A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET

by Lewis, Laurie

  He turned and walked away, summarily dismissing Tayte, but she had already lost too much to give up. Like a buoy on the ocean, she needed an anchor, and art was hers. At that moment proud Tayte Donnelly was willing to do anything to secure her place here. With a quick catch-breath, she sent her plea across the room.

  “I apologize for being late, but I’m an excellent artist. I realize we’ve never met, but you’ve seen my work. You know I’m very good.”

  Her words echoed off the marble tile of the austere lobby with only a few exhibit panels to break their reverberation. Everyone stopped. She could feel their laughing eyes on her, hear their mocking whispers from behind. The man with the frames stood frozen as if in fear for her. She didn’t care. She would not lose one more thing this day, at least not without a fight.

  Mr. Delacourte turned around, his shock evident. “You’re confident. I’ll give you that.”

  Tayte saw an opening and took it, marching up to the man. “My work deserves to be in your gallery. You thought so last month, and you said so to Nathaniel Briscoe. My first painting commissioned here sold in days. I’ll pass on the salary. I’ll work for straight commission just to . . . just to be—”

  “—near what you love?” He studied her, and though she felt her lunch churning inside, she refused to shrink under his scrutiny, even when he slid his glasses down his nose and raised one eyebrow at her.

  “I hear you asked my assistant to change the frame you selected for your painting. You were correct in doing so. I doubt anyone would have noticed the subtlety of your work if you had allowed it to remain shrouded under that dreary frame. That decision, Miss Donnelly, was what sold your piece.”

  Tayte wondered if the man with the frames heard those words.

  She didn’t turn. Her eyes remained fixed on the gallery owner, whose expression began to warm with kindness and respect. “You’ve got a gifted eye as well as talent. Very well. Come and show me your other pieces, Miss Donnelly. I think I can still find a few empty spots. And as for the gallery job, I accept your offer if you prefer to sell other artists’ paintings, but frankly I’d planned on offering you something better. That is if you’d care to hear about it.”

  Chapter 11

  Life had fallen into a somber rhythm. The hall light frequently shone under Noah’s door accompanied by the creak of floorboards as Sarah’s weary feet made their way downstairs for something else to ease her husband’s pain or bring him comfort. Noah cringed when spasms of vomiting or coughing overtook Uncle John during the long nights. Still, Aunt Sarah always greeted Noah in the kitchen the next morning with one of her signature breakfasts, but the meal had become a solo affair. Uncle John’s appetite had diminished to an occasional nutritional drink, and stress picked away at Sarah’s appetite as well.

  Noah caught her leaning over the sink one day, crying. Instinct told him to turn away and grant her some privacy, but old memories of hugs served up with honey-buttered biscuits drew him to her. He had no idea how, or if, his empathy would be welcomed. The feeling itself was not new to him, but he had little experience acting on it.

  Though his feet were planted, his nerves danced in apprehension, a duet shared with his darting eyes in a pained pas de deux. He cleared his throat to announce his presence. Sarah wiped her tears before facing him, but an understanding shared only by survivors of great sorrow passed between them when their eyes finally met. His arms remained limp despite his desire to offer her a place of refuge. Instead, Sarah’s arms opened, inviting him in.

  Between Agnes’s demonstrative nature and Sarah’s reassuring kindness, touch had become a less unnerving part of his world. On that morning, Noah became a vessel of compassion, understanding the power of empathetic arms, discovering that in offering comfort to another, the giver and the receiver were both healed.

  A parting hug from his aunt had since become a daily ritual as he left for the day. But not before his morning visit with Uncle John.

  It always began stiffly, with the proud sixty-five-year-old doing his best to deny the obvious effects of a difficult night, and the awkward nephew, anxious to aid, trying desperately to hide his own fears over the increasing possibility of losing his hero.

  The two would break the ice over discussions from the morning paper. Afterward, John requested a rundown on Noah’s upcoming day, followed by a call for a box of old family treasures to be carried from the attic to the family room. After the memories had been wrung from the items, they were returned to their place, to be requested another day.

  Noah was torn as he left the house each day, but Alsace Farm was his respite as well. Life there flowed much as the broad creek that surrounded it. Some days were lazy and steady, some erratic and filled with obstacles.

  He arrived at Agnes’s place about nine, finding a new list of critical chores awaiting him. He had to admit that working at the farm had broadened his skill set, giving him opportunities to try his hand at everything from animal husbandry and horticulture to tractor repair and a little veterinary science.

  Agnes fulfilled her promise to teach him many things as she took him under her wing, introducing Noah to a hundred firsts. She taught him how to bait a hook and fish, plant new seeds, and prune long-neglected old growth. She taught him who ate what and how much, how to milk a goat, and how to remove a thousand burrs from a llama’s legs without being kicked. Noah had assumed he would primarily be doing carpentry on the farm, but the breadth of work required astounded him, as did the prospect of surprise.

  On one day, when Noah intended to set seedlings in two new garden plots, Agnes noticed that Lancelot was limping, so the day’s plans shifted to another first—the trimming of the horse’s hooves, which were stained purple from his daily feast at a mulberry tree. Afterward, Noah returned to planting, until a bloodcurdling sound erupted around the corner as Agnes reacted to a goat that had fallen into a dry cistern. Two hours later, goat-kicked and covered in mud, Noah again returned to the planting, only to find the entire goat herd escaping into the yard through a gate Agnes had left open. It was dark before the last goat was rounded up, but only after every seedling Noah had planted was nibbled away.

  Agnes needed his help. There was no denying that. She could recite the recipe for a sick-calf remedy from memory, but she couldn’t find the key to the feed barn where the supplies to make it were kept, nor would she recognize tins and bottles that held the ingredients when she saw them. Likewise, she could identify constellations in the evening sky, but she couldn’t remember what day, month, or year it was.

  Still, Noah’s admiration for Agnes grew exponentially as he worked beside this elderly marvel, who matched him stride for stride and nearly muscle for muscle. Conversation rarely lagged. Agnes frequently repeated random bits of knowledge spanning all topics. She spent large portions of the day repeating stories from her childhood in France or sharing details about her parents. Stories of the war came up daily and with stinging detail. She told her narrative with grit and a will that inspired Noah. Whether or not the facts were accurate, the suffering clearly was, but Agnes had made something beautiful from her pain. It had been her tutor; and she, its able student, allowing even the bitterest of experiences to make her wise, strong, and grateful.

  Today’s plan included mending a broken gate to secure the goats in their pen. When Noah lifted the broken gate’s hinge into place, Agnes was there beside him on the other end, amid a host of bleating fans.

  “I have to leave early today. I have an appointment in town.”

  A sly smile curled Agnes’s mouth, and one eyebrow rose to match. “You have a date?”

  “No.” He laughed openly. “No date. Just another appointment with the gallery owner who might sell some of my frames.”

  “Perhaps I will give you a list of things we need, eh?”

  “Sure. I’ll pick it all up.” He slid the first pin into the hinge and noticed a conspicuous absence in the goat herd. “Agnes, I don’t see Juliet.”

  Agnes’s scan for the
expectant nanny goat proved fruitless. She raised her hand for silence, cocked her head, and listened. Her face clouded. “I hear her. I think she’s in labor.”

  She dropped her end of the gate and hurried across the field, her rubber boots slopping around her pants legs, her long gray ponytail slapping against her back.

  Noah followed her as she disappeared behind an outcropping of rocks. He found her kneeling over Juliet, who had delivered a tiny kid that was lying still in a puddle of ooze and blood. The scene repulsed Noah and caused him to draw back. “Is it dead?”

  Agnes’s voice was calm, but the tone was dark and filled with worry. “Yes, and Juliette is in distress. A second baby is coming, but something is wrong.”

  She pulled her work gloves off and put her hand into the goat’s birthing canal. As she felt around, relief showed on her face. She spoke softly to the mother and rubbed the nanny’s abdomen until a mucous-covered protrusion appeared and then disappeared into Juliet.

  “I need a . . . a . . .” A mix of panic and frustration overtook her, depriving her of the ability to verbalize her needs. Her knotted and gnarled fingers began working the buttons on her flannel overshirt. Understanding her need, Noah’s hands moved to his own shirt, and he began working his buttons. Agnes looked at him as if he were her savior, and then he remembered something and stopped, frozen. He watched as confusion and hurt replaced her relief, so he began again, his own fingers trembling now as he undid his buttons. He pulled his long-sleeved shirt off, stripping down to his T-shirt, revealing disfigured arms and wrists. As she took his shirt, she glanced at his scars, moving her eyes to meet his for just a moment.

  “Thank you, Noah.” Her voice was hoarse, awash with compassion and understanding.

  Noah felt his face warm as the color raced up his neck to his cheeks, but before he could offer any explanation about the marks, Agnes laid his shirt on the ground behind Juliet and returned her attentions to delivering the second baby.

  “Come on, Juliet. Push, Momma. Push,” she coaxed as her hands rubbed the nanny’s abdomen. Inch by inch the protrusion extended until Noah could clearly identify a nose beneath the translucent sac. Then everything stopped again.

  Once more, Agnes inserted her fingers beside the head. “The baby is stuck. I can’t feel the legs.” Her motions became urgent as she searched the nanny goat’s cavity. “He needs to breathe. We’re losing him too.”

  She wiped the mucous from the baby’s exposed nostrils and again turned to Noah.

  “I need to clear him. I need a . . .” Her hands simulated the pumping of a bulb.

  “I know! I’ll get it!” Noah ran to the barn and searched for minutes before finding the aspirator. By the time he returned, the second baby was lying lifeless on the ground behind the heaving mother. Agnes was rubbing its body, coaxing life into it.

  “Breathe,” she ordered the tiny gray and brown baby as she used the aspirator to suction its mouth and nose. She closed her eyes and whispered. “Please, don’t let this one die too.”

  Juliet cried out, and Agnes jutted the lifeless baby and the shirt at Noah. “Wrap him up, then rub the fabric over his body to stimulate him.”

  While Noah did as he was told, Agnes tended to the nanny. She cooed in her ear, and rubbed the goat’s body as another round of contractions commenced. Renewed determination etched Agnes’s face. With one hand on the goat’s belly and the other at the bloody opening, Agnes guided a third perfect baby easily into the world. “It’s a girl!” she cried out.

  Agnes clutched the flailing baby to her breast as the first catlike cry escaped. She then placed the baby in the crook of the mother’s neck but Juliet was too weak to tend to her newborn. Now calm enough to work her buttons, Agnes used her overshirt to clean the white and brown kid, who was thrashing about and crying for her mother.

  This give-and-take of life so awed Noah that his rubbing of the quiet body in his arms continued automatically as he watched the spastic dance of the newest arrival.

  Agnes smiled at the little one through teary eyes while her hands stroked the old nanny. Moments later Juliet’s eyes rolled back in her head. “She is gone,” murmured Agnes as she bent over the goat, her sorrow as real as if she’d lost a dear friend.

  “You were a good momma, Juliet,” she whispered in the nanny’s ear. “You fought a good fight. You rest now. We’ll take care of your babies.”

  Babies? Noah looked down at the still life in his arms and realized that though it was quietly resting, curious eyes were now bright and open in the tiny head poised across his hand.

  “He’s gentle and quiet, but he’s a fighter. Like you. I think we should name him Noah.”

  * * *

  The importance of mothers was not lost on Noah as the amount of care required to replace Juliet became evident.

  “The weather is too unpredictable to leave them in the nursing shed. I think I still have an old playpen upstairs. It should do nicely. We’ll set it up in the corner of the kitchen.”

  “You’re going to keep the baby goats in the kitchen?”

  “Of course,” she replied, as if it was perfectly routine. “Would you go get the playpen from the attic, Noah? I don’t go up there. It’s filled with too many old ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” Noah wondered if his voice sounded amused or apprehensive.

  “They won’t bother you. They just haunt me.”

  The words weren’t reassuring enough to keep Noah’s imagination in check as Agnes led him up to the second floor, past three rooms, bedrooms he assumed, stopping before a door at the end of the hall. A key, which dangled from a chain around her neck, unlocked the door. When the mechanism released, Agnes stepped back, motioning for Noah to proceed.

  A musty cocktail of stale air infused with the rich scent of old wood permeated the darkness. A narrow shaft of light cut downward from a tiny upper window, revealing little about the room. Noah climbed the creaky stairs until something brushed his cheek. Already-heightened nerves responded so dramatically that he fell back two stairs, catching himself against the rail. Humiliated by his overreaction, he investigated the source of the concern, which proved to be a dangling string connected to a bulb in the ceiling.

  He pulled the cord, bathing the spacious room in light. The rafters proved tall enough for him to stand and move freely about. The carpenter in him admired the wood-and-peg floor and the ancient, massive beams that supported the roof, but the room’s contents fascinated him even more. At first inspection, the attic space did appear to be filled with ghosts. Dust-covered, white-sheeted lumps lined the perimeter while an inner ring was filled with boxes and tubs of family belongings. Like a giant, rectangular time capsule, the attic held items that spanned generations, from rail sleds made of wood to a plastic snow saucer, while a dusty, old Victrola sat near a box that held a pink tape player among other modern memorabilia.

  But what lay under the linens were timeless museum-worthy treasures. Peeking under the cloths, Noah found intricately carved antiques, from curio cabinets filled with glassware and figurines, to chairs and mirrors he could imagine in a castle. One corner was filled with a giant crate ink-stamped with the date of April 7, 1939. Noah lifted the top and peered inside catching only a glimpse before he heard Agnes’s voice from below.

  “Did you find it?”

  Her voice pulled Noah back to his assigned task. He quickly closed the crate and scanned the room for the old playpen situated on the far wall near the chimney. “Yes. It’s here.”

  Agnes was waiting for him at the bottom of the steps, a curious expression on her face. He wondered if she could read his guilt for having snooped through her private treasures. “There are some beautiful things up there, Agnes.”

  She grunted and locked the door before leading him back down the hall to the kitchen. Pointing to a corner she’d already cleared, she said, “Place it there.”

  Noah wiped the worst of the cobwebs and dust off before unfolding the rusty hinges. Once the wooden bottom was in place, Agn
es inspected his work.

  Curiosity nagged at him again. “Can I ask you about that stuff up in the attic?”

  “We need hay for bedding.”

  The errand took only a few minutes, but in that time Agnes had filled her arms with supplies.

  “Lay this plastic in the bottom. Then spread the hay in a thick layer.”

  Once the hay was spread, a heating pad wrapped in an old towel, an old clock, and a few tattered stuffed animals were added to the pen to simulate the dead nanny’s warm body. Then the babies—Noah and Lady Capulet—were introduced to their new home.

  Agnes announced the brutal feeding schedule accepting the task with pleasure.

  “It is dangerous to not have a momma for these babies. She provides colostrum for the infants, but I have a supplement that will do.”

  Noah learned to be a momma, mixing formula and feeding frantic baby goats with a tiny bottle every three hours that day. After settling the babies in, he and Agnes attended to the sad task of burying Juliet and her baby.

  Agnes stood solemnly by as Noah dug the grave near the hedgerow in the back field. “Farming is hard some days. Life and death. I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.”

  “You were amazing, Agnes . . . so brave. You knew just what to do.”

  She smiled. “I am all they have. Being needed makes you brave. Sometimes we simply do what we must. But then, you know a bit about that as well, don’t you?”

  Noah looked at his pocked arms. “You mean my scars?”

  “From cigarettes??”

  Noah’s lips pursed as he remembered the feel of the burns. “It was my father’s way of motivating me.”

  “Beast.” It was spoken like a curse, and it made Noah smile. “The shame is his. Not yours.”

  Noah undid the ties that fastened the three-inch-wide leather band worn over his wrist. Beneath it were rows of straight scars. “Not just his, Agnes. I did these myself.” He felt his face burn with shame.

  Agnes leaned on her shovel and searched an unknown spot in the sky. “When the bombings ended, only one tree remained in the park near my house. Everyone said we should protect it and honor it. I went out at night and threw rocks at it. I pulled on its branches and tried to kill it because I thought, better I should kill it than wait for the dragons to return and destroy this one also.”