Monroe - Beach House Reunion

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Also by Mary Alice Monroe

Beach House Memories

Beach House for Rent

LOWCOUNTRY SUMMER SERIES

The Summer Girls

The Summer Wind

The Summers End

A Lowcountry Wedding

A Lowcountry Christmas

The Butterflys Daughter

Last Light over Carolina

Time Is a River

Gallery Books

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2018 by Mary Alice Monroe, Ltd.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition May 2018

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Jacket design by Laywan Kwan

Jacket photograph by Peter Murdock Photography

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Monroe, Mary Alice, author.

Title: Beach house reunion / Mary Alice Monroe.

Description: First Gallery Books hardcover edition. | New York : Gallery Books, 2018. | Series: The beach house

Identifiers: LCCN 2018002826 (print) | LCCN 2018006126 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501193316 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501193293 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501193309 (trade paperback : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Domestic fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Family Life. | FICTION / Romance / General.

Classification: LCC PS3563.O529 (ebook) | LCC PS3563.O529 B46 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.54dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002826

ISBN 978-1-5011-9329-3

ISBN 978-1-5011-9331-6 (ebook)

To Kathie Bennett, with great love and gratitude.

In the spring, mature loggerhead females steadfastly swim thousands of miles through the Atlantic to nest in the region of their birth. The females repeat this journey every two to three years.

A LL ROADS LEAD home. That thought mingled with the soothing sound of Debussy as Cara descended from the majestic highlands of Tennessee toward the sultry lowcountry of South Carolina. Her brand-new red station wagon wound its way past racing rivers and creeks that flowed south to the ocean, past billboards advertising fireworks, fruit stands, deserted gas stations, and tumbledown antiques shops. Signs of springyellow jasmine blooms against lush greensdotted the countryside. From time to time a flock of birds would fill the sky, and she would crane her neck to watch them migrating north. A short laugh escaped her lips. We are all heading home to nest , Cara thought.

She stretched her long legs as best she could while driving in skinny jeans. The cuff of her white cotton shirt was stained with coffee from a quick swerve. Everything had been too fast in the past few weeks as she scrambled to pack up and move hometoo many fast decisions and too much fast food. And here she was, journeying the same stretch of road again. Going home never seemed to get easier. She glanced into the rearview mirror as the passing years flashed in her mind. How many times had she made this journey back to the Isle of Palms?

At forty, shed driven back from the chilly North to seek refuge at her mothers beach house in the sultry South, as listless as a rudderless ship. Primrose Cottage had been her sanctuary, as it had been her mothers before her. A special place by the sea to recharge ones batteries and find renewed purpose. At fifty, shed buried the past and left again, looking for a fresh start. Now, three years later, like the loggerhead sea turtle she was named for, Caretta was returning to the only place shed ever considered home.

She leaned slightly to the right to glance in the rearview mirror again. Her dark eyes were smudged with fatigue and had a few more lines around the corners. She wasnt a child any longer, or even a young woman. Each decision she made now had rippling consequences. Cara felt her resolve stir. She needed to be home now, more than ever.

LINNEA WAS SO done with the four-lane I-26. Shed sped along that endless stretch of highway from the University of South Carolina in Columbia to her home in Charleston so many times in the past four years that she could drive it in her sleep. And there were some trips that had come dangerously close to that. Red Bull could only do so much. This was her last one, however. Shed graduated at last, and after a final round of parties, shed crammed everything she could into her blue convertible Mini Cooper and headed home.

At last she exited in Charleston. If shed been a tourist, she would have followed the main road and got caught in the horrid logjams on East Bay, Meeting, and King Streets. Every time she came home, there was another hotel going up in the city. Traffic was a nightmare. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and swore the whole peninsula was going to sink in the next flood.

But, having been born and raised in Charleston, Linnea was no stranger to the city. She made a sharp right, then shot down Broad Street toward the water, ducking down narrow alleys only locals knew aboutbumpy cobblestone roads lined with parked cars. After two more turns, she veered sharply into their driveway on Tradd Street, then slammed on the brakes. Panting and clutching the wheel, she stared at the imposing black iron gate and exhaled in relief that she hadnt hit it. Her father would have tanned her hide if shed damaged that elaborately curved and exorbitantly expensive ironwork.

Oh, Mama... she muttered as she collected her wits. Her mother had complained for years about how the tourists brazenly peeked into their walled garden or even through the windows. While gardening one Sunday morning a few months ago, her mother had turned her head to see a strange man standing inside their enclosed garden taking pictures as free as he pleasedincluding one of her bent over pulling weeds. Shed screamed at him, but hed only laughed and strolled away. Her first call was to the police and the next to an ironsmith. Of course, being Tradd Street, it had to be a skilled craftsman who could create an elaborate, Charleston-worthy gate in the style of Philip Simmons. Daddyd had a fit when he saw the bill.