The Sugar House Read online

  Needing more of that warmth, she skimmed her hands over the solid wall of his chest, slipped them around his neck. The shivers coursing through her seemed to change quality at the feel of his hard body molded to hers. Or maybe what altered the little tremors was the feel of Jack’s hand slipping between them to pop open the last two snaps on her vest. Those fastenings had barely given way before he skimmed his hand between the sides of the quilted fabric to shape her waist, her ribs, the side of her breast.

  Jack’s hand went still a moment before he eased it from where it had drifted and forced it to the small of her back. Letting it drift a little farther, he pressed her closer, and swallowed the incredibly sweet taste of her along with his groan. The feel of her stomach pressed against the bulge behind his zipper was even harder to take than teasing himself with thoughts of how her breast would feel in his hand. It would fit perfectly, he was sure. She would fit him everywhere.

  The certainty did nothing to ease the raw hunger clawing inside him. It did nothing, either, for the resolve that had already bit the dust about keeping his hands to himself. But he wasn’t into analyzing system failures at the moment. He was too busy fighting protectiveness and pure physical need.

  He’d never simply touched a woman and wanted her. And what he wanted now, he was better off not considering at all. It would also be a whole lot easier not to think about if he just went back to holding her.

  Slowly lifting his head, he drew her hands from the back of his neck and held them against his thundering heart.

  Emmy felt his chest expand with the deep breath he drew. She knew what he was going to do. He’d done it the last time he’d eased her away from him like this. He was going to tell her he needed to stop before he changed his mind about behaving, and that was the last thing in the world she wanted.

  “For what it’s worth,” she murmured, her voice thready with longings she couldn’t begin to define, “I wouldn’t mind if you don’t want to behave yourself.”

  The carved lines of his face were already beautifully taut, his eyes dark. As his eyes collided with hers it seemed that they went darker still.

  The raw need in his expression nearly robbed her breath. That same desire lingered in his touch when he slowly traced the shape of her jaw. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I was thinking.”

  It was that need that allowed her the boldness that had escaped her before. She could feel it in him as surely as she could feel the yearnings deep inside herself. “And what’s that?”

  “How badly I want you.”

  She tipped her head, echoing what he’d admitted before. “Then, I guess that makes us even.”

  The heat in his eyes turned to warning.

  “I mean want you, Emmy. As in naked. And in bed.”

  His bluntness had barely caused her heart to jerk when she felt his hands settle at her waist. He apparently wasn’t a man who allowed room for misunderstanding. “I understand want,” she quietly assured him. She swallowed. Hard. “That’s what I want, too.”

  She felt his fingers tighten, each pad seeming to burn through flannel and cotton a moment before he reached to slowly slip away the scrunchee holding her ponytail at its leeward list. That bit of gathered fabric had barely landed on the hallway table beside them before he threaded his fingers through her hair.

  Letting the wind-tousled locks tumble over his hands, he framed her face with his palms. Without a word he searched her eyes. He was giving her a chance to change her mind.

  Her only response was to touch her fingers to his chest as she rose to meet his lips. His was to kiss her back, a little fiercely, and edge her toward her room while he worked at the buttons of her flannel shirt and tugged it from her jeans.

  The hall was dim, lit only by the light filtering in from the kitchen. It reached as far as her doorway, spilling into her room in a pale slash across the foot of her bed and leaving the rest of the space in a deep sort of twilight.

  Lost in the heat stealing the cold from inside her, she felt her knees bump the back of the bed. Jack pulled away long enough to grab his sweater between his shoulder blades, drag it over his head and tug back her quilts.

  “You’re going to get colder before you get warmer,” he warned, sending her flannel shirt the way of her sweater.

  She would have reminded him that he would, too, as she pulled the hems of his turtleneck and undershirt from the waistband of his jeans, but he was kissing her again. Her mouth. The corners of her eyes. Behind her ear. She kissed him back, playing an erotic game of follow the leader as they worked off turtlenecks and denims, then tumbled under the blankets to work on what was left.

  Emmy had never ached before. Not the way she did when, barriers gone, Jack pulled her against his long hard body. Heat intensified everywhere they touched, that delicious warmth flowing between them, taking away the shivers and drawing her closer as his mouth took tantalizing little forays down her neck, to the hollow at the base of her throat, her shoulders.

  She had never craved a man’s touch before. But she did now as he trailed kisses across her collarbone and down to tease one breast. He touched her as if she were something exquisite, something precious. He made her feel that way, too, when he carried his kiss back to her mouth and, shaping her body to his, whispered that she was beautiful.

  She told him he was, too. He chuckled against her mouth at that, then taught her the exquisite frustration of not being able to explore his body as intimately as he touched hers because he insisted that if she touched him the way she wanted to, he wouldn’t last long at all. He saw no need to rush.

  It was then that she realized she’d never felt passion. Never known raw aching need. She knew it now. Yet, even as he created yearnings she never knew existed, what mattered to her most was that she felt safe with him. Secure for that moment. And that moment was all she cared about.

  All Jack cared about was that his hold on his control had grown from taut to paper thin.

  He couldn’t believe how beautifully Emmy responded to him. Or how incredible her small, soft body felt against his harder rougher one. There was a fragility about her that belied the supple, athletic strength of her muscles, and a gentle femininity that was driving him quietly insane.

  He had known want before. He’d just never felt need. The need to please a woman, to take care of her, to protect her, possess her. What Emmy thought and felt mattered to him. Her struggles left him torn between admiration and compassion. But mostly, he’d never felt the kind of need gripping him at the feel of her small, soft hands stripping away those last precious bits of control. The kind he felt when the demands of his body caved in to the desire boiling his blood and he eased himself over her.

  He gritted his teeth at the exquisite feel of her rising to meet him. That need burned in a place he hadn’t known existed. A place she had somehow found and claimed and that was coming to feel as essential to his existence as his next breath. Even more demanding was the need to claim her right back.

  That realization should have shaken him to his core. And it would have had it not been for the feel of her when he slipped into her warmth, and the mind-numbing sensations that no longer allowed him to think at all.

  Jack didn’t realize they had fallen asleep until he heard the tick of something metal near the bed. Emmy had heard it, too, and was already lifting her head from his shoulder.

  In the dim light he saw her push her hair from her eyes and smile at Rudy. The dog stood at the side of the bed, his tail slowly wagging and the license tab on his collar bumping the aluminum dish in his mouth.

  “You want to be fed, sweetie?” he heard her ask.

  He skimmed his hand over her bare hip, need stirring once more. “Are you talking to him or me?”

  “Both of you,” she murmured, reaching across him to tousle Rudy’s fur.

  Catching her by the waist, he buried his face in the silk falling over her shoulders, nuzzled the side of her neck. “Good,” he murmured. He felt her shiver, heard her sigh.
“Then we can get that shower.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Emmy hadn’t heard Jack slip from her bed, but she could hear him talking to Rudy as she headed down the hall in the blue fleece and denim she’d pulled on before a quick encounter with her hair-and toothbrushes. It sounded as if they were discussing something her little would-be hunter had nearly caught outside a few minutes ago. Jack was wanting to know what Rudy would have done with the hapless critter had he managed to snag it.

  She couldn’t help the small smile that formed. Hearing him eased that sudden disquiet she’d felt when she’d wakened to find him gone from her bed. Hearing the smile in his voice eased it even more. She didn’t know when Jack would choose to leave. She didn’t know when she would have to deal with the sense of loss waiting to be felt. But she wasn’t going to ruin the time she had with him worrying about it. He was there now.

  Memories of the hours she’d shared in his arms had her heart beating a little too quickly as she turned into the kitchen and came to a silent stop. Jack crouched near the mudroom door. Having already been outside, he was dressed and wearing his heavy hiking boots. Rudy sat on his haunches in front of him, totally focused on the dog biscuit in Jack’s hand and his tail moving like a windshield wiper across the floor.

  Man and her precious little beast had clearly bonded.

  The biscuit disappeared a moment before Jack rose. She didn’t know if he’d heard her or simply sensed her presence. But when he turned and his eyes settled on hers, Emmy felt her smile slowly slip away.

  It was then that she noticed he had already shaved and that his hair looked damp from a more-recent shower than the one they’d taken together after they’d made supper last night. Mostly, she noticed the caution etched deeply in his expression as he walked over to where she stood rooted to the floor.

  With aching familiarity, he slipped his fingers through her hair and tipped her face to his.

  “Morning.”

  “Morning,” she echoed, and closed her eyes as his head descended.

  He kissed her thoroughly, completely, altering her heart rate and her breathing and reminding her of the steam they’d created in her shower before they’d tumbled back to bed. Yet, as desired as she felt in his arms, as safe and protected, she felt as if she were holding her breath once more when he lifted his head to slowly scan her face.

  He looked as if he were memorizing her. Or trying to figure out what to say.

  That sense of impending loss returned with a vengeance. He was leaving. She knew that as surely as the north wind blew. She just didn’t want to hear it. Not yet.

  “I should start breakfast,” she said, and with a smile that felt very brave, ducked away to fill the carafe on the coffeemaker. He would need to eat, and she suddenly, desperately, needed something to do.

  She reached into the cupboard, pulled down flour and baking powder, then remembered the coffee and turned to dump grounds into a filter.

  Jack watched her uneasily. Seeing that she wasn’t using the enamel pot she had on the woodstove now that the power was back, he picked up the carafe she’d started to fill and filled it himself.

  If not for the strained quality of her smile when she thanked him for that, he might have thought it were any other morning and she was just hurrying to get them fed and to work. She seemed agitated though. She also looked as if she were trying very hard to hide it.

  He appreciated the feeling. He felt a little unsettled himself.

  He’d thought when he’d arrived in Maple Mountain that he could take care of business and walk away. But his business wasn’t finished. The property he’d intended to return was still in his name, and he had no intention of leaving it that way. Then there was the disturbing fact that Emmy had more work on her hands than she could possibly handle. Charlie had told him it would take him and Emmy two weeks to repair and rerun the downed and damaged lines. And that was in addition to whatever sugaring they’d be able to do in the evenings.

  Tired of the mental pacing he’d done since he’d wakened, he moved to where Emmy had just set a mixing bowl covered with orange poppies on the counter. He’d intended to tell her last night that he was leaving this morning. But that had been before her need to be held had taken priority and rational thought had eventually evaporated. It had also been his intention to talk to her again about taking the property that was beginning to feel like an albatross around his neck—even though the last thing he’d wanted to do was leave with her upset with him.

  Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her around—and glimpsed the vulnerability that had always touched something deep inside him.

  “Emmy,” he began, smoothing her hair, “I have to leave in a while. But I’m coming back.” He spoke quickly, making the decision even as he caught her chin to keep her from looking away. He had no idea how he would manage that. He just knew that he would. The same sense of responsibility he’d felt to return the land made it impossible now to leave her with all that damage. She’d already lost part of her production. The longer it took to repair her lines, the more she would lose.

  Then there was that nagging sense of need he felt toward her. That need to be there for her. He felt certain, though, that once he made sure she was taken care of, that need would no longer be there.

  “It’ll be the end of next week at the earliest, but you can tell Charlie not to try bringing any big branches down himself.”

  The tension he’d felt in her shoulders had leaked out like air from a bicycle tire. “You’re coming back?”

  The smile in her eyes nearly undid him. He’d never seen her smile like that before. It seemed to light her from within, and made him wish he didn’t have so little time before he had to go. But because he did have to leave—and soon—he made himself fasten the top button of her fleece shirt when he really would have rather unbuttoned them all. “Boston’s closer than New York,” he told her, which pared the trip down to about four hours one way. “But I’ll only be able to stay for a couple of days.”

  Emmy didn’t care how short his stay would be. He would be back. At that moment, nothing else mattered. “That’s okay,” she said, swallowing past the tiny bubble of hope pressing under her heart. She touched her fingers to his chest, watched the guard slip from his eyes. “It’s just good to know I don’t have to say goodbye forever right now.”

  Goodbye forever.

  Jack felt his brow pinch at the phrase.

  “No,” he murmured. Caving in to the pull of her beautiful smile, he lowered his head to hers as the distant rumble of Charlie’s snowmobile joined the hum of the fridge and the gurgle of the coffeemaker. “We only have to say goodbye for now.”

  The morning Jack had left, Charlie had come in to have coffee with him while he’d had his breakfast. Her die-hard old friend and part-time employee had thought to get an early start on the day, and had been sorely disappointed to learn that Jack was leaving, but he seemed almost as heartened as Emmy felt knowing that Jack would be coming back to help. He’d told his friend Amos that, too. Who’d told Smiley, the postman, who had mentioned it to Claire, the mayor’s gossipy wife, who had told everyone else.

  Emmy suspected that was why Agnes seemed to pay particular attention to the items she chose from her shelves a week later, and why the clearly curious woman kept looking at her as if there were something she wanted to ask but didn’t care to with another customer in the store. Bertie stood two aisles over, pinching the loaves of bread the bakery truck had delivered the day before to make sure they still felt fresh, and stewing over whether she should buy dried prunes or canned.

  Emmy’s inclination was to tell the woman Mary referred to as a cranky old sourpuss to buy both.

  “So, Emmy,” Agnes called from her perch behind the counter, “you have how many acres runnin’ now?”

  “Only eight,” she called back from the section of the cooler holding produce and dairy products. Her attention shifted from the sap line she was having trouble finding, because so many other sugarer
s were also ordering it, to the head of lettuce and semigreen hothouse tomatoes that pretty much accounted for Maple Mountain’s fresh produce this time of year. She ached for her summer garden. “I hear the Henleys and the Bruners are back to full production.”

  “Good thing, too. We need the sugar houses for the festival. Folks would be mighty disappointed to come see syrup being made and find there’s no one boilin’. ’Course those families have all those teenagers and in-laws to help ’em out,” she qualified, eyeing the package of dried spaghetti Emmy had set next to butter, eggs and milk on the counter. “But you’ve got help comin’ here pretty soon, too.”

  There was a leading edge to that statement. Knowing that Jack would be mentioned sooner or later, surprised it had actually taken two full minutes for the subject of him to come up, Emmy chose the greener of the dozen heads, passed on the tomatoes in favor of what she’d put up herself last summer and, grabbing a bag of potatoes and one of apples, carried the last of her purchases to the front of the store.

  Bertie had decided on canned.

  “You really think he’s comin’?” Pulling a folded bill from the pocket of her heavy canvas jacket, the woman with the short electrified hair framing her thin face eyed Emmy’s purchases herself. “Or did he just say that because it was the polite thing to do?”

  Tactful, the woman was not.

  Emmy did her level best to keep her anticipation out of her voice. “He said this morning that he was.” Jack had called just before seven o’clock, wanting to catch her before she went into the sugar bush. He would be there in the morning, which was the only reason she wasn’t in the bush with Charlie now. “Since he said so, I’m sure he will be.”

  Agnes, wearing the crested-wren-nesting sweater she’d knitted herself, offered a faint and speculative smile. “So you really don’t mind him being around? Other than for his help, I mean?”