A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET

by Lewis, Laurie

  Avery studied the enlarged photo with Teddie peering over her shoulder. She touched the widow’s walk and the pole where a large bell hung. “What color would you say this house is?”

  Teddie frowned again and groaned. “What color?” she asked in disbelief. “I don’t know. Gray I guess, or maybe light blue or tan. It’s hard to tell.”

  “It’s gray,” muttered Avery, “with white trim and shutters. And the patio furniture is coral and white.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Teddie in a mysterious voice. “And you know that because—”

  “I’ve been here! Well, not actually been. What I mean is I’ve passed it, probably a dozen times. Paul and I took walks along the surf, and this house was on our path. The owner was the saddest man. He stood on that widow’s walk and stared out over the sea every night. He was the loneliest person I’d ever seen, a widower who lost his young wife. Just passing by him made Paul and me hold on to one another a little tighter.”

  Teddie sucked in a gush of air. “Oh my gosh, Avery! What if the fella that owns it now is that same man?” She nearly squealed with enthusiasm. “It’s destiny!”

  Avery huffed. “Destiny? It’s a coincidence. A big one, I’ll grant you, but still just a coincidence. Any one of the thirty-zillion people who’ve ever walked along that beach would recognize this house, Teddie.”

  “But you remember the lonely man on the widow’s walk.”

  “He was as much a landmark as his house.” A smile crept across her lips.

  Teddie leaned close and pointed to that smile. “What’s that about? You know something you’re not telling me.”

  “It’s nothing, really. He’s a florist on the island. Well, actually, his shop is almost as much of a tourist attraction as he and his house are. I went there once, to see him.” When Teddie’s eyes grew saucer width, Avery clarified. “For research, Teddie. Only for research!”

  “For a book?”

  “Yes. For a book. I built a character around him.”

  Teddie folded her hands and brought them under her chin with a little squeal. “It is destiny!”

  “We don’t even know if he’s the same man, Teddie. This place could have turned over many times since Paul and I were there last. It was a long time ago.”

  “But it might be! Doesn’t that thought intrigue you just a little?”

  Avery looked at Teddie as if she were dense. “Half the time I’m still a thumb-sucking, curled-up-in-the-fetal-position widow myself. The last thing in the world I need is any association with a brooding professional widower.” She stared up at the photo again. “Now his gorgeous house? That I’ll take. What do we need to do to make this swap happen?”

  Teddie’s enthusiasm deflated as she read the contract’s fine print. “Well, there’re two little glitches. He must be in the middle of some sort of squabble, because the terms specify that all parties must sign a note promising not to disclose the terms of the contract to anyone else.”

  “Great. A squabble. All the more reason not to meet the owner. And the second glitch?”

  Teddie smiled a devilish smile. “The contract will be signed pending the owner’s approval of the second party’s unit and get this—”

  “Get what?” Avery asked in a voice of dread.

  “Ha ha ha,” Teddie teased. “This is rich, sweetie. He won’t sign the contract until he personally approves the second party’s unit and the second party.”

  Chapter Eight

  Baltimore, Maryland, March 24

  How ya doin’, sugar?” Teddie asked as she inched Avery’s door open, revealing her friend crouched on the floor, taping boxes, and surrounded by suitcases.

  “Okay.”

  “That doesn’t doesn’t sound too convincing.”

  Avery sighed and sat back. “I finally tackled the master bedroom.” She feigned a smile. “I cried so much my eyes feel like raisins, but I did it.”

  Teddie sat on the floor beside her.

  “I let everything at home remain as if it was in a time warp, as if Paul was still there, and then one day I faced the fact that he wasn’t there anymore, and I just lost it. But this . . .” She swept a stray wisp of lightly streaked hair from her eyes and shook her head. “This was so quiet. It felt as if I was burying him again. I felt so guilty for packing his things away that I ended up leaving some of them out, and I don’t mean photos. I mean silly things like his deck shoes and his pipe.”

  “He smoked a pipe?”

  “Nope.” Avery laughed as her eyes rimmed with tears. “He would just stick the old thing between his teeth whenever we took the sailboat out. He thought it made him look continental.”

  She laughed so hard the tears burst loose again, but Teddie didn’t rush to comfort her. She just sat and laughed beside her.

  “So, are you ready?” Teddie asked when the pair had settled back down.

  “Yeah. I’m all packed. I’ll just drop these last few boxes off at the UPS store on my way to the airport tomorrow.”

  “The place looks great.” She leaned closer and smiled. “I think Mr. Carson will be pleasantly surprised.”

  “I hope so. I’ve been a wreck since I knew it was his house that was on the line.” She blew out a rush of air. “I need him to agree to this swap, Teddie. I’m finally excited about going south, and I’ve got Wes all fired up about it too. He said he’d come and stay with me every weekend. This time will be good for us. I wish Luke would come, but he says his plans are set. Maybe he needs to be alone to deal with things. Anyway, I do think Luke, Jamie, and Brady will come down, at least for a week or two.” She grabbed Teddie’s hands and exclaimed, “I really want Mr. Carson’s house.”

  Teddie looked at her watch. “Well, you should know pretty soon. His flight should have landed a few minutes ago.”

  Avery rubbed at the prickling hairs on her neck and arms.

  “Are those chills or goosebumps?” Teddie teased.

  “Nerves,” Avery replied, “I’ve got a chance to get my family together in a great place—a great place I can afford, where we can all heal. I haven’t looked for anything else, and I just don’t know what I’ll do if Mr. Carson refuses me.”

  Teddie stood up and brushed a stray piece of tape from her jean shorts. “You’re sure you don’t want me or Rider to act as your agent? We know how to showcase a place. I can almost guarantee you that contract if you let us take the lead.”

  Avery raised a hand in Teddie’s direction, and her friend pulled her to a stand. “He doesn’t want any agents involved now. His broker friend just put out inquiries for him as a favor. It was always understood that he wanted to meet the other party personally.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “He called this morning.”

  Teddie’s face lit up with one eyebrow arched curiously. “He called?”

  “See!” Avery laughed as she pointed to Teddie’s single arched eyebrow. “That’s exactly why you cannot be here or meet this Mr. Carson. You’ll do something humiliating like that.”

  Avery was pushing Teddie toward the door as questions kept flying from her perfectly painted lips. “Just tell me one thing. What did he sound like?”

  “Nervous, Teddie. Very nervous and apprehensive. I got the feeling he’s sorry he ever offered his house at all. That’s why I need this meeting to be perfectly calm. And that’s why I need you to go home now.”

  “I love you, Avery,” Teddie teased in a singsong manner.

  Avery laughed as she slowly closed the door until just a sliver of hall remained. She sang her own reply in return. “I love you too, Teddie.”

  Gabriel slipped the cabdriver a ten after he unloaded the fourth and final bag. The doorman at the Hyatt on Light Street saw the guest’s generosity and quickly moved Gabriel through the check-in process and to his room. Another ten spot later, Gabriel was alone in his ninth-floor room and standing on the balcony overlooking the waterfront. From this vantage point he could see across the harbor and deep into the Patapsco River, whi
ch emptied into the mighty Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake, like a mega water cocktail, mixed the perfect proportions of salty water from the Atlantic with fresh river water to create magical brackish water, the fragile composition required to make the fragile breeding ground for its amazing though endangered array of sea creatures.

  He saw one of the threats to its delicate ecosystem. An oil tanker off in the distance en route to the commercial docks far to his left, and dozens of other vessels of varying sizes dotted the water, heading in or out of the waterway’s many ports. Progress.

  As soon as Gabriel committed to the job in Laurel, Maryland, he began researching the entire area, making lists of sights to see and things to do to help him pass the onerous time. He scanned the harbor, hoping to identify some of the places he had researched. A few were immediately identifiable. To his right he saw the ridge of land where he knew the legendary Fort McHenry stood. The battle-ready bastion of Star-Spangled Banner fame was still a monument to the engineering skills and courage of men long since dead. At a nearer point on his right he watched buses of children pouring into the Maryland Science Center. Those were two places on his list, and he was pleased they were so close.

  Gabriel looked down on the crammed street below him. People were crowded on every corner as far as he could see—young people, old people, and families with children. Vendors stood on the corners selling everything from good eats to balloons. The atmosphere reminded him of festival days on Anna Maria, and he smiled despite himself. Cars, buses, and taxis inched along the crowded streets, honking their horns, while sirens in the distance sounded off. This was Baltimore’s pretty face, but Gabriel knew there was another, darker face mere blocks away. He shrugged his shoulders and had to admit that he could say the same about parts of Florida, mere miles from his own home. He knew he was privileged to live in such a pristine place as Anna Maria, and though he made no excuses for his good fortune, he tried to have an open mind, to imagine himself here, awakening every day to the combination of city noises and the sounds of the harbor, but he could not. He longed for the rush of the surf and the smell of gulf air, and he determined then and there that he would simply endure the next several months as best he could.

  Gabriel checked his watch and knew the time had come. He grabbed a light canvas jacket and threw it on over tan khaki pants and a blue button-up shirt, and without bothering to check his appearance, he headed back to the lobby to hail a cab. When he learned the address was only a few blocks away, he decided to head over on foot and survey the nearby area.

  As soon as he stepped outside, he breathed in deeply and caught the pleasing aroma of seafood in the air. Intrigued, he crossed Light Street’s busy six lanes to the strip of restaurants and shops that lined the top of the harbor. Though it was still a week before Easter, the weather was balmy, and the harbor was crowded with shoppers and tourists. Gabriel entered the Harborplace shopping area. Every shop seemed to sell Orioles and Ravens memorabilia. Even the stalls and carts peddling fudge and cookies had some item from the local sports teams dangling somewhere. Boutiques and souvenir shops taunted him with souvenirs he longed to buy for his girls. He stopped himself, remembering it was just such overindulgence that required this separation in the first place.

  He exited the shopping plaza through glass doors that opened his view to the jewel of Baltimore, the beautifully reclaimed Inner Harbor. Terraced from the beautiful shops down to decking that ringed the water, the harbor was a fabulous horseshoe-shaped wonder. From Carson’s vantage point, at the peak of the U, he was able to admire a piece of maritime history moored in the harbor—the USS Constellation. He read the sign advertising tour hours and made a mental note. Farther away, jutting over the water, stood the angular structure housing the National Aquarium, a multilevel, living aquatic museum, and beyond that stretched party fare galore, places he thought he might explore one day.

  Gabriel saw a slew of restaurants. Among them sat two of Baltimore’s signature seafood gems—Phillips Seafood and The Rusty Scupper—from which drifted delicious aromas. Gabriel marked them on his list of must-dos and began his walk past the restaurant and the visitor’s center and toward his meeting with this Mrs. Thompson.

  Noting the time, he paid a dollar for a water taxi pass and rode across the harbor, past the day-cruise ships moored there and beyond the Science Center. He exited the taxi near The Rusty Scupper, fighting the urge to drop in there instead, but armed with directions from the taxi driver, he made his way on foot to the Bayside Condominiums.

  He was pleased by his first impression of the condo complex. The buildings were sided in a color that resembled weathered wood with whitewashed trim, and they stood on massive concrete stilts, reserving the bottom floor for parking. The condos’ small patios hung over the water, and boat docks spread out before the complex, nestling watercraft of every shape and size, from small sailboats to a few vessels capable of ocean travel. Gabriel started poking along, marveling over the boats, but then reminded himself of the purpose of his visit. He pulled the slip of paper from his pocket and read, “Building 6, apartment 652.”

  He counted floors and looked up, wondering what kind of view one would have from a sixth-floor balcony, when he saw a woman standing between parted yellow curtains, staring across the water. A flood of emotion took him back to Anna Maria, where he had maintained a similar stance on his widow’s walk as he worked through his mourning. He hated that people had studied and stared at him, and he quickly looked away from the woman.

  Avery was mesmerized by the harbor as she enjoyed what might be one of her last moments on her veranda. She could decide to sell this place, in which case her next return might be merely to pack up the furniture and depart her old hometown. Time will tell.

  She pulled her blue sweater more tightly around herself and brushed a windblown strand of hair from her face. Goosebumps rose on her neck and arms, so she stepped back into the room and closed the French doors. A quick check of her watch revealed the time—4:35 pm. She scowled and murmured out loud, “He should have been here by now.” Feeling a rush of nervous anxiety, Avery assigned herself a task.

  She stared at the two open boxes that remained on the living room’s beige carpet. They had been her hardest boxes to fill because they represented the most painful of chores. Filling boxes with selected treasures to be sent home and distributed among the kids was easy, even therapeutic in some ways, as was the tossing of things that were clearly ready for recycling. Filling boxes with mundane items like books and clothes to be given to the Salvation Army was likewise a manageable task, but deciding what to do with the remaining items was agonizing—things such as driftwood pieces and buckets of shells collected on walks throughout the years. She fretted over what to do with the edition of The Baltimore Sun that advertised the last movie she and Paul saw at the Cineplex and the news from the last week they spent in the condo together. She forced herself to place those in the recycling box, but it required equal effort to keep from retrieving them. There were other things as well—like crayon drawings chronicling decades of pleasurable family outings spent here, and brochures and ticket stubs from their trips to the Walters Art Gallery, strolls through the famous Lexington Market, and concerts by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, known to locals as the BSO.

  Still, Avery managed to pack these items into a throw-away box, though the strain of closing that part of her history left her bitter for an hour or two—an hour or two during which she vented her rising fury by relegating her entire collection of Axel Hunter’s books to the throwaway pile. They had once been treasures of great personal importance to her, but time, and her own success, had eroded the value she placed on Hunter’s works, and since Paul’s death, memories of that period of her life brought her more pain than pleasure. She would toss away these painful mementoes too.

  As she stooped to pick up the first box, the doorbell rang. She froze momentarily, suddenly reminded that the hopes of her healing plan in Anna Maria were dependent upon a positive meeting w
ith the mysterious Mr. Carson standing outside her door. She smoothed the light blue sweater over her black cotton pants, dashed in front of the mirror for a quick straightening of errant hairs, and went to the door. She looked through the peephole and began to shiver. The face miniaturized to her view was familiar and unnerving. A flood of emotion swept over her, leaving her sobered and sad.

  She bit her lip and bent slightly, drawing in a deep breath to steady her nerves as she slowly opened the door and straightened. She met the man’s eyes, finding him wearing a look of startled familiarity as well. He was strikingly handsome, with hair that would have aged many men but that somehow only complimented his lean, weathered face. His hands spoke of hard work or hard play. She assumed the former was more likely true.

  The man abruptly shot his calloused hand in her direction.

  “Hello. I’m, uh, Gabriel Carson. Are you Mrs. Thompson?”

  Avery nodded to break the time-warp spell that had come over her, hurtling her back seven years and beyond to the days when she and Paul walked, arm in arm, along the surf, pitying this man in his sorrow. Instantly her own became more vivid.

  “Mrs. Thompson, are you all right?”

  “Yes . . . yes, of course,” she stammered. “I’m sorry—it’s been a busy day. I’m in a daze of sorts. Please, come in.”

  Gabriel entered the apartment, quickly scanning the living area as he spoke. “I’m sorry I’m late. I came on foot and must admit that I got lost staring at the boats in the dock.”

  “That’s fine. I love to walk along the harbor also. I find it very calming.”

  “Yes.” He seemed distracted as he continued to survey the space.

  “I suppose you read that this is . . . was . . . still might be . . . our vacation spot. We actually live out west, in Utah, so unlike your home, it’s rarely occupied, and almost never rented. The super maintains it for us.”