The Reunion: Shelby's Chance Meeting (Starting Over Series) by Angelina Rose Read Free Book Online

Chapter 1
     
    Shelby Ashwood never dreamed her life would end up so off track at thirty eight years old. As the youngest of her nursing school friends - Ashley, Claire and Emma - she thought that she had more time to make a big life for herself. Turned out she was wrong.
     
    She ’ d had everything planned out since she was in junior high. Find her perfect soul mate. Date him through high school and college. Marry him and have a brood of cute little kids and a house with a white picket fence. And she had done just that. And it had failed miserably.
     
    How had this happened to her? After coming from a family where marriage was revered and successful, she felt like a total fraud. Her parents had been married for forty three years, and she was only able to keep hers together for a measly fourteen years.
     
    She had enjoyed going to her fifteenth nursing school reunion and seeing her friends again. To her surprise, all of them were now divorced. She didn ’ t feel so alone in her pain, but she knew her situation was different. Her former husband had been her best friend and partner since they were just fifteen years old. Living without him in her life had been the hardest thing she had ever had to do.
     
    Her marriage to Kenny had been great at first. She had just graduated from nursing school and had her whole life and career in front of her. Two years into their marriage, she found out she was pregnant with their first daughter, Elena. Two years later, Austin came along. Being a mother took over her life, and she put her nursing career on hold for a few years. Once the kids were in school, she got a job as a school nurse so she could be near her beloved children.
     
    Kenny continued to work at his family farm, just as he had done since she had met him one fateful day in freshman year of high school. With his sun-kissed blond hair and dark tan, she had immediately fallen head over heels for him. They dated all through high school and while she was in college and nursing school. Kenny didn ’ t go to college as his life plan was to run the family farm until the day he died.
     
    As Shelby got older and more mature, she realized she really wanted to see more of the world than Kenny ’ s South Georgia farm. She wanted to travel and see museums and landmarks and beautiful things. She wanted her kids to experience all that life had to offer. At thirty seven years old, she realized that she had to let him go along with her lifelong idea of a soul mate.
     
    Kenny had been terribly hurt by her decision, and her kids had been affected. Shelby often wondered if she had made the right decision for them. She felt guilty for taking them away from everything they ’ d ever known. Feeling torn between her own needs and those of her kids, she felt ambivalent about her final decision. But, a year later, it was now water under the bridge.
     
    “ Good morning, baby, ” she said the next morning as her daughter, Elena, stumbled into the kitchen with bed head. With her long, wavy blond locks of hair, Elena reminded her of Kenny a little bit. But, she reminded her of herself even more. Elena was quick witted and smart, but she was also fiercely independent for her age.
     
    “ Morning, ” she mumbled as many pre-teens do. She stumbled over to the breakfast bar and put her head down.
     
    “ Are you excited? ” Shelby asked with a smile.
     
    “ About what? ” Elena asked looking up and wiping the sleep from her eyes.
     
    “ Seeing your Dad for a few weeks? ” Shelby reminded her. She and Austin would be leaving Atlanta and going down to South Georgia to spend a few weeks with Kenny and his family. Every year they held a summer camp for kids with disabilities, and Elena and Austin were going to help out as they always did.
     
    “ Oh, yeah. Excited, ” Elena mumbled as she put her head back down on the breakfast bar in Shelby ’ s humble kitchen. After the divorce, she ’ d found a small condo just outside of Atlanta in a