Feels Like Family by Sherryl Woods Page A

thinking of her investment in The Corner Spa as a tax shelter were long past. The place filled a surprisingly large niche in the region and business was booming.
    Jeanette had already justified the expense of adding another technician to help handle the ever-increasing number and range of beauty treatments and massages they offered to a clientele who wanted to be truly pampered. Even the women of Serenity, who’d never even considered the extravagance of getting a massage, were signing up to treat themselves on special occasions. And, thanks to Jeanette’s word-of-mouth promotion, they’d sold a dozen gift certificates in the past week alone before Maddie had even had a chance to make their spa package marketing plan. If this kept up, The Corner Spa was single-handedly going to turn the previously well-kept secret of Serenity’s small-town charm into a tourist destination.
    When Helen couldn’t put it off a second longer, she wandered onto the patio and spotted Maddie in the shade with her eyes closed. Obviously she’d seized the opportunity for a little catnap. Helen hesitated to interrupt her.
    Maddie had only recently told them that she was pregnant for the second time since her marriage to Cal, something she claimed had taken both of them by surprise. Still, her previous pregnancy had gone so smoothly and she and Cal were so delighted with their daughter that she’d taken the fact of her second pregnancy in stride, though Maddie admitted she’d kept it to herself through the first trimester just in case there were complications.
    Helen was the one who’d been thrown. Why did it seem to be so easy for Maddie to have a baby while she herself continued to wrestle with the decision about whether to take measures to have a child of her own? Sometime during the past year, watching Maddie breeze through her pregnancy with a doting husband by her side, holding baby Jessica Lynn in her arms and breathing in that powdery,just-bathed baby scent, Helen had become increasingly obsessed with the idea of having her own child. The depth of the yearning had caught her completely off guard. Up until then, she thought she’d been content and fulfilled with her single lifestyle and playing doting aunt to her friends’ children.
    Once the yearning had surfaced, though, it had taken over most of her waking moments, at least when she wasn’t drowning in a sea of court documents. Lately she’d been working hard to get her high blood pressure in check, as the two high-risk pregnancy obstetricians she’d visited had advised. She’d made a dozen lists of the pros and cons about seizing her dream by whatever means necessary. But when it came down to actually taking the next step, she’d hesitated. She didn’t know what to make of her uncharacteristic indecisiveness. Something was holding her back, but she had no idea what.
    Pushing aside her own doubts and her envy of Maddie’s pregnancy, she plastered a smile on her face and went to join her friend.
    “Are you sure you’re only a few months along?” Helen asked, waking Maddie from her nap. She patted the mound of her tummy. “Seems to me you weren’t showing this much this early with any of your other kids. Maybe you’re having twins this time.”
    “Bite your tongue,” Maddie said. “One baby at a time is more than enough. I hate to think how exhausted I’d be if there were two of them.”
    Helen regarded her with concern. “If you’re that tired, shouldn’t you be at home with your feet up?”
    Maddie grinned. “I work for these tyrants,” she explained. “This place gets busier and more demanding everyday. I can’t get any time off. Besides, the baby’s not due for months.”
    Helen sat down and studied Maddie’s glowing face. With four children already—three from her first marriage to pediatrician Bill Townsend—forty-two-year-old Maddie hadn’t been nearly as anxious as Cal to try again, but looking at her now, Helen knew that she was as excited about