The Reunion by Summer Newman Read Free Book Online

word.”
    She stoked the stove and then walked down the hill, where winds whipped unabated across the landscape. Ebony lowered her head, gathered her coat, and literally pushed her way through drifts of knee-deep snow that had collected across her driveway. At the bottom of the hill, where the road was protected on both sides by a row of huge spruce trees, it was much calmer. She stopped and admired the wild fruit orchard. Long fingerlike branches of apple and pear trees, glazed with sparkling ice, shook in the wind and tinkled like melodic chimes. A half-frozen brook ambled alongside the orchard, its crystal-clear water funneling through a black wooden culvert and blasting out the other side over a thick, frozen mass of ice. The water snaked its way through mounds of brown seaweed, under large chunks of ice, beside the old wharf in the cove, then emptied into the ocean. When Ebony noticed Ethan’s boat tied to the wharf, her mood instantly changed.
    “How should I act?” she mumbled with the concentration of a general going over his battle plan. “Greet him with formality, just as I would any acquaintance. But what will he think…Who cares what he thinks? His opinion is meaningless to me.”
    Ebony started walking again, and the closer she got to Jenny’s, the harder her heart pounded. Going up the Harrington driveway and past Ethan’s car, she felt as if every cell in her body was hypercharged, every neuron firing madly in all directions. Her breathing was shallow, her fingers twitched, and a prickly heat broke out all over her skin. She wanted to turn and run, but continued on, hardly cognizant of what lay before her. It was all dreamlike and surrealistic. Ethan Harrington—Ethan Harrington—was back. Unbelievable! How could she even conceive of it, let alone deal with him face-to-face? Again she wanted to retreat, but she pressed forward, her body on cruise control.
    “Glad you could make it,” Rebecca greeted warmly, opening the door before Ebony even knocked. She looked hard at her new friend. “How’s the road?”
    “Snow covered,” Ebony said, her eyes and ears on red alert.
    “Think we can move today?”
    “Yes.” Ebony shook the snow off herself, walked in, and quickly glanced around the room, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw only Rebecca, Jenny, and Doc. “The plow will go through soon, and then it’ll be clear sailing.”
    “You look nice today,” Jenny said to Ebony with an awkward smile, an unnatural tension between them.
    Ebony nodded quickly to Jenny, then turned away. “I think we should get ready.”
    Doc rose from his chair.
    “Where are you going, Dad?”
    “I’m coming along,” he boomed. “Heaven knows what dangers await.” He gazed at the ceiling. “Did I ever tell you about the blizzard of forty-six? Now that was a storm. Not isolated flurries like today. In those days, a man had to be made of steel.” He puffed up his once-impressive chest.
    “Sure, Dad, we know all about it. Forty-six? Wasn’t that the year you won five gold medals at the Olympics?”
    “No, sweetheart, you’re confused. Forty-six was the year I swam across the Atlantic Ocean”—he paused—“underwater.”
    Rebecca and Jenny laughed. Ebony, self-conscious to a fault, laughed too, but wondered if the others found it unnatural. She also wondered if Doc, obviously well aware of the situation by now, was making a special effort to distract her. It seemed to her that she was almost floating in the air and looking down at herself, as if every word she spoke, every action she committed, was forced and being minutely scrutinized.
    “You were thinking of sixty-eight,” Doc corrected, putting on his coat. “In Montreal, or was it Mexico City? Anyway, that was the year I won six gold medals in what many have called the greatest single achievement in sports history.” He casually yawned. “It’s not every day that someone wins seven gold medals, my dear.”
    “And I know in what events,”