Читать книгу The Pregnancy Discovery - Barbara Hannay - Страница 6

MEG almost missed seeing the old bottle lying half in, half out of the damp sand.

Most evenings, on her solitary walks along the beach on Magnetic Island, she found a trail of shells, broken coral and driftwood. She often came across fishing floats, pieces of timber from wrecks on the Great Barrier Reef…and bottles.

But this evening, just as she passed this particular bottle, a ray from the setting sun struck its glass. It glinted and winked at her. Meg paused and bent closer. It was then she noticed that the neck was sealed and a little stirring of curiosity, a prickle of anticipation, prompted her to reach down and tug the bottle out of its sandy bed.

At first she thought it was empty. But when she held it up to the fading light, she saw a shadowy cylinder of paper inside and her breath snagged on a sudden gasp.

A letter.

A letter in a bottle.

Her first reaction was excitement, a kind of childish thrill…and hot on its heels came a thousand questions. But then a strange kind of sixth sense buzzed through Meg.

Her heart drummed.

Shivering, she tried to shrug off the unsettling notion that she and the bottle shared a connection—a tenuous, but important link.

The feeling wouldn’t go away.

Around her the tropical night was closing in. All that was left of the sun was a blush of pink along the tops of the island’s hills. The darkening waters of the bay threw themselves gently against the coral sand in a slow slap…slap…slap.

The rest of the world was going about its business, just as it did every evening, but Meg felt different…as if her life had been touched by an unseen hand.

Clutching the bottle to her chest, she hurried back up the beach and along the bush track to the car park. Carefully, she wrapped it in a towel and settled it safely under the passenger’s seat of her Mini Moke. She would wait till she got back to her bungalow to open the bottle with great care and she would read its contents in complete privacy.

And then she would know…