Read Online Sister's Choice by Emilie Richards - Free Book Online

girls are hot, tired and cranky,” she warned.
    “Even children in fairy tales aren’t always well-behaved.”
    “Why did Lucky’s mother leave her?” Hannah asked, as if the question had just occurred to her. “What kind of mother leaves her baby for somebody else to take care of?”
    “I’ll let you answer that,” Grace told Jamie. “I’ll welcome your children into my home, dear, but I’ll be equally thrilled to turn the difficult questions over to you.”
    Jamie shot her a smile, but as she fumbled through an explanation that didn’t include the dead doe on Fitch Crossing Road, she wondered in how many ways and how often she would have to answer the same question and all its variations if indeed even now she was carrying her sister’s child.

4
    “S he’s clearly not here.”
    Kendra rounded the porch to the side of the Fitch Crossing cabin where her friend Elisa Kinkade was lounging in an oak swing. Almost two weeks had passed since Kendra left Jamie at the cabin. Now she and Isaac were back in Toms Brook to finalize the new house plans with Rosslyn and Rosslyn later that evening. Jamie had invited them to dinner, but Jamie wasn’t home.
    Elisa patted the seat and stopped midswing so Kendra could join her. Kendra had left Isaac and their car at the house Elisa shared with her husband Sam, who was the minister of the Shenandoah Community Church when Elisa had volunteered to drop her here.
    “I’m not sure where she’s gone,” Kendra said. “Jamie knew we were coming.”
    “Maybe she’s doing some last-minute grocery shopping.”
    “It probably gets lonely with only little girls to keep her company. I guess she likes to get out at least part of every day, just to see grown-ups again.”
    “I hope I’ll have the chance to meet her, so I can see her when I’m in town.”
    Elisa, an obstetrician in her home country of Guatemala, was completing a second residency across the mountains in Charlottesville so that she could practice in Virginia. Today was one of her infrequent days off. Kendra was glad for even this brief opportunity to catch up.
    “We wanted to have a peaceful dinner together before Jamie goes back to the fertility clinic for the pregnancy test on Friday. We don’t want her to think that everything hinges on whether the in vitro worked.”
    “Would she think such a thing?”
    Kendra wondered. Until today, she hadn’t checked on her sister. If there was any problem, Jamie knew how to reach her, and Kendra knew hovering was counterproductive. Still, she had spent every day worrying.
    And about what? The list was so long, she could hardly keep track.
    Kendra knew Elisa and Sam wanted children, too, although they were tabling it until Elisa was finished or nearly finished her residency. But even with Elisa’s credentials, even though her friend yearned for a child, no one could understand the ache of infertility until she had experienced it herself.
    “It’s uncharted territory, this surrogacy thing,” Kendra said, starting with the obvious.
    “Surrogacy is not so uncommon anymore. Unfortunately, the problems make the newspapers but the success stories are less likely to.”
    “Have you had experience yourself? As an obstetrician?”
    “My area of practice took me in other directions. But from observation, I know the most important marker for a positive outcome is a strong emotional and personal commitment by all parties. There is a sense of mission, of something meant to be. No one should feel coerced or desperate.”
    “Jamie’s offer came out of the blue. It never occurred to me that anyone would do this for us. It’s so huge…” Kendra glanced at her friend, who, with her shining black hair and slender figure, was pretty enough to walk a runway instead of a hospital corridor. “It’s so overwhelming.”
    “Can you list your worries? Because I sense you have more than one.”
    After a nearly fatal carjacking two years ago, Kendra had come to this land, to Isaac’s