when they left the house carting the tools he had produced from a shed.
"We're using metal spouts. This is the old-fashioned method of tapping
trees, but it works for me."
"You've done this before?"
"Many times."
At the first maple that fit that bill, he drilled a small hole and
inserted a metal spout that extended several inches beyond the bark. He
did the same at each large tree.
"The sap generally flows between mid-March and mid-April. I do this
whenever I'm here then." With a shove, he pushed a spout into place,
then inserted one on the back side of the same tree.
"More than one per tree?"
"With a tree this size, there'll be enough sap for two. Here, you slide
this one in, while I get more buckets."
By the time he returned, she had done as he asked. He fit a bucket on
the spout.
"A sliding lid?" she asked, studying it. "I've never seen lids on sap
buckets, period."
A smile touched the corners of his mouth. "Then you've never seen a
stray horse or a field mouse drink the sap as it collects."
She laughed. "No, I haven't."
"This lid doesn't always keep them out. A persistent animal can get what
he wants. But it helps."
They picked up the equipment and moved on to the next tree.
"How much sap will we get?" she asked, but she was distracted watching
him as he debated where to drill. He was a sight to behold, larger and
more rugged-looking than ever in a high-collared sheepskin jacket and
faded jeans.
He knelt before the tree and applied the drill. "On a good day the
bucket will fill and overflow. On a poor day we'll get only a few
inches."
He grunted as he pushed the bit forward into the tree. "If we were to
continue for the entire length of the sapping season, we might get ten
or twenty gallons from each tree."
She was startled. "That much? Whoa. What would we ever do with all that
sap?"
The hole drilled, he straightened and motioned with his finger for her
to insert the spout, which she deftly did this time with the aid of a
hammer.
""All that sap,"' he said, "boils down to very little. To get one gallon
of syrup, you have to boil down anywhere from thirty-five to fifty
gallons of sap."
"Ah. That explains why genuine maple syrup costs so much."
Mitch went on with the lesson as he continued to work. "New York and
Vermont produce the most syrup in this country, though the province of
Quebec yields more than the two states combined. Today, most of the
commonly used syrups are actually a combination of maple syrup, cane
sugar syrup, and corn syrup. If you ask me, though, there's no contest.
The straight stuff, the real thing, beats all."
Anne couldn't argue with that.
For a while they proceeded in silence, but it was a friendly silence, an
intimate one. She noted that he favored his right arm, cranking the hand
drill around with it, while the other held the shaft in place. When she
offered to take a turn, he indulged her, enjoying her struggle with a
smug smile. When she finally gave up and turned the chore back to him,
he said, "That's okay, Annie. I could never have cleaned the house the
way you did this time."
"You noticed?"
"How could I help it," he teased with a rewarding grin. "I was nearly
blinded by the sparkle."
Anne knew the feeling. She was nearly blinded now by the sparkle in his
eyes. When he pushed two spouts into her hand, she was temporarily
disoriented.
"In the tree?" he prodded with a cockeyed grin, leaving her to recover
while he went for more buckets.
That first day, they drilled holes, inserted spouts, and hung buckets on
the largest of the maples near the house. On succeeding days they
collected the sap that had flowed. It was no mean feat, carting heavy
buckets from tree to house and back.
"If we had the most modern equipment," Mitch teased as she massaged the
nagging muscles of her shoulders, "we'd have used plastic spouts
attached to plastic tubing that would take the stuff directly from the
tree to the sugarhouse. It's much more efficient in terms of time and
labor."
"That's all okay," she reasoned. "We don't have a sugarhouse. Besides,
I'm gaining weight. The exercise will do me good."
He looked her over. "Well, you're not scrawny anymore, but ... in danger
of being overweight? Not a chance."
"Fine for you to say. You did most of the work this week." And he had.
He had cooked nearly every meal, in addition to doing the lion's share
of the sugaring work.
He threw an arm across her shoulders and drew her to his side. "I owed
you for being such a bastard when I first got here. Most women would
have packed up and left."
She managed a gruff, "The thought did cross my mind."
"I'm glad you stayed," he said with affection.
There was a gleam in his hazel eyes, a softness in his smile, gentleness
in the fingers that cupped her shoulder, and a velvet edge to his voice.
All in all, it was a warm moment. Anne committed it to memory.
By Friday morning, there was enough sap in the large vat to begin the
boiling process.
"They usually do this in long, shallow pans called evaporators," Mitch
explained. "The one we're using is a little deeper than we need, but
it'll have to do. When all the water has evaporated, we'll have pure
maple syrup.
No matter that he had done this before, his enthusiasm and genuine
enjoyment of the process were in no way watered down.
As for Anne, she was enchanted watching the thin, colorless liquid
bubble and thicken to a dense golden brown. On impulse, she slid an arm
around his waist, happier in that moment than in any in recent memory.
Regardless of what the future held, she would cherish this memory.
He grinned down at her. "What?"
She sighed her pleasure. "It's been a tin week. This is a great finish
to it." She was leaving in the morning. As it was, she had stayed a day
longer than she'd planned, but he had asked her to.
"I'd rather a more personal finish," he said now. "Better still, I'd
rather no finish at all."
She basked in the tenderness of his expression, loving him and aching to
say it. But she wasn't setting herself up for rejection again. And
anyway, just then the sap gurgled wildly.
"It shouldn't be long," he said, lifting a large wooden spoon to stir
the solution and test for its thickness. "Should we have pancakes or
French toast for dinner?"
"For dinner?"
"I don't know about you, but I don't have the willpower to wait until
breakfast for this."
Anne drew a finger across the back of the cooling wooden spoon and
licked the sweet syrup from its tip. "Mmmmmm. You may be right." She
paused. "French toast."
"French toast, it is." Following her example, he tasted the syrup, then
ran his finger over the spoon and held it to her mouth. The syrup was as
rich and sweet as the moment itself. Anne thought she could go no
higher.
Suddenly, a faraway gleam entered his eyes. His voice was filled with
gentleness. "Rachel enjoyed this taste-testing stage the most last year,
too."
Anne froze. Rachel? His "obligation"? She frowned, then stood
straighter, then backed away from the arm on her shoulders. Rachel?
With that faraway gleam, and such gentleness? Oh, yes, he loved Rachel.
Anne didn't doubt it for a minute.
He was frowning. "What is it?"
"How could you?"
"How could I what?" His innocence riled her.
"How could you do that to me? How could you mention her name at a time
like this?" She felt eviscerated, as though he had become part of her
and was being cut free.
"Her name?" Then he realized what he had done, and his frown gentled. "I
mentioned Rachel, didn't I?"
The softness in his voice at the mention of her name ravaged Anne. "How
could you?" she repeated. Tears welled. When he reached out, she
flinched and took a step back.
"Annie, listen-"
She took another step, then another. "I don't want to hear about your
love life."
"You're wrong-"
"Yes, I'm wrong. I'm wrong to want to stay up here with you, when I
should be back in New York trying to build a new life. I'm wrong to
think that you really wanted me here, when in one careless minute you go
wimpy over another woman. How could you, Mitch? Can't you see that I
love you?"
Whirling around, she ran from the kitchen, taking the steps with
reckless speed, stopping only when the door to her bedroom was slammed
and flush to her back. Trembling hands covered her eyes and grew wet
with tears. The pounding of her heart drowned out the sound of footsteps
on the stairs.
He rapped on the door. "Open up, Anne."
"No." She was mortified by what she had said, and heartsick that it had
come to this.
"There are things I have to tell you, Anne. Open the door."
Weeping, she only shook her head.
"Anne .. ."
"Go away!" she pleaded. She couldn't face him. Nothing he said mattered.
"I love you, Annie." His voice filtered soft and sensuous through the
ancient wood of the door, and suddenly it did matter, very much. If this
was a cruel hoax, she would never forgive him.
Turning, she laid her wet cheek against the door. Afraid to listen,
afraid not to, she waited.
"Did you hear me, Annie?" Again the velvet sound, too dear to be
dismissed, too real to be denied. "I love you."
Her pulse raced. She wanted to believe that he did, wanted to believe it
more than anything in the world. But there was a crucial question still
to be answered.
Slowly she turned the knob and drew open the door. Fearful, she raised
her eyes to his. And she saw love, surely she did, unless she wanted it
so bad that she was imagining it.
"Do you love Rachel, too?" she asked in a faltering whisper.
When he reached for her arms, she didn't resist. Neither did she melt
toward him, but held her line, waiting, waiting for his answer.
His smile was sad but tender. "Yes, I love Rachel." His hands tightened
when she would have pulled free. "But I love her in a very different way
from how I love you, Annie. Rachel is my daughter."
Anne was shocked. His daughter? She had been jealous of his daughter?
"Why didn't you tell me?" she cried, wanting to hit him but slipping her
arms around his neck instead.
He held her tightly. "I've wanted to so many times. But it never seemed
appropriate. At the beginning, there was a part of me that wanted-God
forgive me-that wanted to forget her existence while I was up here.
Fatherhood has its merits, but it's been my greatest challenge since
Bey's death."
He had a daughter. Anne could only begin to imagine that, much less the
challenge of going it alone. "Maybe I could have helped."
"You've had enough to face without having to cope with a child."
"How old is she?"
"She turned six last week. And she came down with the chicken pox the
day after her birthday. It's the first time she's been sick-really
sick since her mother died."
Anne understood. "That's why you were late arriving last weekend?"
He nodded against her head. "My parents have been wonderful, taking her
for weeks at a stretch. They're often more cheerful than me." He looked
down at her. "But I couldn't leave them with a sick child who only
wanted her mother to hold her." His voice broke at the last.
"Why didn't you bring her up here with you?" Anne scolded.
He studied her closely. "I wasn't sure how you felt about kids. We've
never talked about that, you and me. I only know you have none of your
own."
"Not through choice, Mitch, not through choice."
"But to foist a sick child on you? How could I do that?"
Anne spoke from the heart. "I would have loved to have met your
daughter. I'd have loved helping you take care of her. She's your
daughter." Her voice fell. "And I love you."
He crushed her in his arms. The force of it said all that he didn't, but
seconds later he was kissing her. If she hadn't already gotten the
message, he did then. There was a vow in his kiss, a declaration, a
promise.
"I love you ... love you ... love you," she whispered at the very first
chance, loving being able to say it at last.
When his hands moved down to frame her face and tip it up, she savored
the devotion she saw. His eyes asked a question; hers answered. Then he
lifted her into his arms and carried her back down the narrow staircase
to the room with the large bed, his bed.
This time, when he lowered her and reached for the hem of her sweater,
she caught his hands and stilled them. "Let me," she said. "I need to
know you."
He searched her eyes for a minute. Then, silently, he sat back on the
bed and let her undress him. When his big body was bare, she could only
marvel at its beauty, at the beauty of the love she felt. She explored
his every sinew, touching him with innocent wonder from his shoulders to
his thighs, skimming lean planes, tracing manly swells, delighting in
his arousal.
When his patience was exhausted, he made a gutteral sound. "That's it,
honey. That's it." With bullet speed, he flipped over her and removed
every stitch of her clothes.
They lay naked then on the cool sheets, facing one another. Their
breathing was heavy with need and want, but he held her off for those
