A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET

by Lewis, Laurie

  Once the patrol car left the lot, Nancy stepped toward the chair and asked, “Want me to dispose of this?”

  Noah shot her a look that stopped her cold, but quickly repented of the obvious sting he’d caused her. “Sorry. I’ll . . . I’ll take care of it,” he said more softly. He picked up the message and shoved it into his pocket.

  “It’s okay. Hey, Noah? Before you go, I . . . I just want to say . . . don’t believe them.”

  His head cocked slightly to the side. “Them who?”

  She glanced at the envelope. “Them. The people you’ve been hiding from. No matter what they told you, you’re a good person. Better than you even know.”

  His glance dropped to the floor.

  “So . . . you know what today is, right?” she prompted gently. “I’m really sorry about taking the bird home.”

  Noah gave her a half smile and shook his head to ward off the apology. “It’s all right. No need to be sorry. Just be proud of your son.” Then he turned and left to face the ramifications of having been found.

  Chapter 2

  Whispering voices disturbed Agnes’s already restless sleep. Who was it? Was it the dragons? Have they found me? She stiffened under the covers, pretending to be dead while listening more intently. Then her tension shifted as sadness outpaced her fear. Why was she sad? Is it because of the voices? A soft glow in the corner annoyed her, confusing her more as she navigated the fog between sleep and lucidity. No. The voices were not the cause of her sadness. They intrigued her. She heard the mention of money, an odd sum—four thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars. She continued to remain still and quiet so they wouldn’t know she was listening. Who is here, and why are they talking about money? My money? Her mind shifted again, frustration reigning. How much? A lot! Four thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars. Four thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars?

  She heard the voice of a local TV station’s eleven o’clock news anchor. Agnes relaxed and smiled. She is my favorite, the one with the pretty red hair. As she pictured the face that matched the voice, she missed something the reporter said about an amount of money stolen in a convenience store robbery. It was unpleasant, and she was tired, but as she fell back asleep, she repeated the dollar amount. “Four thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars,” and smiled.

  The next hour passed in a wrestle between Agnes, the sadness, and thoughts about the money. Bourgeois, her tabby cat, shifted on the pillow, scratching Agnes’s cheek, bringing her awake with a start. Her hand moved to the cut and came back so she could check for blood. Barely a tinge, but an inch-long welt was already evident.

  “Bad cat,” she scolded, scooping the pet into her arms. Bijou also stretched her claws and mewed, wanting equal time, and soon Agnes was buried in moving fur.

  The only light came from the TV’s glow. She wondered what time it was. It was still dark outside. Where was her clock? Was it still night? Was it a very cloudy morning? Have I missed the morning feeding?

  Her hand searched the crowded nightstand for the clock in the dim light. She pushed a book, which in turn, triggered a crash that splashed cold fluid on her arm. Her hand recoiled before she remembered that she always brought a glass of water to her room at night to sip as she read her Bible—Job 11:13–19. The happy verses. Yes, she’d been reading them in bed. Relief flooded over her as the pieces began coming together.

  Pushing back the covers, she swung her heavy legs out of bed and removed her nightgown, laying it over the back of her rocking chair. Surprised by her exhaustion, she stumbled around searching for her work clothes, finally choosing a ragged Christmas sweater, a dirty pair of socks, and some jeans from a cat-hair-covered spot on the floor. After dressing, she lumbered down the dark hall as fears of Nazis gripped her again. She closed her eyes and hugged the wall across from the ominous stairway to distance herself from the entrance to the second floor where the attic reigned. Once past the stairwell, she pressed her weary body on to the kitchen, turning on every light as she went. Brutus, her Labrador, began barking, setting the geese honking. Soon the barnyard was loud and awake.

  The sound of the animals’ music comforted her. She opened the drapes and scanned the dark barnyard, lit only by the dusk-to-dawn lamp. Was a coming storm the cause of the darkness? A check of the kitchen clock added to her confusion. Twelve fifteen. Had she slept until noon? Unsure, her confusion welcomed the security of routine:

  Set a kettle of water on low.

  Place an X in the next empty block on the calendar—Wednesday, April 18.

  Visit the lavatory and wash.

  Head outside to feed her animals.

  Eat breakfast.

  She wondered at the fatigue that so burdened her today. The buckets seemed heavier, the walk longer, the animals less famished. She scratched behind the ears of a white-faced calf who toyed with his bottle of milk. “Not hungry, Tibold? Are you seeck? Ah, I love you. Mama is also out of sorts. Bourgeois deesturbed my sleep. What are we going to do about zat cat, eh?”

  It was her father’s voice she heard—English, but rich with French intonations. It was a sign of her fatigue. Her mother had refused to learn English, but Agnes and her father labored to assimilate into their new country. Agnes had far surpassed her father in training her tongue to create the strange new inflections. She had wanted to please her American teachers, and fit in with her new American friends, but even after seventy-one years spent living in America and speaking her adopted language, fatigue and stress lured her tongue to surrender to the sounds of her first language—French. It was so today. It was happening more often now, another sign that something was changing in her. She would work harder to keep it at bay.

  As she worked, she noticed a glow in the parlor window. My candle? Was she doing the evening feeding or the morning feeding? She was very confused today. Probably because my sleep was disturbed, she told herself. “Bad cats,” she groused at her absent bedmates.

  An hour later, she dragged herself back into the house, too tired for breakfast or even a cup of tea, and too sleepy to remember the candle burning in the window. Only two thoughts tugged at her. Why am I sad? And What of that money? Four thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars. She would ask Sarah, her dearest friend and neighbor, to call the bank for her. Wait. Sarah had been expected today. Hadn’t she? Agnes supposed Sarah forgot. She was relieved, actually, and took the opportunity to return to bed. Had she turned the stove off? Certainly, she told herself. The clock read 1:17 A.M. Was A.M. morning? Of course not, she reasoned. She was tired—1:17 meant it was time for an afternoon nap.

  * * *

  Four hours later, morning light squeezed through slightly parted drapes, warming Agnes’s cheek. She felt so tired. Had she overslept? Was it a new day?

  A twinge stung her back as she swung her legs around to sit on the edge of the bed for her morning stretch. Work clothes, not her nightgown covered her. Had she been too tired to dress for bed? Had she forgotten? Shivers snaked along her spine over that thought. She released her long, gray braid when the wooden box by her bedside table caught her attention.

  “Agnes Devereaux Keller.” She froze. The nameplate on the wooden box frightened her today. She knew it was her name, and yet somehow, it seemed foreign, distant, fading. She stood and said her name aloud three times, the French intonations of her voice growing stronger with each repetition, control returning, and with it, peace.

  “I was born in Strasbourg, February 21, 1932. My father was Albert Devereaux. My mother was Helene . . . Helene???” She couldn’t retrieve the information, and the fear returned. Her speech sped up, driven by panic. “My husband is . . . was . . .” Two names popped into her head. Both felt dreamlike, sweet but unreal. After a moment, only one steadied her, made her feel secure “His name was Tony Keller. We have a daughter. Her name is Angeline.”

  The mention of her only child brought a sting to her breast. Her thoughts eventually carried her away to another time when life was robust and fill
ed with possibilities. She didn’t know how long she stood there, allowing memories to play across her mind like old movies, but it was long enough to feel her knees beg for motion, and long enough for Bijou and Bourgeois to commence their ritual circling of her feet.

  “Yes, yes, yes. It is time to get your breakfast. And what of the others? Do you always expect to be fed before everyone else?”

  Her smile brightened as all the fears and worries dispersed once more. She glanced at the clock. “What? Where has the time gone? We are late, my darlings. No wonder you are hungry.” She stopped in front of her dust-covered dressing table, with its many jars of creams, and tubes and compacts in various hues of orange and red. She picked up a tube of lipstick and set it back down. “First the animals, then Mama, eh? There’s barely time for a cup of tea.”

  Agnes ran the brush through her hair with a few cursory swipes before twisting the gray tresses into a bun. She talked to the cats every moment as the trio moved down the hall. At the usual spot, Agnes clutched the key dangling from a ribbon around her neck, quickly spit three times into the air, and hurried past the stairs to the second floor, where the padlocked attic door stood. Too many ghosts still remained up there. Ghosts and dragons. Time had not dimmed their power.

  As she passed the front room, she found the candle still burning in the window. Had she let it burn all night? How could she? Her failure stopped her in her tracks as the day and the promise that spurred the tradition returned to her. The tradition was old, deeply embedded in her; it was a sign of her love. She had lit a candle in that front window each evening for sixty-four years. Blowing it out had been the finale of each day for all that time, and now even that anchor was beginning to slip from her. Fear burned hot in her breast. What if others can tell what is happening to me? Non. She would fight harder against the dragon toying with her mind.

  A sudden twinge of pain radiated from Agnes’s cheek, distracting her. She stepped in front of the antique mirror—a cherished family heirloom from her father’s people in the Alsace region of France—to see the cause. A welt surrounded an inch-long bloodless scratch. “Bad cat,” she said as she touched her saggy cheek. The face was still her, and yet somehow it was not. She smiled into the glass, hoping the sparkle would return to her eyes, but the effort produced but a caricature of the woman she remembered.

  Bijou rubbed against her leg, crying to be picked up. Agnes bent and brought the cat to her shoulder, where it snuggled against her neck like thirteen pounds of therapy. Love was what she needed, and to give love. Tony was dead. Angeline ran off with that boy. What was his name? Oh, yes. Stoddard Donnelly. The name she had cursed every day for many years. Thief! Liar! Charlatan! Agnes spit three times into the air. Tony was gone now. So was Angeline. Agnes knew she was alone now, except for her animals. They were her family. They were her children.

  Agnes didn’t know how long she’d been standing there when the ruckus broke out in the barnyard. Geese honked, steers bawled, and goats thundered on the barn roof. Then Brutus’s warning barks shifted into a cheerful welcome, and Agnes knew someone familiar was in the yard. She heard three sharp raps on the kitchen door down the hall.

  She squeezed Bijou more tightly. What day was it? Who was here? Was she expecting someone? The confusion was worse today, and it frightened her.

  “Who is it?” she challenged loudly.

  “Good morning, Agnes. It’s Sarah.”

  Sarah? Sarah? She rapped on her head to organize her scattered thoughts. Sarah . . . Sarah and John Anderson were her neighbors. They lived on the adjacent farm, which housed Anderson’s Nursery, John’s business. She loved Sarah. Sarah loved her. But not even Sarah can know my secret.

  Agnes’s unkempt reflection startled her. She hurried back down the hall and flew into a panic, slapping one of her polyester wigs over the lumpy bun of gray hair. There was no time to do proper makeup, or change into one of the dresses Tony so loved her to wear. She compromised by slipping a smear of orange red over her lips and hurriedly scrawled eye pencil across her eyelids and brows, all the while shouting apologies to Sarah through the walls. When Agnes finally opened her door, Sarah’s eyebrows rose.

  “Good morning, Agnes. Is everything okay?”

  Agnes didn’t like the startled look on Sarah’s face. Of course she looked nice. Sarah was two decades younger than she, with a small bust that made her look tidy even when dressed in everyday slacks and a sweater. Agnes pulled her shoulders back to lift her sagging bosom. “I overslept,” she groused as she tugged her crooked black wig into place. “The cats disturbed my sleep. I haven’t even fed the animals or made a shopping list yet, but come in. I’ll put the kettle on.”

  She grabbed the empty iron teakettle, which was glowing red from the flame already burning beneath it. When did I turn the stove on? Another nervous chill zipped down her spine. She turned the stove off to cool the kettle down and returned to her routine, moving to the calendar where she promptly placed an X in the next open block—Thursday.

  “Fill the kettle and make yourself a cup of tea while I . . . feed the animals.” Agnes could hear the worry in her own voice, so she purposely brightened and said, “I have a box of that Mandarin Spice you like.”

  “Thank you, Agnes. I brought you something.”

  Agnes sensed forced cheerfulness in Sarah’s voice. She turned to peer at her friend, but Sarah was holding up a photo of a beautiful young woman who somehow seemed familiar to Agnes.

  Sarah’s voice grew more sober. “Do you remember the visit from your attorney, Nathaniel Briscoe?”

  The name made her scowl. “Sharlz’s son.” She gave a disregarding shrug of her shoulder and purposely reverted to her French voice to underscore her distaste for the man.

  “Yes, Charles’s son. John and I accompanied him when he came to give you some news about Angeline. Do you remember what he came to tell you?”

  Sarah’s eyes became watery and her voice changed as she spoke of Agnes’s daughter. A lump formed in Agnes’s stomach as she searched for the requested memory. And then it came to her. She felt her lips tremble. “My baby girl is dead.”

  “That’s right. I’m so sorry, Agnes. So terribly sorry.”

  Sarah moved to Agnes with her arms outstretched, but Agnes felt her body fold inward, not wanting to be touched, as if contact only made the realization of her daughter’s death more real, more painful, and this was one memory she wished to forget.

  “There is a bright spot in all this sadness, Agnes. Angeline had a child. A daughter named Tayte. She visited you many years ago.”

  The memory was vague, but Agnes was able to retrieve the image of her Angeline and a beautiful dark-haired little girl. “Angeline brought her here one summer.” The recollection turned bitter. “Then she took her and ran away again.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry, Agnes, but that little girl is all grown up now.” She held up the photo once more. “Tayte lives in Miami but she’s coming here to meet you. She’ll be with you at Angeline’s funeral tonight.”

  Agnes heard Sarah speaking, but her mind was elsewhere, on the day her daughter cursed at her before running off with that itinerant artist. Agnes shuddered at the memory. “Angeline hated me.”

  “Oh, no, Agnes. Angeline’s rebelliousness ran its course. It took time. A long time. Tayte probably suffered the most during those years. It was probably Tayte’s decision to leave home that helped Angeline realize what she and Stoddard had thrown away. She finally left him and got help. He did too. They each built productive lives with new people they were planning to marry.”

  “New people they planned to marry? Did that cartoonist ever marry my Angeline?” Agnes felt her lip curl at the mere allusion to the thief who stole her daughter away.

  “I . . . don’t think so. But Angeline did find happiness with someone else, and she missed you, Agnes. In fact, before they . . .” Sarah eyed her carefully. “Well, they had a meeting with Nathaniel to establish a trust fund for Tayte. Angeline spoke about her plans
to reconcile with Tayte and with you. She did love you. But then . . . then she and Stoddard went out to celebrate each other’s new happiness . . . and that’s when the drunk driver . . . they didn’t survive the crash, Agnes” Agnes searched the surrounding walls for the photo of Angeline. “My baby girl is dead?”

  “Yes, Agnes. It’s a very sad thing. But you still have a granddaughter.”

  The young woman in the photo reminded Agnes of Angeline, and yet it did not. Her daughter’s face and the face in the photo became blurred until Agnes couldn’t bring Angeline clearly to her memory anymore. Her confusion quickly turned to frustration. “I have things to do,” she snapped as she grabbed her farm jacket off the wall peg.

  “Uh . . . all right. The viewing and funeral aren’t until later. We have some time before we need to get ready.” Sarah sighed and set the photo on the end table in the adjacent room. “Is there anything I can do for you in here? Since Tayte is coming to visit, why don’t I go through your fridge and cupboards and make a little grocery list? All right?”

  Agnes scowled at the thought of Sarah nosing around in her cupboards, but she didn’t know what she needed anymore. Something about the bank also nagged at her, but she couldn’t remember what it was. And then she remembered, issuing Sarah a final instruction.

  “Call the bank and ask them if a deposit of four thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars was made to my account last night. My checkbook is somewhere on the table.”

  “Wow, Agnes. That’s a large sum. Did you sell some animals at the livestock auction?”

  Did I? “You just check with the bank while I feed.”

  The change in topics lightened her mood as she went outside. The animals also seemed unusually polite. Instead of jostling and pushing Agnes around while she served up the feed, the animals were less frantic than usual after a long night’s fast, as if they weren’t hungry at all.

  She mixed milk to bottle-feed the calves, noting how quickly all her supplies were diminishing lately. A bag of milk that should have lasted two weeks was nearly empty after only nine days, and the same was true of each of her grain barrels. She stormed into the house to call Hooper’s Feed Mill. Whoever was filling her orders was shorting her, and she was going to complain. As she neared the house, she gazed through the window where a new problem confronted her. Sarah had dragged all the packaged food from Agnes’s cupboards, and she was wiping the shelves down.