The Dragons of Alsace Farm
Second Chance Romance Series, Book 1
Laurie Lewis
Copyright ©2016 by Laurie Lewis
ISBN: 978-0-9972041-0-0
Published by Willowsport Press,
an imprint of JATA Inc.
Mount Airy, MD 21771
www.laurielclewis.com
Cover design by Keslie Houser
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real or indicative of any individual. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.
Other Books by
Laurie (L.C.) Lewis
Unspoken
Sweet Water: Second Chance Romance Series, Book 2
Love on a Limb: A Great Expectations Love Story, The Graykens, Book 1
Other Books by
Laurie (L.C.) Lewis
Free Men and Dreamers
A sweeping series capturing the triumphs
and struggles of the first American-born
generation, and America’s second
war of independence
Volume 1: Dark Sky at Dawn
Volume 2: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
Volume 3: Dawn’s Early Light
Volume 4: Oh, Say Can You See?
Volume 5: In God is Our Trust
Laurie Lewis
JATA Press, Mount Airy, Maryland
©2016 Laurie Lewis
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Author Comment
Book Club Questions
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Dedication
Family members gathered for a little celebration on Mom’s eighty-second birthday. A grandson noted a birthday card on her nightstand. He pointed to the handsome model pictured on the front and chuckled.
“Who gave you that?” he teased.
Mom glanced at the card, blushed a little, and smiled. Then her gaze drifted from the card to a photo hanging on her wall. It pictured Dad at age nineteen and dressed in his Army uniform.
She nodded at Dad’s photo and said, “The guy in the card can’t hold a candle to that man. He was the most handsome man I ever met.”
The grandson then pointed lovingly to Mom’s high school photo, hung beside my father’s military portrait, and asked, “And who’s this?”
Mom’s eyes shifted to her own youthful, vibrant photo. We could imagine the swiftly moving stream of memories playing across the screen of her mind. Her expression grew thoughtful, and then a sad smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
“That’s the woman who loves him.”
It was a moment I’ll always remember.
This book is dedicated to Mom, who is still teaching us what she knows best—about love.
Chapter 1
It had not been a good night for sleeping, but few were, so Noah Carter occupied his mind by listening to the night sounds—the rumble of vehicle engines in the alley behind where he made his home, crammed in the Laundromat’s utility room. But long before the sun rose, or his alarm sounded, he chose instead to return to his makeshift workbench—two saw horses and a flat-paneled door—hoping to find peace in the steady rhythm of work.
A late-arriving bout of fatigue was dismissed with a yawn as Noah greeted the friends spread across the table. Most people would never understand his gratitude for these loyal, helpful companions—blocks of wood, basic woodworking tools, drawing supplies, books in a variety of genres—and their assistance in filling idle hours, preventing Noah’s mind from straying to his buried past.
The worktable was jammed between walls on the other side of his bed. There was barely standing room between bed and table, but it worked well enough. Noah pushed the stack of books aside, picked up his pencil and began sketching. Fifteen minutes later, he heard the jiggle of the front lock precede the scrape of the Laundromat door.
As Nancy, the middle-aged manager came in, the TV blared to life, Noah leaned back and smiled as he studied his drawing of an ornate table leg. It had taken him awhile to find the something he’d needed to occupy the hope-suffocating vacuum she left behind, but this joyful work eventually satisfied that resulting ache—almost.
He had survived the first year of her absence by destructively numbing himself to the pain. At some point, he chose living over dying, keeping life simple by building an efficient, manageable life. His night job repairing machines at the Laundromat provided free room and board, and desperately needed respect and acceptance was hard-won at his construction job, amongst his co-workers—guts-and-glory, crass-talking hard hats who kept him on a short list when a job required brawn. Between the two jobs, he had felt content, secure. He thought that was enough, the most he should expect from a loveless life, until the day a master carpenter caught him off on his own, whittling away on a piece of discarded oak.
He believed Noah had a gift, and proved it by taking the young carpenter under his wing for the duration of that project. Everything in Noah’s world shifted that day, opening up something unexpected in him. For the first time in years, he felt alive.
A smile broke at the sight of the five brown paper-wrapped packages, stacked on his table and ready for pickup by waiting customers. It had been a good night. A meaningful, productive night. A happy night. Noah gave a silent cheer and drummed his hands on the table in pleasure.
Buoyed by the day’s start, he moved to the dresser, grabbed his towel, and pulled a work shirt and jeans from the drawer before remembering the after-work errand he’d planned. His newest enterprises forced him from self-imposed isolation and into the throngs on Myrtle Beach—South Carolina’s famous vacation strip. His anxiety resurfaced over the memory of his last walk along the sands; the attention paid him by bikini-clad women unnerved him, leaving him exposed like a specimen on a slide.
Cringing over his awkward handling of the last encounter, he set out to achieve invisibility, reaching for his baggiest pants—sweats—but then reconsidered his decision once more, weighing his potential discomfort from attention at the beach against the teasing he’d get from the construction crew for wearing heavy pants on a warm work day. Groaning, he kept the sweats, grabbed a hoodie, and closed the drawer, grumbling, “I’ll sweat all right. And I’ll never hear the end of it.”
As Noah reached for the door, another engine sounded in the alley, pulling Noah’s attention from his work. He heard the creak of doors as the newspaper distributor and his son dropped off stacks to the convenience store and markets in the strip center. The gruff man�
��s snarl filtered through the emergency exit.
“Don’t be stupid, boy! You tossed that pile right into a puddle! Get out and pick that up!”
Noah stiffened, holding his breath.
In an instant, Noah Carter imagined himself—small, cornered—cowering with his mother from his father’s calculating eyes and that beer-induced half grin. The passing years hadn’t banished the nightmares. How did his words still have so much power?
But these words weren’t for Noah, and as the van pulled away, Noah instinctively reached for a four-by-four beam of fresh oak, brought its cleansing scent to his nose, closed his eyes, and breathed until his muscles relaxed. He silently wished for the boy’s safety, pledging to coax beauty from this stick of wood this night, to find value in something else others saw as nothing. For the boy, and for the boy he once was.
His previous happiness dimmed, Noah headed for the makeshift shower the owner installed for him. He stopped and set his things on a corner dryer where a birdcage hung from a pole. After pouring some seeds into a feeder, he pulled a cracker from a plastic tub. Leaning forward, he made a soft kissing sound as he held the cracker in place, allowing the vacationing parakeet to nibble.
“Do you think there’s any hope for me?” he asked the bird, who bobbed her head. He chuckled. “Would you like to hear about my day?” He rotated the cracker. “I’m making cornices for over the hotel lobby entrance today, and we’ll choose the railings for the grand staircase.” The bird cocked her head his way, and then Noah remembered the date. “And you’re going home today.” That announcement made Noah surprisingly sad, something he wouldn’t have imagined two weeks ago when Nancy first brought her son’s pet in—holding it hostage until the boy learned to clean his room. The missing bird had proven to be a successful motivator, and Nancy planned to return it to her repentant son today.
“You’re lucky to have someone miss you that much. Do you know that?” He straightened and opened the latch to the door. “Let’s send you home with a clean cage, okay?”
The chore reminded Noah of the challenge posed to him by the master carpenter—Leave things better than you find them. The man was gone, but his challenge remained, giving Noah’s life new purpose. Noah applied it to himself as well as his surroundings. It had inspired the courage for him to crack the seal on his solitary life and explore the bounds of his craft. He dreamed that it might also give him the courage to make another attempt at love as well.
* * *
After showering, Noah returned to his room. Concern for the boy remained with him as he collected two sacred belongings from a small wooden box he’d carved. One represented the best day of Noah’s life. The other—the worst. They grounded him. Once they were in his pocket, he exited the room and locked the door
Nancy called to him, pointing to the TV screen displaying video footage of a surprise snowstorm. Noah paused, mesmerized by the images of evergreen boughs bent under the weight of a late spring snow.
The manager whistled. “Can you believe that? It’s the thirtieth of March.”
Noah didn’t hear a word. He was busy reliving a wonderful memory, as if preserved under glass. He remembered every detail—putting on the warmest coat, boots, and mittens he’d ever known, flying down a trail cut in the snow just for him, and ending each run with a cheer from the hero who’d made the trail. There were steaming cups of cocoa warmed over a fire built right there on the hill, and hot dogs suspended on sticks whittled from nearby trees.
“I’m glad it’s there and not here,” said Nancy.
His response drifted out accidentally. “Some kid’s loving it. Just like I did.”
Moments passed before Noah realized he was smiling, and that Nancy was smiling back at him.
“That must’ve been some day. I almost hate to give you this news.”
Noah froze mid-breath. “What news?”
Nancy’s penciled eyebrows rose. “Well . . . the good news is—some new orders came in yesterday.” Her brow creased. “And that guy called again—around lunchtime.”
Noah instinctively reached into his pocket where his tokens were. “The same guy?”
She nodded. “Same as the last three calls. But this time he didn’t give me the inquisition and hang up when I said this was a Laundromat. This time he specifically asked for you.” Her voice softened. “How long have we known each other, Noah? Eight years? I don’t know much about your story, and I respect you too much to pry, but it’s pretty obvious that you’ve been hiding from someone, and I think whoever that is has figured out you live here.” She pointed behind her. “Anyway, the note’s on the board with the orders.”
The news propelled him across the large room toward the facility’s bulletin board. His arms prickled and his body stilled as he immediately recognized the jotted phone number. Noah’s messy past had slammed into his neat-and-tidy present, leaving him emotionally disabled, unable to discern how he felt about being located. A seed of anger still festered inside him, alongside betrayal, regret, and an undeniable hunger he had tried to ignore.
“Did he say anything else?”
Nancy removed the dangling cigarette from her lips and pointed to the message. “Just that you’d know who it was, and to please ask you to call.”
Noah disregarded the new woodworking orders as he removed the note. His other hand tightened around one of the holy relics, a token from the man who’d given him the best two memories of his childhood. When he withdrew his empty hand from his pocket, he felt equally vacant. “I should get to work.”
Nancy tried to catch his arm as he walked by, but he stiffly side-stepped out of her reach. Her fingers barely brushed his signature leather cuff, and she quickly raised her hands in apology. “I’m sorry. I forgot about the . . . the no-touching thing.”
He shrugged and shook the moment off with a forced smile.
“So . . . what . . . should I say if that guy calls again today?”
The discussion ended abruptly with the glare of a police cruiser’s headlights as the car slipped into the parking slot in front of the laundry. Old fears returned with intensity, taking Noah back to the days when a random check of his pockets could have easily led to an arrest, and to the night when his inebriated father thought “tough love”—in the form of a rough night in jail—was the answer for his rebellious son.
Noah’s racing heart sent a sheen of sweat bursting over his skin as he watched the officer compare the paper in his hand to the number over the Laundromat’s door. The man’s eyes narrowed in deeper confusion when he crossed the facility’s threshold and scanned its interior. Then he spotted Noah, eyeing the painted cuff and the matching tattoo peeking out from under Noah’s left sleeve.
Noah flinched and tugged at his sleeve, imagining for a moment that the officer could see the scars beneath the camouflage.
“The DMV records this address as the residence of Noah Carter. Is that you?”
Noah took a subtle breath. Steady . . . steady . . . he cautioned himself. You’re different. He’s not them. “Yep,” he said flatly as the pounding in his chest lessened.
“You live here?” The officer scanned the dingy peach-painted workroom. The battle-scarred single-load washing machines and dryers lining the room’s left and right flanks looked particularly war-worn. As if sensing that Noah needed a diversion, the parakeet sang from the back corner. The officer nodded in its direction. “Nice bird,” he offered more kindly, but his expression still rendered judgment on Noah’s life.
A deep breath prevented Noah’s hurt from turning into attitude. “My apartment is in the back. I do maintenance for the owner at night.”
“Oh, got it. Well, I’m just here as a courtesy, to deliver a message to you, but I need to see some ID. I want to make sure I’m handing this to the right person.”
Noah wondered if it was some sort of a trick. Once again, his mind ran an involuntary inventory of his pockets before he pulled out his wallet and showed the man his license. After another nod from the off
icer, Noah returned his wallet to his back pocket and cemented his arms to his sides where they remained, even as he watched the officer pull an envelope from his own pocket and extend it Noah’s way.
The officer waited expectantly, then grew uncomfortable when Noah didn’t take it. “Someone once did me a great favor. Handing you this note is my payback.”
It was no simple note to Noah. Neither was the phone message. His new world was tiny, simple, closed. The note most likely came from the places and people Noah had fled. His past efforts at opening his world had proven bloody, and he knew he would not make another attempt soon. His arms remained by his sides.
“Someone went to a good deal of trouble to find you, Mr. Carter. It’s pretty pitiful if you can’t think of one person you might want to hear from.”
Noah remained glued to his spot.
The man’s eyes narrowed studying Noah. Then he shook his head, curiosity shifting to disdain. “I didn’t promise to make you read it. I only promised I’d deliver it.”
The officer tossed the note onto a grimy, blue plastic chair that sat by the door. With a final squint-eyed glance at Noah, he tipped his hat at the woman, turned, and exited through the door.
A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET Page 1