by Marie Force
—Colton Abbott’s sugaring journal, April 7
“We’re going to need to get you some hiking boots,” Colton said as he eyed the running shoes she’d worn to climb his mountain. “What size do you wear?”
“Seven and a half.”
“I’ll get you some at the store for next time.”
Next time. Those two little words filled Lucy with excitement and anticipation, both of which were dangerous emotions for a girl who hadn’t planned to get overly involved. No sense denying she’d done just that during the course of this weekend, during which everything had changed between them.
His big hand wrapped around hers helped propel her up a well-worn path through the trees that lined the hills above his home. Since she was following him, she had a fantastic view of his muscular ass and legs as he moved easily up the steep incline. While she was huffing and puffing and beginning to perspire, he’d barely broken a sweat. Watching Sarah and Elmer effortlessly bound up ahead of them made Lucy feel like even more of an out-of-shape loser.
After they’d traveled in silence for about twenty minutes, the path leveled off. He stopped and handed her the water bottle he was carrying. “Take a drink.”
She did as he directed, grateful for the cool water on her parched throat. “Thanks.”
“You doing okay?”
“I’m great.”
“Your face is all red.”
“Happens a lot in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed.” He glanced at the next incline, which was even steeper than the earlier one. “We don’t have to go all the way up if you don’t want to.”
“I do want to. Let’s go.” She’d pay for this tomorrow, but for right now, it was worth the effort to be able to see everything he wanted to show her. “How many trees do you manage?”
“About twenty-five thousand, give or take a few hundred.”
“And you have to tend to all of them every year?”
“In some way or another, yes.”
“Tell me how it all works. I want to know everything.”
“Everything is a lot,” he said with a laugh.
“Start at the beginning, and I’ll ask all my questions.” If he did the talking, that would give her time to breathe, which was becoming harder the farther up they went.
“Late winter into early spring is our prime season,” he began, speaking effortlessly despite the steep climb that was nothing new to him. “The flow of sap begins after the first hard freeze followed by a thaw. The best time for flow is after it freezes at night and the temperature rises to forty to fifty degrees Fahrenheit during the day. So we start around January with drilling new tapholes, checking the lines for blowdowns and critter damage and getting everything ready for that first big freeze. After it thaws, then we need a freezing night to recharge the trees. It’s the freeze-thaw ‘yo-yo’ that we need.”
“How long does sugar season last?”
“The taps can be in the trees up to twelve weeks, but the window for making syrup is the end of February through mid-to-late April. The span from the first sap run to the last run can be two weeks or eight weeks, but we only boil—actually make syrup—an average of twenty days. Obviously, if it were a two-week sugar season, we’d boil fewer than twenty days, but that happens some years.”
“How many gallons of sap does it take to make a gallon of syrup?”
He smiled down at her. “You weren’t kidding when you said you had a lot of questions.”
“I’ve done my homework.”
“So I see. It takes anywhere from thirty-five to fifty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, depending on the sweetness of the sap or how much maple sugar it contains. The sweeter the sap, the less sap it takes to produce a gallon of syrup. I could go on and on about reverse osmosis, which makes the sap sweeter before we boil it. There’s as much science as there is art behind it.”
She fanned her face dramatically. “Reverse osmosis. That’s hot.”
“Right,” he said laughing. “The reverse-osmosis machine makes the sap sweeter before we boil it, but the vacuum pump aids the flow of sap from the trees to the sugarhouse. Two separate functions.”
“You’re really smart, Colton. It’s impressive.”
“I’m smart about this one thing, so don’t be too impressed.”
“How do you power the machine and pumps?”
“We rely on solar energy and generators during the season.” He pointed to a copse of trees off in the distance. “We can’t run tubes to all the trees, so we still do the bucket method in those cases.”
“What kind of trees are these?”
“Most of them are sugar maples. They’re the best for making syrup because they have the greatest concentration of sugar. We use mature trees that are on average about a foot to three feet in diameter that get decent sun exposure. We call the trees a sugarbush. The first step is the tapping, which involves drilling a hole on the side of the tree that faces the sun for most of the day. We drill about three feet from the bottom and an inch or two deep. See right there?” He pointed to a hole the size of a pencil in the lower part of one of the trees. “That’s where we tapped last season. Into that hole goes what we call a spike spout that’s then attached to the tubing that carries the sap down to the sugarhouse where we boil in what’s called an evaporator to get rid of the water and concentrate the sugars. We call this ‘boiling down’ and that’s the most intense part of the process.”
“Does the tap hurt the tree?”
“Not as long as we remove the taps at the end of the year to give the tree time to heal in the off season and then choose a different spot to tap the next year.”
“When you’re installing the taps, how many can you do in a day?”
“Depending on the weather and other factors like icing on the mountain, we can do three or four hundred in a day.”
“In a single day?”
“Well, yeah,” he said, as if that was no big deal. “We have to move fast if we’re going to be ready to run. We have such a small window of opportunity, and we need to capitalize. We tap about ten thousand trees each year. I have to get all of that done before the first good run of sap. It’s a pretty delicate balancing act involving weather and timing and a bunch of other factors.”
“The boiling is why you need all the wood. I get it now.”
“Right. Because we don’t have power up here, we still do old-fashioned burn boiling when a lot of outfits are using much more sophisticated equipment these days. It takes a lot of wood to get through a boiling season up here, not to mention heating the house and store.”
“Do you ever think about running power up here?”
“We’ve talked about it, but there’s something so elemental about running this place almost the same way my grandparents did fifty years ago, with a few nods to modern technology. As long as we meet health codes and pass inspection, we’re happy with our output. It suits the needs of the store, and we do a nice little business up here, too.”
“What about when the website goes live? Will you be able to satisfy those demands, too?”
“Probably not without bringing sap in from other sources. We’ve had a couple of meetings about that. I’m in favor of using the site to bring people into the store to buy syrup. Of course my dad wants to be able to sell it online. We’re at a standoff on that point. We’ve been talking to the people who own the spread next door to ours about possibly acquiring some more land. If that happens, I’ll need someone else up here with me pretty much full time. Max is the most likely candidate, but with the baby coming . . . I’m not sure what he’s going to do yet.”
“I saw on the website mockup that there’re different grades.”
“Uh-huh. The early-season syrup tends to be lighter and sweeter, and the maple flavor isn’t quite as strong as it gets later in the season when it becomes what we call medium amber or dark amber. The next level is Grade B, which has a much stronger maple flavor, but the color isn’t as gre
at. The other thing we have to watch for is that the sweetness tends to be less as the maple flavor intensifies. All syrup, the finished product, is the same sweetness. It’s the sap that varies in sweetness.”
“I’m trying to picture the boiling season. Do you boil around the clock or just during the day?”
“Sometimes around the clock, but not every day. The whole family pitches in at various times and we make a party out of it. We also hire people from town to help and have a bunch of kids who live on the mountain who come up after school to help feed the fire. Thank God it only lasts about three to four weeks most years. By the end of that I’m so tired I’m like a zombie.”
“It sounds like fun, actually.” She wanted to offer to come up to help next year but couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud.
“It is fun. It’s just very intense.”
After a long climb, they reached the top of the hill. On the other side of the peak, the town of Butler was nestled in the hills, the buildings like miniature toys.
With his hands on her shoulders, Colton turned her to face his side of the mountain. “All the trees you see from here down are ours.”
“It’s amazing, and you were right. I needed to see it from up here to get the full picture.” She relaxed against him and smiled when his arms encircled her. “I’m all sweaty.”
“I don’t care.” To prove his point, he nuzzled her neck and kissed her, lingering for a long moment that filled her with utter contentment that was short lived when she remembered that tomorrow she’d be on her way back to her real life. This was a fantasy that couldn’t possibly last.
“Why did you just get all rigid on me?”
He was far too insightful for her own good. “No reason. So is going back down easier than the trip up was?”
“Sort of, but you have to go slow. If you get too much momentum, you’ll end up on a bumpy ride to the bottom.” He took hold of her hand. “But don’t worry. I won’t let that happen to you.”
There it was again. That sense of overwhelming safety and security she felt in his presence. She’d never thought of herself as a “little woman” who couldn’t take care of herself. In fact, she’d always been the exact opposite of that. She took care of herself and everyone around her. But Colton was a caretaker, too, and he seemed to like taking care of her. Most intriguing to her, however, was how much she liked being cared for by him.
With other guys, she’d refused to let them open doors for her or treat her like a princess. She believed that if women were going to fight for equal treatment in their work lives, they should practice it in their personal lives as well. But now that she’d been cared for and treated like a queen by Colton Abbott, she had reason to question the veracity of those beliefs.
Sure enough, he held her hand all the way down the steep incline, preventing a few tumbles along the way. More than two hours after they’d set out, they landed back in the yard, where Sarah and Elmer were chasing each other around while they waited for Lucy and Colton to catch up.
Lucy sat gratefully on the bench outside the store and took the water bottle Colton handed her. “Those dogs make mountain hiking look as easy as you do.”
“They come to work with me every day. These hills are home to them.”
“What if you were to have an emergency up here? Like if you really got hurt and you were all alone?”
He sat next to her, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “I’d probably be screwed.”
“Seriously.”
“I’m really careful because I know a serious injury would be a problem.”
“I don’t like that answer.”
“Sorry,” he said with a sheepish grin. “It’s the best one I’ve got.”
“What if there’s an emergency in your family?”
“That’s only happened twice since I’ve been up here.”
When his smile faded, Lucy almost regretted asking. But curiosity got the better of her. “What happened?”
“Landon fell off a roof during a fire once and broke his arm. It was a bad break, and he needed surgery. Hunter came up to get me.” He kicked at some pine needles on the ground with the toe of his hiking boot. “The other time was when Caleb died. My dad came. I’d never seen him cry before. I’ll never forget it. When I saw he was crying, I thought it was my grandfather, and my stomach dropped. And then when he said it was Caleb . . .”
Colton blew out a deep breath. “That was . . .” He looked off in the distance, lost in painful memories. “Losing him was the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to any of us. Even all these years later, I still can’t bear to think about him being gone.”
“I’m so sorry. It’s obvious you all loved him very much.”
“He was an incredible guy. Everyone loved him.”
“Hannah seems really happy with Nolan.”
“She is, but it took a really long time for her to get there. And for a lot of that time, Nolan waited for her.”
Lucy leaned her head against his shoulder. “God, that’s so sweet.”
“Will you come to their wedding with me, Luce? It would be so great to have you there.”
“I’d love to go. Thanks for asking me.”
He slid his arm around her and held her close to him. “I know you’re spun up about tomorrow and what happens next and what happened this weekend and how everything changed between us. I want you to know I’m spun up, too. I’m in this thing every bit as much as you are, and I have to believe we’re going to figure it all out. Eventually. So don’t give up, okay?”
“I won’t.” Sitting here with him in this peaceful place with the warm sunshine beating down upon them and his gorgeous dogs lying at their feet, it was hard to believe they had a single problem or challenge to confront. Everything seemed possible as long as he was sitting right next to her. What would happen once they parted company was the big question that continued to nag at her.
She blinked his front porch into focus and then sat up for a better look. “What’s all over your porch?”
“Huh?”
“Look.”
“Oh shit,” he muttered under his breath. He got up to walk across the yard to the house, and Lucy followed him. Sensing something was going on, Elmer and Sarah came, too.
The porch was littered with coolers. There had to be at least ten of them.
“Are you having a party that you didn’t tell me about?” she asked.
“Um, not exactly.”
“Then what the heck is all this?”
“Um, well, now don’t get all, you know . . . bent out of shape or anything, but I’d venture to guess that the word is out that I’m injured, and some of my friends were concerned I might be hungry. My appetite is somewhat legendary around here.”
“These are all from women, aren’t they?”
“Not all of them. I’m sure one or two are from my guy friends.”
“Why do I seriously doubt that?” Lucy went up the stairs to investigate further. She flipped open the lid of the closest cooler to find a note on pink paper that was covered with lipstick kisses. “I suppose you’re going to tell me this is from one of the guys?”
“Maybe not that one, but I bet that one over there is.” The cooler he’d pointed to had seen better days.
Lucy opened the lid and found more food along with flowers and a note that had been drenched in perfume. “Definitely one of the guys.”
Colton smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “What can I say? I have nice friends.”
“You’re a man whore, Colton Abbott.”
“Now, Lucy, that is so not true.”
“Does your mother know you have so many women tending to you up here?”
At the mention of his mother his aw-shucks grin faltered. “You wouldn’t dare tell her. You wouldn’t want her to stop cooking for me, would you? I’m a growing boy.”
“What’re you going to do with all this stuff, man whore?”
“Just for the record, I like when you call m
e mountain man better.”
“I’m sure you do. So what are you going to do with it?”
“Um, eat it? This rumor of yours might be the best thing to ever happen to my always-empty belly.”
She elbowed him in said belly.
“Ow!” He rubbed his midsection and pouted like the little boy she suspected he really was. “That wasn’t nice.”
“Neither is you having a harem to tend to you when I’m not around.”
The pouty little boy morphed quickly into stormy, sexy man. All man. “No one will be tending to me when you’re not around. I need you to believe me when I tell you that. Do you?”
Lucy wrapped her arms around herself. “I want to, but all these coolers make me wonder.”
He came up to the bottom step, which put him nearly at her eye level. “I need you to believe me.” He didn’t touch her with anything more than his vehement blue-eyed gaze.
Staring at him staring at her, Lucy decided to believe him. She decided to believe in him and in them. “I believe you.”
“Do you really or are you just saying that?”
“I really do.”
“I don’t cheat, Lucy. If I tell you you’re my girlfriend, and you tell me I’m your boyfriend, then that’s that. I don’t need anyone else.”
“Even if weeks go by between our visits? We’ve been lucky so far—” She didn’t get to finish that statement because he kissed her, effectively shutting down her arguments. Many minutes of erotic persuasion later, he said, “I don’t care if it’s a week, two weeks, a month or two months between visits. If I tell you I won’t betray you or us, then I mean it.”
“Okay,” she said softly. Maybe one day she’d regret believing in a guy who’d obviously gotten around in the past, but for right now, today, she chose to have faith.
“Now what about you? How am I supposed to know what you’re up to in a city full of guys chasing after you?”
Lucy rolled her eyes at his foolishness. “The guys in that city have never chased after me, so no need to worry.”