Belonging by Nancy Thayer Read Free Book Online Page B

home from her office. She’d—the phone rang. Joanna raced to the bedroom. Was it Carter, calling from the airport to say he already missed her?
    “Hi, hon.” Tory’s warm voice filled the silence.
    “Tory! I just called you. Lei answered. I’d forgotten you were in Nantucket. How are you?”
    “We’re in heaven. It’s so beautiful here. It’s so luscious, it’s paradise. I want you to come to Nantucket.”
    “Oh, that’s sweet, Tory, but I’ve got so much—”
    “Nonsense. It can all wait. It’s August, remember? Look, everyone needs a break. Just a little tiny break?”
    Joanna considered. In her office, tacked to the huge appointment calendar, was an invitation to an island cocktail party from some people she’d met months before, while taping a show in Austin. Nantucket parties were always good for discovering more potential FH hosts, so she could justify the expense of a flight and a rental car on the network’s account …
    “All right, I’ll come!” Joanna decided, and found herself smiling as she said the words.
    “Oh, Joanna, what fun!”
    “I’ve got to tie up some loose ends at work tomorrow. Give me a day or two—”
    “No. Absolutely not. You’ll always find some reason to keep working. I want you to come tomorrow.”
    “Thursday.”
    “No. Tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow night.”
    “All right. I’ll call Cape and Island Airlines and make the reservation for you.”
    “Tory, I can—”
    “If I do it, I’ll know it’s done. I’ll call you back with the time. Bring a bikini and shorts. No briefcase allowed.”
    “No briefcase! Tory!”
    Tory’s response was a throaty, delighted laugh. “Oh, Joanna, it’s going to be such fun having you here!”
    “I’ll be a wreck without my briefcase,” Joanna sulked, but secretly she was pleased.
    The next day Joanna spent in a frenzy of organization at her office, then hurried home and packed a bag with summer clothes. The glossy art books on houses that Carter had given her were too heavy to cart to the island; she grabbed up some paperback novels.
    She slipped a new tape into her answering machine. Shut the windows. Locked her door. At last she was in a taxi to La Guardia. Halfway there, the old cab’s air-conditioning broke, causing the squat driver to mutter ceaselessly during the rest of the ride in low, maniacal, rather ominous tones. On the Triboro Bridge, they were held up by a gridlock around a car stopped by an overheated radiator. Finally they arrived at the terminal, where she was immediately ushered onto a plane the size and strength of a toothpaste tube.
    Darkness fell as they flew northeast, and coins of light gleamed from the black sky and from the land and occasionally from the water below them. Her fellow passengers chatted about wind surfing and weddings and sunshine and sangria, and Joanna felt her heart lighten.
    The moment she stepped off the plane she could tell that it was cooler on this island than the one she’d just left. Above her the sky rose in a starry vault. The air smelled of the sea and roses. Friends and relatives greeted each other with laughter and kisses, and a handsome man wearing white flannels smiled invitingly at Joanna as he ushered his toddling mother from the arrival lounge. Joanna smiled back and pleasure raced through her blood. She felt better already.
    “Do you have a convertible?” she asked the clerk at the Hertz counter.
    “We surely do. A red Mustang with a white top. How’s that?”
    “Perfection.”
    The top was already down on the little car, as if it had been waiting for her. She tossed her bags in the back, settled in, and headed down the long straight road to ’Sconset. She didn’t own a car, didn’t need to in the city, but she loved driving, and was almost disappointed when finally she pulled up at the Randalls’ wide Victorian high on the ’Sconset bluff.
    Tory came running out. “You’re here! You’re really here!”
    “God, the air smells like nectar!”