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?
She sat alone at the table eating her breakfast of kings and thinking about Isaac. The pain still spiked when she conjured up his face, but she had learned not to wince on the outside. She was caught between hoping to see him and hoping not to see him. She wished she’d never meddled. If only she hadn’t been cursed with the need to fix things, she would never have ruined things with Isaac. They might even be spending Christmas together, instead of her being down here with a brother who could barely stand her, and Isaac up there alone . . . or not; maybe he’d moved on already. The thought winded her.
Why did love have to be so painful? Surely this was love; nothing else would hurt this much. Nory briefly considered leaving the rest of her breakfast for dramatic effect but then thought, Who am I kidding! and finished her plate, wiping the last bits of bean sauce up with a thick slice of buttery toast.
Forty-two
Last night’s snow made the village look like a Christmas card. Thom had parked his car, and Nory began to carefully transport the fresh floral table centers to the boot. The color scheme was the same for all—red, gold, green, and burned orange, with touches of gold and glitter in the ribbons and delicate porcelain fruits. But each arrangement was slightly different. Some were arranged in stubby clay pots, like vases of flowers, while others were more traditional with candles and hurricane lamps at their centers.
She could see the outline of her mum working in the hothouse, but her dad remained hidden so far, probably out back somewhere turning compost, she thought. The plants would all be given an extra good watering and some TLC, and then work would stop at 2:00 p.m. and the nursery would have to look after itself until the twenty-seventh.
Nory pushed a large arrangement to one side—pricking herself on a particularly spiteful holly sprig and swearing loudly—to make room for a rather grand centerpiece. Swags of ivy, holly, and bendy pine sprigs cascaded down from a long-necked gold punch bowl. Deep burgundy hydrangea heads exploded up from the center alongside fuchsia pink heathers, impossibly fat cream roses, eucalyptus, and rose hips. It was bloody heavy; she knew that much, and she wondered idly if the punch bowl was made of actual gold. She pushed it gingerly into place and tested the boot lid to make sure it wouldn’t crush the arrangement, before carefully pulling the lid down and locking it.
She was just about to climb into the car when Thomas came striding across the car park toward her from the direction of the village. Now what? she thought grumpily.
“I thought you might have left already,” he said breathlessly.
“Just about to. What do you need?”
“I wanted to give you this,” he said, thrusting a copy of the Observer into her hand.