A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET

by Lewis, Laurie

  He thought of Agnes as he drove the short distance to her farm. He was likely losing her as well. Now there was a granddaughter whose blood connection legally trumped his attachment to the grande dame. Destructive old voices began whispering to him, pricking at his heart, telling him he was an outsider, an attachment at best, rejected even by his own blood, and destined to be unloved and alone.

  The thoughts were too painful to bear, and in response he bore down on the accelerator and spun into Alsace’s lane, kicking up stones, and stirring dirt that carried like a cloud in the May breeze. He drove the old farm truck into every remaining pothole and over every bump he could find, thrashing his body against the truck door and slamming his head against the seat back, but he felt little, as the old familiar numbness settled in once more.

  He glanced at his banded, sleeve-covered wrist, marred by past tactics where self-inflicted pain was required to break through that numbness to gain control. He no longer carried a knife, but he remembered the dangerous bend coming up ahead. He closed his eyes, tasting the adrenaline as he imagined the critical point of no return. The thrill of making that hairpin turn at his current speed made his heart race, but the idea of a five-second flight and the rush of an escape from the lazy flow of the water? Now that would be enough to free his malaise, or to finally end the cold deadness overwhelming him. The turn was imminent. He would need to brake soon or the decision would be made. Then he heard Agnes’s words in his head. That war is over now. You slew your dragons. I can see peace in your eyes.

  What would Agnes think if I did this? What would Uncle John think, or Aunt Sarah?

  Eyes still closed, he lifted his foot from the accelerator and slammed on the brake. Another sensation—relief—washed away the numbness, leaving him weak. His head dropped against the steering wheel. Agnes was wrong. The war wasn’t over, but he’d won this battle—barely. Love had pulled him back. He desperately needed an infusion of love. He needed Agnes.

  He heard her voice cry out as if he had summoned her spirit. It sounded so real and close he almost believed she was there, and when he lifted his head, he saw a woman and a large dog some twenty yards down the road. She was crouched on the lane and crying. It wasn’t Agnes, and yet it was—an older, ancient version of the eccentric lady, dressed in her nightclothes with her old farm dog close by. Noah had never seen her this way, frightened, without makeup, her long, gray braid in disarray while stray pieces blew wildly in the wind. Her errant hair matched her crazed stare and erratic hand motions. She’d come around the bend at the moment he braked.

  But what if he hadn’t braked? His mouth fell agape at the thought.

  He began to shudder at the realization of what he’d nearly done. His bones were liquid lead, heavy and offering no support, neither able to lift his hands from the wheel nor to propel himself from his seat for seconds. He felt certain he would vomit, but his empty stomach turned with only an acidic heave.

  He regained control over his limbs, parked the truck, and jumped out, stumbling to Agnes, cradling the mumbling ball she had become, in his arms. “I’m so sorry, Agnes. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Her shaking finally stilled, but the unintelligible, French-intoned muttering continued. She finally looked up at him, studying him as if seeing him for the first time. Recognition finally filled her eyes with relief.

  “Noah? When did you get here? You saved me!” Her hands framed his face, pulling him near enough to kiss his cheeks. “You saved me. Merci, merci! Oh, I love you, mon ami.”

  Guilt flooded over him. He was both her assailant and her savior. He didn’t know if God or coincidence put her voice in his head in time to right his thinking, but someone or something had saved them both, and his gratitude again left him so weakened that he sat down in the road with Agnes pressed close like a second skin.

  In time, Agnes voiced the cause of her strange appearance on the road. “Come with me, Noah. Come throw the dragon out!”

  “What dragon, Agnes?”

  “You come. You’ll see.”

  After loading Brutus in the bed, they got in the truck, and drove to the house where a black Honda sat. He parked outside the gate, behind the round bale feeder. He lowered the gate for Brutus, but before he reached Agnes’s side to help her, she had the door open and was sliding down the seat to the ground.

  The barnyard went into complete bedlam when the pair stepped out from behind the feeder. The chickens and geese ran amok, flapping their wings and scolding the humans while the donkeys, cows, and steers, jutted their heads over their stall doors, crying mournfully.

  “Agnes, have they been fed?”

  Her face fell into an exhausted stare. “I don’t know. What day is this? What time is it?”

  More guilt piled on Noah. “It’s my fault. It’s late. Nearly eleven. Aunt Sarah and Uncle John needed my help this morning.”

  “That’s why you were racing down the lane.”

  He shrank at her remembrance of their meeting. “Go lie down. I’ll tend to the animals.”

  She offered no argument, accepting his offer with a pat of his arm. As she headed for the house, Noah made his way to the feed shed.

  He filled buckets with feed when a muffled moan sounded behind him. Agnes was standing in the yard with her balled fists pressed under her chin, looking as if she had seen a ghost. Setting the buckets down, Noah rushed to her and placed his hands on her shoulders, needing several seconds to get her attention. “What’s wrong, Agnes?”

  She pointed at the house and moaned some phrase over and over in foreign tones The macabre situation scared Noah as he wondered what horror she had confronted inside. He pressed Agnes to his chest and steeled himself against the possibilities of what he might find.

  He felt three panting breaths, and then her shoulders quieted. “Is this still my house?” she asked. Sorrow had clearly replaced her fear.

  Noah extended his arms so he could look into her face. He brushed a tangled, gray strand from her eyes. “Of course it is.”

  “Ma maison? My house? Mine? Still, right?”

  “Yes. Of course it’s yours, Agnes.”

  Defiance filled her eyes. “Come and see what that dragon has done!”

  She grabbed his hand and dragged him through the doorway that led to the sitting area outside the kitchen. The first thing that struck him was how pleasant and welcoming the space was. Gone, or at least greatly diminished, were the smells of pets and litter boxes, replaced by a strong aroma of bleach and citrus. Airy white fabric now skimmed clean, sparkling windows, replacing the dowdy drapes and fly-specked venetian blinds. Diffused light now streamed into the room, dispelling the darkness and revealing other, equally pleasant changes.

  The frayed crimson upholstery that covered the antique love seat and wingback chairs was now hidden beneath striped and solid slipcovers in coordinated shades. Cheery bursts of color also appeared across the room in the kitchen, in the yellow hand towels tucked into the handles of drawers and the yellow and white plaid tablecloth that replaced the embroidered white one stained by years of use. The tacky surfaces of the counters and cupboards now gleamed, showcasing shiny new appliances, bowls, and kettles that replaced the old food-caked, grease-coated ones.

  Noah knew this had to have been the work of the granddaughter, who likely had spent a fortune and an entire sleepless night making the changes. They were beautiful, and the space was elegant and inviting, but it was not Agnes’s space any longer, and as he watched her eyes move across the designer panorama, he saw fear there. Gone were her baby goats and all the familiar things from happier years. She did not know this place. She was lost in her own home.

  Her gaze fixed on two paintings, the only items that seemed familiar. “This is not my house. It is just as my father feared. The dragons came and stole our things.”

  Noah slid his arm around her shoulders. “I heard your granddaughter is here. I think she tried to surprise you and make you happy. Let’s find her and ask her where your things are.�
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  Agnes pulled from his embrace. “Non! I do not want to find her. I hope she is gone! But first, I want her to return my things.”

  Fatigue, mingled with anger, increased Agnes’s confusion. She needed rest, and Noah hoped that during that rest the granddaughter would return and repair the crisis she had created.

  The cry of the baby goats sounded from somewhere in the back of the house. Agnes rushed to respond with Noah close behind. He was pleased to see that the rest of the house looked as it always had. That familiarity seemed to relax her, and the more she relaxed the more apparent her fatigue became. When they reached her bedroom, they found the playpen and the hungry babies.

  “Did you move them in here last night?” he asked her.

  Agnes frowned and shook her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps. To make the night feedings easier.”

  The pair divided the work and had the babies fed and quieted in twenty minutes, but the toll of night feedings and the day’s strain was evident on Agnes. She sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off her shoes. Noah brought her a glass of water. After a few sips she lay back and allowed him to pull a cat-hair-covered blanket up around her. In moments, she was asleep.

  Noah knew the situation was complicated. What, by most people’s standards, was good for Agnes was not what she wanted, and what she wanted was generally not good for her. He began to understand the delicate line between helping and hindering a person in Agnes’s state of mind, and how that line easily plunged caregivers into near-constant guilt. If you intervened, she became angry. If you didn’t, she could suffer. At some point someone needed to assert their will and wisdom over Agnes’s. He was glad it wasn’t his job, and based on his behavior on the lane that morning, he knew he had no right to judge this Tayte person.

  He went outside to complete the feedings. Once finished, he grabbed a pencil, a sketch pad, and a few apples from Agnes’s fruit bowl. Then he climbed to the barn roof to assess its condition and make a list of materials needed to shore it up. Sitting there, on the peak, he pressed his back against the cupola, bit into the first apple, and gazed across the fields. Off in the distance he saw a tall, slim woman jogging his way. From the look of her—hair straggling from a loose ponytail, burrs stuck to her pants and shirt, parallel trails of tears on each dirty cheek—he assumed it was the granddaughter named Tayte, who had gone looking for Agnes.

  There was something familiar about her. Even in her distress, she had a proud, headstrong bearing. He thought about climbing down to discuss Agnes with her, but as she drew near, he recognized her as the snooty artist from Delacourte’s gallery, the snob who had insulted him on both their encounters. His heart sank at the realization that this artistic Amazon was Agnes’s granddaughter. There would be no working with this woman.

  Noah held off introducing himself, hoping the arrogant shrew would find Agnes on her own. Sure enough, she headed straight for the house and down the hall. Moments later he saw her standing in the kitchen, bent over the table—crying, he assumed. Part of him considered risking a third demeaning exchange with the woman, but he refrained. Every hope he had of mutually caring for Agnes disappeared. This woman had already made her opinion of him quite clear, and she was, after all, a blood relative, and he was once again, nothing.

  * * *

  Tayte surveyed the results of her tireless labors. She’d never worked so hard nor so quickly in her life, but during the night, while Agnes slept, she’d attempted to give her grandmother the best gift she could give, one she knew Agnes needed. She transformed the kitchen and sitting areas from dingy health risks into two tidy, hygienic living spaces.

  She was shaking like a willow branch, both from exhaustion and from her first run-in with Agnes. After dessert, she had asked her grandmother if she could stay the night, and Agnes had graciously welcomed her request with a fur-covered, muddy paw-printed coverlet and an offer for Tayte to stretch out on one of the fur-embedded sofas. But when Tayte asked if she could use the upstairs bedroom she had once slept in, Agnes clutched at something under her shirt in a panic. Tayte wondered about the object dangling from the ribbon hung around her neck. Odder still was the way her grandmother stared at the staircase, as if it were haunted. The eerie response made Tayte glad her work consumed the entire night, allowing no time for rest.

  She dawdled on the staircase, allowing time for Agnes to feed the baby goats and fall asleep. Only then did she return downstairs and exit the house to retrieve over a thousand dollars’ worth of purchased items from her car. With her goal in sight, she cleaned and decorated until the cock literally crowed.

  As desperately as she wanted to sleep, she remained awake anticipating the look on her grandmother’s face when Agnes arose and saw her gift, but instead of gratitude or even acceptance, there had been anger and accusations, and then Agnes stormed out of the house.

  Tayte looked at the clock. She had been on her feet for nearly thirty hours and was ready to drop. Her grandmother was safe and sleeping now, but the day’s events had confirmed how impaired and erratic Agnes was. It would take more than just a clean house to manage the woman who clearly needed round-the-clock care. Tayte was all Agnes had left, and she could not let her grandmother suffer any longer. She made a cup of tea, intent on maintaining a vigil.

  Tayte straightened and wiped her eyes before moving to the large window overlooking the paddock. She tried to remember how it felt to be here at age eight. It seemed magical back then, better than Hershey Park. She wondered if she could feel so now.

  While the dog and barn cats slept, Tayte’s attention was captivated by antics in the rear pasture where Lancelot and a miniature horse named Thumbelina, his black-and-white-spotted sidekick, grazed. The diminutive Thumbelina walked under the gelding as if he were a living arch. Exhausted, but enticed by the scene, she sipped her tea and stepped outside, filling her lungs with the mixed scents of country air. The frantic bawl of a young calf drew her attention to the pasture that lay off to the right. The youngster had evidently wandered away and was now reunited with his mother, who offered him an opportunity to nurse while she grazed on sweet clover in the company of a llama and several goats. From the henhouse, which sat beside the feeding barn, Tayte could hear chickens clucking along with the occasional hen-cackle, signaling the proud arrival of a freshly laid egg. The animals’ chaotic music were familiar tunes of welcome she sorely needed to remind her of more pleasant times—of that eighth summer.

  She turned and headed back to the house when a flash of red behind the cupola drew her attention to the roofline of the old barn. It disappeared from view and then mysteriously reappeared. She walked around the side to get a better look and found a man wearing a red flannel shirt and frayed jeans atop the barn roof, leaning back against the circular box that held the rooster-topped weathervane. His lean, muscular frame was apparent, even in his formless shirt. Dark brown hair framed a face with a strong jawline and prominent cheekbones. Something to his right seized his attention preventing him from looking toward Tayte’s vantage point on the left, but from what she could see, she had to admit it was a good face. The days-old stubble made determining his age difficult, but there was something appealing about the calm motions of his hands. And though he seemed well-groomed, his clothes, and the way the breeze tousled his curly tendrils, left his overall appearance satisfyingly untamed. Tayte found him a compelling subject, and she wished she had a sketch pad and pencil handy.

  Then Tayte noticed what his hands were doing. In his left hand he held a pencil and straddled across his lap was . . . what? A sketch pad? But what was he sketching? She moved to the other side of the barn to see what lay in his line of vision, but as she moved, he spoke.

  “You must be Tayte.”

  Perhaps it was the gentle, drawing hands that made her expect a tenor response, but the voice that resonated from above startled her with its deep melancholy tone and pitch.

  “How long have you been watching me?” she asked, a little embarrassed. “You know, you could
have said hello or something.”

  “I could say the same. Sound travels up as well as down.” He kept his face turned away.

  “How did you get here? I don’t see any car but mine and my grandmother’s clunker.”

  Keeping his face turned from her, he pointed to the round bale feeder. “Behind the hay.”

  “Oh.” She wanted to leave but couldn’t think of a snappy retort that would provide a respectable exit. “I assume you’re Mr. Anderson’s nephew and that there’s a face on the other side of your head.”

  The man placed his pencil in his pocket, and as he finally turned to face her, the wind sent the weathervane smack into his cheek. He batted it away and spun from her again.

  “Are you all right? You should have chosen a better place to draw.” She knew her effort at sympathy came out less than sympathetic. “Are you bleeding?”

  After raising his cuff to blot the wound, Noah faced her and pulled the pencil out of his pocket as if planning to resume his work. “Did you need something?”

  Tayte recognized him now as the meek dolt from the gallery. She was surprised to see he had a spine and a quick retort. “You’re the framer who slammed into me at Delacourte’s.”

  He glared at her as if she’d slung a curse word his way. “I was in the doorway first, as I recall, and I’m not just a craftsman who builds customs frames. I’m also the person who’s been piecing this farm back together and the person who’s been helping your grandmother enjoy it once again.” He stood and walked to the edge of the roof nearest her, making his points with every step. “As for what I’m doing up here, I’m taking notes about what’s needed to keep this barn standing. Unlike you, I run things by Agnes before making changes to her world. You see, I care about her. We’re friends now. What happens to her matters to me.”