Vermont Valentine (Holiday Hearts #3)

by Kristin Hardy

  In the hour that lies between night and morning, Jacob watched the flow of sap near its end. He glanced at Celie. “I don’t know if I ever thanked you properly for what you did with my trees. The inoculations, I mean.” He gave a brief smile as he walked back around the evaporator to the center of the room. “You’ll have to forgive me. I was still kind of in shock at the time.”

  “You had reason to be,” Celie said. “I know what it means when trees come down. To you, especially.”

  “No, you don’t.” He stared for a long moment at the bubbling sap then turned to her. “My father died in that ring of trees.”

  The words stopped her. “The part we cleared?”

  “The part you saved. I’ve found myself out there a lot the past year. Just walking the sugarbush and thinking about him. It made it easier somehow, you know? Like they were his memorial. Cutting them down would have…” He stopped for a moment. “It would have seemed like…defiling his memory.”

  And she’d almost done it. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “How? You couldn’t leave trees that were at risk just to make me feel better. We’ve got to get rid of this bug and if trees have to come down to make it happen, that’s what we do.” He moved impatiently to the firebox. “I know my dad’s not in those trees. If he’s here anywhere, he’s all around us. He’s with my mom.” He opened the firebox doors.

  “What happened?”

  Jacob moved his shoulders. “Heart attack. Last spring. We were gathering sap and then I turned around and he was just down.” He stared into the flames. “I tried to get him to the hospital but it was too late. Massive damage. They said it would have been too late even if he’d been right outside the hospital when it happened.” He poked at the embers with unnecessary force.

  She ached for him. “You did your best,” she said softly.

  He looked around the room and shook his head. “All this… We always shared the work. It seems wrong to be running a boil without him. It seems wrong to be doing any of it. He should be here.” Jacob tested the boil, then brought a bucket to the outflow tap at the outside wall of the evaporator. Syrup rushed out, thin as water at that temperature.

  “Is there anybody else in the family to work on the farm, apart from your mother?”

  Jacob carried the bucket over to the filter unit and lifted it as though it were a loaf of bread. She saw his arms bulge with the effort, but his voice never wavered. “Nick and Gabe can’t exactly come back and work on the farm. They have other jobs, other careers. It’s my job to keep it going.”

  “A hundred acres? That’s a lot of responsibility for one person. Who stuck you in the hot seat?”

  He looked as though it was a question he’d never been asked before, as though she’d questioned gravity. “I guess I did,” Jacob said slowly. “I love this work. Always have.”

  The others moved on, she thought; he was left.

  He sat down on the heavy wooden table that sat against the wall beneath the window overlooking the parking lot and she realized that even Jacob, finally, got tired. “I always figured I’d run the farm someday. But when my dad retired. I never thought we’d lose him like that. No one did.” He stared at the sap, stirring only when she handed him the butter cup.

  “It must be hard doing it all yourself.”

  His jaw tightened. “I don’t mind hard work. But I guess that’s not what you meant.” He rose to flatten out the bubbles, but his actions were jerky, as though he were angry. “Yeah, it gets to me sometimes, feeling like I’m the one responsible for it all. Sometimes it’s the loneliest feeling in the world. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  For an instant, the sarcasm vibrated in the air. “No,” she replied carefully, “not really.”

  He was silent for a long time. “A hundred and thirty years we’ve been running this farm,” he said slowly. “Five generations. Now Dad is gone, Gabe is gone, Nick. We all made our choices, back when we thought we had a lot of choices we could make. And now it’s too late to go back. So that means it’s up to me to tough it out.” He rose to draw out the last of the syrup and at his nod she pulled open the doors on the fire-box. “But that’s Trask family drama. Forget I mentioned it.”

  “No. I won’t.” Celie straightened up and looked full into his face. “I know more about this sort of thing than you think. You’re not the only one with a family legacy.”

  It stopped him for a moment.

  “My parents run a bookstore in Montreal,” she said. “It’s called the Cité de L’Ile. It’s been in our family since my great-grandfather’s time. I grew up with that damned store, working there weekends, every day after school.” Sitting behind the counter inside the yellowed windows until she felt as musty and old as the books themselves. “We lived in an apartment above it. It was too small, but it was close to the bookstore, and anyway it was all we could afford.” She gave a faint smile. “Prestige doesn’t necessarily translate into receipts.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “They’re still running it, still living in the little apartment. My sister helps them. Margaux loves the place. She’s got her lit degrees. She writes. Books are her life. I’m sure she’ll keep it going after they’re gone. Me, all I ever wanted was to get out.”

  “Why?”

  “It ran our lives. We could never leave for a vacation because someone had to run the store. We couldn’t move because we needed to be right there. And we were always so broke because it never made much money, but my father would never dream of selling it. It was like we were locked into not having anything because of that damned legacy. And yes, I got out as soon as I could and never looked back.”

  “And you think that’s how Gabe and Nick feel?”

  “I don’t have any idea how Gabe and Nick feel. The point is, my parents let me go off to a different career. They didn’t understand it, but they let me go. All I’m trying to say is that you have to let people be who they are. You have to let them change if they need to.”

  Jacob leaned his hands on the table and stared at his reflection in the steam-covered glass. “I’ve never tried to stop them.”

  “It’s not them I’m talking about,” Celie said gently, coming up behind him to rest a hand on his back. “Maybe you need to give yourself the same freedom. Maybe you need to go forward with your life just like they have with theirs.”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” he said, trying to ignore the heat from her palm flowing through him.

  “Are you? When you spend all your time pushing people away?”

  Her whisper vibrated in his ears. He turned to see her staring at him, her eyes large and dark against the ruddy glow from the firebox. Bit by bit, she’d slipped inside his barriers, penetrated his isolation, filled an emptiness he hadn’t known he had. And now, in this moment, they’d come too far to turn away.

  Go forward with your life.

  She stepped up against him and slipped her arms around his neck. “Take a chance, Jacob,” she breathed. “You’ve already let me in this much.”

  “You didn’t leave me any choice,” he muttered even as he slid his hands into her hair.

  “You’re not the only one who knows what he wants.”

  “Thank God.” And he bent his head to hers and dragged them both into the kiss

  Her heat blazed up around him. It snatched the breath from his lungs, it left him reeling. She was luscious and lush, she was madness, magical. He wanted to touch her everywhere at once, as her taste flowed through him and the insatiable hunger stirred.

  Oh, he’d done his best to push her away. He’d done everything he could to remind himself of why he should keep his distance from her, but she’d kept coming back, refusing to take no for an answer until he couldn’t make himself say no anymore. And even though he knew he was a fool to let her in, even though he knew that she was going to leave, he just didn’t give a damn.

  Tonight, he’d let himself have. Tonight, they’d discover what they could be.

&nb
sp; This time when he reached under her shirt to feel the soft, smooth skin beneath, she didn’t flinch at the cold. This time she moaned and stretched against him and he lost track of time just running his hand over the smooth lines of her back, the soft dip of her waist where the skin stopped and her jeans began.

  When she pulled her shirt over her head, he curved his hands around her sides, running them up until his thumbs slid up over the soft rises of her breasts, covered in some silky, skin-colored fabric and he swore he could feel his heart hammering against his ribs. Finally, finally, finally the coats and gloves were all gone, finally it was just them, just his hands on her bare skin.

  It was more than he’d dreamed of. It was achingly far from enough. He traced his fingers along her sides, around the front of her flat belly, feeling her tremble.

  Then he traced them higher, and heard her helpless gasp.

  Big warm hands, sliding over her. The sensation had her twisting against him, nearly delirious with pleasure. Even through the silken fabric she could feel the heat of his hands, feel the sizzle of his touch against her nipples, so intense that she didn’t know if she could endure it. So tantalizing she was going to scream if she didn’t have more. She wanted him naked, wanted them both naked, together, touching, taking, tasting, driving each other to the edge.

  Impatient, she yanked his shirt out of his jeans and ran hands shaking with desire over the hard ridges of his torso, almost giddy at the feel. When she rubbed her fingers over the pebbled dots of his nipples, he caught his breath. “Mmmm, that does something for you,” she whispered.

  “You do something for me,” he growled and dragged her against him before pulling his shirt off over his head. His skin was smooth and beautiful in the firelight, his arms cabled, shoulders nearly round with muscle. He was muscle and sinew, tendon and bone like some anatomy drawing. Anatomy of life, here in her hands. With his jaw dark and his hair tousled, he looked like some primitive god.

  And she wanted more.

  Celie reached for his belt, fumbled for his zipper. Before he knew what she was about, she’d dropped to her knees before him and slid him into her mouth. Jacob groaned at the rush of wet warmth and reached out blindly for the table. The slick touch of lip and tongue had him almost mindless, sliding along the length of him again and again until he swore he’d turned into a solid mass of nerve endings, until every stroke had him straining for control. And then he caught at her shoulders, desperate to stop her because he was coming too close and he had to be inside her or he was going to lose his mind.

  And the last vestiges of civilization slipped away.

  He dragged her to her feet and pressed her back against the table, stripping off her bra, pulling down her jeans as she lifted her hips to help him. He stroked his hands down over her quivering belly, along the sweet curves of her hips and the long stretch of her thighs, back up the tender inner flesh until he heard her gasp, felt her arch as he touched her where she was already hot and wet and ready.

  Then he gave in and bent over her to press his mouth to her breast, drawing the tender flesh inside to torment himself and her with tongue and light scrapes of his teeth. She twisted against him. “Now,” she gasped, clutching at his shoulders, his hair, wrapping her legs around his waist.

  And he shifted and drove himself into her in a slick rush that threatened to blow the top of his head off.

  Nothing had ever felt this intense, nothing ever could. For a moment he just froze, embedded in her, awash in aftershock of more sensation than he’d ever known. Then he began to move and they were both gasping, rocking, letting the good friction take them up and up, and she was so tight and so wet and so incredibly hot wrapped around him that it made his head spin.

  There would be time later for finesse, Jacob thought hazily. There would be time, but now, with her hands urging him on, her legs tightened around him, the moment and the madness spun out and took over. He could only surge against her over and over, listening to her cry out as she made the climb and tumbled over, shaking and clenching around him and thrusting him into the gather and the rise of his own climax. And when he spilled himself, it felt as if it came from the very center of him.

  And it was as though some part of his soul went with it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sleep, Celie decided, was overrated. So what if the best she’d been able to manage was a light doze in Jacob’s arms once they’d made their way back to his house?

  And his bed.

  Of course, they hadn’t gotten there right away. Delays, she recalled with a smile she couldn’t suppress. There had been the delay in the entryway and the one in the living room. She had some good memories of the carpet.

  She didn’t need sleep to feel whole, though, not right now. She was half drunk on the energy of lovemaking. All she could think was that in a few hours, work would be over and she could go to him again. She thought of the way he’d rested his hands on her hips as he’d kissed her goodbye beside her truck and her stomach gave a lazy flip-flop.

  “Hey.” Marce bounced into her cubicle. “How was your Valentine’s Day?”

  “Mine was great, how about yours?”

  “Fun, actually. I wound up going out for drinks with Phil and Gary. We walked through the door and I thought I was going to die laugh—” Marce stopped, looking closely at Celie for the first time. “Or maybe you’re the one who should be telling me about your night.”

  “My night? What do you mean?” Celie asked innocently, but the thousand-watt grin that spread across her face gave her away.

  “Don’t give me that. How was it?” Marce hissed in a low voice, pulling a chair up close.

  “Died and gone to heaven.”

  “That good?”

  “Better.” Celie let a beat pass. “Every time.”

  “Gawd. Does he have any brothers?”

  “Taken, sorry.”

  Marce made an annoyed noise. “I always miss out.”

  “I can ask about cousins.”

  “Never mind. The good ones are taken. So how was it after? Weird?”

  Celie moved her shoulders. “There wasn’t really time for it to get weird. We fell asleep and when I woke up I was already late so I just blasted out of there. We didn’t really talk.”

  “At all? That would definitely be weird.” Marce leaned her elbows on her knees. “So you don’t even know what he’s thinking. I mean whether he’s cool or freaked out, whether it’s a onetime thing or if he’s going to turn into Damien or whatever.”

  Celie frowned. “It’s Jacob.”

  “Right. He’s already Damien. So you’re really not weirded out?”

  “I wasn’t until you showed up,” Celie said with an edge.

  Marce gave a guilty grin. “Sorry. That’s just me. I obsess from the minute the orgasms are over. Gives me something to do until the next one. So has he called?”

  “No, but he never does. I doubt he even knows the number. Anyway, I’m usually out in the sugarbush, not here,” she reminded herself as much as Marce.

  “I’m just asking. So are you going to call him?”

  “No way. That would get weird.” Celie gave an impatient sniff. “Jeez, now you’ve got me doing it. Look, it’s simple. I’ll just show up.”

  Marce looked at her from under her brows. “You had sex for the first time and you didn’t talk about it? Trust me, that’s never simple. You can’t just show up.”

  “I show up every day. Why should today be different?”

  “I suppose you have a point.”

  “Thank you. Now that you’ve gotten me completely paranoid, can you give me some peace?”

  Marce grinned. “What are girlfriends for?”

  The phone rang as Marce walked out of the cubicle. Jacob, Celie thought in relief and lifted the receiver, grinning. “Celie Favreau.”

  “What are you up to?” a voice demanded.

  Definitely not Jacob. “Who is this?” She knew it was Rumson, she recognized his voice, but she was damned if she
was going to give him the satisfaction.

  “Dick Rumson,” he snapped. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  She took his question literally to buy time. “Well, Dick, I’m flattered that you’re so concerned. Right now I’m completing some paperwork and in a few minutes I’m going to drive to Charlie Willoughby’s sugarbush and inspect his trees.”

  “Don’t play cute with me. You’re up to something. What are you doing with an injector in your truck?”

  Her fingers tightened on the phone. “I’m a plant health specialist,” Celie said calmly. “I always travel with an injector.”

  “You’ve got something new and you’re using it, and I don’t think you’re doing volunteer work in the neighborhood.”

  “I see you’ve been talking with Paul Durkin again.”

  “I talk to lots of people.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

  She put down her pen. “Stop getting distracted by what doesn’t matter. The maple borer is the enemy, not me.”

  “The guys whose trees you’re cutting down might not agree.”

  “They will if it wipes out their sugarbushes.”

  “It doesn’t have to. You’re doing a damn fine job of that yourself.”

  She struggled to keep her slippery grasp on her temper. “Dick, I don’t give a damn about taking over your territory or your position or your job. Once this is over, you can go back to playing king of the forest, so you can stop putting so much energy into getting people stirred up. Just let me take care of the infestation and I’ll be gone.”

  “Oh, you’ll be gone all right,” he said ominously. “You can be sure of that.”

  She felt cold. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I think you know. Have a real good day.”

  And he disconnected with a click.

  Jacob lifted the bucket off the tree and emptied it into the gathering container. Sap splashed onto his fingers. He raised his hand and licked it off, tasting the light underlying sweetness. Like Celie. The thought popped into his head unbidden, and with an irritated noise he hung the bucket back on the tree.