A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET

by Lewis, Laurie

  While he battled the demons back, the thumb of his other hand drew tiny circles on her cheek. In response, her eyes closed and she leaned into his palm, then, as if a switch flipped, she straightened and pulled back. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Noah. I like you. I really do, but it’s not just our risk. If we try this and mess up, Grandma will lose you.”

  Noah processed her words, but more than that, he heard her admission that she cared for him. It was enough for now. He released her and stepped back, fighting the smile that played at his lips. “Okay. We’ll just . . . keep things as they are for now, and see where things go.”

  * * *

  Noah wasn’t sure he slept at all that night. Possibilities now loomed as promising as his dreams, making one state difficult to distinguish from the other. He thought about the previous evening’s conversation, and about Agnes’s brown daffodils. It would require patience to bring life back to hearts that had felt dead for so long. He smiled. He could be patient.

  Noah rose from his loft-bed before the rooster crowed. The morning feeding was completed, and he was in the truck, headed down the lane, without seeing any sign of the women. He looked back at the house and smiled. He no longer felt like a vagabond. He felt at home.

  When he pulled into the Eppleys’ driveway, he was delighted to see that the small Bobcat he arranged for had been delivered. He waited fifteen minutes for signs that the family was awake, and as soon as the kitchen light came on, Noah powered up the motor and began leveling the space where the deck would sit. When he was half through, he saw an astonishing sight. Marty, Sam, and Jared arrived along with Susan’s and Linda’s husbands, Everett and Blaine, and the men had not come empty handed. Uncle John’s workhorse, his big John Deere, was there on a flatbed with a blade attached to the front and a posthole digger dangling from the back.

  “What time did you get here?” teased Sam as he scratched his head.

  “First light. I’m racing to get the footers and posts in before the rain starts.”

  “With six of us, we’ll make short work of this,” said Jared.

  “I’m grateful for the offer of help, but I can’t pull you away from your family right now.”

  “I promise you that being here is the best medicine for us and for Dad. It was all he talked about last night.”

  Noah put his hands on his hips and stared at his cousins. “Do you white collars know anything about building a deck?”

  Jared and Sam looked at one another and smiled. “We can’t speak for the accountant and the dentist,” said Sam, “but do you have any idea how many postholes we two have dug and how many running feet of fencing we’ve built over the years?”

  Noah blushed at his ignorance. “I should’ve known that. Okay. You’re all hired.”

  “Let’s finish leveling this ground. We’ll have these posts and footers placed in no time.”

  Noah’s chest swelled each time he looked up and saw Jenna’s and Micah’s faces pressed against the window, watching the Bobcat tear away at the earth. When the pair left for the bus stop, a ponytailed Jenna hobbled across the yard waving an offering. Noah’s initial annoyance at the disruption melted under the radiance of her smile. He shut the machine down, marveling at how resilient and happy she was despite her disability.

  As she picked her way across the rutted terrain, Noah remembered his days spent in a brace, recalling how spills and falls had made him timid. Not Jenna. Fearing for her safety, he exited the machine and walked to her. When he was within an arm’s length of her she did fall, landing on her good knee and her free hand on a hill of dirt before Noah could reach her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked breathlessly as he checked and rechecked her legs and hands.

  “I saved the toast! Look! It’s not dirty at all! I made it for you. It’s fluffernutter toast—peanut butter and marshmallow crème. My favorite.”

  “Fluffernutter?” Noah tried to conceal his concern over the fall, which had left Jenna unaffected. “I’ve never had one before. Thanks for making it for me.”

  “Sure. That’s what friends do.” She brushed at the last evidence of dirt on her knee. “Will the deck be finished by the time I get home this afternoon?”

  Noah noticed Micah’s hopeful expression behind her. “I’m afraid not. It’ll take days to build this deck. It won’t look like much for a while.”

  Jenna offered him a smile that put the sun to shame. “I know you’ll do your best.”

  A unique spark of warmth shot through Noah. It was different from anything he’d ever felt before, and he instantly wanted to offer her a gift in return. “Can I tell you a secret, Jenna?”

  “Sure.”

  He leaned close. “I wore braces like yours on both my legs when I was little.”

  Jenna gasped with wonder that also showed in her widened eyes. “You don’t even limp!”

  “Because I wore them every day until my legs straightened. I bet yours will too.”

  “Oh, thank you, Noah.” She shot a wary glance at the house as a battle ensued between Jenna’s joy and her effort to conceal it. She whispered, “Daddy and Mommy want me to love myself the way I am, but every night, I still pray my leg will straighten. Now I know it will!”

  As Jenna hobbled off, Noah realized that in his ignorance, he had elevated her hopes in direct opposition to her parents’ efforts to help her accept her situation. Regret burdened him as he returned to his work.

  The ground was cleared and leveled soon after their school bus whisked the children away. While the Anderson family’s men poured footers and set the posts, Marty and Noah laid out the deck with string, and handled preparations to eventually attach the deck to the house.

  Near noon, Margot came out with a tray of sandwiches, and while the other men ate, Noah called Tayte, but there was no answer. He typed a short text and returned to the group to eat. The last post was set in concrete, and the deck lumber had been delivered and wrapped in plastic by the time the school bus dropped the Eppley children off. It was also the time an ominous curtain of dark clouds began rolling in.

  Noah admired the day’s progress. The shape of the deck was now marked by wooden posts and string, and though Noah could see the finished product clearly, Jenna scrambled over, slipped her hand in his, and put the day’s accomplishments in a different perspective.

  Her nose wrinkled as did her brow. “It doesn’t look very good yet.”

  The comment caused Sam to laugh and nearly spit out his soda. Jenna wrinkled her nose at him and fired a critical question at Noah.

  “When do you put all the fun stuff in?” The child waited expectantly for Noah’s reply.

  “We’ll get on it as soon as the concrete is hard, okay?”

  Margot appeared at the doorway and called to her daughter. “Jenna? Leave poor Noah alone. It’s time to hit the homework.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes at Noah. “I gotta go. See you tomorrow, Noah. I hope you and Tayte had a good date.” She concluded with a wink as she turned for the house.

  “She’s a cutie,” said Jared.

  Noah’s gaze followed her all the way into the house. “Yeah, she sure is.” He turned to his cousins as he wiped the sweat from his brow. “Thanks for the help today.”

  “Our pleasure. I’d almost forgotten how great it feels to build something.” Jared winced as he pointed to a black patch on the northwestern horizon. “We cut it close. That storm is already pounding the mountains.”

  “We’re not done yet, are we, Noah?” asked Blaine. “We still have some time before the rain gets here. I was hoping to swing a hammer for another hour or two.”

  “I’m afraid that’s all we can do today. We need to let the concrete cure.”

  “Then we’ll be back the next good day we get.” said Sam. “You’ll need help setting those joists.” The other men nodded in agreement. “And Mother asked us to remind you that you don’t need an invitation to come by. They miss you, and we want you there too.”

  Noah marveled that
the invitation left him feeling conflicted as he considered what awaited him at Alsace Farm. He looked up at the thick canopy of dark clouds rolling east. “I need to handle the evening feeding at Agnes’s first, but I’ll try to head over for a while.”

  “Come if you can,” said Jared. “We don’t have much time left with Dad.”

  Sam studied the sky. “This storm could be a real gully washer. If enough mountain rain rushes down, the creek will swell over the banks. Don’t panic if it floods Agnes’s farm lane. Just four-wheel over the hills and out until it subsides.”

  Large droplets began to hammer the ground, and the men headed for their trucks. Noah called Tayte again, but there was no answer, so he tried the house with no success. As a last resort, he sent another text. Good day here. Hope yours went well. Hurry home before the rain swells the creek. He hesitated and typed, Miss you, and then erased it over worry that he sounded needy or that he was already exceeding the agreed snail’s pace of their budding romance.

  Chapter 21

  After herding the animals into the barn, Noah ran the truck up and down the lane, keeping an eye out for the women while assessing the creek’s level. Debris littered the rapid flow, which was already a churning, brown muck.

  Tayte’s car passed Noah as he was setting off on another recon trip. He read frustration on her face and noted that Agnes’s mouth was set in an ironclad pout. By the time he turned around and made it to the house, Agnes had stormed inside leaving Tayte standing in the deluge by her open trunk, grabbing shopping bags.

  Noah rushed over to help. “I tried calling you a couple of times today. I was worried.”

  Tayte stalled, clearly willing to allow the pelting rain to soak her as she made her point. “Please don’t pull that possessive, needy crap on me.”

  She looped the handles of four grocery bags over her wrists and started for the door, leaving Noah stunned. He grabbed the remaining items and slammed the trunk down, finding some release in the loud crash. After setting the bags on the table, he turned for the door. He thought about slamming that too when he realized he was falling back into old patterns of taking abuse and running. He spun around. “For your information, the creek has a tendency to flood the lane in heavy rains. I was trying to warn you to keep you safe. It was a courtesy I would have extended to any human being. Including my father.”

  The point hit its mark. “All right, I’m sorry.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. It’s been a horrible day. Grandma lost my phone at the park, so after the shoot we ended up at the phone store at the mall where she flirted with the sales guy and fussed over a baby until the worried mother thought she was a threat, grabbed her child, and left the store without her phone. Everyone in there thought Grandma was crazy. I’ve tolerated her Binney and Smith make-up palette, her low-cut, cat-fur-covered clothes, and her aversion to bathing, but today, when I looked at her through those strangers’ eyes, I was humiliated, so I took her shopping for clothes. It was an even bigger disaster.”

  Noah remained unmoved. “Sorry you had a bad day.” He turned for the door again.

  “Wait.” Her hands moved to her hips. “I said I’m sorry.”

  He growled in frustration. “You don’t get to shoot off in anger at me and then think a casual ‘I’m sorry’ erases it. You had a point to make. You made it. Point taken.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  He stepped back as his hands went up. “Not a thing, Tayte.” Then he exited.

  The exchange left him shaking with frustration. He wanted to jump in the truck and blow her off, but that’s what the old Noah would have done. He was different now. At least he wanted to be. He now recognized that some things were worth fighting for. He raked his hands through his wet hair as he stood in the rain figuring out what to do. Hunger bit at his stomach, made worse by the realization that he’d likely missed Sarah’s dinner invitation as well. He decided to kill an hour working on the Eppleys’ picture frame, when he remembered the saved half of one of Margot’s sandwiches calling to him from the truck’s seat.

  As he devoured it, he saw Agnes through the open curtain of her bedroom. She stood before the mirror just staring at herself, prompting Noah to wonder what hurtful words Tayte had fired at her grandmother in her embarrassment. He could imagine what they were. His love for Agnes had long since blinded him to her eccentric appearance, but he’d seen people’s stares when she was in his company. He’d managed to ignore them, but he understood why it wouldn’t be so simple for Tayte. She’d read failure into their stares, as if she weren’t caring for Agnes, or judgment that she was, once again, equally odd. He wanted to reassure her, but there was nothing he could say or do right now without upsetting her further. The complexity of it all exhausted him, so he headed for the barn.

  He’d set the miter saw’s angle and was preparing to make a cut when Agnes appeared under an umbrella, wearing a wrinkled floral dress and preceded by the aroma of a pint of perfume. A platinum blonde, mail-order wig sat slightly off kilter, with her own gray strands escaping around the edges. Her makeup had been applied more heavily than usual, and she had accessorized with a few pieces of jewelry. Noah’s immediate surprise turned to empathy, and he offered his friend a long, low whistle. “Well, look at you, Agnes. Going blonde tonight, eh?”

  “I thought it was gray when I ordered it. Do I look all right?” She smoothed her skirt.

  “You sure don’t look like any farmer I know. What’s the occasion?”

  “I just felt like it,” she said with a toss of her head. “That Tayte was very mean to me today. She said I was dirty and that I smelled. She called me a clown.”

  “Did she really call you a clown?”

  Agnes jerked one shoulder. “She might as well have. She said my makeup made me look like a clown, and she did say I smell bad.”

  The sensitive topic of personal hygiene needed to be addressed. Still, Noah required a few seconds to decide how to respond. “You work really hard, Agnes. You take care of all the animals, and you still have a house to care for. That’s a lot. When I work hard I smell bad too. Maybe we both need to shower more. We could remind each other.”

  Agnes drew some pride from the compliment. “I do work hard, but I still want her to leave my farm. We don’t need her here. She is bossy.”

  Noah knew he was on a critical precipice. He walked over to Agnes and put his hands on her shoulders. “We do need her, Agnes. And she needs us.”

  “What do we need her for? Nothing I do is right. Nothing is ever good enough for her.”

  Noah frowned at that assessment. “I think she feels the same way. We’ve been pretty hard on her, haven’t we?”

  “I know you mean me. You like her. I see how you look at her.”

  Noah didn’t deny the charge. “She’s been trying to be helpful. Didn’t she share the feeding last night?” Agnes didn’t answer. “She let you teach her what you know best. Maybe you could go along with a few of her ideas as well.”

  “She reminds me of Sharlz’s wife. She pretended to be my friend too, and then she stole from me.” Her hand flew in the air angrily.

  “Tayte is not Mrs. Briscoe. She loves you. Just try to work with her, okay?”

  “All right,” Agnes grumbled. “You always make me be kind. Tell her to be kind too!”

  “I will. I promise if you make an effort to get along with Tayte, I’ll talk to her as well.”

  Agnes left the barn smiling and returned to the house, leaving Noah shaking his head over the conversation. He looked at his watch. Despite the time, he was determined to at least get the four pieces of wood cut for the frame before leaving for his uncle’s house.

  On the way out the lane, he checked the height and flow of the muddy creek. It had risen and was pushing limbs and brush at an accelerated pace.

  All was quiet at the Andersons’ farm when he arrived. No one sat on the front porch chatting as they usually did in the evening. When he knocked on the door, Everett greeted him.

 
“You don’t need to knock on this door, Noah. You’re family.”

  Noah’s head dipped as a flush of color spread across his face and down his neck. He smiled and nodded. “How’s Uncle John?”

  A somber shake of Everett’s head confirmed Noah’s fears. “His pain level was bad today, so the hospice nurse increased his meds. He’s sleeping comfortably now. Come on in.”

  Linda, Susan, and their sisters-in-law were attending to the dishes. Noah’s cousins left their work to give him a hug as he passed on his way to the living room. The strain of the past week was apparent in their faces, and Noah gave their hands a squeeze as he released them. He could hear a children’s movie playing down the hall on the small TV in the den where he assumed the grandkids were gathered. The remaining adults sat near Uncle John’s bed. Aunt Sarah smiled at Noah from John’s bedside, holding her husband’s hand. Noah crossed over to her, and she lifted her cheek to receive his kiss.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  A grim effort at a smile crossed her lips. “It was a hard day.”

  Sam brought a chair in for Noah and placed it near Sarah’s. Noah sat and said, “I’m sorry the deck project pulled Sam and Jared away today.”

  “Nothing could have brought John more pleasure than the thought of all of you working together. You’re never going to be alone now. You have a family. I think that was the gift John wanted to give you by handing you this opportunity.”

  A quick glance at his cousins revealed smiles that echoed their mother’s words. Noah fought to still lips that twisted in response.

  “It was interesting, the way things worked out today. The boys were gone, and then the girls took the children to Boonsboro to see the caverns at Crystal Grottoes,” continued Sarah. “The house was so quiet. John and I have enjoyed the family time, but we needed those few still hours to say our final good-byes. We reconciled ourselves to his passing. He was in pain, but he had peace. I’m ready to let him go now. I don’t want him to suffer any longer.”