Authors: Virginia Smith
Tags: #Romance, #Adult, #Chick-Lit, #ebook, #book
Age Before Beauty
“
Age before Beauty
is a fun and touching story of motherhood, marriage, and sisterhood that will plop you right in the middle of Allie Harrod’s hectic world. With each new misadventure you’ll be cheering her on. Another entertaining novel in the Sister-to-Sister series.”
Sharon K. Souza
, author of
Lying on Sunday
and
Every Good and Perfect Gift
“
Age before Beauty
will have you smiling and then maybe wiping away a tear as you share Allie and Eric’s romantic ups and downs while they travel down the road of new parenthood. And then the dreaded mother-in-law shows up. Virginia Smith entertains and enlightens through down-home characters you can welcome into your heart like family.”
Ann H. Gabhart
author of
The Outsider
“Smart, sassy, a special read—
Age before Beauty
is a wonderful tale of a woman dealing with her problems with a touch of humor.”
Margaret Daley
, author of
Forsaken Canyon
,
Buried Secrets
,
The Power of Love/The Courage to Dream
, and
Family Ever After
“Virginia Smith’s
Age before Beauty
is a fun slice of family life with charming characters and an ending that will keep you smiling long after the book is done.”
Annie Jones
author of
Barefoot Brides
“
Age before Beauty
has just the right combination of real life mixed with humor. Virginia Smith addresses the modern mom’s struggle—choosing whether to stay home with our children or follow our chosen career path. When career and family combine, watch out!
“As a work-at-home mom, I connected immediately with Allie’s struggle. I laughed my way through her mix-ups and mess-ups while sympathizing with what she was feeling. There’s something in this story for every mom.”
Jill Hart
Christian Work at Home, Inc.
“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry … well, you’ll mostly laugh as you join the plight of Allie Harrod, a stressed-out wife, mom, and entrepreneur who’s doing way too much but failing to do anything well at all.
Age before Beauty
is a whimsical and touching story that will have you cheering for Allie as she slowly discovers what is most important for both herself and her family.”
Melanie Dobson
, author of
Together for Good
,
Going for Broke
, and
The Black Cloister
“Virginia Smith’s gentle, realistic portrayal of the conflicts new mom Allie Harrod faces, laced with her warm humor and infused with a reassuring message of God’s everlasting love, make
Age before Beauty
another can’t-put-it-down read in the Sister-to-Sister series. Allie is every woman’s sister, in any season of life.”
Marilyn Hilton
, author of
The Christian Girl’s Guide to Your Mom
“In
Age before Beauty
, Virginia Smith strikes a beautiful balance between humor and poignancy in her tale of one woman’s struggle to be all: wife, mother, sister, and daughter. And that’s before her testy mother-in-law moves in. Fortunately, Allie is about to discover that by making room for God, she doesn’t have to go it alone.”
Tamara Leigh
, award-winning author of
Splitting Harriet
and
Faking Grace
“
Age before Beauty
is an entertaining, diverting story for anyone who’s ever felt pinched between two generations or pummeled by their checkbook … which would mean just about all of us.”
Allie Pleiter
, author of
Queen Esther and
the Second Graders of Doom
and
Bluegrass Hero
“A fun sisterly romp through cosmetics, assumptions, and life with a brand-new baby in the house,
Age before Beauty
is a book that will delight readers with its humor and vulnerability.”
Sarah Anne Sumpolec
author of the Becoming Beka series
Age before Beauty
a novel
Virginia Smith
© 2009 by Virginia Smith
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Virginia, 1960–
Age before beauty : a novel / Virginia Smith.
p. cm. — (Sister-to-sister ; bk. 2)
ISBN 978-0-8007-3233-2 (pbk.)
1. Motherhood—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Kentucky—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3619.M5956A73 2009
813’.6—dc22
2008042326
Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Published in association with Books & Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
This book is dedicated with much love to
Christy Delliskave, Betsy Banks, and Maggie Tirey—
the oldest sisters in my family’s next generation
CONTENTS
The mirror had to be warped. That was the only explanation for the image staring back at Allie from its treacherous surface. Her thighs couldn’t be
that
wide, her belly
that
flabby. Could glass warp? Of course not. But the weather so far this fall had been wetter than normal, following a horribly humid Kentucky summer. All that dampness wreaked havoc on the wooden front door at Gram’s house. And this mirror had a wood frame. That had to be it.
But the warping seemed only to be in the middle, like one of those fun-house mirrors. She squinted down at her pink toenails. Her feet looked normal. Her face looked okay. Pretty good, even. This was the first time she’d put on makeup in weeks, and a little color worked wonders. She could use a haircut, though the dark blonde layers falling in waves to rest on her shoulders managed to hold the extra length well.
She blew her bangs out of her eyes. Actually, the long hair made her face look fuller, and that offset some of the width of her hips. Which needed the help, especially now that she got a good look at them wearing only a nursing bra and panties. If she cut some of the volume out of her hair, she’d look like one of those toys she and Joan and Tori played with as kids. What were they called? Weebles. She’d look like Mother Weeble.
She swayed from side to side, eyeing her oversized bottom half as she sang the toy’s jingle. “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.”
“Did you say something?”
Allie whirled to find Eric standing in the bedroom doorway, a grin twitching at his mouth. She felt a blush creep up her neck. Though he was the world’s most awesome husband and devoted new daddy, she still felt awkward parading her postmaternity body around in front of him. A flabby belly covered in stretch marks was
soooo
sexy.
“How long have you been standing there?”
His voice dropped an octave as his smile deepened. “Long enough to admire my beautiful wife.”
No mistaking that husky tone. She snatched her jeans off the bed. “Don’t get frisky, lover boy. My sister will be here any minute.”
Eric’s lips twisted. “Story of my life lately.”
Allie crossed the room and placed a tender kiss on his cheek. “I’m sorry my family is here so often. They just don’t want to miss a day with the baby. She’s growing so fast.”
“I know, I know.” He grinned. “But tonight I get Joanie all to myself. Our first father-daughter date.”
Allie sat on the edge of the bed and slipped her feet into the jeans, avoiding Eric’s eyes. He had been looking forward to this evening for a full week, ever since Joan invited her to go to a stupid party where some fanatical woman would try to force her to buy something she didn’t want and for which she had no use. If only Joan hadn’t asked in front of Eric, she would have turned the invitation down without a second thought. But he had insisted it was time she took her first outing without the baby.
Pulling the waistband up around her knees, she gave Eric a worried look. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? She’s only taken a bottle a few times, you know. She might cry.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“But—”
He held up a finger. “No buts. She’s five weeks old. In three weeks she’ll be taking a bottle at the daycare center when you go back to work. She needs to get used to it.”
Tears stung Allie’s eyes, and she looked away so Eric wouldn’t see. “I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I am. Now finish getting dressed while I go wind the baby swing again.”
He left, and Allie sat staring at the handwoven rug in front of their bed. Three weeks. Then she’d have to leave her precious little Joanie in the hands of a total stranger. If only …
She jerked the shirt over her head. No. One of the things she and Eric had talked about before they got married was how they’d handle life after they started having children. She’d insisted on laying it all out, because Eric’s mother had been a stay-at-home mom, and Allie wanted to make absolutely sure he didn’t have the same expectations. Her toenail caught the edge of her sock as she tugged it up, and she hissed with pain. No way would she become one of those women relegated to a dull life of child rearing. She was a career woman—the second sock followed the first—with a college degree and plans for her professional future. She
liked
her job, liked the independence it gave her. Besides, they agreed on having two incomes so they could afford things like nice clothes and good cars and vacations at the beach.
But that was before she’d had a baby.
If only there was some way she could pursue her career
and
keep her daughter at home. She had quietly investigated every work-from-home scheme she could find lately, but all of them sounded more like scams than jobs.
Banishing the tears, she stood. No sense crying about it. She had no option. In three weeks she’d return to her job as a team leader at the social services office. She might even be able to recapture some of the excitement and ambition she’d felt before she got pregnant. At the moment, though, it sounded like a life sentence with no chance of parole.