Bitter Harvest Read Online Free PDF Page A

pronouncements, and the snowfall estimates keep going up.”
    “Where are you? Home? Were you planning to come over to the office today?”
    “Yeah, I’m at home, but I can be there in half an hour or so.”
    “Seth, you don’t have to do that. I can keep warm for a bit.”
    “Look, why don’t you come over here and stay until this is over? Where’s Bree?”
    “With Michael in Amherst. What about your mother?”
    “She went over to Rachel’s yesterday. You could join them there, if you don’t want to stay at my place.”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “Well, we’d better check that the rest of the house and barn are ready anyway. And maybe get the goats into the barn—they’d be better off there than in the shed.”
    “Thanks, Seth.” Again. “See you soon.” She hung up the phone.
    Seth arrived twenty-five minutes later, coming overland with Max frisking through the snow. “No change in our patient?”
    “None,” Meg said. “You didn’t drive?”
    “I took a look at the roads and decided it wasn’t worth it. Even if I made it, there are always idiots who decide they have to go out, and they usually end up in a ditch or stuck in the middle of the road. You’d think anybody who’d lived around here for a while would figure out how to drive in snow—or to stay home. Anyway, I pulled out my trusty snowshoes.”
    “You have snowshoes?”
    “I do, and I know how to use them. I hate to say it, but it’s bad out there, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Let’s go down and take a look at the furnace. Hi, Lolly.” Seth rubbed the cat’s head in passing. Meg followed him down the stairs.
    In the cellar, Seth poked and prodded the furnace, removing cover plates, testing wires, pushing a few buttons, all with no results. He straightened up and turned to her. “It’s hopeless. Sorry, but you’re going to have to replace it.”
    “Well, you did warn me,” Meg said glumly. They turned their backs on the moribund furnace, and Meg led the way upstairs. In the kitchen she said, “Maybe that’ll be my Christmas present to myself—a new furnace. How much?”
    “Depends. You want to switch to gas?”
    “That’ll cost more, right?”
    “You’d have to run a gas line. The unit would be about the same in cost, and it’s anybody’s guess what the long-term operating costs would be, compared to oil. Your call.”
    “How much?” she asked again.
    “Six, seven thou, maybe. But it’s not like you have a choice—you need a furnace, and there’s no used furnace store. Wish I could give you better news.”
    She sighed again. “So what do we do now?”
    “I make some calls, see who’s got what in stock. That is, if I can find anybody at work. If they’re smart, they stayed home today. This isn’t going to happen today, or probably even tomorrow. From what I’m hearing, nobody’s going to be going anywhere for the next couple of days.”
    “So you’re saying I’m going to freeze my buns off here?”
    “Hey, I said you could stay at my place. Lolly, too. I’m not sure we’d make it over the mountain to Rachel’s in Amherst, even with four-wheel drive.”
    Meg thought about that for a moment. She’d never been past the first floor in Seth’s house just over the hill, maybe a mile away, although he’d spent plenty of time in her house, both downstairs and upstairs. But somehow it felt wrong; it felt like she was abandoning her house. “Is this storm really going to be that bad?”
    “Maybe. Probably. They’re saying this could be one for the record books.”
    “I feel I should be here in case something happens. Look, this house has been here since the seventeen hundreds, and they didn’t have furnaces then, right? So how did they manage?”
    “Fireplaces. Yes, you’ve got a couple, but the chimneys aren’t in the best of shape.”
    “But would they work, at least for a little while?”
    “I’d have to check to see if either one is clear. You don’t want to