The Sugar House

by Christine Flynn

  After all that had happened, after all that had been taken from her, it seemed entirely possible that she had attached the love she’d felt for her family to all that was left of them. She’d just said herself that her home and the land were all she had.

  The call was for Emmy. It was Charlie, apparently calling to make sure she had made it in from the sugar house last night. Jack heard a smile enter her voice as she assured him that she and Rudy were snug in the house, then asked how he and his wife were doing and who else he’d heard from, to make sure her other neighbors were all right, too.

  Jack noticed she chose not to mention his presence. He didn’t know if she didn’t want to worry her elderly friend or if she was trying to forget about his presence herself, but he didn’t blame her that judicious bit of silence. News of a Travers snowed in with the only surviving Larkin would only add more knots to the already tangled grapevine.

  It suddenly seemed infinitely preferable to tackle an environmental problem on a multimillion-dollar resort on Hilton Head than to think about anything concerning the good citizens of Maple Mountain. He preferred the distraction, too, to the slowly churning turmoil he felt with Emmy and the knowledge he had about her father.

  Picking up his document, he headed for the parson’s table since the light was better there, only to turn back because he needed a pen.

  Emmy had apparently anticipated that. Her smile for Charlie still in place, she held one out to him.

  With a smile, he left her to her call.

  “You take care of that toe,” Emmy said, over the scrape of chair legs and the plop of paper onto the table. “And thanks for checking on me,” she concluded, before Charlie claimed it was nothing and she replaced the receiver on its base.

  Charlie was a dear. As helpful a neighbor as a girl could want. Under any other circumstances, she wouldn’t be feeling anything but grateful for his concern, and a little amused by his annoyance over how the weather had slowed down sugaring even though he wouldn’t be sugaring, anyway. But what she felt at the moment seemed mostly to be the deep and distinct hollowness that had settled in the pit of her stomach.

  The sensation was familiar. It was the void that had opened up when her father had started changing. The one that had grown larger when he’d died. The one that had become huge when her mom had gone. She’d learned to live with it, then to live around it and, finally, the awareness of it had faded.

  The only reason she felt it now was because of the man who’d taken over her kitchen table. If not for him, she wouldn’t have just been reminded that what surrounded her was pretty much the sum total of her life.

  She normally didn’t think about how she really had only herself to rely on. Or how, at the end of the day, she was the only human in the house. She adored her dog, even if their conversations were a tad one-sided. And she had wonderful neighbors. But they had their own families, their own lives.

  She had no family. No children. No husband. She had no one to share with who truly cared about her. No man to just…hold her.

  She could have cheerfully gone the rest of the decade without Jack reminding her of that.

  Turning on her heel, she headed for the thermometer in the mudroom that indicated the outside temperature. From the moment Jack had shown up two days ago, he’d made her recall just about everything she’d struggled so hard to forget.

  The thermometer with its little wire running under the window confirmed what she already knew from the weather report. Sap wouldn’t be running today. Not that she cared to tackle the tail end of a blizzard to get to the sugar house, though she’d do it if she had to. As for the ice, she didn’t want to think about that at all.

  Desperately needing to be occupied, she headed into the living room. Intent on escaping all the unwanted thoughts plaguing her, she opened the heavy drapes to let in the light, added another log to the fire snapping in the stone fireplace and tackled the project she’d started before the flow of the sap had put a halt to her progress.

  The carved wood mantel and fireplace surround was one she and her mom had salvaged from a house that had been razed near St. Johnsbury. They’d traded Jimmy Waters, Agnes’s nephew, her dad’s fishing equipment to help haul and install the beautiful old piece, but it had recently developed cracks. She’d filled them all in with wood filler but hadn’t had time to sand or restain them.

  By one o’clock she’d sanded the line of filler running the length of the eight-foot-long mantel, made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, stirred her soup and was back to sanding with a whole new set of unwanted thoughts nagging at her.

  By three those thoughts had raised questions that demanded answers. Knowing Jack was the only one who could provide them, she was debating whether or not she wanted to interrupt his pacing in her kitchen when she heard him walk up behind her.

  Chapter Six

  Jack had never cared much for sitting still. Especially when he felt tense, stressed or restless. Battling all three, he’d paced while he’d waded through reports and dictated his replies to his new assistant. He’d paced during his conversations with a company attorney about an environmental problem and while he’d read through what his assistant had typed before sitting down to make changes and fax the pages back.

  After that, he’d paced because the phone line had gone dead and he had no way to be sure the pages he’d sent had been received or that his landlady had let the movers in. He also still hadn’t figured out how to set the record straight with Emmy about who was responsible for what with her dad. He didn’t want to be as narrow as the minds in Maple Mountain and hold what she believed about his father against her. She could only believe what she’d been told. But he hated that his father was being held accountable for circumstances over which he’d had no control. He hated more that to clear his father’s name on those points, he could easily destroy Stan Larkin’s name. Emmy had lost enough without losing the image she’d had of her father, too.

  Needing the distraction of work, needing more light, he’d just paced himself into the living room.

  He hadn’t seen Emmy since she’d come into the kitchen and distractedly prepared them both a sandwich while he’d been on the phone. Looking totally preoccupied, she’d left his lunch on the table and disappeared with her own, Rudy on her heels.

  She seemed just as lost in thought now as he watched her sand one of the carved columns flanking the fireplace. With her back to him, her head bent, the top of her hair shimmered with shades of ruby and gold in the light of the blazing fire.

  The floor creaked as he stepped from hardwood to the thick circle of patterned carpet covering the beautifully appointed room. Two pairs of burgundy wing chairs faced each other over an antique coffee table that held a collection of brass plates, candlesticks and a huge dried flower wreath that had graced the mantel. The tasseled throw pillows on the chairs matched the royal-blue paisley sofa facing the fireplace. Beyond it all an antique writing desk and mahogany-framed landscapes were centered between two farmhouse windows. Those tall glass panes, draped in that same paisley, revealed the snow that continued to fall.

  Her hand fell from the column as she glanced toward him. “Taking a break?”

  “Actually, I was going to get back to work,” he said, wondering what had her looking so disturbed. “The phone went out a while ago, but I still need to review the last documents my assistant sent. It’s just getting hard to read in there,” he told her. “The lamp is out of oil. If you’ll tell me where to find more, I’ll get it.”

  Still caught in her contemplations, she set her sandpaper on the wide stone hearth. Brushing off her hands, she rose and started past him. “I’ll get it.”

  “Emmy.” His hands shot out, catching her by the shoulders. “I just told you I’d get it myself. You don’t need to wait on me. Just tell me where it is.”

  He thought for certain that she would pull back as she had last night, step away as she tended to do when he came too close. It seemed a fair indication of how disturbed she
was by her thoughts that she made no effort at all to move.

  “May I ask you something, Jack?”

  He thought he should move away himself. Her troubled question kept him right where he was.

  “Of course you can.”

  Emmy felt his thumb brush the fabric covering her collarbone. The motion seemed almost unconscious, as instinctive to him as her own need to stay right where she was. That small motion and the weight of his hands on her shoulders reminded her of the gentleness she’d felt before at his touch—and somehow, suddenly, made the void inside her feel so much wider.

  The wall of his chest looked so solid. His arms would feel so strong. Just standing as he was, just touching her, he made her want exactly what he’d reminded her she didn’t have. It would feel so nice to be held. Even for a little while.

  Realizing what she wanted, afraid he might realize it, too, she took a protective step back to search his eyes. There were more important things than not feeling alone. Right now she simply wanted to understand.

  “Why didn’t your father give my dad longer to repay him? I remember hearing him on the phone with your father.” Before her mother had realized she was listening, she thought, and ushered her out of the room. “I know he begged for more time.”

  Jack had never regarded himself as being particularly empathetic. And he figured his sensitivity and powers of perception were as limited as any other man’s when it came to reading a female’s mind. Yet, there were times when all he had to do was meet this woman’s eyes and he swore he could feel her tugging at his soul. He didn’t care for the feeling. He wasn’t sure he even trusted it. But tugging now from those smoke-gray depths was the quiet plea to simply comprehend what had happened all those years ago.

  There were some questions he figured neither he nor anyone else would ever be able to resolve about his father. Or about Emmy’s. But the question she’d just posed was one he could actually answer. He’d asked his mother the same thing the day they’d gone through his dad’s desk.

  “From what I understand,” he offered, “your dad had agreed to pay the money back in a year. Two months after it was due, he still hadn’t.”

  “But two months isn’t that long,” she hurried to protest.

  “I know that. But when my dad found out why he’d borrowed it, he’d thought he’d never get it back. When the opportunity arose to sell the property and get his money, he took it.”

  He still couldn’t imagine why his father hadn’t even attempted to sell the property for more and given Ed the difference. He was about to mention that, too, when the auburn wings of Emmy’s eyebrows drew over the confusion in her eyes.

  “What do you mean, why he borrowed it? He borrowed it to buy sugaring equipment. Everyone knows that.”

  A log in the fireplace fell apart, sparks flying upward with the snap and sizzle of flames licking fresh pitch. The woodsy scent of that burning pine melded with hints of lemon oil and the cinnamon potpourri on one of the end tables. The scents were homey, comforting and had it not been for what he had just realized about Emmy, he might have considered how much more welcoming everything about her home felt compared to the hard angles of sleek marble, leather and metals with which he’d surrounded himself.

  All he considered was the innocence in her expression. She seemed as clueless as he’d been about certain details of her father’s life. At least, the details his mother had given him.

  “Right,” he murmured, scrambling for a way to ease back from what he’d said. He did not want to be responsible for taking away what she believed of her father. Yet, feeling as torn as he had fifteen years ago, he couldn’t let the misconceptions she held about his father stand, either. “That’s what I’d heard, too.”

  “Then you’re not making sense. Your dad knew why he’d borrowed the money when he loaned it to him. What happened to make him suddenly think he’d never get it back?”

  “Like I said, he didn’t want to wait anymore. Your dad was already behind.”

  “But you said ‘when he found out why he’d borrowed it.’ If your dad suddenly didn’t think he’d borrowed the money for sugaring equipment, what did he think he’d borrowed it for?”

  The pleading in her eyes tore at him. So did the growing and unwanted need he felt to keep her from losing more than she already had. But she wasn’t going to give up. As stubborn as he knew she was, he doubted she even understood the concept.

  “Were you ever aware of a problem between your parents?”

  “What does that have to do with the money?”

  “Didn’t you ever hear them arguing?” he asked, searching for some hint that she’d suspected problems existed. “Was your dad ever gone for long periods of time?”

  “Never,” she said, sounding utterly certain, and more than a little confused. “I don’t remember them ever raising their voices to each other. Dad would come home late sometimes in the summer because his handyman jobs would be a ways away, but he was always home at night.” She shook her head, shoved back a strand of hair that had loosed itself from the clip restraining it. “What does that have to do with your father?”

  “What about your parents’ relationship?” he asked, still searching. “Did they share the same bed?”

  She gave a slow blink. “Excuse me?”

  Jack heaved a sigh. “I just want to know if you knew their marriage was in trouble.” She’d given him nothing. Nothing other than the sense that she had either been very protected or very adept at blocking all the things that had systematically robbed her of her security.

  “My parents weren’t happy, Jack. Our lives changed after your father sold that land. I asked Mom once why that made dad so sad. She said part of it was because they’d needed the money they earned from it. But what he really felt bad about was that the land was something his father had passed on to him and he was supposed to take care of it. Looking back on it now, I imagine Dad felt as if he’d failed his father. So if there was any trouble in their marriage, I don’t think it was between him and Mom. It was because of your father.”

  “Don’t, Emmy.” The warning in his voice flashed in his eyes. “You’re not pinning that one on him, too. The trouble was there long before your father ever even asked for that money.”

  “The trouble started with that money. If my dad hadn’t borrowed—”

  “That’s not where it started,” he cut in, cutting her off. “It’s not,” he repeated, banking the heat in his voice.

  Moments ago he’d felt an obligation to protect her. Now that he’d been forced to the line, the obligation pulling at him was to a man he’d disagreed with and never truly understood, but who didn’t deserve any more blame than he’d truly earned.

  “Your father didn’t borrow that money for equipment. He’d borrowed it because he’d gotten himself into a situation he couldn’t handle on his own.” There was no way to defend his father and spare her. Torn, the truth seemed more important. “He’d apparently had an affair with a woman he’d been doing odd jobs for, Emmy. They’d had a child together and he’d used what he’d borrowed from my dad to help her with her moving expenses and doctor bills.

  “I understand that Dad asked him a couple of times why he didn’t have the new equipment he was supposed to have bought,” he continued evenly, watching her disbelief rise right along with denial. “Once your dad finally admitted what had happened, my dad believed your parents would wind up divorced. That meant your father would be paying child support to at least one woman. Maybe two. And Dad was sure he’d never see his money again.”

  Utter disbelief pulled Emmy from where Jack remained by a chair. It rooted her by the hearth, leaving her stunned and suddenly hugely skeptical of the man silently waiting for her to collect the thoughts that had scattered in a dozen different directions.

  She had never heard even a trace of a rumor about her father and another woman. Not so much as a hint of speculation. Heaven knew that had there been anything to speculate about, the local gossips would have
been on it in the time it took a snowflake to melt on a hot griddle.

  “That can’t possibly be true.” His claim challenged everything she’d believed about her parents. Especially her father. She had adored him. And he had loved her and her mom. She’d never doubted that for an instant.

  “You’re just trying to excuse what your father did,” she accused, unable to imagine why else he would say such things. “My father was a good man. A decent man. He would never have betrayed my mother like that.”

  “My mom is a decent woman, too,” he countered, his voice remarkably calm for the defensiveness clawing inside him. “She had no reason not to tell me the truth as she knew it. She told me Mrs. Larkin confided in her herself about your dad’s alcohol problem and about the other woman. And for what it’s worth,” he told her, giving the figurative rug beneath her feet another yank, “your father didn’t start drinking after my dad called the loan. He’d been drinking long before that. If you want, I can even show you where he stashed his whiskey in the sugar house. I saw him taking hits off a bottle out there myself.”

  Denial surged. “I never saw him drink before—”

  “You weren’t always with him, Emmy.”

  “I saw how hard my parents worked to keep everything together,” she insisted, ignoring his logic. “I know things were hard, but they never acted like there was anything wrong between the two of them. Not before they lost the land, and not after.”

  “You were a kid,” he reminded her. “It’s possible they were just careful not to let you see that something was wrong. Or maybe you just saw what you needed to see.

  “I’m not trying to excuse my dad’s part in this,” he continued. “You asked why my dad didn’t give yours more time, and I told you what I’ve been told. I didn’t agree with the way my father chose to do things, but everyone has overlooked the fact that my dad had a family of his own to support. He worked hard for his money, too. You might also consider that my parents kept your parents’ confidence. It’s obvious that neither said a word about what was going on. With the way everyone talks around here, you know you’d have heard something about it by now if they had.”