Summer Island by Kristin Hannah

Author:Kristin Hannah [Hannah, Kristin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780345441133
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2002-06-25T07:00:00+00:00

Summer Island

Chapter Twelve

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Nora woke up groggy from her nap. She lay in bed for a minute, listening to the gentle, whooshing sound of the sea through her open window. It was almost nighttime; she'd been asleep for hours.

Eric.

She pulled the phone onto her lap and dialed the number.

She spoke to Lottie for a few minutes, then waited patiently for Eric to come on the line.

“Nora? Well, it's about damn time.”

She laughed. God, it felt good to smile, even better to hear his voice. He sounded almost like his old self. “I've had an ... interesting last few days. I'm on Summer Island. Caroline is letting me relax here for a while.”

“Ah, the lifestyles of the rich and famous. I suppose it's tough to make time for a dear old friend who is facing the Grim Reaper with quiet dignity.” He laughed at his own joke, but the laughter dwindled into a cough.

Nora closed her eyes, trying to picture him as he'd been only a few years ago ... like on the afternoon his team had won the league championships and the kids had poured Gatorade on his head and chanted his Name ...

“Nora? Did you lapse into a coma?”

“I'm here.” She made an instant decision: she wouldn't tell him about the scandal. He didn't need to worry about her. But she had to tell him something -she couldn't just show up at his house in a wheelchair. “I had an accident and wound up in Bayview.”

“Oh, my God, are you okay?”

“For a fifty-year-old woman who drove into a tree, I'm great. And you told me that Mercedes was a waste of money-ha! It saved my life. I came out of it with a broken leg and a sprained wrist. Nothing to worry about. But that's why I haven't been to see you.”

“There's something you're not telling me.” She forced a laugh. “Your intuition is wrong this time.”

“Nora?” He said her name with infinite tenderness, and in it, she heard the gentle, chiding reminder of all they'd been through together. For the first time since this mess had begun, she felt truly cared for. “No, really, I-” She pinched the bridge of her nose and concentrated on taking shallow breaths.

“Nora. You know you can talk to me about anything.”

“You don't need to hear about my troubles.”

“Who was it who sat by me in the hospital every night while Charlie was dying? Who was it who held my hand at the gravesite ... who was there when I started chemotherapy?”

Nora swallowed hard. “Me.”

“So, talk.”

All the emotions she'd bottled up in the past few days came spilling out. She didn't cry; she was almost preternaturally calm, in fact. But as she spoke, it felt as if the very fabric of her soul was ripping. “The Tattler just published naked pictures of me in bed with a man.”

“Jesus ...” His voice was a whisper.

“That's not even the worst of it.” Amazingly, she laughed. “I was actually posing with this guy. And fortunately for me, the photos were dated-proving that I was married to Rand at the time they were taken.

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