Authors: Becki Willis
Charity lingered over the maple syrup display. The tiny little
“kitchen” in her motel room — consisting of a doll-sized refrigerator, tiny sink,
microwave, toaster, and coffee maker — did not offer much toward the efforts of
cooking, but she had been tempted by the frozen waffle case at the back of the store.
Swimming in good, rich syrup, the buttermilk pastries might come close to tasting
homemade, or at least edible.
The syrup dominated a four-sided kiosk near the register. It
came packaged in every size and price point, some of it in glass containers, some
in plastic jugs. There were three-ounce samples and one-gallon reservoirs. Some
of the glass containers were shaped like maple leaves; others were simple utilitarian
jars with handles. The variation in colors of the syrup itself fascinated Charity;
they ranged from light amber to dark umber. Her mouth watered, just looking at the
tempting sweetness.
She shuffled to her left, perusing another side of the display.
She picked up a small jar labeled ‘maple cream’. Whatever it was, it looked delicious.
Sinfully fattening, too, but there was no caloric information on the back label.
What was that old saying,
Ignorance is bliss
?
A man knelt in front of the third side of the kiosk, restocking
shelves from supplies within a wooden crate. Hunched over the task, his face was
averted from Charity, but she could see enough to peg him as a mountain man: unruly
hair past the collar of his red plaid shirt, heavy work boots, and huge, beefy hands.
“Excuse me, sir, do you work here?”
Clearly startled, the man jerked her way.
Charity was just as startled by the clear gray eyes staring up
at her. The color was fascinating. Gray, with a hint of cool blue undertones. And
little flecks of brown for warmth, with a dark rim of gray-blue around the irises.
His eyes were so arresting that it took a full moment to absorb the next surprise;
the man was much younger than she expected. She made the assumption from his coal
black curls, the absence of age lines fanning out from his intriguing eyes, the
smooth skin stretched across the apple of his cheeks. The rest of his face was covered
in hair: loose bangs, shaggy mustache, bushy beard. All black, with only a stray
gray hair mingled in here and there.
Realizing she was gazing down at him, lost in the beauty of his
eyes, Charity pulled her thoughts together. “Of course you work here,” she chided
herself, forcing her eyes away from his. She glanced down at the box at his feet.
“Silly question. So, what can you tell me about this syrup?”
He was slow to answer. “What would you like to know?”
His voice was like thunder. It rumbled slow and deep, rolling
out from his massive chest. Charity could have sworn she felt the echo somewhere
deep within her own belly. Impossible, though. Her stomach had taken flight.
“Every-Everything.” She pushed the word from a mouth gone suddenly
dry.
A smile hiked one side of his mustache. Humor lit the gray eyes
with an intriguing light. “Might take a while,” he drawled.
If it meant she could stare into those eyes, listening to the
deep rumble of his voice, she had all night. She struggled to find a sensible thought,
one she could articulate. “Why-Why are the colors so different? Does it mean one
is fresher than the other?”
“All fresh,” he assured her. “This year’s batch.”
He placed the last jug on the shelf and positioned it to his
satisfaction. Just when Charity feared the few words were the extent of his answer,
he spoke again. “Colors mean the grade of the syrup.”
“So…‘A’ is the best?” she surmised, scrunching her face.
“All are the best. Depends on your tastes.”
Charity began to get frustrated with his short, noncommittal
answers. How could she drown herself in the river of his deep voice, if he insisted
on pouring it out in tiny sips?
Then he stood, and she forgot all about her frustration. She
was overwhelmed with the sheer size of the man. He towered over her, several inches
taller than six feet. His chest was broad and thick, a solid wall of muscle and
flesh beneath a navy t-shirt tucked neatly into his jeans. The red flannel shirt
hung open over the tee, its sleeves rolled up to reveal hair-covered forearms as
thick as some women’s calves; not hers, of course, but probably her stepsister’s.
For every pound Charity collected, Tanya lacked on her tall, skinny frame. This
man easily outweighed Charity by a good hundred pounds, but he was hardly fat. He
was like a mountain — big, solid, and strong.
Charity loved a man who could make her feel dainty. She could
never buy clothes without trying them on first. She teetered between size large
and extra-large, depending on the generosity of fabric round her backside. At five
foot seven, she was tall enough to feel awkward, not quite tall enough to feel willowy.
On the rare occasion she met a man who dwarfed her, she basked in the rusty feel
of femininity.
This giant of a man made her feel feminine, and so much more.
With hands the size of a baseball mitt, he reached for a sampler
box behind her. She caught a whiff of wood smoke and natural musk as he leaned in
toward her. When her heart rattled crazily in her chest, she didn’t know if it was
from awareness or fear; the man, after all, was huge.
He presented an open-sided box, where four glass bottles winked
back at her. He pointed to each as he spoke, his fingers long and surprisingly slender,
given the size of his palms. “This lightest color is Grade-A Golden, what some call
Fancy. It has a light, delicate flavor. This one is Grade-A Amber, a little darker,
a little richer.” Caught up in the deep timber of his voice, Charity struggled to
pay attention to the actual words. His finger moved along to the third bottle. “Grade-A
Dark has a robust flavor. This last one used to be called Grade-B; now it’s Grade-A
Very Dark. It is the strongest of all, with a very deep, very rich taste. It’s the
one you need for cooking.”
If voices were graded
, Charity decided,
his would be
Grade-A Very Dark. Absolutely delicious.
She could imagine cooking up all sorts
of delights with a voice like his.
Rather than reveal her innermost thoughts, she asked another
question. “What do they do? Cook it longer to make it darker?”
Another quirk of his mustache told her he was smiling again.
“We have no control over the grading. Cook every batch the same. The later in the
season, the darker the grade.”
“You’re a syrup maker?” she asked in surprise. She noted the
way he seldom used personal pronouns to refer to himself.
“Called a sugarmaker.” Not only did humor look attractive in
his eyes, it sounded wonderful in his voice. It made that deep voice even richer,
mellower.
Fascinated by the sound, she forgot to be embarrassed by her
blunder. “Sorry,” she murmured in distraction.
“You’re not from around here.” It was a statement, but the question
lingered in his gaze; he wanted to know more about her.
“No, I’m from Maryland.”
The man nodded, as if storing away the information for later
use. Charity was a bit disappointed when he changed the subject back to syrup. “So
what grade would you like?”
“I’m not sure. What goes good with frozen waffles?” She pointed
to the basket dangling from her arm.
“Personally, never touch the things. But I’d probably say Golden.”
Again, he reached around her. Was it her imagination, or did he lean a bit closer
than necessary? This time, though, there was no denying the origin of her hyped
up heart rate. She was definitely not afraid. His hand hovered over the pint jug.
“Will this be big enough?”
She saw the silent question in his gray eyes.
Are you married?
“Just me,” she confirmed.
“Start with this one,” he suggested. He took a half-pint in the
shape of a leaf and pressed it into her hands. When his fingers brushed against
hers, Charity knew she was blushing, but for the life of her, she could not pull
away.
“What’s the difference in glass and plastic?” She worked hard
at making her voice sound normal, but it came out almost breathless.
“Glass is forever.”
“I thought that was diamonds.” She was out of practice, but she
hoped the witty comeback served as flirting.
His gray gaze darted to her empty ring finger. “Plastic eventually
breaks down.”
“I doubt this will last long enough for that,” she predicted,
slipping the glass container into her basket. She motioned to the jar of maple cream
she had abandoned when she first saw his eyes. “What can you tell me about maple
cream?”
“Pure maple syrup, heated, cooled, and whipped. Best thing you’ve
ever tasted in your life.” Even as he said the words, his eyes dropped to her lips.
The involuntary movement obviously embarrassed him, but it warmed Charity’s heart.
The mountain man was flirting with her!
“What-What do you put it on?” She tried to defuse the moment
and the look of chagrin in his gorgeous eyes.
“A spoon.”
She thought he was being cocky. “I thought as much,” she said
dryly. “What
food
do you put it on?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Makes anything better. Some
folks call it maple butter. Bake it on butternut squash. Stir it into oatmeal. Eat
it on pancakes and rolls. I like it with just a spoon.”
She eyed the small jar again. “And it’s just maple syrup, nothing
else?”
“Not ‘just’. Takes a gallon of syrup to make about a dozen of
those jars. Takes about forty gallons of sap to make the gallon of syrup. That’s
about three decent sized trees; more, if they’re small.”
The numbers were shocking. “That’s all a tree makes?”
“Depends on the weather. Need cold nights and warm days to get
even that.”
“I had no idea,” Charity murmured. She had a new appreciation
for the delicious sweetness.
Another man walked up from behind, slapping the bearded giant
on the back with a friendly greeting. “Tarn, thought that was you! Never heard you
say so much at one time, though. Thought my hearing was going. How you doing, young
man?” Peering around his massive chest, an older man in faded overalls grinned when
he saw Charity. “Ah, I see what had your tongue rattling. A pretty gal will do it
every time.”
The giant’s cheeks flushed a deep red. At least, the visible
portion of them did, the rest hidden behind facial hair. A similar color appeared
in Charity’s face.
She saw the opportunity to flee and took it. “Uhm, thanks for
all your help,” she said, swiping the jar of maple cream from the shelf as she whirled
to go. Part of her hoped for a clean escape, the other part hoped he would stop
her.
He didn’t. The older man started up a conversation with the sugarmaker
as Charity hurried to the register. As the cashier rang up her purchases, a familiar
deep voice rumbled across the way. “Marge, the maple cream is on me. My treat.”
Charity’s eyes flew back to the bearded man. She could tell he
was uncomfortable with all the extra eyes upon him, but he ignored the others as
his gray gaze settled on hers. “Welcome to Vermont,” he said quietly.
She was afraid her smile was giddy, but it reflected the way
she felt. “Thanks.”
He nodded, but this time, both sides of his mustache lifted.
***
Tarn Danbury glanced at the image in the rearview mirror.
Shaggy. That was the only way to describe himself.
No wonder the woman had high-tailed it out of there the first
chance she got! What was he thinking, trying to strike up a conversation with a
woman like that? Had he actually tried to
flirt
with her? Women who looked
like her did not bother with men who looked like him. Humiliation burned hot in
his gut, just thinking of his inept foolishness.
He knew better. He knew to keep to himself when he made his rounds,
re-stocking syrup at the various locations that carried his wares. Good thing she
hadn’t seen the far shelf, the one displaying his carvings. His loose lips would
have really flapped then! One murmur of appreciation from that lush red mouth and
he might would have spilled his entire life-story, right down to his hopes and dreams,
foolish though they were.
Old Lu Richter was right; he never talked that much. So why today?
Why with her? She was a stranger in town, probably another tourist merely passing
through. Knowing he would never see the woman again should have made the humiliation
easier, but somehow the knowledge filled him with a hollow ache inside.
At thirty-six, Tarn was a confirmed bachelor. He had no time
for dating and wooing a woman with his dubious charms, even less time for a wife
and family. He didn’t want a girlfriend. He was making it fine on his own.
So why did the thought of never seeing the woman again make him
feel so… so forlorn? He felt oddly bereft, as if he had lost something important.
Someone important.