The Sugar House

by Christine Flynn

  She had never seen him lose his temper as she’d heard he’d done. Certainly not with her. But it had been Jack who had first taught her that a person really couldn’t count on anyone but family. Since she had no family left, she pretty much didn’t count on anyone but herself anymore.

  With his hands on the hips of his jeans, his heavy jacket open and making his shoulders look impossibly wide, he looked from the house to the plume of smoke and steam rising from the distant sugar house. As he did, he finally noticed her standing there.

  Her stomach tightened as he started toward her. She remembered him being big. As he moved closer, his breath trailing off in the brisk air, he seemed even taller than she remembered, his build more athletic, more…powerful.

  She hadn’t heard what he did for a living. She wasn’t sure anyone even knew. But he had an intensity about him as he approached, an air of success and command that seemed unmistakable. She’d seen the type before. Men like him, along with their equally intense, successful and demanding wives or girlfriends had been guests of the B and B she and her mom had converted their home into after her father died.

  She saw his eyes narrow on her as he drew closer, his focus never leaving her face. Trying not to look as wary as she felt, she openly studied him back. A striking maturity carved the lean, almost elegant features that were more familiar than she’d thought they would be.

  His mother had once been her mother’s good friend. As he stopped in front of her, she could see a strong resemblance to Ruth Travers in the gleaming black of his short, neatly trimmed hair, his coal-dark lashes. Yet, there was nothing remotely feminine about the man. Certainly not the broad, intelligent brow, the piercing blue of his eyes or the carved lines of his mouth as it curved in a cautious smile.

  She didn’t remember him being so blatantly handsome. But then, she’d been a young girl when he’d left and, being a late bloomer, handsome to her had been her horse.

  As his assessing glance slowly moved from the fleece cap covering her head down her slender frame and back to her unadorned face, he seemed to recognize her, too.

  “Hi, Emmy.” The deep tones of his rich, rumbling voice sounded as guarded as his expression. “It’s been a long time. I’m Jack. Travers,” he added, since she’d given no indication at all that he was familiar to her.

  “I know who you are.”

  He had a small cleft in his chin. She noticed it when he gave her a grim little nod of acknowledgment. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I suppose you do.” A muscle in his jaw twitched as his glance slid from her toward the smoke and steam rising above the trees from the sugar house. “Is your father around?”

  “My dad?” The question wasn’t one she’d expected. “My dad died a long time ago.”

  He opened his mouth. Closing it again, the dark slashes of his eyebrows jammed together like lightning bolts.

  “Ed died?” Incredulity marked his tone. “I mean, I’m sorry,” he hurried to amend, clearly caught off-guard by the news. “I had no idea.” He shook his head, openly searching her face. “When?”

  “Twelve years ago.”

  That seemed to throw him, too.

  “What about your mom?” he ventured when she offered nothing else. “Can I talk to her?”

  Emmy took a step back. It was as apparent as the latent tension radiating from his big body that he had no idea of the events that had eventually destroyed both of her parents, and robbed her youth of nearly every trace of security.

  That blissful ignorance almost felt like an insult, and that insult felt strangely painful. “My mother is gone, too.”

  At her quiet reply, Jack felt a strange, sinking sensation in his chest. He knew how close she had been to her mom. She had absolutely worshiped her father.

  “Emmy,” he said, scrambling for words as he searched the delicate lines of her face. “I’m sorry about your parents. I really am. I didn’t know about either of them,” he admitted, hating how pitifully inadequate the words and the explanation sounded. “Neither did Mom. She’ll be sorry to hear about them, too.”

  He watched her glance shy from his as she took another step back.

  An uncomfortable moment later, she murmured, “Thank you.”

  Jack had forgotten how succinct some New Englanders could be with their responses. But he had the feeling Emmy wasn’t simply being concise. Her brevity and the way she edged from him made it abundantly clear that she had no use for either him or his presence.

  He wasn’t surprised at all by how distrustful she seemed of him. What he hadn’t been prepared for, however, was how much the quiet vulnerability he’d remembered about her touched him now.

  He remembered her as a small and quiet child, all skinny arms, legs and long dark red hair. She’d trailed after him like a puppy, constantly asking questions, giggling when he teased her. She had reminded him of his little sister, Liz. And, he supposed, when she’d been around, he’d watched out for her much as he had his little sister, too.

  Until the day he’d so clearly let her down.

  He had never forgotten the last time he’d seen her, or the haunted look in her luminous gray eyes. He’d come that day to return the spare keys for her dad’s truck, the one he had used in the sugar bush to haul dead snags for him. Emmy had stood on the porch beside her distraught father, holding his hand. As he’d given her dad the keys, he’d looked down to see Emmy looking up at him, her eyes huge as she silently begged him to do something to change everything back to the way it had been.

  He didn’t remember what was said between him and Stan, if anything at all. All he remembered were the silent tears of incomprehension that had rolled down Emmy’s cheeks in the moments before he’d turned away.

  He had never forgotten that look—the sadness, the bewilderment.

  “I suppose you’re who I need to talk to, then,” he said, swearing that look was still there. So was the quietness about her. Only, now she seemed far more reserved than timid. And she was definitely no longer a little girl.

  Her unadorned mouth was lush, the color of ripe peaches against skin that look so clear and soft it practically invited a man to touch. He couldn’t tell much about her slender shape beneath her heavy parka. But with her delicate features framed by the cap covering her hair, she looked as ethereal as a Botticelli angel and as fragile as glass.

  “Can we go inside?” he asked, mentally regrouping to change his approach. “I only need a few minutes.”

  As if even a few more seconds was too much to ask, she immediately turned away. “I’m sorry. I don’t have time to visit.”

  His hand shot out. Grabbing her arm, he stepped in front of her, blocking her retreat. There were things he had to say. He couldn’t let her go until he did. He just couldn’t remember what those things were as her cautious glance jerked to his and wariness hovered around her like a mist. Even through her jacket’s thick layer of down, he swore he felt her muscles stiffen.

  With the fog of their breath mingling between them, he was close enough to see the slivers of silver and pewter in her beautiful eyes. Close enough to see the tiny creases in the fullness of her lower lip. Her skin might invite a man to touch, but her mouth fairly begged to be kissed.

  The tightening low in his gut made him go still.

  So did her dog’s low, feral growl.

  Suddenly as aware of the canine’s teeth as he was the woman warily watching him, he let her go. He’d braced himself for a less-than-welcoming reception, but things weren’t going at all as he’d expected.

  “I didn’t come just to visit, Emmy.” With another glance toward the fifty pounds of fur and snarl that had yet to move from her side, he took a step back himself. “There’s something I need to do, but I can’t if you won’t hear me out.”

  “If you’re here to tell me you bought the property next door, it’s not necessary. Everyone already knows.”

  He would have been surprised if everyone hadn’t. “I take it the local grapevine is still intact.”

  “
Word gets around.”

  “Word in this case is incomplete. No one knows what I want to do with that land.”

  “What you do with it is your business.” Deliberately she moved around him. “And the community council’s. They’ll try to block whatever you do.”

  “The community council has nothing to say about this,” he insisted, stepping into her path again, mindful of her guard dog. “I bought it to give it back to your parents.”

  Blocked in her tracks once more, she glanced back up. An uncertain frown shadowed the gray of her eyes.

  “My father passed away last year,” he explained before she could decide to bolt again. “Mom never felt right about what had happened between our families. Neither did I. I want to give the property back. And to apologize.

  “I hadn’t realized your parents were gone,” he told her, relieved that she was staying put. He wondered what had happened to Stan and Cara, decided now wasn’t the time to ask. “When I checked with the real estate broker I used to see if the property was available, I was told that Larkin Maple Products was still in operation. I assumed your dad was still running it, so the quitclaim deed I brought is in his name.”

  He touched the jacket pocket that held that deed, thinking of what he needed to do now. “I’ll redraw it for you. It won’t take long. I just need to know your full name. I’ve always known you only as Emmy.”

  His glance shot to her left hand. The way she had her cuff pulled to her palm, he couldn’t tell if she was wearing a ring. “Is it still Larkin, or are you married now?”

  For a moment all Emmy could do was stare at the man blocking her path to the sugar house.

  He wanted to give back the property. Of all the possible scenarios she might have imagined, this one had never occurred to her. It had apparently never occurred to anyone.

  Her only thought now was that he’d made a long trip for nothing.

  “My name doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it does. I can’t change the deed without it.”

  “You don’t need to change it.”

  “Emmy,” he said, suddenly sounding terribly patient. “I’m not a tax attorney and I’m not sure what estate laws are here, but it’s to your advantage to have the deed recorded in your name. That way there will be no questions. No hassles. It’ll just be yours.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  The dark slashes of his eyebrows merged. It seemed he wasn’t prepared for that, either.

  They were even, she supposed. She wasn’t at all prepared herself. Not for his unexpected offer. And definitely not for his disquieting presence. As he towered over her, his cool blue eyes intent on her face, she could practically feel his tension snake inside her. The sensation disturbed her as much as the odd heat his scrutiny caused to radiate from her breasts to her belly.

  Pulling her glance from his, she let it fall to where the hem of his comfortably worn jeans bunched over a pair of heavy and expensive hiking boots. She didn’t feel terribly trusting of him, and he unnerved her in ways she wasn’t prepared to consider, but it wasn’t like her to be unfair.

  His father was responsible for what had happened to her family. And Jack had earned a reputation, too. Everyone knew he was responsible for the scar that hooked down from the corner of Joe Sheldon’s mouth. Still, he had come to apologize. For himself, apparently. And for his mother. It sounded as if the matter had weighed for a long time on Ruth Travers.

  As badly as Emmy wanted the past to stay there, she couldn’t deny someone their need to try to set it right.

  “I accept your apology,” she told him. She had no desire, however, to hear whatever else he might have said beyond I’m sorry. All she wanted was for him to leave. “But I have no need of anything else.

  “Please excuse me.” Ducking her head again, she backed away, hoping he would just let her go. She’d lost her appetite for supper. Even if she hadn’t, she had no time to put anything together now. “I’m boiling,” she said, using the sugar-makers’ term for making syrup. “I have to get back to work.”

  Wanting desperately to avoid the feelings and memories his presence elicited, she quickly retraced her path toward the sugar house, Rudy on her heels. Part of her couldn’t believe how discourteous she was being. No one ever came to her home that she didn’t take a minute to visit with them. But, then, her callers were inevitably neighbors or summer guests of her bed-and-breakfast, and she would invite them in to talk while she worked. More often than not she offered coffee or cocoa to go with their conversation. Or, in summer, when she worked in her garden, she offered lemonade or iced tea she made by setting a clear jug of water and tea bags in the sun because the tea tasted sweeter that way.

  The twinge of guilt she felt leaving him standing there faded beneath an equally inherent need for self-preservation. It was probably horribly selfish of her, she admitted, watching Rudy race ahead, but she was far more interested in preserving the already shaken tranquillity she’d finally found than in being hospitable.

  Emmy wasn’t running, but she wasn’t wasting any time getting away from him, either.

  With that less-than-encouraging thought, Jack jammed his hands on his hips and watched Emmy motion her loping dog toward the trees and the distant sugar house.

  It wasn’t often that he underestimated a situation. As driven and determined as he could be when it came to achieving an end, he’d learned to plan for contingencies, to expect the unexpected and always have a plan B. With everything else he’d been dealing with lately, however, he’d obviously forgotten to consider that it could be a Larkin other than Stan running the sugaring business.

  Once he’d learned that the operation still existed, he had simply assumed Stan was still running it. He had considered that Stan and Cara could be divorced by now, but it had never occurred to him that the man would have passed away, much less that his wife would have, too.

  He definitely hadn’t considered that the property would be refused.

  The cold breeze carried off the fog of his frustrated breath. For the past month he’d felt as if he’d been running a marathon. Now he felt as if he’d just run himself straight into a wall. Not that a wall would stop him. He just needed to find a way over, under or around the obstruction. Given that this particular obstruction wouldn’t even talk to him at the moment, he headed back to his car.

  It had been his goal to acquire and return the property ever since he and his mother had found a copy of the papers securing the money Stan had borrowed from him in his dad’s desk. They had gone through the desk the day after his father died looking for insurance papers and, for the first time in years, he and his mom had talked about what had happened in Maple Mountain.

  From the time his father had moved them all to Maine to escape the ostracism that had befallen the entire family, the subject had been forbidden in their home. That meant no one could talk about the way the locals had condemned his father for foreclosing on Stan’s property. Or how his mother’s friends had backed away from her because guilt by association condemned her, too. She’d told him she hadn’t been able to tell anyone how opposed she’d been to what his father had done because he was her husband, and it hadn’t felt right to speak publicly against him.

  Jack understood all too well the dilemma his mother had faced. He’d often hoped he’d misunderstood what had happened, and that there had been some greater justification for his father betraying his friendship with Stan the way he had. He’d hoped his clashes with his former friends when they’d called his father a thief and backstabber had been justified, too. At the time, he had refused to stand back and not defend his family name—though looking back now, he figured the anger he’d felt had less to do with the pushing and shoving that had come with the taunting than the fact that he’d felt so betrayed himself.

  At seventeen, he had been torn between loyalty to a father he’d looked up to and feeling that what his father had done was totally wrong. But the day they’d found the papers, his mother had confirmed that h
e hadn’t misunderstood the basic facts at all. Stan Larkin had only borrowed five thousand dollars on property worth three times that. Granted, Stan hadn’t paid the loan when it was due, but his father hadn’t been willing to give him extra time and had sold the property for a fraction of what it had been worth. His dad’s only concern had been getting the money back without any further delay.

  His mom had since shared a few details that had apparently justified the action in his father’s mind. And, taken literally, Jack could see the man’s logic. His father had worked hard for his money, and he’d been watching out for his own family. But in Jack’s mind that didn’t forgive why he hadn’t sold the property for nearer to what it was worth and given Stan the difference.

  All his father had cared about was getting back his own. And he had. But it had cost him and his family dearly.

  Jack passed an upright post supporting a wood oval carved with Larkin’s Maple Products and turned on to the snow-packed and winding mountain road that led the two miles into the little community. As he did, he had the disturbing feeling that what his father had done might have cost the Larkins even more.

  That uncomfortable thought curled like a fist in Jack’s gut.

  There wasn’t much room for deviation in his schedule, but he wouldn’t leave without setting things as straight as he could. He’d planned to be home no later than midnight that night. But as long as he could be back in Manhattan by five tomorrow afternoon, he would have time to finish packing up his apartment before the movers arrived Monday morning. As soon as they left, he would head for the office he was taking over in Boston.

  From the day he’d started, nine years ago, he’d systematically worked his way up the corporate ladder of the billion-dollar Atlantic Commercial Development Corporation. He’d put in practically twenty-four hours, seven days a week for the past two years for his latest promotion to regional vice president. His perks alone were worth three times his original salary. Because he wasn’t through climbing yet, and because he had major projects on the table, he didn’t want anything to interfere with his 7:00 a.m. breakfast meeting Tuesday morning with his staff.