The Sugar House

by Christine Flynn

  Suddenly faced with his big, very solid body, she jerked her glance from the slate-gray sweater covering his broad chest to the hard line of his jaw. As she did, she drew a breath that brought the scents of soap, warm male and citrus—and a sudden tightening in her belly when she met his eyes.

  “Emmy.” His deep voice dripped patience. “I just asked you if you wanted me to do that.”

  “You don’t need to do anything. I can handle it.”

  “I’m sure you can,” he replied, his expression mirroring his tone. “But it’s either work or pace. Frankly, there’s not enough room in here for much of the latter without climbing the walls, too.”

  The thought of him pacing from one end of the room to the other, all that latent tension following in his wake, threatened to have her pacing right with him.

  “I remember how much work is involved with all this. If I’m staying, I might as well help while I’m here.”

  He had a point, she supposed. And what he wanted was only practical, given that Charlie wasn’t there to help. “Three or four logs should do for now.” Since his nearness did unfamiliar things to her nerves, moving seemed rather practical, too. “And a few more in ten minutes or so.”

  “What do you want me to do in between?” he asked, pointedly allowing her her space.

  She motioned vaguely behind her. “Then, you can help tag tins. I need to get them finished before the first batch of syrup is ready.”

  With a little half smile for her concessions, he dipped his dark head toward the far end of the room. “Mind if I have a cup of that, then?”

  The coffee. She couldn’t believe how totally the man rattled her. Had he been anyone else, she would have offered it by now.

  “Of course I don’t mind,” she murmured. “You wanted it black.”

  “I’ll get it,” he insisted, reaching to stop her, pulling back before he could touch her and somehow add to the fine tension edging into the confined space. “What about you? Do you want a cup?”

  As jumpy as she suddenly felt, caffeine was the last thing she needed.

  Telling him she didn’t, thanking him anyway, she moved back behind the shield of the table. She’d thought she only had to make it through another few minutes before she could begin to put everything behind her again. The moment he left, she’d planned to turn up the radio or put a CD in her little player, throw herself into her tasks and forget about why he’d come and the memories he’d resurrected.

  Now she felt the threat of more memories encroach as he moved about the room, putting logs in the arch, stopping to scratch Rudy’s head, pouring his coffee. She was even more aware of the silence that followed after he set down his mug with the quiet clink of ceramic on the worktable.

  She knew for a fact that she’d never been so conscious of Charlie going through those same motions.

  Jack had stopped four feet from where she sat. She didn’t have to look up to notice the speculation in his glance as it moved over her. He was getting ready to ask some other question she didn’t want to answer. She could practically feel it.

  “You look as if you’re holding your breath.”

  That’s because I am, she thought, her eyes on her task.

  “Emmy.” Tugging at the knees of his jeans, he crouched down to meet her at eye level. He hesitated a moment, then clasped both hands between his spread knees. “I know this situation is awkward. And I’m sorry to be putting you out. Just tell me what I can do to make you more comfortable with me.”

  She could think of several things that would help enormously. But it would betray more than it would remedy to tell him she would have preferred he be a little less insistent or intense or…male. She didn’t care to mention that she’d prefer he stop messing with her nerves, either.

  Figuring the flutter his nearness put in her stomach was her problem, not his, she offered the only thing he might actually be able to do something about.

  “You can talk about something other than why you came here.”

  A tag slipped from her fingers. Reaching down, he picked it up, handed it back.

  “That’s it?”

  “Please.”

  For a moment he said nothing else. He just crouched there looking as if he wanted her to pick some other means of conciliation before he planted his hand on one rather powerful-looking thigh and rose like a panther about to pace.

  Taking his coffee to the other side of the table, he set it next to a wooden chair holding an empty box and nodded toward the rows of cans on the worktable. “Is that what you made yesterday?”

  “Part of it. I made the rest into maple candy.”

  “Do you sell much of that?”

  She couldn’t imagine that he was actually interested in her little operation. But he clearly intended to do what he could to dilute her discomfort before it could escalate.

  She truly appreciated the effort. Even if it didn’t really work.

  “A few hundred boxes. Sometimes more.”

  She had been up until two that morning packaging and boxing the little maple-leaf-shaped candies she shipped to kitchen boutiques and gift shops in the ski towns of Stowe and Killington. She told him that, too. And that making them was a time-consuming process, but her profit margin was higher than with syrup. The demand for the syrup was greater, though. Syrup was a staple. The candy was a treat.

  He hadn’t sat down himself. Wondering if he still felt like pacing, suspecting he did, she watched him pick up one of the filled tins. The design hadn’t changed in years. The little red and white container was lithographed with windows, a door and snow around its base. The pour spout and silver cap resembled a chimney.

  She had no idea how he managed to look attractive with a scowl.

  “I don’t remember your dad putting tags on these.”

  “He didn’t.” Looking across the sea of tins on the table, her glance collided with the zipper of his jeans. Wishing he’d sit so he wouldn’t seem so restless, she jerked her focus back to her task. “I added them after I read that marketing research showed consumers were drawn by containers that offered more than just product. The silver tie and little pamphlet of maple history and recipes make for a more appealing package. And the log cabin tin is still the most nostalgic.”

  He nodded toward an open case of empty pint cans. “What about those.”

  “They’re for people looking more for value than nostalgia. The regular cans cost less, so they aren’t paying for packaging.”

  Those were the tins she would fill when the next batch was ready, she told him. So he started packing the tins she’d tagged, and then tagged with her while the room filled with sweetly scented steam and the sap turned thick and amber.

  With the maintenance she would have to do in the sugar bush, she was easily doing more work than two people could comfortably manage. That became even more evident to Jack as the ice continued to build and they filtered and tinned batch after batch of the golden liquid.

  Not once during that time did she say a word about how difficult it was working on her own. Or how badly she could have used Charlie’s help the past week. Jack couldn’t help thinking about it himself, though, as they went about the chores that were still surprisingly familiar to him and listened to the radio announcer track the course of the storm. It had reached upstate New York by the time the last batch was sealed and they’d washed and sterilized all the equipment they’d used.

  She didn’t say anything about how miserable the weather was outside, either, much less balk at going out in what alternated between heavy snow and a blizzard.

  By the time the work of the day was finished, it was nearing midnight. While he banked the fire he’d kept going all night, she clipped on Rudy’s leash, then handed him his parka. Lights out, hoods up and heads down, they went out into a storm that would have kept most sane people under any roof they could find.

  He knew from having lived there that natives of the area tended to shrug at some storms the way others did a single snowflake. Winters
in northern Vermont weren’t for the faint-hearted.

  The wind whistled through the skeletal trees. The blowing snow stung like nettles against his face. It wasn’t cold enough to freeze the inside of his nose or the back of his throat as the air had sometimes done when he was a kid, but he’d forgotten about being in weather so severe.

  He’d also forgotten about the system of ropes they followed with hands and flashlights. Those ropes were tied tree to tree and led from the sugar house to her back door. Farmers had used the method for centuries to get to and from their barns to tend livestock in bad weather. Sugar makers had used it for just as long.

  It occurred to him as the cold rammed itself through his jeans, and ice cracked beneath their feet, that Emmy made this very trip every night for weeks in the cold and dark. Not in a storm like this, he reminded himself. But even with Rudy moving out ahead of her on his leash, he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of her being out there all alone in the woods. There were coyotes and bobcats. Black bears.

  Rudy would look like bait.

  He’d already bitten back a dozen questions that evening. Knowing she was on her own, he hadn’t been able to help wondering why she hadn’t simply sold off everything and found an easier life for herself. She’d once had dreams. She could pursue them now. He’d hadn’t asked, though. He’d been afraid he’d bump into something she didn’t want to discuss and he hadn’t wanted to crack the fragile ease he’d finally managed with her.

  He was about to ask if Charlie usually made the trip with her when a blast of wind nearly made her lose her footing. Barely two feet behind her, he caught her against him, dropping his flashlight in the process. Holding her upright, he snatched the glowing light from the snow and slid his arm around her shoulder as Rudy doubled back.

  “I’m okay,” she insisted, inches from his face.

  “I’m not,” he muttered, and tightened her against his side.

  Rudy seemed to have realized she’d nearly fallen. Thinking it good to know that she could count on her dog to maybe get her help if she were to slip and break something, if she didn’t freeze first, he spotted the pale glow of her porch light through the heavy snow and angled them all toward the warmth of her house.

  Rudy ran into the mudroom ahead of Emmy. Snow flew as he gave a great shake and promptly disappeared into the kitchen in search of his dinner. Behind her, Emmy heard the storm door slam, then the inner one and the stomp of Jack’s feet on the inside doormat.

  Pulling off her fleece cap, she shook off the snow clinging to it and moved ahead to give Jack more space. Outside it had seemed she’d barely slipped before she’d felt his big body behind her. She wouldn’t have fallen. She didn’t think she would have, anyway. But he’d spared her having to find out for certain when he’d thrown his arm around her and headed her toward the porch.

  She wasn’t sure which she found more disconcerting. That she hadn’t minded how he’d ignored her insistence that she didn’t need his help. Or the unexpected sense of safety she felt tucked against his side, his body shielding her against the worst of the wind. It wasn’t often that she and Rudy had to venture out in such weather. When she did, she was never careless. She knew her way. And she was never out long. But that sudden and unfamiliar sensation of feeling protected had left her feeling oddly vulnerable now that it was no longer there.

  From the corner of her eye she saw snow fall to the rug as Jack shoved back his hood and popped open the tabs on his jacket. Even though he hadn’t brought up the property, it seemed there wasn’t anything about him that didn’t remind her of something she’d rather not think about.

  Tossing her gloves and cap onto the dryer, she blew at a strand of hair that had loosened from her ponytail. He had wanted to talk about the property, though. She was as certain of that as she was of mud in the spring. She’d had the feeling he might resort to the pacing he’d threatened, too. Yet, he hadn’t done that, either. He might as well have. All evening he had reminded her of an animal moving around a pen much too small for its power and size.

  He still did.

  She turned to the line of hooks opposite a wall of snowshoes, skis and the shovel she used on the back stairs. Jack had already shrugged out of his snow-covered jacket. His dark hair looked as if he’d just run his fingers through it. Against his cold-reddened cheeks, his eyes looked as blue as lasers.

  “Just hang your things here,” she told him, shivering a little as she toed off her boots. “I’ll get us something to eat.”

  Knowing she really did need to feed him, she headed in her stocking feet for the warmth—and space—of her kitchen. It would take a fair amount of fuel to feed all that muscle, and all she’d had to offer him in the sugar house was coffee and granola bars. Considering how much he’d helped her, it was the least she could do.

  If not for his help, she would still be in the sugar house. At the rate the snow was falling, she might well have eventually found herself snowed in out there, too.

  “Will soup be okay?”

  “Anything,” he replied over the sound of a heavy boot hitting the floor.

  She’d left on the light over the sink, the one that spilled its glow out the window and, on clear nights, led her back to her home. Flipping on the overhead lights, she moved through her bright country kitchen with its sunny yellow walls and maple wood parson’s table in the breakfast alcove.

  It should be easier being with him in the home where she often welcomed three couples a weekend during the fall color season. There was far more space here. More rooms. Walls. She could even think of him as she would any other guest.

  She could try, anyway.

  She was halfway to the refrigerator, intending to make a sandwich for him, too, when she heard his muffled footfall on her polished pine floor. Thinking she’d better get the other male in the room fed first, since he was pawing at his empty dish, she turned in her tracks and headed for the pantry.

  The moment she did, the lights went out.

  In the split second before the room went black, she’d noticed that Jack was only a couple of steps away. In the next second they’d both sidestepped in the same direction and she felt as if she’d hit a brick wall.

  Her hand caught his arm. His grazed the side of her breast as it raised toward her shoulder, then suddenly landed at her waist. It seemed that her breath had barely snagged in her throat at that intimate brush of his fingers when she realized she was braced the length of his body. His thighs felt like hot steel against hers. Where his strong hands clamped her waist, heat radiated inward.

  They’d walked right into each other.

  His voice came from above her, its deep tones flowing like warm brandy over her scrambled nerves. “Are you okay?”

  Her breath slithered out. “I’m…fine,”

  “You don’t sound fine.” One hand left her waist. A heartbeat later, she felt his cold fingers skim the side of her neck before his palm cupped her cheek. “Did I knock the breath out of you?”

  His gentleness was as unexpected as the concern in his voice. So was the sudden ache filling her chest. What she’d felt tucked against him outside had hinted at security, safety. What she felt now drew her even more.

  It had been forever since she had been in a man’s arms. Longer than that since she’d been touched with such tenderness.

  It was such a little thing. But that touch put another crack in the shadowy image she’d carried of him all these years.

  There had been a time when she had thought of him almost as family. It seemed that her father had. And, as a young girl, she had thought he must be nearly as strong and wise as her dad. And kind. She’d once thought of him as so very kind.

  Yet, as his hand slipped away now, she sensed nothing brotherly or familial about him at all. And she found herself thinking of him only as…dangerous.

  “No, I…no,” she repeated, and decided to let it go at that.

  Jack felt her fingers ease their death grip on his arm. Beneath his hand at her slender waist it
felt as if the tension in her undeniably feminine body pretty much echoed the tension in his own. The firmness of her small breast had burned itself into his brain, right along with the softness of her skin, the freshness of her scent and knowledge that, were he to pull her closer, her body would fit perfectly with his.

  Steeling himself against the tightness low in his groin, he slowly eased her back.

  “Stay put,” he told her, his voice taut. “I’ll get one of the flashlights we left in the other room.”

  Emmy felt him move away. Easing out her breath, she took a step sideways, then another, blindly feeling for the counter she knew was somewhere beside her. It occurred to her, vaguely, that she could have told him she would get the flashlight. She also could have told him not to bother, that she could get one from the drawer next to her. But as she watched his shadowed shape return behind the beam of white light trained on the floor, she focused only on the need to get through supper and get him to his room.

  Determined to hide the confusion she felt toward him, she turned to the cabinet beside her, crouched down to open it.

  “Just let me get the oil lamps lit,” she said, a faint strain in her voice. “Then I’ll get your supper. I have a backup generator, but I have to turn it on outside. We can just use the lamps for tonight.

  “There’s a bathroom to your right through there,” she continued, indicating the doorway ahead of him. “You can take the flashlight with you and wash up if you’d like.”

  It was as clear to her as the chimney on the lamp she set on the counter that Jack knew she was seeking a little distance. It seemed equally apparent that he wanted a little himself.

  “You don’t need to feed me. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just take a couple of those apples over there.” Shadows moved over his carved features as he nodded toward the bowl of fruit he’d seen on the parson’s table. “Just show me where you want me.”

  Where she wanted him was in New York.