by Bethany-Kris
Like a walk through the forest where a particular farm actually harvested their maple trees. It might not be in season for maple syrup, but that didn’t detract from her daughter’s enthusiasm at seeing things up close and learning about it all.
Plus, Marcus seemed to be enjoying it as well. How could Cella not love that?
“We’ll have to come out again when all the pipes are put up, and the trees have been tapped,” Marcus told Tiffany who darted further ahead in the forest. Orange ties on the trees helped to direct them, and would get them back out without them getting lost. It made her realize just how much Marcus thought about leading up to this day.
She appreciated the effort. That’s all people needed to do.
Make an effort.
“Will it be very cold?” Tiffany asked, looking back over her shoulder at them.
Next to her, Marcus shrugged. His fingers woven with hers kept her close to his side, and if Tiffany minded the affection between the two, she didn’t say. Then again, after that conversation in the car the week before, Cella figured her daughter had a good idea what was happening between her mother and Marcus.
By all appearances, she liked it, too.
“A little cold—the season for harvesting here runs from February to April. Sometimes we might start a bit later, if the weather stops us from starting normally, but once we start, it’s a three-month window to do the harvest and have the syrup ready to be packaged for the year’s exports and sales.”
“And I can see that?” Tiffany asked. “You’ll bring me back, so I can watch them make it?”
Marcus smiled wide. “I absolutely will. We’ll even go out to one of the maple shacks, put some fresh, hot syrup in the snow, wrap it around a stick, and make suckers. They’re the best.”
Tiffany let out a whoop that echoed in the forest, followed by a statement of, “This is the best day of my life.”
Cella shook her head, saying too low for her daughter to hear, “I’ll remind her that she said so when February rolls around, and she incessantly asks to come out and see the trees being harvested.”
Marcus tugged Cella closer to his side, letting go of her hand just so that he could wrap his arm around her waist. Dropping a kiss to the top of her head, she closed her eyes and soaked that all in. The smell of him. The noise of the forest around her. And even her daughter’s happiness as Tiffany began to sing one of those songs she’d learned at pre-K.
Even with her eyes closed, she could still see the foliage on the rough ground, the strong trees towering high above them, and the bright green leaves that made a canopy to block out of the hot sun from the summer day. Although, she knew that one could still see a bit of the bright blue sky peeking through the leaves, too.
“You know,” Cella said, sighing as she opened her eyes to stare at Marcus who smiled back at her, “even though she’s going to like what comes next for this day more than us because let’s admit it, the next bit is mostly just for her, this is perfect.”
“You think?”
“You, me, and her? This place? Yeah, that’s perfect for me.”
Marcus reached up to push one of her wavy strands of hair back behind her shoulder. Then, those soft fingertips of his drifted along the line of her cheekbone. “Easy to please, hmm?”
“With just a little bit of effort, sure.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Good.
She hoped he did.
Lost in her moment with Marcus, she didn’t even hear her daughter come up in front of them until Tiffany’s small arms circled one of Marcus’s legs, and one of Cella’s. Without a word, he dropped one hand from Cella’s lower back, and cupped the back of Tiffany’s curly head. Smiling down at the girl, he couldn’t have looked happier.
Tiffany looked back at him in the same way.
Cella thought ... like she could be his.
“Can we play tag around the trees?” Tiffany asked.
Marcus nodded. “We can do whatever you want to do, dolcezza. That’s what today is all about. Just you and your ma.”
Tiffany grinned wide.
Then, she smacked Marcus on his leg.
“You’re it!”
Her kid darted away from them with pealing laughter.
Marcus gave Cella a look. “She totally planned that, didn’t she?”
“Most definitely. Stop looking so proud of her.”
He shrugged. “Can’t help it. That was a good one.”
• • •
“Is that where all the syrup is made?”
Cella stood back as Marcus opened the rear door of the SUV and helped Tiffany from her booster seat. Of course, as soon as the girl’s feet hit the parking lot, she practically danced on the spot from her excitement.
“It’s a very small plant where some of the syrup is brought to be bottled and stored for shipment,” Marcus explained, keeping a hand atop Tiffany’s head like that was going to keep her in place. “And in the summer, there are often tours that come through this particular plant, and we also have a big play place for kids to go crazy. Today, I had the whole place shut down to the public, although there’s no production happening anyway, so that you could get to see all the machines, where everything is stored, and have full run of the play place. There’s someone in the restaurant portion to make you whatever you want to eat, and there’s no time limit for whatever you want to do. Wanna see?”
“Yes!”
Cella laughed because the very second Marcus released his hand from the top of Tiffany’s head, the girl darted toward the large tan-colored building with the big bay windows covering the entire entrance. Through part of the glass, some of the play area Marcus spoke about was visible. It reminded her of the play gym they had gone to in the city. At the other far end, a sign for a gift shop had been turned off, signaling the place was closed for the day.
Sliding glass doors opened when Tiffany came close enough to the movement sensor for it to sense her, and only then did she stop to glance back at them.
“Can I go in?”
Marcus nodded. “Trina, she’s the manager of the place, will be waiting inside for you. Whatever you want to do first, she’ll be there to help and keep you safe.”
“Okay! Thank you, Marcus.”
“You’re so welcome, sweet girl.”
Tiffany darted into the building, and Cella turned to face Marcus with a shake of her head. “This was way too much. Just seeing the maple trees and all that would have been far more than enough for her, but thank you.”
“It’s a little thing, really. And I could do it, so why not?”
Cella sighed.
Happy.
She couldn’t remember when she’d been this happy.
Marcus leaned in and pressed a kiss that lingered just long enough to have Cella’s heart beating a little faster in her chest. It took every single ounce of self-control that she possessed not to wrap herself right around this man. Public be damned.
There was just something about him.
It called to her.
“Now, I have to feed you, too,” he said, pulling away from the kiss far too soon for her liking. “Other than breakfast, you haven’t eaten. They’ll whip up whatever you would like in there as well.”
“Thought of everything, did you?”
Marcus winked. “I try.”
She patted his cheek with her palm, and then caught his hand with her own. Once their fingers were woven tight together, and she was close to his side again like they had been walking through the forest earlier, the two headed for the entrance of the building.
And all she could think was it’s going to be a good day.
Nothing could ruin it.
• • •
“It’s so high, Ma.”
Her daughter didn’t lie. The play gym inside the plant reached high enough that it actually went up along the metal rafters of the building. Of course, all the netting around the gym made it perfectly safe, and the kids couldn’t go outside the many
tunnels, slides, and stairs. The floor where they could walk was made up of thick rubber to make playing even safer, all things considered.
“Does it make you dizzy to look down?”
Tiffany shook her head, those golden curls of hers flying every which way in the process. “Nope!”
With that said, she pushed away from the small porthole window that was too small for kids to climb through where she had been calling out to her mother. Cella saw a pop of her daughter’s curls before Tiffany jumped into the biggest slide in the play gym, the one that took the kids all the way from the top to the very bottom in seconds. Her daughter came out the other end with the skirt of her dress flying everywhere, and a big smile on her face showing off the one tooth she had missing on the bottom row of teeth.
Her first lost tooth.
“I’m doing that again,” Tiffany said, laughing.
“Her poutine is almost ready,” Marcus said from behind Cella. “So, whenever you think you can pull her out of there to sit down for ten minutes.”
Right.
“That’s going to be easier said than done.”
Marcus chuckled. “No doubt. I’ll leave that job to you.”
“Well, thanks.”
He winked her way.
The sexy bastard.
“Marcus, about the little girl—you said she wanted to see the floor of the bottling plant, right?”
The manager—Trina, Marcus said her name was—came to stand in the doorway of the playroom. It allowed parents to keep their kids separated from where the tour groups came through, and the small restaurant portion where everyone sat down to eat. There were a few small tables in the play area as well, which was where she figured Tiffany would probably eat.
“Oui,” he answered. “She’ll need the small sanitation suit, but even that will be too big, likely. We’ll roll them up.”
“I’ll grab one from the storage at the back. It’ll take me a bit—she’ll have time to eat her lunch, and then we can show her the floor.”
“Merci, Trina. You know I appreciate this.”
“Yes,” Cella said, “thank you for helping with this.”
The woman smiled brightly, the lines around her eyes making her features seem even more welcoming. The few employees that were actually inside the plant seemed to enjoy the woman’s presence, and Cella understood why. “No worries. I love seeing the kiddos light up. It’s not very often we have just one in here to focus on. Usually, it’s more. But anything for Marcus—he treats us well.”
Cella gave Marcus a look, and he grinned right back. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
Once the woman had left the doorway, Cella turned back to the play equipment to watch Tiffany climb back through the bottom large tunnel before her mother could tell her to come out and get ready for lunch.
“One more time,” Cella called, “and then we have to eat!”
“Okay, Ma!”
To Marcus, Cella said quietly, “Okay really means I will take my slow ass time. Just for reference.”
He smirked. “Kids will be kids.”
“Mmhmm.”
“I’ll go get the food.”
“Thanks,” she said.
He pulled her in for a kiss that wasn’t nearly long enough for her liking. Not that it mattered. She would have that man all to herself later. Surely, she could wait for that.
“Let her have fun,” Marcus told her, “no rush. We have all day.”
“Right.”
“Love you, hmm?”
Cella smiled at that.
How could she not?
“Love you, too.”
By the time she watched Marcus head out of the play area, admiring those broad shoulders of his covered in a fitted blazer, she found Tiffany wasn’t even at the middle section yet. Shaking her head, she couldn’t help but laugh.
“You know, Marcus said there was no time limit on playing today, Tiff, so you don’t have to try to be slow going back up.”
Her daughter looked out a porthole near the middle. “Promise?”
Damn kid.
But she loved her.
More than she loved herself, honestly.
“Promise, baby,” Cella said.
“Okay!”
Tiffany had climbed, crawled, and jumped her way to nearly the top when a piercing noise cut through the air. Cella cringed, covering her ears as she looked up to the speakers where the sound was coming from.
“What the hell is that?”
In a blink, Marcus came to the doorway. “You okay?”
Over the noise, his voice was still faint.
She pointed at the speaker. Even Tiffany couldn’t be seen in the play equipment, probably covering her ears, too.
“What is that?”
“An alarm. A door must have been open in the back. Someone will shut it off in a min—”
The place went black.
Well, partly.
The power cut off before Marcus could even finish his statement. They had a bit of light from the windows, which helped, but beyond the doorway of the play section, it was quite dark.
Marcus looked behind him, and then back to Cella. “I don’t know—”
It all happened so fast, then.
The roar of motorcycles.
How Marcus went from confused to horrified.
Glass breaking.
The smell of gasoline.
It happened so fucking fast.
Cella’s scream for her daughter to get down became drowned in the noise—the shatter of glass as something else was thrown in through the window. She barely caught sight of the items, and her gaze swung from the breaking bottles with burning rags stuffed down the necks to the bikers outside in leather that roared past the now-broken windows.
Fire spread instantly.
It caught the netting.
The ribbons hanging down from the play equipment.
The flames licked up the side of the wall where her daughter was high in a tunnel. Or, that’s where she’d just been a couple of minutes ago.
“Tiffany! Tiffany!”
16.
“Tiffany!”
Marcus rushed into the space, only managing to be barely one step ahead of Cella as he moved past the bit of netting that covered the majority of the play gym. Flames from the goddamn Molotov cocktails—bastards—climbed higher. As he ran for the equipment, scared to death for the little girl that was now screaming up above as she realized flames from netting were climbing to her, he cursed those fucks in every language he could speak.
“MA!”
“Come down the yellow slide!” Marcus shouted.
“But the fire—”
“Down the slide, Tiffany! Don’t look at the fire. We’re just going to come down the slide, okay? Come down the slide, dolcezza!”
Though his voice was raised, he still somehow managed to maintain some semblance of a calm demeanor. Although how, he had no fucking clue. Instinct, maybe, because the fear clawing at his throat was enough to damn near put him on his knees.
“Hurry,” he shouted, “jump right in the slide and I will catch you as you come down, sweetheart!”
“Marcus,” Cella whispered.
God.
She sounded in pain.
Like this hurt her.
He understood that all too well because at the moment, it felt like his fucking chest was going to explode from the pressure building inside him.
“We got her,” he assured—although it felt like he was promising too; he’d yet to break one of those for her, and he wouldn’t start now, either.
“Tiffany!”
Marcus swore he saw the heavens when Tiffany replied, “I’m coming down!”
He actually heard the sound of her thumping against the slide when she jumped into it. He cringed from knowing how hard she must have hit the thick plastic. Not that he had time to think on it for long because the black smoke from the burning netting was enough to make him choke when all he wanted to do was focus on the little
girl flying down through the slide toward him.
“Catch her!” Cella cried.
He thought he might have to coach her out of the situation, but Tiffany proved to be smart and quick on her feet like every other Marcello he had ever met in his life. Including her goddamn mother.
Tiffany flew into his waiting arms first. He had already turned to run with her before he even had a proper grip on the girl.
“Just go out through the lobby,” he yelled at Cella’s back.
Like him, as soon as he had a hold of Tiffany, Cella turned to run. It was time to get the heck out of there.
“What happened?” Tiffany asked.
Had she not heard the bikes?
Well, she wouldn’t know what that meant, he supposed. Nor why the bottles with burning rags they tossed through the broken windows had the place lighting up in seconds.
“Stupid people happened,” Marcus muttered.
Cella shot him a look over her shoulder, the narrowing of her gaze darkening her pretty features before they exited the playroom. It brought them right out to the small lobby of the plant which also split off into hallways that led to work areas, the receptionist’s desk, and a gift shop.
All which faced those same big windows that the play area sported. Each one that was now also broken out by the same gas jugs and crowbars from before. The gift shop had flames licking out of the door. Not a surprise considering the goddamn thing was mostly made up of very flammable items like plush toys, flags, T-shirts, and other knickknacks for people to buy.
And in the lobby, fire danced across the black and white checkered tiles on the floor from the little lakes of gasoline that had snaked across the room.
“Oh, my God,” Cella said behind him.
The thing about old buildings?
They were fucking old.
This was one of the oldest maple syrup farms and plants in Canada. Not a lot about the place had changed over the past seventy years but for some modern upgrades. Part of the draw to the place for tourism was the fact it was so old and had great history for the province and even the country.
But it was still old.
And that meant it went up in flames as though it were a firework going off against a dry Christmas tree.