Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Praise for A Season for Second Chances
- Also by Jenny Bayliss
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Discussion Guide
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“He’s worried I’ll use you and leave you heartbroken,” Nory continued.
“That’s pretty much the vibe he gave me, although it was your heart he was concerned for rather than mine. I can understand a big brother feeling protective of his little sister.”
Nory waved away his theory. She doubted Thomas’s intentions were that noble.
“I think he’s just afraid to cross the streams,” said Nory.
“Cross the streams?”
“You know, like in Ghostbusters: ‘Don’t cross the streams!’ ”
“Are we the streams?”
“Yes. Thomas likes to compartmentalize; the prospect of having his best mate and his sister involved is blowing his tiny mind.”
Isaac nodded sagely. “Crossing the streams,” he said quietly. “And what do we do about that?”
“That, my friend, is up to you.” Nory smiled.
They were back in the courtyard. She reached up and kissed his neck, lingering just a little longer than she needed to, feeling the hitch in his breathing. She stepped away from him, the porch light at her back.
“I’m ready to cross the streams when you are.” She grinned before turning and walking purposefully into the castle and closing the door firmly behind her.
Twenty
The horses milled about the stable yard, white steam pouring out of their nostrils. It was only half past eleven but already the light was dim. The weather was overcast, drizzly and bitterly cold. Nory hoped the ride would warm her up. The stables had been hung with fairy lights, and the water droplets on the cross beams glittered in their reflected twinkle. A Christmas tree decorated with wooden painted horses on strings and small silver horseshoes had been erected at one end of the yard.
Isaac saw her and smiled. She felt the secret he had shared with her tethering them like invisible twine. It had taken Nory ages to drop off to sleep last night after Isaac’s revelations about Heba, not to mention the delightfully painful sexual tension that continued to fizz between them.
The party were due to hack across the castle farmland and down to the Mead and Medlar pub in the village—one of the few pubs that still kept a stable for peckish passing riders—for lunch. Since it got dark so early, the plan was to have the horses back safely in their warm stables by four o’clock.
Dev, looking long and lean in his riding gear, mounted his horse like he’d been riding since birth.
“Is there nothing he can’t do?” asked Jenna.
Ameerah was shaking her head, mystified. At that moment Dev smiled at Ameerah, and Ameerah smiled back in a way that Nory could only describe as goofy. Really, what was happening to everyone?
Pippa appeared to be horse-whispering a determined, glossy-black Arabian into doing her bidding, while Charles was talking with one of the stable hands as they walked around the muscular form of a chestnut thoroughbred who knew precisely how amazing he looked.