Banish Misfortune by Stuart Anne

Author:Stuart, Anne [Stuart, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780373650057
Publisher: Harlequin Books
Published: 1985-03-15T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

April in Vermont was a godless month. For every warm, wet spring day, with the smell of the damp earth and the sap in the trees, came a heavy, blanketing snowstorm that paralyzed any vehicle that managed to navigate the mud. After getting stuck for the third time in two weeks, when even her four-wheel-drive Subaru couldn't get her out, Jessica decided to wait it out. Winter couldn't last forever in Vermont, could it? Marianne assured her it could.

This was the fifth snowstorm of the month, she thought, staring out into the swirling white. And it was only April fifteenth. The Ides of April, the taxpayers' bane and her due date. Thank God babies never get born on their due date—she'd be in big trouble if she had to try to make it to the hospital in this stuff.

She put a hand on her aching back, rubbing with an absent touch. During these past few weeks it had been particularly painful, but not quite so bad as it was that morning. She must have slept on it the wrong way. It wasn't surprising—at this stage in the game she had to get out of bed to change positions, and it took a great

deal of discomfort for her to move. She must have slept too heavily to notice.

She was still tired and sleepy. Her daughter had a habit of kicking her into wakefulness two or three times a night, and then a silly childish fear would enter her mind at the thought of her upcoming labor. Marianne would be with her, she'd promised. But during those first dark moments she would suddenly, unreasonably, long for her mother. The mother who had never been there for her, and never would be again.

Jessica moved to the east window to check the thermometer, but the wind had plastered snow against it, and she couldn't read it. It could be thirty degrees or it could be ten. When the wind blew, there was no way you could warm this drafty old barn of a house, she thought with wry affection.

On such a miserable day she didn't have much choice. Matt Decker had just finished his first incarnation, the rapidly weakening Ham loved him, and there was nothing to do for the time being. She could sit huddled by the wood stove, staring out at the storm, or she could climb back into bed, turn up the electric blanket, and read a nice, juicy female fantasy. Matt Decker's violence had gotten a bit tedious after a while, and Jessica found she needed the respite of a scented and flowery romance.

Or she could read her baby books over again, checking for the twenty-third time how to deal with problems in breast-feeding, how to bathe a baby, what comprised a basic layette. Not that she'd learn anything new—by this time she'd memorized Penelope Leach. The lovely maternal fantasies were only causing her frustration.

No, maybe Jane Austen on a day like today, she thought, giving a small anguished groan as she leaned down to load the stove.

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