Finding Ashley Danielle Steel (best love story novels in english .TXT) 📖

she left the room, and smiled broadly all the way to work. There was no one for her to tell. She didn’t want Melissa to know what she was doing, in case nothing turned up other than what Melissa already knew. And she had promised not to tell her fellow nuns. Only she and the mother superior would know what she was doing.

The nuns were talking about their upcoming vacation at the lake at dinner that night, and Hattie quietly said she couldn’t go. She said that the mother superior was sending her on a mission for the length of their stay and the others were all sorry for her to miss out on their vacation, but they praised her for the sacrifice she had agreed to make. Hattie felt guilty lying to them, but was thrilled to be going. And she prayed she’d find something out to soothe her sister’s aching heart after so many years.

She called the bank the next day, and identified herself as Harriet Stevens, which felt strange. She hadn’t used that name in eighteen years. She explained that she needed to make a withdrawal from her trust. The amount that was available to her in her lifetime had been accruing interest for years. She was startled to learn that the amount had increased considerably. It wasn’t a large fortune, but it was more than enough for the trip, and quite a lot more. The banker asked if she wanted it put in a checking or savings account, but she didn’t have either. As a nun, she didn’t need a bank account, and wasn’t allowed to have one. She agreed to come in and open a checking account, and transfer some of the money into it that she would use to pay for her plane ticket, and have cash for her expenses on the trip. She was planning to be frugal, and would be staying at convents anyway, so she wouldn’t have to pay for meals or hotels.

By the time the Sisters left for the lake, which was a complicated exodus with several elderly nuns in wheelchairs, and the younger nuns excited about swimming and fishing and playing tennis for two weeks, Hattie was ready for her trip. Except for the oldest nuns, they would be out of their habits for the entire time at the lake. And Hattie planned to wear ordinary clothes traveling in Ireland too.

Hattie was packed and ready the night before they left. She packed two of her habits in case the nuns in Ireland were sticklers and insisted on it, and for the rest she had packed simple clothes, plain shirts, sneakers and jeans, and a jacket if the evenings got cool.

She helped them onto the buses the next day, and the mother superior gave her a long look, and a hug.

“Take care of yourself, Sister Mary Joe. And good luck.” She sounded sincere when she said it.

“Thank you, Mother, for letting me go,” Hattie whispered to her. In many ways, being in the convent was an extension of her childhood, which was why she had taken refuge there, after her early forays as an actress. She had rapidly discovered that that world wasn’t for her, and this was the safest one she could think of. She couldn’t rely on her sister to shield her forever. Melissa had never understood it, but it suited her well. She had been cured of wanting the career she had dreamed of, and being a nurse suited her better. The order had chosen well for her. The past eighteen years had been a rewarding life she never regretted. She was a little frightened now thinking of being out in the world again, on her own. She was doing it for Melissa. Nothing else would have given her the courage to travel alone to Ireland. She lived entirely surrounded by women, except for a few priests, and it was comfortable. In her nursing habit at work, she knew she was almost invisible to the doctors at the hospital, and the male patients she nursed. They forgot she was a woman, and an attractive one. They no longer wore the habit when they weren’t working, on weekends, but she wore a starched pure white habit at work, and had worn it in Africa too. And she wore jeans and T-shirts at home on her days off. Leaving for the airport that night, she felt naked in jeans, a shirt, and blazer, with her red hair cut short. She was no longer used to blending in with other women and hadn’t thought of herself that way since she was twenty-five.

She had purchased a seat in economy on a less expensive airline for the flight to Dublin. And she would be going from convent to convent, so she wouldn’t be alone in hotels. So she felt relatively safe. It was the first time she would be traveling alone since she entered the order. When she went to Kenya, she had gone with a group of nursing nuns, and a priest to chaperone them. And once in Africa, she lived in the confines of a religious community.

She felt strangely free after she checked in, wandering around the airport, waiting to board her flight. She had called Melissa the night before, and told her that she would be out of touch for a few weeks. She said she was going on a retreat, and Melissa sounded annoyed.

“I don’t see you for six years, and now you’re abandoning me to go on a retreat?”

“I won’t be gone long,” Hattie reassured her, touched that Melissa cared. They felt closer again after her visit to the Berkshires. Everything Melissa had shared with her had spawned this trip. And just as the mother superior had said, she was on a mission, but not the one she claimed to the other nuns, or the retreat she told Melissa she was going on. Her mission was to find Ashley, a needle in a haystack, as Mother Elizabeth