Yesterday's Magic by Beverly Long Read Free Book Online Page A

confused that ever. She hadn’t
really blamed him. And she had missed him. Even though the sex
hadn’t been great, she had missed the intimacy of sleeping with a
man, of holding him close, of feeling him inside of her.
    A woman should have a lover.
    And he should look a whole lot like Jedidiah
McNeil.
    Her legs suddenly feeling like spaghetti, she
fell back onto the bed. Jeez, Louise. Where had that thought come
from?
    She propped herself up on her elbows and
vowed to stop having ridiculous thoughts. She’d come back to this
time for a reason. A serious one. She needed to stay on task.
    But if she had any extra time, well, then,
maybe ?
    Oh, get a grip. She should be pissed at the
man—after all, it was partly his fault she was even here. She stood
up and then bent her arms to button up the back of her dress. Then
she tried to run a brush through her hair. It was wild as usual and
she settled with just gathering it up in one hand and wrapping a
ponytail holder around it. Even pulled up, it was long enough that
the ends hit below her shoulders.
    She opened her bedroom door and Aunt Freida
was standing next to the black stove. Bella smiled at her and with
what she hoped looked like confidence, opened the cabin door.
    The cold was so fierce that it stole her
breath and made her knees buckle. And as uncomfortable as that was,
the only word that she could think of was fabulous.
    Night had faded, leaving a soft, bluish dawn,
made lighter by fresh snow, perhaps an inch or two, that clung to
the branches of the evergreen trees. Sunshine and Rain, hitched to
a wagon, stood outside, their warm breath turning to steam. Twenty
feet out, four red birds set on the top rail of her Aunt’s wooden
fence.
    She’d freakin’ stepped into the middle of a
Christmas card. She could practically hear the carolers and wasn’t
the pungent smell of freshly cut wood burning in the fireplace just
hanging in the air?
    Her stomach growled when she thought about
cranberry and walnut stuffing. And the turkey and the potatoes. It
was perfect.
    Except, she realized, as she lifted her gaze
to see another hundred yards out, her little pretend winter
wonderland didn’t include an outhouse. Or a thirty-yard sprint in
subzero temperatures.
    “Best take your cloak,” Aunt Freida said.
    Bella turned. Aunt Freida stood behind her,
holding Bella’s cloak. Bella reached for it and was halfway through
the doorway when her aunt cleared her throat. “You’ll want a
lantern, too,” she said.
    Of course. Her new bathroom didn’t come
equipped with electricity. Any moron would know to take a lantern
with her. She really needed to be more careful or her aunt was
going to be either very suspicious or very sad that she had such an
idiot for a niece.
    She grabbed the lantern’s handle and kept her
arm extended. She didn’t want it too close. Knowing her luck, she’d
slip, break the glass, and catch herself on fire. She gathered her
skirt up with her other hand, hoping to keep it from dragging in
the fresh snow. But that allowed a blast of cold air in and up and
she immediately dropped her hold. Who cared if her hem was wet?
Better that than other, more delicate parts, be frozen.
    “Gives a whole new meaning to the word
frigid,” Bella mumbled as she made her way. She grabbed the heavy
door of the unpainted privy and it opened with a loud creak,
evidently startling the birds. There was a sudden flutter of
activity from the fence and when she looked that direction, she saw
two large deer, with widespread antlers. Their heads were up, as if
they were watching her, judging.
    The last deer she’d seen had been dead along
the highway after some unsuspecting motorist had hit it.
    She went inside, took care of business, and
got out fast. As promised, her aunt had breakfast on the table.
Bella quickly washed her hands in the water her aunt had warmed on
the stove and sat down to eat.
    “This is so good,” she said sometime later
after she’d plowed her way through