Wanderlust by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

felt suddenly ancient, and as though something he had silently kept at bay for years had finally beaten him. He had always feared that one day she would leave him ' that one day she would follow in her father's footsteps. She was so like him, and she had always loved those damnable albums. She was leaving them in her room, abandoned now, while she went to relive her father's adventures, with her own camera on her shoulder, a Leica that she treasured.
    She clung to her grandfather at the station, suddenly feeling how frail he was, and holding him close to her, regretting her wild flight and suddenly hating Harcourt for making her question her whole life. What right had he to do that? ' except that he had been right to push her. She had to do what she needed to do now. She had to ' she had to ' for her own sake. She had to do something for herself now ' not Grandfather or Annie. She kept reminding herself of that as she held tightly to her grandfather's hands and then she could not restrain the tears as she clung to him. The others were a few feet away and she looked into his eyes as the tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt like a child, leaving home for the first time, and she suddenly remembered the pain of leaving Hawaii for the last time after her parents died.
    I love you, Grampa ' I'll be home soon. I promise. He took her face gently in his hands and silently kissed the tear-stained cheeks. All his gruffness was gone now. And the raw surface of his love for her was exposed to the pain of her departure.
    Take care of yourself, child. Come home when you're ready. We'll all be waiting. He spoke quietly and it was his way of saying he would be all right without her. He wasn't quite convinced of it himself, but he felt that he owed her her freedom. She had given him so much in the last fifteen years, and it was her turn now, although he wasn't enamored of the idea of her traveling alone, but she kept insisting that this was 1933, and modern times, and there was no reason for her not to travel alone. And she was only going to Europe. There were friends of her father's she intended to look up in Paris and London, Milan and Geneva, if she got there. There were people everywhere she could turn to, but she had eyes now only for her grandfather as she watched him slowly step down from the train, his cane in his hand, his hat on his head, his frame tall and spare and his eyes piercing hers as he stood proudly on the platform. And then, finally, as the train began to pull away, he smiled at her. It was his farewell gift to her, the gift of letting her go off on her adventures. Harcourt had held her too tightly when he kissed her good-bye, and Annabelle hadn't stopped talking, terrified of what she would do if little Winston's nurse quit, or the upstairs maid left ' . Harcourt had been right ' she had done too much for them all. And it was Audrey's turn now. She waved as long as she could, and then the train went around a bend, and they were gone, like mirages.
    It took two days and two nights to reach Chicago and Audrey spent the entire time reading the novels she had brought with her. She had her own compartment with a drawing room and a sofa berth, and on the first day, she finished Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway, and felt filled with his spirit of adventure as she read of the bullfights he was so intrigued by. Immediately after that, she read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Each seemed appropriate to her mood of discovery and adventure. She spoke barely a word to a soul all the way across the country. She would only get out of the train from time to time to stretch her legs, or eat an indigestible meal in one of the stations, reading a book as she ate, and afterward she would munch the candy bars she had bought there. She had a passion for 3 Musketeers bars, and bought them at some of the stations where they stopped, to eat while she stayed up late at night and read on the train. She was having a wonderful