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?
Nory was quiet for a moment. Was she apologizing for Guy? He certainly didn’t deserve it. Maybe she was so used to having to excuse herself she didn’t even realize she was doing it—apologizing to her family for her privileged friends and apologizing to her friends for her working-class family. It was exhausting. She’d spent her entire coming-of-age years trying to mediate between and reconcile the two parts of her life, and here she was in her thirties, still doing it. Isaac turned away from her.
“He thinks he’s a cut above,” said Isaac, steam rising from a compost pile as he turned it over with a pitchfork. “People like him are all the same. When it comes down to it, they think they’re better than everyone else. The rest of us are just here to serve them.”
“Guy’s an idiot,” agreed Nory.
“ ‘Just a fucking gardener!’ he said to me.”
“Yes.”
“Just a fucking gardener? How can you bear to be around these people?”
“They aren’t all like that . . . and anyway Guy’s a terrible drunk . . .”
“You’re defending him.”
“I’m not, I’m . . .”
“Being drunk is no excuse for behaving like an arsehole.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
“All it means is that the alcohol has loosened his inhibitions and he’s saying what he really means.”
“Well, I . . . the thing is, his wife just left him . . .”
“Still no excuse.”
“No.”
“God. Now I’m being the arsehole!” Isaac rubbed a hand across his brow. “Sorry, none of this is your fault.”
Nory smiled. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t do so well with the whole ‘the customer is always right’ stuff. Never have done.”
“You don’t say.”
Now Isaac smiled.
“Do you want me to talk to Lord Abercrombie? Confirm your version of events?” Nory asked.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. Jimmy and a couple of the other stable hands saw what happened. And Jeremy’s already spoken to him on my behalf, said I was acting in self-defense and defending your honor.”
“See,” said Nory, smiling. “They’re not all bad.”
She must remember to thank Jeremy. Isaac rested the pitchfork up against the compost heap.
“Come here,” he said.
Nory narrowed her eyes. “You’re muddy and sweaty,” she said, smiling as she moved closer to him.