A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET

by Lewis, Laurie

  She laid the comb on a shelf and took Noah’s hand, leading him down the unlit hallway and up the stairs to the floor where the bedrooms were situated. She turned right and led him to the last door at the end of the hall. “Open it,” she said.

  He had no idea what her surprise was, but his mind leapt to an explanation that obliterated reason, along with his ability to hear and think above the pounding of his pulse. He eyed Tayte and turned the knob. He could make out little in the dim light, except for the shadow of a bed and chair. Tayte switched on the lamp and walked to the closet. She beamed as she opened the door, revealing all of Noah’s clothes suspended on hangers. Noah’s backpack and motorcycle helmet hung from two hooks, and his shoes and boots sat in a neat row on the floor next to two books she pulled from his pack. A blue plaid robe lay across the red quilt that covered the double bed, while his flannel shirt hung from the back of the chair that held his canvas tool bag.

  Tayte fingered the blue plaid robe. “This belonged to my grandfather. Grandma pulled it from her hope chest, still wrapped in tissue paper. She wanted you to have it.” She returned to Noah’s side and slipped her hand in his. “Grandma told me about your conversation. How you told her to be nice to me, and how you were going to tell me to do the same. We decided to work together on a project, to make a real room, for you.”

  A thin sheen of sweat burst over his skin. Tayte’s gift was not the reckless offer he had assumed she was making. He censured his mind for even going there. The two of them couldn’t handle the intimacy of a kiss. No, this was a gesture of great significance to Noah, a lowering of invisible barriers and an expression of trust. Did he want more with Tayte? He knew the answer was yes, but that would require more healing, more trust, and lasting commitment from each of them, things they weren’t equipped to handle now. Still clenching Tayte’s hand, he leaned against the doorjamb, shook his head and laughed, clearing his previous thought away.

  “What?” asked Tayte. Color reddened her cheeks. “Oh—you thought—”

  Noah’s free hand swept back and forth like a thought eraser. “No, no, no . . . Okay, maybe . . . just for a second.”

  Tayte released Noah’s hand and settled against the opposite jamb. “My parents lived the law of convenience. They were parents when it suited them. The same could be said of their own relationship. That lifestyle took a heavy toll on my mother. I won’t do that. I want more. I’m going to want permanence.” She smiled shyly. “I want the fairytale. And someday, when I’m ready, I’ll want a man who’s prepared to stay forever.”

  Noah zeroed in on everything she was saying, the spoken and the unspoken, hoping to prevent any erosion in their fragile trust. “All in or all out.” He nodded his agreement. “I couldn’t be happy with less either.” He reached for her hand, and she didn’t pull back. “Is that what you told Miami-man?” he asked.

  “He knew the what. He never understood the why.” Her head dipped and she blushed. “This has become really awkward. A room makeover pales in comparison to what you imagined.”

  “No. It’s pretty wonderful to think someone would do all this for me.” He moved the hand holding hers back and forth until her tense arm jiggled loosely. “Thank you for this, but won’t this still be awkward? Where do you sleep?”

  “Downstairs, with the baby goats.” She laughed. “Actually, we fixed the parlor up for me. I want to be closer to Grandma at night so I can hear her if she gets up. It’s better this way. I’m sorry for how I treated you today. I’m a mess. I don’t know if I’ll ever be right, but I wanted you to see that I’m trying.”

  He gave her hand a gentle tug, and she responded easily to his invitation, leaning into his chest as his arms folded around her.

  “So, you really like it?”

  “I love it,” he replied sadly, remembering his promise to his aunt.

  Tayte looked up at him. “One more surprise. Come.” She led him down the hall again to another door. “This will be your bathroom. Open it.” The first thing he noticed was two bright white towels hung from racks. Hand painted arks adorned the bottom corners. The lettering between the images read, Noah.

  Noah walked to the towels and touched the detailed art. When he looked back at Tayte she wore a nervous smile. “When did you do this?”

  “This evening while you were away. I’m not trying to be presumptuous by monogramming your towels.” She laughed and grew more serious. “Our home is yours now. I don’t know why you put up with us, but I’m glad you do, and I hope you’ll stay . . . for as long as you want.”

  The remembrance of Sarah’s last request felt like a dagger in his heart. He closed his eyes wondering how to explain his promise to move back to the Andersons’ place to Tayte.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Tayte as she stepped back, concerned. “It’s too much, isn’t it?”

  Noah rushed in with an emphatic whisper as he took her hands. “No, I love it. I love every detail. No one has ever done anything like this for me. The timing is just . . . complicated.” He blew out a rush of air. “My aunt asked a favor of me today. When Uncle John is gone, she’s going to spend some time away, visiting her family. I promised her I’d move back to her house and look after that place while she’s away.”

  Tayte stiffened in his arms, and she said, “Of course. You have your real family.”

  He could see the wall going up. She pulled away from him, and though he tried to pull her back, she slipped several steps away.

  “I do have a real family, and you and Agnes are essential parts of it.”

  She began to cry. “How can you say that? Grandma is getting more difficult every day, and I’m horrible to you. Why would you want to be here at all?”

  Noah drew in a deep breath and shivered, overcome by his fear that she would reject the words he longed to say. Words he had held in reserve for an empty, loveless decade, awaiting the right moment and the right woman to share them with.

  Because I love you, Tayte.

  Seconds ticked by during Noah’s secret wrestle. He returned to the moment, realizing the toll his delay in responding had taken on Tayte. The blood seemed to have drained from her face while her expression swirled between hurt and terror. Everything had changed in a moment.

  He groaned aloud. “I’m sorry, Tayte. I didn’t know about all this when I made the promise to Sarah.”

  Tayte stepped away from him again. “No problem,” she said dismissively. “It’s fine.”

  “You’re not fine. I’ve ruined your surprise. I love it, Tayte.” She turned away, but Noah took her shoulders gently and moved her back to him. Her stiffness eased until she relaxed against him, resting her head into the crook of his neck. “I love it, Tayte,” he whispered huskily. It was an anemic truce, but he savored what remained of the moment—the feel of her in his arms, the citrus smell of her hair. Tilting her head, he looked into her eyes. “This is exactly where I want to be.”

  Noah studied her reaction to his profession, as the tension in her brow and mouth eased.

  “It’s late. I should check on my grandmother.”

  “Okay.” Noah gently took her hand. “I’ll go with you.”

  Tayte nodded and followed Noah’s lead down the steps. A chilly draft blew up from the floor below.

  “The door must have blown open after Nathaniel left,” said Noah, but when they reached the bottom step the air seemed colder in the hall near Agnes’s room. For the first time they noticed light shining from the one inch gap under and around the slightly ajar door.

  “Oh, no,” groaned Tayte. She dropped Noah’s hand and ran down the hall. He was right behind her as she flung Agnes’s door open to discover an empty bed and an open door that led to a veranda overlooking the creek. Tayte ran to the terrace and stood in the rain, screaming Agnes’s name until Noah pulled her back inside and closed the door.

  “I’ll go look for her. This bedroom wasn’t lit when I drove in, so she must have left recently, probably when we went upstairs. She couldn’t have gone far.�
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  Tayte touched an empty spot on Agnes’s messy dresser, where one of the curry combs still lay. “I did place those combs here.” She began to pace. “She wanted to go out and look for Lancelot. Then Nathaniel called, and I became impatient with Grandma when I settled her in.” Panic rose in her voice. “I should have taken her to look for the darned horse. Now she’s out there alone, looking for him in the storm. What if she wanders down by the creek? You heard what Nathaniel said. She could get swept away and drown!” Her panic ratcheted up even higher.

  Noah took her firmly by the shoulders. “That won’t happen, Tayte. I’ll find her.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No. Stay here in case she wanders back to the house.”

  “Please, Noah. Please don’t let her die because of me.”

  Chapter 23

  Tayte had felt this gnawing guilt before, on the day Nathaniel Briscoe reported that her estranged and recently sober parents were killed by a drunk driver on the very night they met to celebrate their new lives. Then too, she had closed doors, turned her back, stopped listening, and ignored the needs of another person she loved. Maybe she should stop fooling herself. What did she have to offer anyone?

  She paced back and forth, from one side of the house to the other, peering out of wet windows that revealed nothing in the inky blackness. A determined wrestle with a junk drawer produced a flashlight that actually lit. Grabbing an umbrella from the stand, she headed for the door. Just then, her cell phone rang, displaying a photo of her and Tyler on the screen—Tyler’s phone ID—a sight she never expected to see again after ignoring his calls for weeks. It dredged up memories of lazy beach-bum days, which seemed heavenly compared to the constant stress and burden of caring for her grandmother. The very reasons she gave for breaking up with Tyler and leaving Florida now summoned her like a song of freedom. She took the call.

  “Hello, Tyler.”

  “Baby, I’ve missed you. Is everything all right? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  The floodgates opened, and Tayte didn’t bother to stave the tears. “Things here are terrible. I don’t know what I’m doing. My grandmother wandered off in the middle of a storm, and Noah is out there now trying to find her before she gets hurt.”

  “Who’s Noah?”

  “Who’s—? Did you hear anything I said about my grandmother?”

  “Yeah. Of course. I tried to warn you that you were taking on way too much.”

  His “I told you so” got Tayte’s dander up. “Actually, we do pretty well most days. I’m just tired tonight . . . and feeling a little overwhelmed. Being responsible for someone besides yourself is hard work.”

  Tayte’s well-aimed barb had no impact on Tyler. “I understand that you want to know your grandmother, Tayte. That’s awesome, but why did you need to leave everything behind to do it? I saw her decrepit old farm. It’s a wonder she hasn’t gotten hurt before. Come back to Miami. We’ll find a beautiful place for your grandmother down here. You can have your old life and still see her as much as you want. Tayte, you can have it all.”

  You can have it all. It seemed so simple. So inviting.

  The glow of headlights moving erratically along the creek shore pulled her back to the present situation. She watched Noah’s vehicle stop, and with the phone pressed against her ear, she moved to the window and followed Noah’s soaking wet silhouette as he passed through the light, one hand fighting flailing tree limbs and the other pressed to his mouth, calling Agnes’s name through the rain. Tears sprang to Tayte’s eyes again, but this time, not in self-pity.

  She heard Tyler’s voice attempting to call her back into the conversation, but her attentions were riveted on the drama playing out by the creek.

  “I know you’ve got a lot on your mind right now. I’ll make some inquiries for your grandmother and get back to you, okay?”

  Distracted, she offered a robotic, instinctive, “Um hmmm,” more as a means to end the conversation than as an affirmation of Tyler’s question. Before she hit the disconnect button she heard Tyler say, “I still love you, Tayte.”

  She pretended not to hear, and ended the call.

  * * *

  After scouring the barn and paddock area to no avail, Noah made the decision to eliminate the most dangerous threat next—the shoreline—which proved to be a daunting enterprise this night. The old truck fishtailed in the muddy earth along the creek shore, fighting Noah’s efforts to stay uphill from the surging waters below. Some aged trees began to succumb to the tug and pull from windblown upper boughs, whose weight grew too burdensome for roots weakened by the rain-soaked earth. They fell haphazardly, some crashing into the water, some dangling half in and half out, creating a gauntlet the old truck could not traverse. Time and again, Noah had to get out to assess a route around a downed tree or to move a limb. The jagged ends of broken branches tore through his clothes, drawing blood. He ignored the pain and worked on, driven by his worry for Agnes and for Tayte.

  The promise he made to Tayte, to bring Agnes home, reverberated in his mind. Why had he made such a blanket promise? Old inadequacies tore at his peace like the limbs that tore his flesh, but he fought them by considering what Agnes must be feeling—terrified, confused, lost, powerless, hopeless. He knew those feelings. They were his feelings that night spent in the Baltimore jail when five brutes toyed with him, whispering threats in his ears, ratcheting up his fear, touching him as they pleased, and enjoying every second of his terror. The slaps and punches sent pain down to his bones, but the other touches? They harrowed his soul. He’d had no champion, no savior. He would not leave Agnes to the same fate. He was going to lose his uncle, but he would not lose Agnes, and he would not disappoint Tayte.

  After making the full circuit along the portion of the creek that bordered Agnes’s property, Noah stopped the truck and considered where to look next. A search of Alsace Farm’s vast acreage posed a challenge for one man in the daylight. In the dark during a storm? It was impossible. Noah pressed his head against the steering wheel and offered an awkward prayer to the God with whom Uncle John and Agnes had made him acquainted. He didn’t know if God would answer someone so unfamiliar with Him, but he asked not for himself, but for Agnes, who he felt God surely loved.

  At the end of his prayer no visions or voices guided him. Frustrated tears burned in his eyes, and in response he banged his hands against the steering wheel. “Where are you, Agnes?” he cried aloud. Then a new thought entered his mind. “Where are you, Lancelot?”

  That question reminded Noah of a conversation he and Agnes had while cleaning out the gelding’s hooves. She mentioned that the old horse was a fan of mulberries, and Noah knew a stand of the wild fruit trees grew in a thorny section of the old vineyard. As simple as his reasoning was, it was the only lead he had, and something inside him urged him to follow it.

  He turned the truck north toward the old vineyard and hit the gas. The truck’s rear tires splayed left and right as they fought for traction in the muddy terrain. It took several attempts to climb the rise that led to the old vineyard, but once breached, the real difficulty began.

  The vineyard was now a dense tangle of assorted viny growth that had become an impenetrable thicket except for a few narrow openings maintained by Lancelot’s frequent passage. But finding them would be the challenge as the darkness further obscured their already camouflaged entrance.

  Noah drove slowly, allowing the truck’s light to fall on every inch of the hedge, but no entrance was revealed. He parked the truck and grabbed the flashlight from the glove box, intending to search on foot. Within minutes, he heard a siren-like wail that chilled every nerve. Was it human or animal? He couldn’t tell. For a moment, he considered returning to the house to get Agnes’s shotgun, but again the cry sounded, and Noah moved ahead on rubbery legs.

  Still unable to find the opening, he headed directly for the sound, breaking his own path through sopping foliage that further slashed at his arms and face. The flashlight’s
beam fell on a dark mound in an opening ahead. Noah pressed on to where Lancelot’s stiff, swollen body lay, but there was no visible sign of Agnes. He called to her.

  “Agnes? It’s Noah. I’ve come for you.”

  A hand scratched the air from behind the dead horse, as if pushing Noah away. He approached her, and she squinted and wailed at the bright light, moving closer to Lancelot’s body. Noah knew if she could burrow inside her dead friend she would have. He moved the light to the side to avoid blinding her, but she could not see Noah, who was now just another frightening element in this macabre nightmare. He reached for her hand, and she flung it away from him, screeching like a cat. She was beyond reason—or being reasoned with—but she was alive, and as far as he could see, she was physically unhurt.

  He moved behind her to wrap his arms around her torso, paying dearly for the attempt as fists and feet pummeled him. And then, when the last ounce of her energy was spent, she collapsed in a sobbing heap.

  Equally spent, Noah could hardly bear Agnes’s dead weight. Tripping on tangled vines, he finally made his way back to the truck and dragged Agnes inside. She threw her arms across her body like a shield while studying Noah’s face as if she were seeing him for the first time. Moments passed and recollection finally came. She rocked back and forth in her seat, muttering French tones that made no intelligible sense. Then came words Noah understood clearly.

  “Home. Home.”

  Choked up, Noah laid a gentle hand along her cheek. “Yes, Agnes. We’re going home.”

  The slippery, stressful slide down the hill and equally hair-raising ride up the muddy knoll to the house lasted only a few minutes. By best estimates, Agnes had been lost for less than two hours, but the toll the event had taken on her was massive and devastating. Tayte ran from the house prepared to scoop her grandmother up, but Noah caught her midway and held her back as he explained the woman’s fragile mental state.

  He opened the truck door and held his hand to Agnes, offering to help her down. She remained in a rocking, mumbling ball until Noah finally took her hand against her will and urged her from the truck. With a shuffling gait, she made her way into the house and to her room, crawling, wet clothes and all, onto her bed. Bijou leaped up and lay beside her. With one hand cradling the cat and the other tucked under her chin, she curled into a quivering ball, and closed her eyes.