birth mother and cancel the trip.

This was what she wanted, right? She was the one to go to the adoption registrar and search. No one went for her. The response had come back in twenty-four hours. Her birth mother had long been registered, searching for her for many years. A small smile lifted her frown. She was searching . . . Didn’t she always know that in her heart?

The first phone call was nerve shattering, nonetheless. Kristina’s stomach still clenched just remembering hearing the phone ring, knowing it was her. Then the sound of her voice . . . her mother’s voice. She’d been as nervous as her. Yet there was a gentleness in the tone, a determination to make Kristina feel at ease.

“Hello?”

“This is Elinor Earnhardt. Is . . . Is this Kristina Hurst?”

“Yes.”

There was a long pause. “Oh, my dear girl. You can’t know how wonderful it is to hear your voice.”

Kristina heard her voice catch. The emotion flooding out washed away some of her own fears.

“Me, too.”

“First, let me say thank you for going to the registrar. I’ve been searching for you for most of your life.”

Kristina cringed. “I . . . I’m sorry. My mother, my adopted mother, didn’t want me to. She . . . got terribly upset.” The terms “birth mother” and “adopted mother” were awkward and felt odd on her tongue.

“Don’t apologize! I didn’t tell you that to make you feel bad. Just to let you know how incredibly happy I am to be talking to you now.”

Kristina took a deep breath. She was not accustomed to a mother not blaming her, accusing her of making a mistake. She wasn’t sure how to react. Elinor didn’t let the silence linger, which Kristina was grateful for. She wasn’t good at conversations. Her tongue got tied up with her nerves, leaving her mute.

They hadn’t talked long. Just enough to share basic information and agree to meet at the beach across from Elinor’s beach house on Isle of Palms, South Carolina, in August. It had been weeks away when they set it up, but now it was here, and Kristina wasn’t sure she had the courage to go through with it. Did she really want to meet another mother? She was just feeling free for the first time in her life.

Kristina took a deep breath and repeated the mantra. One step. She only needed to be brave enough for this first step. Whatever happened after that, well, they’d wait and see.

Brave. What a complicated word. Like the word “courage,” it brought up images of warriors on the battlefield, fierce, racing toward an enemy. She smirked. Hardly an image of herself. Her nickname had been Mouse. Sometimes, being brave meant simply having the courage to face one’s own fears. To her mind, that’s what made a hero. Action. In the novels she loved, the hero was boxed into a corner and forced to make a decision. Once made, she was compelled to act. This defined who she was—coward or courageous. Villain or hero.

She looked down at her suitcase lying open on her bed. She did a last-minute check: pajamas, toiletries, a day’s clothing, a beach book because she was going to the beach, a small photo album. With tightened lips of resolve, she tucked her shoulder-length blond hair behind her ears and, in a swift movement, closed the suitcase, ran the zipper, and set the bag on the floor.

Immediately her cat drew near to sniff it. Kristina smiled as her heart pumped with love for her roommate. Minnie was her first pet and her closest confidante. Kristina didn’t have many friends. She’d been a sickly child and grew up to be a shy adult, one accustomed to staying home. Few people knew how much courage it took for her just to leave her apartment each morning to go to her job at the library. Or to make this first step to meet her birth mother.

Kristina bent to pick up her suitcase before she slipped into another bout of self-doubt. “Okay, Minnie,” she said to the calico. “Time for action.”

Minnie followed her into the living room at a leisurely pace. It was a small,