Читать книгу: «The Sugar House», страница 2

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 he 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.

In the meantime he needed Emmy’s legal name. He also needed a notary public to notarize his signature, and a photocopier to copy the new document. He had a blank quitclaim deed in the file in his back seat that he’d brought in case Stan had wanted his wife’s or their company’s name on the document, so redrawing it wouldn’t be a problem. Once that was done, he’d head back to the Larkin place and hope Emmy would be more receptive to accepting the property. Heaven knew he didn’t want it.

Chapter Two

M aple Mountain would never be known as a destination spot. As far as Jack was concerned, the place was lucky simply to have a spot on the map. Except for the three seasonal festivals the community sponsored to raise money for its coffers, most visitors were simply passing through.

Those who did stop for a night could find accommodation at one of the few bed-and-breakfasts in the area, though they were seldom open in winter except for Maple Sugar Days, or they could stay at the Maple Mountain Motor Inn—which stayed open mostly to accommodate the guy who ran the snow plow when the weather turned.

With no other option, Jack checked into the motor inn. The long, low building on the narrow main road consisted of eight rooms that opened on to a snow-covered parking lot and a postage-stamp-size reception area decorated with knotty pine walls and an impressive set of antlers. The sign on the front door claimed the place to have the friendliest accommodations in Vermont’s Northern Kingdom.

He didn’t know about the accommodations themselves, but their owners didn’t exactly live up to the advertising. The Mrs. part of the operation didn’t, anyway. The late-thirty-something Hanna Talbot, whose grandparents had owned the motel before they’d retired years ago, had taken one look at him when she’d answered the desk bell and her smile had died.

“What can I do for you, Jack?” she asked, sounding as if she’d heard he was around.

“I need a room for the night. Do you have anything available?”

He’d asked for the sake of polite conversation. All eight room keys hung on their hooks. The parking lot was empty. Yet, for a few rather uncomfortable seconds, he thought the woman might actually claim they were booked.

“I’ll need your driver’s license,” she said instead.

He reached for his wallet, only feeling slightly relieved. He didn’t remember much about the curly-haired brunette other than that she was a few years older than he was and that her family had always owned the place. She clearly remembered him, though. Or, at least, judging from the chill that was definitely more censure than natural reserve, she remembered his family.

Cooking smells, the low drone of a television and children’s voices drifted in from the open door behind her.

“New York,” she said, writing down his address. “I thought your family moved to Maine.”

“They did.” He handed over a credit card, wondering at the length of some people’s memories. “I’m the only one in New York.”

Looking as if she couldn’t imagine why he would have wanted to come back, she pushed his license across the shiny wood surface. “Long drive.”

It had been a long drive, he thought. A little over six hours, actually. Three of those on snow-packed roads. But driving made more sense than flying or taking the train. There were no direct flights from JFK or LaGuardia to the nearest airport in Montpelier, so it took as much time to drive as it did to fly. At least behind the wheel of his car, he felt as if he were constantly making progress.

There wasn’t much that frustrated him more than hanging around airports accomplishing nothing. Except, possibly, accomplishing nothing while being stuck overnight in a place he didn’t want to be.

Feeling that the less he said the better, Jack’s only response was a faint, acknowledging smile as the woman handed his card back.

The proprietress of the little mom-and-pop motel didn’t seem to expect a comment, anyway.

“There’s a potluck at the community center tonight, so Dora’s is closed,” she informed him, speaking of the diner down the road. “My family’s headin’ over there now. Since there’s nowhere else to get a meal, I suppose I can bring you somethin’ for supper from there.”

She seemed to know that he wouldn’t want to eat at a community dinner himself. Or maybe she was thinking more that he wouldn’t be welcome there. From Emmy’s flat tone when she’d said everyone knew he’d bought the acreage next to hers, he’d be willing to bet everyone at that dinner would have an opinion about that acquisition, too. No Travers had been able to do anything right by the time they’d moved. He was getting the distinct feeling from this woman that no Travers could do anything right now, either.

What bothered him even more was the surprising depth of her apparent disapproval of him. He’d barely known the woman. Yet, her censure felt as fresh as what he’d felt from others when his family had left.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’ll get something on my own.” The burger he’d grabbed at a drive-through five hours ago had long since worn off, but he wasn’t about to put her out. “What about the burger place?” A little repetition wouldn’t kill him. “Is it still here?”

“Closed for the winter. Most everything around here is.”

Hunger seemed to increase in direction proportion to his diminishing culinary options. “How about the general store?” He’d seen the lights on inside when he’d driven past it a few minutes ago. “How late is it open?”

A child’s voice grew louder. Another matched it, insisting on the return of the video game controls. After aiming a weary glance toward the doorway, she shifted it to the old-fashioned cuckoo clock near the antlers. “’Bout another five minutes.”

“One last thing.” Not wanting to keep her any longer, he picked up the room key she’d set on the counter, stuffed it into his coat pocket. “Do you know Emmy Larkin?”

Quick curiosity narrowed the woman’s eyes. “Of course I do.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know her full name, would you?”

With a Travers asking after a Larkin, curiosity turned to distrust.

“Why would you want to know that?”

“There’s something I need to take her.”

“Then, I suppose you can ask her yourself when you see her.”

Faced with that protective and practical New England logic, Jack picked up his receipt, slid it into his pocket. With a resigned nod, he lifted his hand as he backed toward the door. He wouldn’t be getting any information here. “I suppose I can. Thanks for the room.”

“She’ll be sugarin’, so I wouldn’t think she’d have time for you tonight.”

“I’m not going until morning.”

“She won’t be there then. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Services don’t get out until eleven.”

He couldn’t tell if the woman was trying to discourage him or be helpful. “Thanks,” he said again, leaning heavily toward the former.

“Checkout’s at noon.”

“Got it,” he replied, and escaped into the cold before he had to deal with any more of her “friendliness.”

The gray of dusk was rapidly giving way to the darkness of night. There were no streetlights in Maple Mountain to illuminate the narrow two-lane road that served as its only thoroughfare. Rather unoriginally called Main, the road curved on its way through the sleepy little community, a ribbon of white lined by four-foot banks of snow left behind by a plow.

It was barely six o’clock on a Saturday night, yet the dozen businesses and buildings that comprised the core of the community were closed and as dark as the hills above them. The only lights came from the general store down near the curve of the road and the headlamps of two cars that turned onto the short street that ended at the white clapboard community center.

Hunching his shoulders against the evening’s deepening chill, he crossed the packed snow of the motel’s parking lot and headed to the store. He could grab something there to take back to his room for dinner and breakfast. With any luck, he could also get Emmy’s full name. He would have asked at the post office, had it not been closed.

When he finally stepped inside the store, he could see that the place had hardly changed. It smelled as it always had, faintly of must and burning wood from the potbellied stove in the middle of the room. A wooden pickle barrel topped by a checkerboard sat a comfortable distance from that radiating warmth.

The dairy cooler still occupied the back wall. Rows of groceries filled the four short aisles to his left. The walls themselves still held the same eclectic mix of sundries. Snowshoes competed for space with frying pans. Spark-plugs were stacked above empty gas cans and saw blades.

The only staple missing from his memories of the place were the old men who’d routinely congregated around the game board to discuss local politics, play checkers and lie to each other about the size of the fish they caught in their fishing shacks on the frozen lake. Either they’d all died or they’d gone home to supper.

The short, squat owner hadn’t changed much, either. Agnes Waters’s short brown curls were now half-silver, and the laugh lines around her eyes looked deeper than they’d been when he’d played high school sports with her youngest son. But her hazel eyes looked as sharp as ever and, even now, her memory rivaled an elephant’s. Seeing who her customer was her expression registered clear disapproval.

Jack could practically feel his back rise at the suspicious way she looked him over. He hadn’t counted on the defensiveness he would feel in this place. But then, he’d been so focused on his promotion, moving and acquiring the property to give back to the Larkins that he hadn’t thought about how resentful of other’s attitudes he’d become by the time his family had left there.

The feeling, however, had wasted no time coming back. “Mrs. Waters,” he said, forcing an intentionally civil nod.

Geese in flight were silk-screened across the front of her heavy green sweatshirt. Obliterating half the flock as she crossed her arms, she gave him a tight little nod. “Hello, Jack. Been a while.”

His tone remained even. “A while,” he agreed, refusing to let old resentments get the better of him. “I just need to pick up a few things,” he explained. “I know you’re getting ready to close, so I’ll hurry.”

“I saw you come through town earlier,” she told him, stopping him in his tracks. Ignoring any need she had to close up and go home, she checked him over from haircut to hiking boots. “You seem to have done well for yourself.” Her sharp eyes narrowed. “What is it you do?”

“Do?”

“For a living.”

“Commercial development.” By noon tomorrow everyone in the community would know what he drove and what he did to earn his keep. He’d bet his new corner office on it. “Why?”

“I was afraid it was something like that,” she claimed, managing to look displeased and vindicated at the same time.

“Excuse me?”

“Your occupation.” Looking as if she couldn’t imagine what he didn’t understand, she tightened her hold on the geese. “I had the feelin’ you were going to develop that land the minute I heard you’d bought it. I can tell you right now that you can forget about whatever it is you’re plannin’ to put on that parcel, Jack Travers. We don’t want commercial development here. The community council won’t stand for it. I know. I’m on it.”

His voice went flat. “I’m not building anything,” he assured her, and hitched his thumb toward the back wall. “I’m just going to grab what I need and get out of here. Okay?”

Pure confusion pleated the woman’s forehead as he turned toward a display of chips, grabbed a bag and headed for the back wall.

The woman was getting herself all worked up for nothing. The old bat had taken a fragment of information, thrown in a lot of supposition and dug in her heels to oppose him without a clue about what was actually going on. Unfortunately, while telling her to can the attitude would have made him feel better, it wouldn’t do a thing to help him get the information he needed.

Wanting only to get that information and get out of there, he headed back with his hastily chosen purchases and started setting them on the counter.

“Do you know where I can find a notary and a copier around here?”

“The library has a copy machine.” Ignoring his other request along with his packages, the pleats in her forehead deepened. “If you’re not building anything, why did you buy the old Larkin parcel?”

“It’s not for business,” he assured her again. He pushed a toothbrush and a disposable razor toward her. He couldn’t find shaving cream. He’d just have to use soap for his shave in the morning. “It’s personal.”

“Then you’re not putting up condos?”

“I’m not putting up anything,” he repeated, adding a package of Danish, lunch meat and a cola. Had he been home, he’d be at the little Italian place around the corner from his apartment, ordering penne with mushrooms and a glass of good wine. “The library,” he repeated, thinking the wine sounded especially good. With Agnes frowning at him, so did a shot of anything with a burn to it. “Thanks. What about Emmy Larkin’s full name? Do you know what it is?”

The woman had yet to ring up a single item. “What are you up to with Emmy?”

He bit back a sigh. “I’m not up to anything.”

“Well, you’d better not cause her any trouble. That girl’s been through enough without whatever it is you’re up to out there making her life any harder than it needs to be. She’s lost…”

“She told me about her parents,” he cut in, saving her the trouble of mentioning their deaths since it seemed she was about to. “I’m sorry to hear they’re gone.”

He wasn’t sure why, but for an oddly uncomfortable moment, he thought the older woman might say that he certainly should be, as if he, or at least one of his kin, was somehow responsible for those particular losses. It was that kind of accusation tightening her expression.

The disturbing feeling he’d had when he’d left the Larkin place—the feeling that they had lost more than just land and profits because of what his dad had done—compounded itself as Agnes finally punched in the price of the chips.

“How is she doing?” he asked, not knowing what to make of the new edge to the reproach he’d experienced all those years ago. The same censure he’d picked up from Hanna Talbot was definitely there. But with Agnes it felt almost as if his father’s transgression, along with his own, perhaps, had been more…recent.

Edging the Danish toward her, he tried to shake the odd feeling. It had been fifteen years. There was nothing “recent” about it.

“Is she able to handle the sugaring operation okay?”

“She does as well as any of the other sugar makers,” the older woman admitted, punching in the cost of the small package. “Her B and B is one of the nicest around, too. Works hard, that girl.”

Apparently deciding she wasn’t getting anything else out of him, she punched in the razor, too.

He handed over the package of sliced turkey. “She runs a bed-and-breakfast?”

“Summer and fall. She turned down a scholarship to study architecture and design when her mom took ill so she could stay and help Cara run the place. She did most of the redecorating herself.”

The cash-register drawer popped open when she rang up the last of the items and hit the total key. Over the heavy footfall on the porch that announced another customer’s approach, she said, “That’ll be $10.80.”

The unexpected information about Emmy had Jack wondering what else he could learn from the woman as he reached for his billfold. Thinking he might hang around for a minute after her customer left, he glanced toward the door. It opened with the ring of the bell, a rush of icy air and the voice of a man apologizing even before he was all the way inside.

“I know you’re getting ready to close, Agnes. But I told Amber I’d pick up baking soda on my way home and just now remembered. She’ll have my hide if I come home without it.”

A man wearing a deputy’s heavy, brown leather jacket and serge uniform pants pulled off his fur-lined hat as he shoved the door closed. Looking prepared to offer a neighborly greeting to whoever was at the counter, he stood with a broad smile on his rugged face for the two seconds it took recognition to hit.

The burly ex-high-school line-backer swore. Or maybe, Jack thought, the terse oath he heard had been inside his own head.

It seemed like some perverse quirk of fate that Joe Sheldon should now be a sheriff’s deputy. One of the last times they’d seen each other, the old deputy Joe had apparently replaced had almost arrested Jack for nearly breaking Joe’s jaw.

Lifting his hand, Joe touched the short silvery scar that curved from the left corner of his mouth. It appeared that he hadn’t forgotten the encounter, either.

The guy’s voice sounded like gravel rolling in a can. “I heard you were back, Larkin.”

“He said he’s not developing that property.” Agnes offered the pronouncement as she bagged Jack’s purchases. “But he’s asking after Emmy.”

Joe took a measured step toward him, his rough-hewn features set, his eyes assessing. He looked beefier than he had as a cocky teenager, solid in a way that told Jack he wouldn’t want to tangle with him now. Not that he wouldn’t be able to hold his own if he had to. He usually started his mornings with a five-mile run and pumped iron at the gym four days a week for no other reason than to keep his head clear. He’d always been a physical man, always felt best using the pent-up energy in his muscles. But he’d fought all those years ago only because he had felt forced to defend his family’s name. The battles he took on now were won by sheer determination, ambition and drive.

Joe’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want with her?”

Jack wanted no hassles. He also had no intention of answering to anyone but a Larkin. “That’s between Emmy and me.”

“Not if you cause her or anyone else around here any trouble.” His one-time teammate’s voice lowered with warning. “You do and you answer to me.”

Pushing bills across the counter, Jack picked up his bag, paper crackling. He had no intention of feeding an old grudge. His or Joe’s. “I didn’t come here to cause trouble,” he informed him, wondering what it was they thought he was going to do to the woman. Or anyone else, for that matter. “Not for her. Not for anyone.”

“Then, why are you here?”

“To set things right.” Steel edged his tone. That same unbending resolve glinted in his eyes as he walked past the man he could have sworn was trying to stare him down.

“How do you intend to do that?” Joe demanded over the tinkle of the bell as Jack pulled open the door.

“That’s between me and Emmy, too,” he called back, and closed the door a little harder than he probably should have.

He hadn’t forgotten how narrow and protective the small-town mentality could be. In Maple Mountain the sins of the father carried right down to his offspring. The fact that the offspring had defended the father was obviously remembered, as well. He just hadn’t thought he’d have to deal with anyone other than the Larkins.

The muscles in his jaw working, he headed through the dark and cold to his less-than-welcoming motel room. The good news when he got there was that he didn’t have to deal with anyone else—and that the only homage to the local wildlife on his room’s knotty pine walls was a painting of a moose. The bad news was that he still didn’t know Emmy’s full name.

That didn’t do much for his mood, either.

Emmy knew Jack hadn’t left Maple Mountain. Agnes had called last evening while she’d been filling tins with syrup, a task that couldn’t easily be interrupted, and left the news flash on her answering machine.

She hadn’t called Agnes back. Nor had she done anything other than thank her for her call after services that morning before excusing herself when the elderly minister’s wife, bless her, rescued her from the speculation Agnes had clearly been itching to share.

It had been Emmy’s experience that the less she let on that something was a problem, the less others treated it like one. She’d also learned that life was less complicated when the personal parts of it weren’t served up for public consumption. She tried hard not to look back, to focus her energies on the present, and allowed herself to look no farther ahead than the next season.

The only season on her mind at the moment was the current one. As she bounced her rugged and reliable old pickup truck over a berm of snow at the edge of her driveway, her only thoughts were of getting home and to her chores before she lost any more of the day. It was already one o’clock in the afternoon.

The pastor’s wife had asked a favor of her, and completely sidetracked her from her original plan to be home before noon.

Sidetracking her now was the black sedan parked by the old sycamore—and the sight of Jack standing outside the stable that now served as a garage.

He hadn’t struck her as the sort who would give up easily. Knowing he’d stayed last night, she’d pretty much expected him to come back, too. She’d just rather hoped that he would come back, find her gone and leave.

Not sure if she felt threatened by his persistence or relieved by it, she drove past him and through the open doors of the utilitarian white building.

What he had come back to do had been on her mind all evening. It had been the first thing on her mind that morning. Part of her, the part that felt unkind and uncomfortable about how she’d walked away from him yesterday, had actually considered stopping by the motel to apologize for being so insensitive. She felt awful for the way she’d treated him. After she’d had a chance to truly consider what it must have taken for him to come back, and after she’d acknowledged the courage, the integrity, and the basic sense of decency he would have to possess to even want to make amends after so long, she’d felt even worse.

She hadn’t even thanked him for his apology.

Another part of her, the more protective part, had hoped he would tire of waiting for her and be halfway to the free-way—which was probably, she figured, why she really hadn’t minded the delay getting home.

Feeling no less torn by his presence now, she climbed out of her truck and squeezed past the cherry-red snowmobile she used to haul skids of firewood from the woodshed to the sugar house, or to get into town when the snow was too deep to drive there. The sun that had shone so brightly yesterday had given way to a ceiling of pale gray. From that solid layer of clouds, a few tiny snowflakes drifted down as she headed into the open expanse between the outbuilding and her house.

They weren’t supposed to get snow until that evening, she thought, looking from the sky to the tall and totally disconcerting man closing the distance between them. He wore the same clothes he’d worn yesterday, the dark-gray jacket that made his shoulders look so wide, the darker-gray turtleneck and sweater, the worn jeans that molded his lean hips and long, powerful legs. He’d shaved, though. She could tell from the smoothness of the skin on his strong, too-attractive face, and the nick under his chin.

That tiny vulnerability made her feel guilty for his long wait. He’d shaved before he’d come to see her.

“Come to the sugar house,” she said, saving him the trouble of telling her he needed to talk to her. “I need to get the fire stoked and bring in more wood. We can talk there.”

A fleece cap in the same shade of pale pink as her turtleneck poked from the side pocket of her quilted black coat. Without the cap she’d worn yesterday, the spitting snowflakes clung to the top of her head, caught in her high, swinging ponytail. Watching her walk away, it seemed to Jack that her shining baby-fine hair seemed darker, more auburn than the deep red he remembered. Richer. Softer.

He’d heard somewhere that natural redheads tended to be rather volatile. He’d never dated one to know how much truth there was to the claim, though one particular blonde had proved explosive enough. Emmy, however, didn’t strike him at all as a woman prone to fits of temper. The sense of quiet control about her gave him the feeling she’d go as far out of her way as necessary to avoid confrontation.

Watching her ponytail bounce, he started after her. She also possessed an absolute gift for throwing curves. Rather than meeting the wall of resistance he’d expected, she hadn’t seemed all that opposed to finding him waiting.

Telling himself to be grateful, he glanced back toward her truck. Heavy tire chains wrapped the tires. Bags of sand lay in the bed for better traction. It was the vehicle itself that had first caught his attention, though. The old workhorse of a pickup looked very much like the one her father had driven fifteen years ago.

“Was everything all right this morning?” he asked, thinking the truck had to be pushing thirty years old by now.

“Everything’s fine. Why?”