Vermont Valentine (Holiday Hearts #3)

by Kristin Hardy

  She sighed. “I thought it was the right thing at the time.”

  “The EPA is demanding disciplinary action.”

  “Gavin, give me a break. They released Beetlejuice last Wednesday. What are you going to do, slap me down for beating the registration date by a few weeks?”

  He drew himself up. “This is a very serious infraction. The number of days doesn’t matter. At the time you injected those trees, you were in direct violation of federal law and USDA protocol. You’re a program head. You’re entrusted with a certain responsibility and you violated that trust.”

  “I’m entrusted with eradicating the maple borer in the most effective way possible. The product is safe and it’s released.”

  “That’s not germane.”

  She stared at him. “What do you mean, it’s not germane? Beetlejuice got approved by the RAL in early January. All I did was jump ahead of the paperwork cycle.”

  “It’s called SMB-17 and what’s germane is that it wasn’t registered for use when you applied it a month ago.”

  “It’s paperwork,” she protested.

  “It’s the letter of the law,” he shot back. “You can’t just run around making your own rules, Celie. There are ways things are supposed to be done and until a pesticide is registered, approval is not a given, no matter what the RAL says.”

  “I was trying to save trees.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?” Her voice rose. “What are we doing here? What’s this all about, rules and regulations or preserving the forests? You’ve been behind a desk for so long you’ve lost sight of your job, Gavin.”

  “No, I think you’re the one who’s lost sight,” he snapped. “I know exactly what my job is and right now it’s removing you from your position in this program.”

  And all the words stopped up in her throat. There had been pain on the heels of shock when she’d gotten hit with the softball, pain that overwhelmed everything. It was that way now. She felt lightheaded with it. “Are you busting me down?” Her voice sounded far away to her own ears.

  “Four grades. Be glad it’s not more. You’ll work out of the offices in Riverdale for the time being until we can find something suitable for you.”

  Maryland, she thought in a panic. Away from the project. Away from Eastmont.

  Away from Jacob.

  She stared at Gavin in alarm. “We’re finishing up an eradication operation. Who’s going to take over?”

  “Dick Rumson from the state will step in for now.”

  “Rumson?”

  “He’ll be assisted by the inspectors you trained.”

  “He doesn’t know the first thing about what he’s doing,” she burst out.

  “And the fact that you did didn’t make much of an impact on your performance, now did it?”

  Suddenly, she understood. “So how did you find out about the inoculations?”

  “An anonymous informant,” Gavin said stiffly.

  “That anonymous informant wouldn’t happen to be Dick Rumson, would it? The guy who directly benefited from making sure I got smacked down so far there was an opening?”

  “I fail to see—”

  “You need someone in here who’s qualified, Gavin. Bust me down to a desk job. I screwed up and I’ll take my lumps. But don’t make the county and the state and the region pay for it. Put Bob Ford in charge, or at least ask him what he thinks of Dick before you make the move.”

  Gavin set his jaw. “This is not your affair, Celie.”

  It wasn’t, she realized numbly. After ten years of building her life around the scarlet-horned maple borer, it was all over. She moistened her lips. “So what happens now?”

  “You’re suspended without pay for two weeks. At the end of that time, you report back to Riverdale.” Gavin rose. “It’s not the end, Celie. People have survived these sorts of career disasters in the past and learned from them. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” He shook hands with her. “Good luck.”

  And she sat, shattered.

  It was a scene Celie had seen so many times, steam streaming from the vent of the sugarhouse, the sweet, woody scent all around her. But she’d never faced it with desperation before.

  Her thoughts kept racing in circles and getting nowhere, like a hamster on a wheel. However much she’d fantasized about Eastmont as home, she’d known she was going to have to leave eventually. She’d known she was going to have to leave, but she hadn’t expected it to be so soon. She’d thought there would be time, time to talk with Jacob, time to make things right between them, time to hammer out some type of a future together.

  Time to tell him she loved him.

  Instead, she was being swept along pell-mell without a chance to figure out what to do. The only thing she knew was that she had to try, she had to convince him.

  Or else she was lost.

  Squaring her shoulders, she stepped into the sugarhouse. Jacob was bent over the evaporator, his back to her as she walked through the door. For a moment, she just stood and watched him, still unable to comprehend how he’d come to matter so much in such a short time. Unable to comprehend a life without him. She took a breath and crossed to him, trying for casual and breezy and feeling anything but. “It’s running.”

  He turned to her and she could see the lines of fatigue on his face. She stared. “Good Lord, Jacob, you look ready to drop. Did you ever go to bed?”

  He shrugged. “I needed to get the evaporator running. Otherwise we’d have to dump sap—not enough storage space.”

  So he’d stayed up all night after she’d left, draining, scrubbing and rinsing away the scorched syrup—her mess—as the hours rolled by. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

  He warded her words off with a jerk of his chin. “Don’t worry about it. It’s done.”

  Setting the butter dish down, he went back to feed the fire. Everything was okay, he’d said, but clearly it wasn’t. It wasn’t for him and it wasn’t for her. Especially now. She’d never felt this awkward with him, not even when they’d first known each other. She had to tell him, she knew she had to tell him, but couldn’t see how to start.

  “How’s the sap running?” she asked instead.

  “Fine.”

  “And the evaporator’s working all right after last night?”

  He didn’t look up. “Fine.”

  Celie jammed her hands in her pockets. Just do it. She took a breath. “So I got some news today at work.” Jacob didn’t respond, just used the poker to break up the hot embers. She bit her lip. “I’m being…I mean, I have to…they’re transferring me,” she blurted.

  The movement of the poker stopped. A particular stillness settled about him, a gathering tension that made it impossible to speak and impossible to look away. And then he straightened and turned to get some wood. “That right?” He began tossing the lengths into the firebox with unnecessary force.

  Celie waited for him to say more, but after a while it became clear he wasn’t going to. “They’re sending me to Maryland,” she offered, trying desperately to sound normal. The thing she couldn’t tell him was why. He couldn’t know it was because of the inoculations. What she’d done, she’d done of her own free will. It wasn’t his burden to carry; obligation was the last thing she wanted from him. “We’re just about finished here. They’re moving me to other things.”

  He looked at her finally. “So you’re leaving.”

  “I have to.” She swallowed. “That doesn’t mean that I’m walking away from you and me, though.”

  But she was. Jacob turned away to get more wood, trying to forget how it had been to wake up with her, silky and fragrant in his arms. She was leaving. He’d known it was coming and still, somehow, it made him feel like he’d been sucker-punched, weak in the knees, unable to catch his breath. And he knew it was the beginning of the end. “Kind of hard to have a relationship from five hundred miles away.”

  “No it isn’t. There are phones, e-mail. It’s only a couple hours by pla
ne. We can stay in touch, see each other all the time.” She paused. “Assuming you want to.”

  “It’s not as easy as it sounds, Celie,” he said wearily, shutting the firebox door. “I’ve been there before. Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. It makes you find ways to do without.”

  She stared at him, cheeks pale, eyes dark. “I don’t believe that. I knew married people in grad school who lived on different continents and still kept the relationship going.”

  “And where you are is always going to be more real than where you were. Things fade away, don’t you understand?”

  “Do you really think I’m that fickle?”

  He looked at her directly then. “I think you’re amazing,” he said softly. “But I also know people.” He picked up the hydrometer to test the syrup, grateful for the busy work—and then he realized he was gripping the sample cylinder so hard his knuckles were white. “Your life is taking you someplace else and this part is over. And when that assignment’s done, you’ll go again. You’ll just keep going.” And he couldn’t follow.

  “This is only a temporary posting. I could wind up somewhere closer, even, for the longer term.”

  But she didn’t understand that he could feel her slipping away already. And he couldn’t stand going through the slow, gradual withdrawal, the inevitable realization that he didn’t understand what drove her anymore, that they didn’t have a shared life.

  “Celie,” he said gently, “this isn’t temporary. I am never leaving Eastmont, don’t you understand that? There’s too much holding me here. I can’t go where your life is going to take you. And I don’t want to.” He took a breath. “You told me once that all you ever wanted growing up was new places, new things. Well, that’s not Eastmont. That’s not me. This place is never going to make you happy.” And the thought of it made him want to go outside and howl at the moon.

  Instead, he got the sap bucket and began to draw off syrup.

  “Is that really what you think?”

  “It’s what I know. Could you really see spending your life here?”

  “What does it matter what I think?” she asked in a rusty voice. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

  “People don’t stay in this town, even when they grow up here. They don’t stay when they move in to work at places like the Institute.”

  “Bob Ford’s stayed.”

  “Yeah? Bob Ford was ready to settle down. Ask him how long the rest of his staff has been around. They’re like you, Celie. In a year, maybe less, they’ll have moved on. It doesn’t change here, you know. Things stay the same.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I have to go, whatever you think. And I hate that I won’t be able to stay and help you through the rest of the sugaring. I’ve got a few days, that’s all.”

  “It’s all right. Just go.” Amputations were best performed quickly.

  “It’s not all right. You need help.”

  “I don’t need help,” he said flatly, hoisting the bucket and carrying it over to the filter, stumbling a little on the concrete.

  “Look at yourself.” She followed him. “You’re practically falling down you’re so tired.”

  He upended the bucket into the filter. “I do this all the time, Celie. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t need you,” he said. And he tried to believe it.

  Hurt shimmered in her eyes, making him feel like a clod. “Well. I guess you can’t put it any clearer than that, can you?”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “Yeah, I do.” An edge entered her voice. “I mean, that’s pretty much what it’s all about, isn’t it? Sure, you like living someplace that never changes. That’s because you don’t want to change. You want to be alone. You’ve been trying to push me away since day one.”

  And he should have kept doing it. If he had, he wouldn’t be standing here with her now, trying to pretend that he didn’t feel like something had been ripped open inside him and left to bleed. He’d gotten distracted, lost sight of the limits he’d always set, the bounds he’d placed around his life. The bounds that had kept him insulated. “Look, none of this is a surprise,” he reminded himself more than her. “Let’s not make it bigger than it was.” It was over, and now she’d go back to her life and he’d go back to his.

  And try to ignore the yawning cavern she’d leave behind.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you sounded relieved,” she said slowly.

  “Relieved? Hardly.”

  “Sure. Now you don’t have anyone bugging you. Now you can go back to being on your own. Gotta keep up that image. No room there for anyone else. No room for a partner.” She glared at him, inches away. “Do you ever get lonely in there all alone, Jacob? Do you ever wish just once that you had some company?”

  He’d had company. And she was leaving. “What do you want me to do?” he demanded. “Beg you to stay? To walk away from a project that’s been your life? And what happens the morning you wake up and realize it’s not enough?” He moved back to the firebox, picking up the hook to open the fire doors and turning to find her on his heels. “Back off, will you? You’re going to get burned.”

  “I already have,” she said quietly.

  No kidding, he thought. And it was time to end this. “Come on, Celie.” His voice softened. “Let’s stop tearing each other up and just call it done. We never said this would last.”

  Color flared in her cheeks. “You’re so damned proud of this loner thing. Well guess what? No one gets by completely alone, Jacob, not even you. And you can blow me off now and you can push everybody else away before they get close but sooner or later you’re going to have to realize that you can’t get along in this world without people.”

  “I get along just fine,” he retorted.

  “Oh, sure. You and that precious legacy. Except what happens now? It all ends with you, the guy who’ll go to his grave alone because he can’t open up to anyone enough to have a relationship, let alone a family? What happens to the Trask family legacy now?”

  The words vibrated there in the room. And then the light of anger in her eyes died. Abruptly, she seemed to sag.

  “Celie—”

  “No.” She held up her hand and pulled herself together, he watched her do it, scrap by scrap. When she had her composure back, she stirred. “We’ve done enough talking. I’m going, Jacob. Goodbye.”

  And then she went.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Coming into Montreal had always been a game for Celie, with points awarded for each change she spotted. New places to eat and drink, new shops to visit. It was a win-win situation.

  Except that this time around she didn’t have the heart for it. When she realized the first change was the replacement of her favorite bistro by the glowing colors of a chain restaurant, she decided to boycott the game entirely. Further along, the bones of a skyscraper rose up in the place of a building that had housed her favorite music store, the one that had specialized in hard-to-find imports and World Beat.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised. She didn’t understand why it bothered her so much.

  Even Vieux Montréal had changed, here a restaurant, there a tourist shop. The cobblestone streets, the graceful, gray-stone buildings remained, the side streets with their cafés, warmly lit and inviting. But it wasn’t the same and it didn’t feel like home. Then again, it hadn’t for a while, when she really thought about it. Too much was different from what she’d grown up with.

  It doesn’t change here, you know. Things stay the same.

  Making a noise of impatience, she turned toward the St. Lawrence River. She was not going to think about Jacob. She refused to let herself fall into weeping. Drivin-n-Cryin was all well and good for the name of an indie band; she didn’t need it to describe her life. Jacob had made it clear what he wanted, and it wasn’t her. He wouldn’t even give them a chance, she thought as frustration billowed up. She knew he cared for her. He’d seen what they could be together but he’d rather play it safe and
walk away than find a way to make it work.

  For a moment, something inside her twisted and she clenched her hands more tightly on the steering wheel. Stay angry. So what if she’d fallen in love with him? She’d make herself fall right back out. She wouldn’t let him take up residence in her mind. She’d wipe away every last fingerprint he’d left on her heart. And when she was done, he’d be only a shadow, without the power to hurt.

  She concentrated on the road. It was good things were different, because it meant she had to think as she worked her way through the city. She turned on St. Paul and headed to the bookstore.

  She caught a glimpse of the Place Jacques Cartier as she passed, with its shops and aged brick. In summer, it would be packed with visitors, the cafés spilling out onto the sidewalks and the flower baskets overflowing with blossoms. On this frigid winter weekday, though, only a lone diehard street musician braved the elements, serenading the thinly populated square with mournful guitar music. The way Jacob had serenaded her.

  Stop it.

  One thing that hadn’t changed about Montreal was parking. It took her a good fifteen minutes to search out a spot. Of course, she had an inherent advantage with her truck in that she didn’t shrink from a little parking by Braille to get into a tight spot and she wasn’t the least afraid of vandals or car thieves. Most would doubtlessly feel themselves far too good to sully their hands with her vehicle.

  She sighed and rubbed at the back of her skull, trying to alleviate the tension headache. There was a great shadow looming over her that she was afraid to think about too much, because she knew if she did she’d give it a name and she didn’t want to go there. Instead, she opened her truck door.

  The front of the Cité de L’Ile bookstore looked the same as always, with its pale-gray stone and its mullioned windows framed in dark wood. The display of five books—three new, one used, one first edition—followed the same configuration it always had. Familiar, certainly. It had been her favorite place to loathe as a teenager.