Mail-Order Millionaire (10 page)

She stared at the window at the frost forming around the edges of the panes. She wasn’t a teenager, but she must be starved for love. It was the only explanation for this restless yearning she felt. Starved for love or just hungry, it didn’t matter. She was going to have to get along without love for a while. For a long while. Until the farm was paying for itself. Until she could quit her job and devote full-time to it. Until she was self-sufficient and independent. Then she could think about love.

Until then she had to think maple syrup. Maybe if she counted jars and bottles... Finally she fell into a deep sleep until her alarm went off the next morning. The smell of coffee wafted up the stairway. She tossed her brushed cotton nightgown aside and pulled on a fresh pair of thermal knit underwear, layered a turtleneck polo shirt and plaid flannel pants over it. All of it purchased with her discount from Green Mountain Merchants. She thrust her feet into her fully lined moose hide slippers and tiptoed downstairs. The couch was back to normal, or as normal as a thirty-five-year-old couch could be, no sign of the blanket Max had used, no sign of him. She peered out the front window. His car was still there.

And so was he. Standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, his hair rumpled, his face unshaven, as if he belonged there.

“Coffee?” he asked, furthering the illusion that he was the host and she was the guest.

She held out her hand and accepted the full cup. “Thank you.”

He turned toward the stove. “I’m making pancakes. Got any syrup?”

She smiled. “I think so.” Opening the refrigerator, she took out a jar of dark thick syrup from her first batch, along with a block of unsalted butter. Then she stood back and watched him pour batter into a cast-iron skillet and the childhood memories came flooding back.

“My grandfather used to make breakfast on the weekends,” she said. “He said Grandma deserved a rest.”

He flipped a pancake. “Nice man.”

“Very nice. He hadn’t counted on another family to raise when he got us dumped on his doorstep.”

Max looked at her over his shoulder. “What happened to your parents?”

“They were killed in a car crash on the tollway just south of Brattleboro. We were staying here on the farm while they went to an auction. We never left. I was only two, I don’t really remember them. But Ariel does.”

Max handed her a plate with a large fluffy pancake on it and she sat down at the kitchen table. “I think she’s always felt she had to be both my mother and my sister. Especially after the folks died.”

“And that’s why she won’t rest until she gets you settled down.” He took the seat opposite her at the round oak table.

“Could be.”

They ate in silence while he thought about two little girls and their grandfather tossing pancakes in this same kitchen, in that same pan. “I envy you the sense of belonging you must feel, living here, knowing you’ll always live here.”

“I don’t know that. Grandpa used to have four hundred acres. He had to sell off over the years, until now we’ve only got eighty. If I can’t make it pay...” She trailed off, unwilling to think of the alternatives. A few minutes later, she set her fork down and slid her chair back from the table. “And if I don’t get busy I won’t ever make it pay. Thanks for the breakfast and for the help last night. I see the skies are clearing.”

“And the temperature’s rising,” he said, clearing the table. “Perfect weather for sapping, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, but you’ve done your part. I’m sure you’re anxious to get going, to salvage something of the weekend before it’s over and you have to go back to work.”

“I don’t go back to work this week. Since we work twenty-four hours a day, we’re off one week and on the next. This is my week off.” He didn’t see how she could refuse his help, but he could see her mind spinning, thinking of reasons. It was his job to get her moving and stop thinking     

What had happened to his determination to leave before she awoke? Gone, disappeared, forgotten. He only knew that when he’d gotten up that morning he’d had an overwhelming desire to make breakfast for her in that old-fashioned kitchen and spend the day doing what she did. “Let’s go,” he said, walking into the living room to take her jacket off the coat rack.

She held out her arms obediently, but there were tiny worry lines etched between her eyebrows. What was she afraid of? That he’d overstay his welcome? That he’d compromise her independence? He valued his own independence too much to ever do that. Still, he realized he’d have to tread lightly. Without talking, they pulled on their rubber boots—which were standing next to each other by the front door where they’d left them last night—and their gloves, which were still on the mantel where they’d been left to dry.

The snow was turning to slush under their feet and the air felt almost muggy as the temperature edged its way toward forty degrees Fahrenheit. It was easier by daylight to see what they were doing, skimming the ice off the syrup in the shack and using the broad-back workhorses to carry the full buckets. They snorted steam from their huge nostrils as Miranda led them out of the barn.

“Meet Hans and Gretel,” Miranda said, fastening the worn leather harnesses onto their backs. “They’re Ariel’s really. She named them. She used to pretend they were racehorses and she was the first female jockey in Vermont.”

Max reached up to scratch the horses between the ears. At the first tree Miranda put a lid on the full plastic bucket and hooked it to the harness. “It’s a lot easier than using the sled,” she explained as they moved on to the next tree. “But by now I’d hoped to have a pipeline from the trees to the shack.”

“How would the horses get their exercise?” he asked, tightening the leather straps.

“Ariel still rides them, and her kids do, too, when they come out. But after all these years they’re ready to retire to the back pasture.” She gestured toward the land beyond the trees. “The horses, not the kids.”

“Maybe they like feeling useful,” he suggested, looking up into the horse’s huge brown eyes behind a shaggy fringe of hair.

“Do you know anything about farm animals?” she asked, an amused tone in her voice.

“No, but I know something about being useful. Why don’t I take Hans, or is it Gretel, and get the trees over there?”

Replacing an empty bucket on the nail, Miranda nodded. He couldn’t see her face but he hoped she was glad to have him there, if only to have an extra pair of hands, another warm body to make the work go faster. He had no idea how she felt about him. For the moment he would just have to take her at her word. That she was too busy working on the farm to think about men. That she was here to get away from a certain type of man. Was he the type she was running from? He hoped not. Because she was the type he’d been looking for all his life.

The type who followed her dream, who didn’t give up when things went wrong. Who knew enough to come home to her farm when she found the city wasn’t the place for her. And who worked that farm with every ounce of determination she had. He knew she’d fight for what she wanted, he only wished she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

He heaved the full bucket and attached it to the horse’s harness. How ironic. He’d found the woman he’d been looking for just after realizing he couldn’t have any woman at all, no matter what type, and also have the job he loved.

How many times did he have to remind himself that there wasn’t a woman alive worth giving up his work for? He grabbed the bridle and he and the horse trudged ankle deep in mud toward the sugar shack.

But spending one weekend on a maple sugar farm with a beautiful woman was far from giving up his job. Hadn’t he decided to get out and meet people? Well, that’s what he was doing. Spending a weekend in the country. The note he’d planned to leave on the table was long forgotten. He was planning on the whole weekend and he hoped she was, too. She must know there was too much work for one person here.

On the other hand she might be too idealistic, too impractical to realize the obvious. She wanted to quit her job and make the farm pay for itself, but even if she made syrup year-round instead of for a few weeks, she couldn’t make enough. He didn’t know much about farming, but he knew farmers had to diversify. Like serving chicken dinners on Sundays and selling blackberries from a roadside stand. But that wasn’t his problem. It was hers. It was her farm and her syrup and he was a guest, and he’d keep his opinions to himself.

They worked all morning, then took a short break for lunch—vegetable soup from a can. In the afternoon they split up. Miranda stayed in the shack, keeping the fire going under the galvanized wash tub. When the syrup was thick and still hot, she strained it through sheets of muslin into jars, and sealed them. Max kept her supplied with sap, hauling it by horseback from the farthest trees along the creek until every bucket on the place was empty again. For a few hours, anyway.

He took the horses to the barn and went back to the shack. She’d lined some of the jars along the windowsill and was admiring the pale amber syrup when he walked in. “Look at this color,” she said. “The lighter the syrup, the more delicate the taste.”

“In the South we bake beans with maple syrup,” he said, his gaze shifting from the amber syrup to her hair, the fading sunlight turning it to burnished gold.

She turned to face him, and he had to grip the edge of the table to steady himself. All afternoon he’d thought about getting the sap into buckets and the buckets into the shack. And now suddenly all he could think about was Miranda ... and how he could get her into his arms.

“Sounds good,” she said, suddenly looking so tired he thought she might collapse. “What kind of beans do you use?” she asked, twisting the lid on a quart jar.

“Yellow eyes or baby limas,” he said, while his eyes swept over her soft clinging cotton shirt and the long lines of her flannel pants.

“I’ve got some red kidney beans.”

“Fine.”

She moved toward the door, a half smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You’re easy,” she remarked.

He took her arm as she passed and pulled her toward him. Her huge dark eyes were startled like a fawn’s, but then melted as he bent to kiss her. He felt her arms go around his neck and he felt his heart pound. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was her type after all.

There was no sugar on her lips to hold than together this time, but they didn’t need it; all they needed was mutual desire, a desire that he felt throbbing deep inside himself as her lips parted and her tongue met his. But it didn’t last. He should have known it was too good to last. Gasping for breath, she pulled away.

“Max,” she said. “I can’t do this, not with you, not with anybody. I’m grateful to you, but...”

“But not that grateful.”

“Yes. No. It’s not that.” Tears of frustration formed and glazed her dark eyes.

He brushed her cheek with his thumb. “You don’t have to explain. I’m sorry. I took advantage of you, of your hospitality. And your need... for my help,” he added.

Shakily she raised her head and met his gaze. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have...” She shook her head, unable to continue.

“Yes, you should.” He pressed his fist into his palm to keep from touching her again, to keep from comforting her with his hands or his mouth. He opened the door and they walked back to the house side by side without touching.

“We’re both tired,” she said. “What about those beans?”

“They have to cook all day. I’ll start them tomorrow morning.”

She glanced at him sideways. Tomorrow... Tomorrow morning and tomorrow night. It was no longer a question of whether he was staying, it was a question of how long and where. She couldn’t keep him on the couch any longer with Grandma and Grandpa’s four-poster empty in the other bedroom. Not if he was going to stay one more., .two more nights.

“I’ve got a chicken in the refrigerator.”

“Sounds like Southern-fried chicken.”

“Who taught you to cook? Not your rich uncle.”