The Sugar House Page 17

  So that’s what she was doing, he thought, watching her edge away from him. He couldn’t see the line himself. Neither could she. But by holding on to what she’d exposed, she could feel where to dig snow away from it.

  It seemed that the desperate part of her determination was getting the better of her. She crawled back, still on her knees, digging with her hands. Even wearing gloves, he knew her hands had to be freezing. The rest of her had to feel like an icicle, too. He did, and he had on his jacket.

  She’d left hers on the sled. Having noticed it, he’d brought it with him.

  He held it out to her. “At least put this on.”

  “When I get to the next tree. I don’t want to lose the line.”

  “I’ll help you find it.”

  The distant howl of a wolf creased her brow as she finally straightened. As if remembering that Rudy was in the house, safe from anything on the hunt, she dismissed the lonely sound and absently reached for her parka.

  Bumping her hand against his as she took it, she winced.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My hands are just cold.”

  “Emmy.” Trying for patience, he tugged off her gloves for her so she wouldn’t get the snow stuck to them inside her jacket sleeves. “Tell me you wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t here.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Working in the dark.”

  She barely glanced at him as, shivering, she struggled into the insulated outerwear and reached for her gloves. “The moon will be up soon.”

  Her fingers were too stiff to fasten her parka’s closures. Leaving it open, she worked her gloves back on, lowering her head so he couldn’t see how difficult the simple task was and prepared to get back to work. If she could just clear to the next tree, it would be one less she’d have to do tomorrow.

  Catching her arm before she could turn around, his tone went as flat as ice on a pond. “You know something?” he muttered. “You’re absolutely right. I asked you the other night if you were always so stubborn, and you told me you were often worse. This is worse. There’s no way you can dig out all these lines. Give this section a few days to melt.”

  She’d been fine until he touched her. Actually, it wasn’t the touching part she minded. It was the way he dropped his hand now that he had her attention that threatened the oddly tight hold she had on herself. Or maybe it was his suggestion that she do what she knew she never could that put the knot of anxiety in her chest.

  “You can stop if you want. You can go if you want,” she insisted, apparently not holding together anywhere near as well as she’d thought. “I can’t.”

  It wasn’t just the daunting work in this section of the sugar bush getting to her. Or even the biting cold. From the force behind her words, the frustration in them, he had the feeling the past few days were finally catching up with her.

  Despite what she’d said about it being all right, he knew she was upset with the talk taking place over dinner tables even now about her father. More important, he knew she was struggling with the image she’d have of her dad and the possibility that she had a half sibling out there somewhere.

  Then there was him.

  There had been a time when she would have given anything to have him leave. He had the feeling from her accusation moments ago, that maybe she wasn’t so anxious to have that happen now.

  He didn’t care to consider how he felt about that little revelation. He didn’t want to question too closely why he hadn’t left that day, either. At least, not beyond the fact that she’d needed the help.

  “I’m not going in without you,” he told her. “And you can stop.”

  Catching her by the shoulders, he stepped in front of her, his snowshoes bumping hers. Beneath his hands, it felt almost as if she were bracing herself. Against what in particular he had no idea. He just knew it would be foolish to stay out there working on a case of frostbite when the return for their energy would be so small.

  The thought that small steps led to bigger ones and that she probably had to think in such terms to keep from totally overwhelming herself jerked hard as he closed his arms around her.

  “At least for tonight. It’s dark. It’s freezing. And Rudy needs out,” he reminded her, strengthening his case. “Come on,” he murmured, feeling her stiffness reluctantly ease as he held her as close as the layers between them would allow. Touching her like this didn’t count. He couldn’t feel skin or shape anywhere.

  What he could feel was the fight drain out of her as she finally rested her forehead against his chest, and the shiver that told him she was far colder than she was about to admit. He touched his gloved hand to the back of her hair, dipped his head to see if he could see her face.

  “You okay down there?”

  Lifting her head, she gave him a reluctant nod.

  “I’m fine,” she said, though she honestly wasn’t sure what she felt just then. She didn’t want to figure it out, either. It felt too much like something she didn’t want to know. “I just need to check the tank and see if we have to boil.”

  She thought she heard him sigh a moment before he backed up and turned her around, aiming her for the top of the hill. Or maybe that small tired sound had been hers. She wasn’t sure about that, either. She just knew that she had never in her life hoped that there wouldn’t be any sap in the tank.

  She almost wished it now.

  If almost wishes counted, hers came true. The tank held little more than it had at that time last night. Considering that she’d wound up with less than a quarter of her usual production, it hardly seemed worth the effort to start everything up and clean all the equipment afterward.

  The good news was that her power was back on.

  Following the golden glow of lights to her house, she let Rudy out and started pulling off her gloves while trying to think of what she could heat up for supper. She needed to feed Rudy, too. He would be back in in a minute, pawing at his empty dish, and Jack had to be starving himself. If she focused only on the practical, she really would be fine. At least, she would if she could just shake the odd frustration competing with the fatigue she was trying not to think about, either.

  Jack came in behind her, stamping snow from his boots and blowing on his hands after he pulled off his stocking cap and gloves.

  “If you could be anywhere in the world right now,” he asked, over the ripping sound of the Velcro tabs, “where would you be?”

  Still working on her first glove while he hung up his parka, she didn’t even hesitate. “In a hot shower.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Barbados, Hawaii, or Arizona in July when it’s 110 and feels so hot a person can barely breathe. But a shower works.

  “And if you could have anything right now,” he continued, now working on his boot laces, “what would that be?”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  Watching him rise to toe off his heavy boots, she felt herself struggling with a wish list she wouldn’t have imagined allowing herself to have less than a week ago. At the top of that list was that she badly wished he didn’t have to leave. Right below that came the wish that he would hold her again. Really hold her. The way he had in the hall when he’d kissed her and made her feel so…much.

  “That dinner would magically appear,” she said, because he did have to go, and indulging such thoughts only made her want them more.

  Shivering again, she dropped the glove she’d finally tugged off. With a sigh, she bent to retrieve it. It was her own fault she was so cold. She should have put on her parka sooner. She should have worn warmer gloves to dig in the snow. She should have worn a muffler, a stocking cap. She should have left well enough alone and come down off the hill when Charlie had left. Or, better yet, maybe she should have done what Jack had suggested she do and decided to wait for spring to melt the whole mess.

  Her stiff fingers had barely touched the glove when it disappeared. Certain it was only weariness making her feel so disco
uraged, she straightened to see Jack holding it as he reach for her other hand.

  As if he’d rather not watch her struggle, he eased off the other glove and tossed both of them onto the drier. “Then go get a shower and warm up.” Reaching for her again, he pushed her parka back from her shoulders. “I’ll wait for Rudy.”

  Trying to help, she tugged at her sleeve. “I know there isn’t much out there, but I should boil first.”

  “That sap’s not going anywhere, Emmy.” Giving her a look of supreme patience, he pulled her sleeves from her arms himself and hung her jacket two pegs down from his. “Go take a shower. Get warm.” He turned back to her to carefully slip away the wide fleece headband that had more or less protected her ears. “I’ll heat up what was left from last night. Then, if you want, we can go start round two.”

  Emmy blinked at the top of his dark mussed hair. He’d just crouched to untie her boots.

  “Jack, I can do this.”

  “Lift,” he said, ignoring her, and grasped her calf to lift her foot himself.

  The motion had her bracing her hand against his broad shoulder. She kept it there while he pulled off first one boot, then the other and rose to start working on the snaps of her vest.

  It was then that she realized what she was seeing in his wind-chapped features. It wasn’t impatience. It was simply concentration. It etched the lines deeper at the corners of his eyes. Tightened the corners of his mouth.

  It had been so long since Emmy had been cared for that she had almost forgotten how it felt. But that’s what Jack was doing. Taking care of her.

  The realization squeezed hard at her heart.

  “You’re cold, too.”

  “Yeah,” he conceded, working on a snap two down from her neck, “but I’m bigger than you are.” He had more body mass than she did, more muscle to generate heat, more muscle to hang on to it. “That wind up there probably blew right through you.”

  The scratching at the back door had him glancing over his shoulder. “Hang on, Rudy,” he called, and left her to let in her dog.

  Rudy loped in, eyes bright, and rounded on Jack to be petted. “Hey, boy,” Jack murmured, indulging him in the seconds before the dog rounded again to see if his dish had been filled.

  A small frown creased his forehead when he looked back to where Emmy still stood. She hadn’t moved. “What?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth, closed it, shook her head. She couldn’t believe how badly she wanted the feeling he’d just allowed her.

  As he had in the sugar bush, he took her by the shoulders, turned her in the direction he wanted her to go. Their stocking feet were soundless on the pine floor as they headed into the kitchen that was bright with the lights that had been on when the power had died.

  He moved her past the woodstove with its banked coals and the electric range whose clock needed to be reset and veered her toward the doorway leading to the hallway to her room..

  “Take your time,” he said on the way. “Supper will be ready when you get out.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I know I don’t,” he cut in from behind her. “But you can use a break. Reheating isn’t that big a deal, anyway.”

  Yes, it was, Emmy thought. She knew better than to think too far ahead. The most she ever allowed herself was a season. Maybe two if there was something she needed to plan for. But at that moment, as tired as she felt, as quietly, completely overwhelmed as she was at the thought of having to go back to the sugar house when she just wanted to get warm and not have to do anything for a while, he might as well have said he was having dinner flown in from the Ritz.

  The weight of his hands on her shoulders eased when they reached the doorway. Shivering as the heat from the furnace started penetrating her clothes, or maybe from the loss of his touch, she crossed her arms over the chill inside her and glanced to where he stood waiting for her to head down the hall.

  “I need to feed Rudy.”

  He caught her by the shoulders again. “I’ll do it.”

  “He needs fresh water, too.”

  “Consider it done.” One dark eyebrow arched. “Anything else?”

  Certain from her hesitation that she had something else on her mind, he asked, “What is it?” Lifting one hand, he nudged a strand of hair from her cheek, carefully, because he didn’t want his cold hands to hurt the cool skin of her face. “Just tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

  The knot in her chest tightened with his touch. As she shook her head in incomprehension, the hair that had loosened from her listing, windblown ponytail fell over her cheek again. “Why are you doing this, Jack?”

  “I told you.” He eased the strand back again, just as gently. “Because I think you need a break.”

  “I mean, helping me in the sugar bush. You didn’t have to stay today.”

  Her wide gray eyes held his, unblinking, intent. For a moment she was the little girl he’d last seen, looking at him as if trying hard to understand. But the impression vanished as soon as it formed and he found himself looking into the wise and weary eyes of a woman who touched him in ways he didn’t understand, didn’t totally trust and couldn’t begin to explain.

  He shouldn’t be touching her. He especially shouldn’t be wanting to back her toward her bathroom to get into that shower with her. But he was. And he did.

  “Yeah,” he murmured. “I did have to…. So.” He spoke the word quietly, moving on before she could ask why he’d found it so necessary or before he could do anything he might regret. “Are you going to take that shower or not?”

  For a moment Emmy said nothing. She simply stood there while he gave her a little half smile that did crazy things to her heart and his fingers absently massaged her shoulder.

  She didn’t know if he was aware of the small motion. All she knew for certain was that he was touching her, caring for her, caring about her—and that she really didn’t want him to stop.

  With the slow shake of her head, she replied with a quiet, “No.”

  The smile faded. “Why not?”

  Because there’s something I’d rather have than a shower, she thought, but simply didn’t have the courage to say. Were she a braver woman, she would have. If she were more forward. More sophisticated. More whatever it was that she was not, she might have been able to tell this man who kept stealing pieces of her heart that she very much needed to be in his arms. Just for a little while.

  Instead, she would settle for the next best thing. She would simply enjoy being with him for as long as he chose to stay.

  Catching her by her chin when her glance fell, he tipped it back up. She didn’t know if he’d sensed what had kept her from heading down the hall. Or if he’d recognized something he’d seen in her before, but he said nothing else. He just let his too-blue eyes slowly roam her face while her heart bumped her ribs and the funny ache inside her grew deeper.

  He touched his fingertips to her cheek, his thumb to her lower lip.

  “You know something, Emmy?”

  The soft caress felt strangely warm. “I know,” she said, since he’d mentioned it not that long ago. “I’m stubborn.”

  “That, too.” He traced his thumb to the corner of her mouth, his eyes following the motion before he glanced up. “But I was thinking more along the lines of how you’re never going to warm up just standing here.”

  She wanted to be held. Needed it, Jack imagined, considering how tightly wound she’d seemed to him since he’d found her on the hill. Lowering his hand, only then realizing how unconsciously he’d touched her, he eased his arms around her back.

  Something squeezed inside him at the feel of her muscles beneath his touch. “You’re shivering to your toes,” he accused, focusing on the need for warmth. It was easier than thinking of the need he’d seen in her eyes. Or admitting that he needed to hold her simply because he couldn’t stand not to.

  “I’ll thaw out in a minute,” she finally said, her voice muffled. “How about you?”

 
With her hands clasped between them, her head tucked down and resting against his chest, he cupped his hand to the side of her face. There were fewer layers between them now than when he’d held her outside. Less fabric to mask how well her curvy little body fit in his arms. Even as aware of her as he was, he never would have imagined how good just holding a woman could feel.

  “I’m fine where I am, too.”

  At his quiet admission, Emmy felt the tightness in her chest loosen a little more. It seemed easier to breathe when he held her. She had no idea why that was but she wouldn’t question it now. Now, she wanted simply to…be.

  “Jack?”

  “Yeah?”

  Beneath her ear she could hear the strong rhythm of his heart. Placing her palm over that steady beat, she moved closer to absorb the warmth seeping into her from his arms. “I’m going to miss you.”

  The beat didn’t change, but his voice seemed to drop as he smoothed his hand the length of her ponytail.

  “I guess that makes us even.”

  He murmured the words against the top of her hair, caught the scents of fresh air and herbal shampoo. Those scents moved into his lungs, entered his blood, worked their way to the hunger gathering low in his gut.

  That hunger sharpened when she lifted her head and he found his mouth inches from hers. The warmth of their breath mingled between them as he watched her lips part and heard her slowly breathe in.

  He could still remember the taste of her. He could still remember the little sound she’d made at the first touch of their lips.

  Just once more, he thought. Just once. And lowered his mouth to hers.

  Emmy couldn’t help the small sigh that escaped from her throat. He drank in that small sound, gathering her closer as she moved closer herself.

  They were there again. The feelings he’d made her feel before. Only they felt larger, somehow. Stronger. When he’d kissed her not far from where they stood now, she’d only been able to imagine what it would feel like to be cared for by him. Now she knew. She knew what it was to feel comforted and calmed, and to not feel alone. His warmth was there, too. As he angled her head, drawing her deeper into his kiss, she could feel it again, moving through her, into her, taking away the chill that had nothing to do with the goose bumps on her skin.