She emerged from the forest and onto the lane in front of Mammi and Dawdi’s house just as a car pulled up the hill. The ex-girlfriend’s Lexus. They’d come to retrieve Zach’s car. Cassie didn’t want to have an accidental encounter with either of them. Let Zach drive down the hill and never come back. She didn’t need the heartache.
Stopping at the edge of the path, she turned off her headlamp and sidled close to a tree. In the dark, they’d never notice her.
She heard the car door open. Because of the distance, their voices were muffled, but Cassie could make out well enough what they said.
“Call me if you need company,” Blair said.
“Thanks for letting me drive your car. I hope your meetings go well.”
Zach slammed the car door, and the gravel crunched under Blair’s tires as she turned her car around and drove down the hill. Cassie expected to hear Zach’s key click into the lock on his car door but instead, she heard footsteps as he seemed to be walking in her direction.
A voice to her left almost made her stumble backward. “Are you hiding from me or Blair?”
She caught her breath and gave him a dirty look, although he wouldn’t have been able to see her scowl in the dark. She turned on her headlamp. “What do you think you’re doing, sneaking up on me like that?”
Zach chuckled. “You were hiding behind a tree, ready for an ambush. I had to make the first move.”
“I was not.” She didn’t especially want him to see her like this, with her hair stuffed into the bonnet and smudges of dirt down her ugly gray dress. It was a sure bet that Zach preferred pink heels to mud-caked boots, and well-manicured nails to hands smeared with dirt. Ignoring the stab of pain in her chest, she grunted and tugged at the sled to get it moving then marched toward the sugar shack as if she had somewhere very important to go.
He dogged her steps. “Can I help?”
“The tapping’s all done. The family left. Titus, Dawdi, and I are collecting the first sap.”
“I’m sorry I missed it.”
Why should he be sorry? Blair had made him a better offer. Cassie picked up her pace, which proved difficult pulling a ten-gallon bucket of sap behind her.
He shuffled next to her and took the towrope from her hand. “Where to?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to help.” He smiled hesitantly and gestured to her headlamp. “This is a very convenient light.”
Cassie brushed some hair away from her face before remembering how dirty her hands were. She shoved them behind her back. “The sugar shack is in a clearing just beyond the toolshed.”
“Will you show me?” he prodded, as if sensing her reluctance.
She walked beside him so that both of them could see the way with her headlight. His closeness only served to further agitate her. She wasn’t his type. How stupid of her to dream.
She led him around the barn, past the toolshed, and through a row of sumac bushes to the sugar shack, basically four poles holding up a roof over three fire pits.
He hefted the bucket from the sled as if it were empty. “Where do you want this?”
“Stick it in that bank of snow. It needs to stay cold until we boil it down in the morning.”
The snow crunched as Zach shoved the bottom half of the bucket into the drift. He brushed his hands off and smiled at her. “What can I do now? Do we need to collect more sap?”
“Nothing more tonight. Thanks for your help.” She turned and hiked back through the sumac bushes. Hopefully he’d take it as a signal that he could go.
He stood rooted to his spot for a second before jogging to catch up with her. “Do you want me to look in on Anna? I haven’t seen her today.”
Cassie attempted a smile. “She’s fine. She finished several pot holders and a blanket this afternoon.”
“Does she want me to look at her foot?”
She bowed her head so he wouldn’t see anything amiss in her eyes. “You don’t have to feel obligated, Doctor.” She fiddled with her bonnet strings as an excuse not to look at him. “I’m sure there are other places you’d rather be and other people you’d rather be with.”
He stopped dead in his tracks. She kept walking.
“Cassie?” he said.
She would have been very rude to not turn around. She reluctantly stopped and looked at him.
He drew his eyebrows together. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He came closer and tilted his head to one side. “You’re upset. That’s not nothing.”
The headlight gave her an advantage. She could see his features clearly, but when he looked at her, all he would be able to see was the bright light.
“Blair’s life is very exciting compared to hog butchering and maple sugaring.”
“Not really.”
Cassie wished for a glass of water to clear her dusty throat. “She has a nice car.”
He shrugged. “You’ve seen one Lexus, you’ve seen them all.” He raised a hand to shield his eyes. “Cassie, do you think you could turn off the light? I feel like I’m in the middle of a police interrogation.”
Reluctantly, she clicked the headlamp off. At least he wouldn’t be able to see much of her face by the light of the stars or the lantern that hung on the peg next to Mammi’s front door. She’d rather not compound her humiliation.
“I’m really sorry I left you to drill trees by yourself.”
“Elmer Lee and I finished together.”
“Oh.” He scrubbed his hand down the side of his face. “Blair wanted to show me her car. I thought it would be rude not to let her take me for a ride in it. Are you mad at me?”
“You’ve been so kind to our family. I could never be mad.”
He stepped closer and reached out his hand as if to brush his fingers against her cheek. As usual he thought better of it. He really couldn’t stand the thought of touching her, could he? The concern was still evident in his eyes though. “Then what’s wrong?”
“Blair is very pretty.”
“Okay?”
“You don’t have to come here out of a sense of obligation when you’d rather be with her.”
He widened his eyes. “I wouldn’t rather be with her.”
“I’m a nobody. My grandparents, my family, we’re nothing.”
A storm gathered in his eyes. “That’s not true, Cassie,” he said, his voice rough and gravelly like thunder rolling in from the east.
“Blair has an important career. She’s going places, meeting people, brokering deals, making money. Her life is so exciting, so purposeful.”
A reserved smile played at his lips, as if he had hope for something but didn’t dare give the hope wings. “Are you jealous of Blair?”
They both turned as Dawdi and Titus appeared from the woods dragging their sleds behind them.
“The tree buckets are emptied,” Titus said, tapping the ten-gallon bucket on his sled, “and our buckets are full.” The toothpick in his mouth bobbed up and down. “We tried not to listen too hard.”
“I don’t know about you, Cassie,” Dawdi said with a tease in his expression. “But Titus and I aren’t nobodies.”
How long had they been standing out of sight listening in? “I know, Dawdi. You’re right.”
“I’ve been married sixty-four years to the best woman in the world. I’ve got thirteen children and nearly a hundred sensible grandchildren. Titus is about the best helper a dawdi could ask for.”
Titus nodded. “But we weren’t listening all that hard.”
Dawdi nudged Titus’s elbow. “Let’s take this sap to the sugar shack and get inside. It’s cold enough to freeze my toes off.”
Zach studied Cassie’s face as Dawdi and Titus pulled their sleds around behind the barn. “Are you cold?”
“Jah.”
“Can we go in the barn and talk?”
“I should get inside.”
He made puppy dog eyes at her. “Please, Cassie. We need to talk.”
We need to talk. Code for “I’m not really interested.”
She gave in and led the way to the barn. It wouldn’t be much warmer, but at least her cheeks wouldn’t turn bright red from the cold.
The pungent odor of manure and hay tickled her nose as she entered. She took the propane lantern from the peg and set it on Dawdi’s workbench. By the beam of the headlight, she found matches in one of the drawers and lit the mantel. The lantern hissed to life and sent a bright glow into the dark recesses of the barn. She turned off the headlight, peeled it from her head, and set it on the worktable. Iris the cow and Dawdi’s horse stirred quietly in the shadows.
Cassie leaned back against one of the supporting beams and peered at Zach. He was unbearably handsome. It was going to hurt really bad this time. The warmth of the barn felt stifling. She took off her bonnet and let it dangle from her fingers.
Zach eyed her hair, then stuffed his hands into his pockets as if imprisoning them. “I’ve got to know, Cassie. Why are you so upset about Blair?”
She took a deep breath. Might as well confess her weaknesses. Zach already knew what they were. It was the reason he kept his distance. The reason he wasn’t interested. “It’s not Blair. I don’t want her life. I never fit in at college because I want a little house with a white picket fence. I want children and a husband and a quiet life full of quilts and church and family.” She turned her face from him. “I don’t have earnings potential or a stock portfolio. I’m not ambitious or modern. I have old-fashioned values and outdated morals.”
“Then why are you jealous?” he whispered.
Her voice cracked in about a thousand different places. “Because she’s the kind of girl you want, and I’m not.”
There. She’d said it. Let him relish his victory, the fact that she had disliked him so much at first.
His expression melted like butter on a stack of warm pancakes with thick maple syrup on top. “Cassie, do you like me?”
She wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. “Of course I like you.”
“But do you like like me?”
“Like like you?” He wasn’t going to make this easy. She sighed from deep within her throat. “Jah. I like like you.” She thought maybe she loved him, but he would never get that out of her.
“Do you want to hear something shocking?” His smile put that propane lantern to shame. “I like like you too. But it’s probably more like seventeen likes.” He took a step closer. “You are the girl I want.”
She furrowed her brow. “No, I’m not.”
“I’ve never been so sure about anything.”
Her heart sprinted down the lane and back. “But how can that be? I’m not smart or ambitious or tough.”
“I know enough women who are tough. I want a woman who is tender. I want a woman who is sweet and soft and strong at the same time.”
“I’m not strong,” she murmured, mesmerized by the intensity she saw in his eyes.
“You had the strength to leave your community. You went to college without even a high school education. You fought off a lot of jerks. You absorb your mother’s criticism and return it with kindness.” He took another step closer. “Cassie, you are the strongest person I know.”
She felt a tear trickle down her cheek. She wanted to believe him so badly. “It doesn’t matter how much you like me if you find me repulsive.”
He jerked his head back. “Repulsive?”
“I’ve seen how you avoid touching me, like I’ve got some contagious disease. You cringe when you have to shake my hand.”
He looked stunned. “Oh . . . wow. Is that . . . is that what you think?” With both hands, he kneaded his forehead as if he were trying to sand his eyebrows off. After what seemed like three weeks, he dropped his hands and took another step forward, gazing at her as if she held all his happiness in her eyes. He was so close she could feel his warm breath on her face. “Cassie, sometimes I want to kiss you so bad, my whole body shakes. Sometimes I think I’ll go insane.”
“You do?” She couldn’t keep from sounding breathless as he focused his gaze on her lips. “Then why . . .”
“I want to be your key chain,” he said, his voice as soft as a feather pillow.
“My key chain?”
He winced. “Ever since I laid eyes on you, I’ve been trying to deserve you, trying to be the kind of man you could love. Don’t freak out, Cassie, but I love you. I love you so much that I can barely function when I’m not with you.”
Warmth pulsed through her veins as her heart hammered an untamed cadence.
“I want to be your Sir Galahad,” he said. “To love you with a pure heart, to prove myself worthy.”
She couldn’t breathe. The emotions swelling in her chest and swirling inside her head were too intense. He loved her! “Really?”
“Really.”
“Then I think you’d better kiss me.”
Without a second’s hesitation, he pulled her into him as if she were his missing piece. His solid arms enveloped her as he pressed his lips to hers and kissed her like a thirsty man in search of water.
All she could do was hold on tight and hope that her legs would still support her when he let go. Who knew so much blissful emotion could be put into one kiss? She was flying. She was dancing. She was wind and light and water, all at the same time.
If she could bottle this feeling like she bottled maple syrup, she’d be a billionaire.
Still keeping his arms firmly around her, he pulled away, breathless and trembling. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?” he whispered. He kissed her again, more deliberately this time, but his touch still left her light-headed.
He traced his thumb along her jawline and brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek. “Have I scared you away yet?”
“I may be timid, but I don’t scare easy.”
He laughed and tried to squeeze the stuffing out of her. Then he kissed her again until she felt like a quivering pile of jelly. It was the most wonderful, off-kilter feeling in the world.
This time he pulled away quickly and took two giant steps backward. “We should stop now.”
Putting a halt to the kissing was the last thing Cassie wanted to do. “Why?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s better to stop while I still have a shred of self-control left.”
“I trust you,” she said.
He gave her a crooked grin. “That’s why we need to stop.” He held out his hand to her. “Is this okay?”
She smiled and laced her fingers with his. “Better than okay.” She picked up her headlamp, doused the lantern, and strolled out of the barn hand in hand with Zach Reynolds. She felt like laughing at the pure joy of it.
They ambled up the porch steps. All Cassie could think about was how much she liked the feel of Zach’s hand in hers.
They stood at the front door. “Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked.
“I’ll be boiling sap all day,” she said.
“Do you need a wood chopper?”
Her heart skipped imagining the sight of Zach hefting an axe. “More than anything.”
“I’ll be here as soon as my shift is over. If Elmer Lee comes wanting to chop wood, don’t let him do it. And don’t let him kiss you either.”
She giggled. “I promise not to let Elmer Lee near the wood or my lips.”
“Good,” Zach said. “Because I’m not afraid to break my nose again.”
Still keeping hold of her hand, he leaned over and brushed a swift kiss across her lips. “I had no idea this much happiness existed in the entire world.”
“Me either.”
They both jumped as Dawdi threw open the front door, practically yanking it off its hinges. “Come in, Doctor. It’s warmer if you do your kissing indoors.”
Zach chuckled. “I better go. My shift starts in a couple of hours and I need to get some sleep. My friend Austin is having surgery in the morning.”
Cassie squeezed his hand. “Austin is going to be okay, Zach. Go
d is faithful. He will see that surgery goes well.”
The warmth in his eyes made her feel squishy. “I know you’re right. You’ve made me believe in God’s goodness again.”
Titus and Mammi appeared at the door, Mammi with her scooter and Titus with his toothpick. “Give me your hands,” Mammi said, her eyes alight with determination. “Five prayers together will hie straight to heaven.”
Zach looked at Mammi as if she’d just offered to donate a kidney. “Thank you,” he said. “I’d really appreciate it. How can Austin not get better with all of you praying for him?”
“God will hear us,” Cassie said.
“Titus,” Dawdi said. “You were a good tree tapper today. Will you pray?”
Titus nodded solemnly, pulled the toothpick from his mouth, and bowed his head.
Holding hands, they stood together in the doorway and prayed for Austin. Cassie slipped in her own little prayer of thanksgiving for Zach, his growing faith, and the happiness she’d found just being with him.
He was an unexpected and essential blessing, and she didn’t ever want to live without him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bundled up in her coat and scarf, Cassie sat on an overturned bucket with her GRE study book in her lap watching the maple sap boil. Boiling sap wasn’t a hard job, but someone had to be there to make sure the fire didn’t burn out and the forest didn’t burn down. Under the simple shelter, three large copper kettles sat on tripod stands atop three fire pits made of cinder blocks and bricks. They burned hardwood because it gave the syrup a smoky flavor that customers had come to expect from Huckleberry syrup. It was Cassie’s job to tend the fire, haul wood from the woodpile, stir the sap occasionally, and study for the GRE, if she could.
She found any academic pursuit impossible today because Zach kept creeping into her thoughts and taking up residence there. Just remembering his kisses last night and the warmth of his arms tightly around her made her feel giddy and ecstatic and oh, so breathless.
What time did he say he’d be coming? She’d be worthless until he got here. And when he arrived, she’d be even more worthless.
She stood and set her book on the stool. Maybe she should get more wood. The first kettle of sap had been boiling since nine this morning. It had almost boiled down enough to transport inside and finish on the stovetop. Once it came to the right temperature, Cassie and Emma would quickly pour the finished syrup into pint jars. They’d sell a lot of syrup at the May auction.
Huckleberry Hearts Page 26
