Reunion Beach, Elin Hilderbrand [novel books to read txt] 📗

like a calm pool of still waters. With Bram, it’s been a roaring waterfall tumbling me from unseen heights. And that feeling hasn’t changed. For Joe, several years gone now, I still feel a deep love and grief. For Bram, my love is fiercer, and I realize that I can’t bear the thought of losing him.

I met Bram three years after my husband’s death, when I traveled from my home in Houston to attend a conference in New Orleans. In the lobby of the historic hotel where the organization I worked for had booked me, I saw a notice that Bram Stoker O’Connor was filming one of his shows on the patio that evening. Hotel guests could sign up to be a member of a small, select audience. Recalling how much I’d once liked his show, I signed up.

The show was not only entertaining, but afterward the famed chef invited his audience to enjoy the dishes he’d prepared. I’d been utterly enchanted by Bram and his colorful showmanship—mesmerized, even. He was much better-looking than he appeared on TV, broad-shouldered and muscular with piercing green eyes and soot-black hair streaked silver at the temples. He drew in the audience with the amusing stories he related as he worked, told with the charming lilt of an Irish accent. Since I’d read that his Irish parents had come to South Carolina when he was a toddler, I suspected the accent was a bit of an affectation. Even so, I swooned along with the rest of the women when he came around to see what we thought of the food. For some reason, he singled me out to tell me about the origins of the Lowcountry shrimp dish I tasted. Dazzled, I nodded and smiled and complimented the dish before someone dragged him away. To my surprise, he asked me to wait so we could continue our conversation after he’d made nice with the other guests.

I was surprised when the crowd began to clear out and Bram showed up with a glass of wine and an invitation to join him at a corner table. “Your observation about the shrimp seasoning was so astute,” he said in a low, confidential voice, “that I’m dying to hear more.” It was something we’d laugh about later, the worst pickup line ever. But at the time he seemed so earnest that I had no reason to think he was coming on to me. And truthfully, it wasn’t just his earnestness. A widow in my mid-forties, I was hardly a femme fatale, certainly not in a city swarming with them. I was a professional woman who looked the part: fit and trim, with light-brown hair pulled back and secured with a barrette at the nape of my neck. I’d been told that my best feature was my sherry-colored eyes that lit up when I smiled, but other than that, I considered myself rather plain.

At the secluded table Bram selected, partially hidden by a sweet-smelling wisteria vine, he and I shared a bottle of wine and a plate of incredible food as we talked about everything under the sun—except shrimp seasoning. (A ploy, he’d admit, to get to know me.) When he found out that I was in New Orleans for a conference on immigration issues, he wanted to hear about my job. Because he himself was an immigrant, he always sought out the origins of the dishes he prepared and told his listeners their stories, one of the reasons his show was so popular. “We’re all immigrants, aren’t we?” he said, his intense eyes holding mine. “And every family story is also about its food.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way, and grew animated telling him how I could use that idea in my work with my clients. “You’ve inspired me,” I told him with so much excitement that I blushed. He leaned forward and placed a hand on my arm. “No, no. It’s your work that inspires me,” he said softly.

Looking back, I think I was a goner from that moment on. We stayed until the bar closed around us, which in the Big Easy isn’t till the wee hours. And I had an early-morning meeting. I couldn’t make the breakfast he invited me to, nor lunch either, but we had dinner together. After that we were inseparable the rest of my stay. He even attended the requisite conference get-togethers with me, dazzling the overly serious psychologists with his gregarious magnetism. During my breaks, we took in the sights. He’d been given the hotel’s presidential suite, where we had some of our meals. And our last night together, I stayed with him. I’d never done anything so brazen before, but I was in Sin City, and falling hard for the most fascinating man I’d ever met. The next day, I told myself, I’d be back to my grief-dulled life in Houston. Why not take an erotic memory home with me?

It’d be a few months before I visited Bram at his home in the South Carolina Lowcountry, though he came to Houston the weekend following my return from New Orleans. After that, I joined him in each of the coastal cities where he was filming: Biloxi, Mobile, Tampa, Miami, Palm Beach. Ours was a heady courtship, exhilarating and exhausting. I’d fallen hard for Bram, and he appeared to feel the same. We’d only been together three months when we confessed our love. There were several organizations in the Lowcountry like the one I worked for in Houston, Bram said. Could I leave Texas to work for one of them? Just in case, he’d made inquiries and found they needed qualified staff. When I’d said maybe one day, Bram pulled me into an intense embrace. His gestures were always like that: dramatic and over the top, but he surprised me by what he said next. “Not one day, Chris—now! I want you to marry me. And I don’t want to wait another minute.” He took my face in his hands