A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET

by Lewis, Laurie

  “Do you have the painting in the car?”

  “I do.” Nathaniel’s voice carried a thread of suspicion on it and his eyebrows rose. “You’re not proposing I confront her here? During John’s funeral luncheon?”

  Noah shook his head. “I suppose that’s not such a great idea, but Agnes is practically catatonic, and Tayte’s tanking emotionally. Your mother somehow figures into Agnes’s preoccupation with the art, which we may need to sell to take care of Agnes. We really need some answers.”

  Nathaniel watched his mother work the room from the moment she entered the house. He groaned and shook his head. “All right. Let me see if I can finagle her onto the patio.”

  Noah hung back as the lawyer offered his mother a tepid hug while whispering something in her ear that caused her complexion to pale. After a few moments, she excused herself and headed back out the door and behind the house to a patio where Nathaniel waited for her with the wrapped painting. Noah slipped outside as well, taking cover behind a hedge that obscured his location from Eleanor. It gave Nathaniel a general view of Noah who had access to the conversation taking place.

  “Honestly, Nathaniel, what on earth is all this subterfuge about?” Noah heard Eleanor Briscoe ask as she approached her waiting son. “And how dare you threaten any change to my lifestyle if I choose not to follow you outside?”

  “I won’t take but a minute or two of your time, Mother.” He pointed to a bench that sat under a sprawling oak tree. “Please. Sit.”

  Clearly miffed, she did as she was asked. “What could possibly warrant such drama?”

  Nathaniel removed the wrapping and turned the portrait of Agnes, Charles, and Eleanor around to face his mother. “Please explain this.”

  Eleanor’s peaches-and-cream complexion paled, but her expression remained stoic. “Is this deceit your own idea, or did your father put you up to it before he died?”

  “I came upon the painting, and I didn’t want false conclusions to trouble my sleep.”

  “You may conclude whatever you choose, Nathaniel. I have nothing to say.”

  “You’re my only remaining parent, and I will see to your care no matter what you’ve done, but if you refuse to answer my questions, I’ll manage your affairs from a distance. I’ll walk away and leave you as alone in your elegant cage at the retirement village as you left Agnes Keller on her decrepit farm.”

  Eleanor Briscoe lifted her chin and issued her son a stare that even chilled Noah. “Like father, like son.”

  “Tell me about the portrait. Father appears to be with Agnes, not you.”

  Eleanor huffed. “It’s very simple. Agnes painted what she wanted to see.”

  “Wasn’t he engaged to Agnes at this time?”

  “It was not an engagement,” she snapped back. Noah could tell Nathaniel had hit a nerve. “They maintained some sort of understanding. Your father and I were at Columbia, in a World History study group. Everyone tired of Charles’s stories about poor Agnes Devereaux and her father the diplomat and how courageous she’d been during the bombing of Strasbourg. So I asked him to arrange a portrait sitting with her the next time I came to the area.”

  “Were you already in love with Father?”

  She shrugged at her son. “I saw his potential.”

  “So you went there to break them apart.”

  “I went there to rescue Charles. Agnes and her family were charlatans. Her father, the war hero/diplomat/vintner couldn’t produce a single bottle of drinkable wine, and her mother was a lunatic. They were all crazies or liars, and I told Charles so.” She moved to the edge of her seat. “He believed every one of Agnes’s tales, blaming the family’s poverty on their heroic flee from Europe to protect a mythical art treasure hidden in her attic.”

  She huffed and Noah had to refrain from racing to Agnes’s defense.

  “When Charles swore me to secrecy about the art, I figured Agnes had sworn him to secrecy as well, and that gave me the leverage I needed to rescue him.”

  Nathaniel cocked his head and eyed his mother. “So . . . you don’t believe the art story?”

  Eleanor’s entire face seemed to pucker in disdain. Her cultured voice grew crass, dripping with sarcasm. “The Devereaux family couldn’t afford a bucket of whitewash, and you’re asking me if I believed Agnes had a fortune in treasure hidden in the attic of her decrepit farmhouse?”

  Nathaniel groaned aloud. “I could do without the commentary. Mother.”

  “It’s the truth, so I made a plan. The three of us spent the day picnicking by the creek like old friends while she painted that very piece you brought here tonight. Before I left for my train, I offered Agnes one hundred dollars for a peek at the supposed treasure.”

  “What did Agnes say?”

  “She became nearly apoplectic, denying that such a collection existed of course.” Eleanor pressed two fingers to her lips to stifle the smile breaking there. “But you should have seen her face when she realized she was caught in her lie. She nearly dropped dead away. Then she turned on your father for telling me. It was the beginning of the end.”

  Nathaniel set the portrait against the tree and glanced in Noah’s direction. Noah was so angry that he began to leave his sheltered place, but Nathaniel paced a few steps in Noah’s direction, signaling for him to remain where he was, while he picked up the story. “I fail to see the humor.”

  “Why are you angry at me and not the woman who fabricated the lie? Or your father who broke his promise to Agnes by telling me?”

  “I’m not angry. I’m disappointed.”

  “I was rescuing your father!” She leaned forward and explained. “Charles would have been content to be a gentleman farmer writing wills and real estate contracts on the side, but I wanted more for him. I couldn’t bear to watch him squander his talents on a bumpkin who rode bareback and wiped chicken dung from eggs.” She leaned back into her cushion. “And why are you digging this all up now? What is that Keller woman to you anyway?”

  “She’s poor and sick and she’s my client. But this isn’t just about Agnes Keller. I couldn’t love my own father because you maligned him and made me think he was a cad. Do you hear what I am saying, Mother? You kept me from loving my own father. Your marriage wasn’t unhappy because Father failed you. It was miserable because it was based on trickery.”

  Eleanor rose and headed for the parked cars. Noah was shocked when he heard Nathaniel call out another question across the yard.

  “You spread that gossip about Agnes and Father, didn’t you?”

  Eleanor spun around and shushed her son, returning to him in an angry blur.

  “How dare you.”

  “You’ve proven that you are willing to hurt people out of malice. Did you repeat that exercise? You had won. You had everything—Father, comfort, community status. Why did you insist on tormenting Agnes Keller? Why destroy the few things that mattered to her—her good name and her daughter’s love?”

  “How could you hurt me this way?”

  “I just want to understand.”

  Eleanor’s face twisted, and tears came to her eyes. Noah almost pitied her.

  “You don’t understand at all. Your father married me, but I didn’t win. I thought he’d come to love me. I worked so hard to make him successful. We got a little flat in New York City and I used my social connections to guide his career. That entertained him for a while, but then his parents’ health waned, and he wanted to leave New York and return to Frederick. I was terrified of moving here. We were partners, but even then, I already knew your father didn’t love me.”

  Eleanor’s hands balled into fists. “The locals knew Agnes’s candle ritual was tied to Charles. Every time she came to town to buy more of her damnable candles I knew what people were thinking, that she was grieving for my husband who also grieved for her.”

  “That’s what you thought, Mother, and you shared that gossip until their reputations were sullied and Agnes’s daughter had turned against her.” He picked up the paintin
g. “You have no idea how good a man Father really was, do you? Nor what kind of woman Agnes really is.”

  “Can’t you see that she held my life in her hands? She scared me to death.”

  “You should have at least gotten a peek in that attic, Mother. What a pity that you didn’t.”

  After a few agonizing moments of silent standoff, Eleanor Briscoe stormed to her car and drove away. The attorney was shaking when Noah reached him.

  “I’m sorry I pressed you to confront her.”

  Nathaniel shook his hanging head. “It had to be done. I’ll go to her in a day or two and we’ll make our peace, but at least it will be based on truth.”

  He handed the portrait back to Noah. “I also need to talk to you. John left a rather sensitive matter unresolved. It involves you.”

  Noah’s brow narrowed. “I thought we had put an end to all the secrets.”

  “A few still remain, I’m afraid. I’ll be in touch later today.”

  Chapter 26

  Another hour passed with Noah stranded without a vehicle and unwilling to pull a cousin away from their father’s wake to give him a ride. Exhausted from making chit chat with relative strangers, he busied himself at the buffet line until he thought he’d be sick. Relief came as the first colors of dusk began to show. One by one, the Anderson women split off from the crowd to pack bags and bathe overwrought children, and Noah knew the hour of escape had come.

  He pulled Sam and Jared aside. “Your dad had a surprise planned for the kids—something to give the children a positive memory to hold on to. I need to get the old truck.”

  “I think I know what you’ve planned,” said Sam as he grabbed his father’s truck keys.

  “Then you’re in charge of crowd control.”

  Noah climbed into Uncle John’s red truck for the short ride to the funeral home. The two men parted, and as soon as Noah was in the old truck, he removed his jacket and tie, undid the top two buttons of his shirt and headed for the rain-soaked upper fields of the Andersons’ property.

  The lower fields remained soft and mucky, but Noah picked his way along a route to the top that had drained sufficiently to give him some traction. He was grateful for the last bit of fading sunlight that allowed him to assess the terrain. Gravity would aid his descent, but he knew he’d still need to choose his route carefully or risk getting stuck.

  Once he reached the top, he removed a tarp and spread it on level ground. He returned to the truck for the large box and set it down, then returned again for a battery-operated lantern and five PVC tubes with large cutouts. These he staked into the moist earth.

  The famed Juggernaut finale rocket sat atop the collection of fireworks. Noah set the massive rocket aside and set five smaller pieces in the holders. Then he called Sam.

  “Are the kids ready?”

  “We’ve got a very sleepy audience here, but they’re ready.”

  Noah clicked the igniter wand and touched the ends of each staged rocket until they lit and sizzled. One-by-one, they screamed and soared into the dark sky, blazing a trail of color that burst into exploding balls of brilliant light. Mesmerized by the sounds and colors illuminating the horizon, he was brought back to the moment as his phone crackled with the excited squeals of the Anderson grandchildren.

  He set another round of five rockets into place, remembering that these had originally been purchased as a gift for him. He recalled his Uncle John’s excitement over the set, and his plans to recreate the best day of Noah’s childhood. The memory was bittersweet, and suddenly the loss of his uncle hit him with a fresh, new reality. As he lit the rockets he said, “This is for you, Uncle John.”

  He watched their parabolic ascent. “When the children think of you and miss you, I hope they remember these lights and picture you up there somewhere, looking down on them.”

  He suddenly felt too heavy for his legs, gladly slipping to a sit on the tarp behind the rocket stands. He focused on shooting only two pieces up at a time, to extend the show. As quickly as two escaped their cradle, two others replaced them, and the squeals of awed children continued. Twenty-four more rockets of various colors and patterns launched when a new glow of headlights backlit the rise. He placed two more rockets and lit them as the arriving vehicle’s headlights moved erratically. He knew the vehicle was fishtailing and struggling in the mud.

  He lit another two rockets as he heard the labored grind of tires and the strain of a small engine. The driver had foolishly attempted to climb the hill in a standard vehicle, and he was now stuck. “Fool!” Noah muttered under his breath, envisioning a carful of inebriated teens searching for his location. He saw only two possible outcomes. Either they would arrive and intrude or they’d dig in deeper. Either scenario meant an interruption to his solitude. He was not in the mood to dig a car out. All he wanted when the show ended was to get home to Tayte.

  He wiped the back of his hand across his moist eyes, returning his attention to the remaining rockets and his waning moments of peace. He lit two more rockets and watched them trace across the night sky, ripping a hole in the blackness, filling it with light. It seemed to parallel his life. He placed two more rockets in the holders and lit them, noting his time in Myrtle Beach. He’d been alive there, but here he had a life. Thanks to Uncle John.

  The rockets whizzed and zipped before bursting into a bright cloud of fiery rain. He heard the appreciative claps of the children echo through the phone in response.

  Eight rockets left, he told himself. Nine counting the Juggernaut. He couldn’t bring himself to light the finale piece, so he quickly planned a different end for the show.

  He stood and staged three more rockets and held the last five in his hand to light in quick succession. With the lighter poised he said, “I’m not lighting the Juggernaut, Uncle John. No finales for either of us, okay? I’m staying in Adamstown, and I’ll make you proud. I promise.”

  Eight rockets sailed into the sky, one at a time on the tail of the next like a continuous ribbon that seemed not to end but to soar beyond sight. There was a moment of silent expectation as the children waited for more, and then a short sigh of disappointment followed by applause and a prompted thank you to “Uncle Noah.”

  As women’s voices urged the children off to bed, Sam’s voice came over the phone. “Thanks, Noah. That was perfect. Dad would have loved it.”

  The catch in Sam’s voice caused Noah’s throat to tighten. “It was his idea. All his.”

  “Are you coming back down to the house?”

  The thought of another round of good-byes overwhelmed Noah. “I don’t think so. I know you’re beat. Besides, some fool got his car stuck trying to climb the hill. After I pull him out, I’ll just head back to Agnes’s.”

  “Let’s keep in touch, okay? I mean it. Not that annual Christmas-card kind of keeping in touch. Come to Boston.” Jared took the phone. “And I want you to come to San Francisco. I’ll call next month so we can set something up.”

  The welcoming tone of their voices warmed him. “Sounds great. Give your mom a hug for me. Tell her I’ll keep close tabs on the house.”

  He clicked the phone off and closed his eyes. As clearly as the shutting of a door or throwing the off switch on a light, an era had concluded. Despite the new closeness with his cousins and withholding the Juggernaut, things had irrevocably changed in Noah’s life. All the stoicism and protective distance that had insulated him throughout his sterile life had been worn down over the past few months. Love, he concluded, left a person painfully vulnerable.

  He closed his eyes and leaned back against the warm truck body, allowing its heat to soak into him, soothing the shivers that accompanied the evening’s chill. He opened his eyes to stare at the beauty of the sequined sky. He wished Tayte were there. As if summoned by the heavens, she silently slipped against him, her head nestling into the crook of his neck while her arms slid under his. He breathed out a long sigh of gratitude and relief that left him empty and then refilled as the day’s remaining tensi
on left him, replaced by the comfort of love.

  His restless arms wrapped around her, and his hands slid up her back to her head, making sure she was real. He cupped her face and pulled her head back to gaze into her eyes. Utter compassion filled them as she offered him an apologetic half smile.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  His fingers raked through her hair, pulling her back to him. Then his lips brushed softly across her forehead and down her cheek where they found her mouth. He hovered carefully there, gauging her response, and then he felt Tayte’s hands on the back of his head, answering his silent question by initiating a kiss.

  Life sizzled in his previously weary and worn body, revived by Tayte’s touch. He kissed her throat, breathing her in, savoring the touch, the scent, the softness of her and the way her silken hair tickled his fingers as the long, loose strands slipped through them. He wanted to whisper “I love you” over and over, but he pulled away to see what her eyes would reveal.

  Their soft, brown warmth spoke volumes about the trust and vulnerability required for her to come to him this way, but there was more. A yearning for patience, a hint of remaining self-protection. She was not ready to confess her feelings for him.

  She laid her head against his chest. “I worried about you all day. I wanted so badly to be with you.”

  Noah kissed her dark head. “It’s all right. You came when I needed you most.”

  Tayte looked up at him. “Nathaniel stopped by to talk to you. It seemed important. When the fireworks started, I told him I knew it was you setting them off. He sensed how badly I wanted to be here, and he offered to sit with Grandma for an hour.”

  Noah rubbed Tayte’s back as he worried over the possible reason for Nathaniel’s visit.

  “Is your car stuck?”

  “Axle high, I’m afraid.”

  Noah chuckled, enjoying the sound and rumble of his own laughter. “Help me pack up? Then we’ll go rescue your car.”

  Uncle John’s old truck and a tow chain easily freed Tayte’s car. Five minutes later they were home. Noah slung his jacket and tie over one arm. Tayte slid right back under the other. Nathaniel met them on the front porch, his expression filled with worry.