First boil jitters . . . no matter how many times I do this:
Where is the nozzle I need for filling this drum?
Isn’t that plug in the back pan in the wrong pipe?
Is this the right rag for scrubbing syrup off the floor?
Don’t we have another squeegee?
Isn’t it time to flood the pans before they burn?
—Colton Abbott’s sugaring journal, March 11
After breakfast the next morning with Will and Cameron, Colton and Lucy drove away from the lake house in Colton’s truck. He’d made arrangements to have her car picked up by the rental company and had booked a flight for her from Burlington into LaGuardia on Tuesday afternoon. All of this had been done on Cameron’s cell phone while Lucy was still asleep.
She appreciated that he took care of details that normally fell to her. That was her role with her family and coworkers—she was the one who took care of things. It was nice to be taken care of for a change.
“Thank you for the time with Cameron,” she said as they drove through Burlington on the way to the highway that would take them east. “It was great to see her.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“I miss her so much. It’s very different without her at work and everywhere else for that matter.”
“You guys spent a lot of time together.”
“All our time—work and play. I’d never tell her this because I wouldn’t want her to feel bad about going off to live her own life, but I’ve felt a little lost without her.”
Colton reached across the center console for her hand. “I can only imagine how hard it’s been.” He glanced over at her. “She said something to me . . . Something I want to ask you about, but I’m not sure how.”
Lucy was immediately on guard. “What did she say?”
“That you haven’t had an easy time of it, and I need to be careful with you. What did she mean by that?”
While Lucy wanted to kill Cameron for telling him that, she knew her friend had only been looking out for her.
“Luce? Are you going to tell me?”
She looked out the passenger window at the scenic views of tall pines and mountains whizzing by. “My mom died when I was nineteen and Emma was eighteen. My dad sort of went off the deep end after my mother died. He did the best he could, but a lot fell to me.”
“What happened to your mom?”
“She had cancer. She fought it for years but ended up dying somewhat suddenly. Emma went a little crazy partying and sleeping around and doing everything she could to run away from the pain. Between her and my dad and balancing college, too, I barely had a minute to breathe.”
“I’m so sorry about your mom. I can’t even imagine what life would be like without my mom.”
“It was a rough couple of years, and we were all doing a little better when Emma got pregnant with my niece, Simone. My dad totally flipped out, which was rather unfair when you consider that he’d been largely absent for about two years by then. No one looks at Simone now and thinks about how or why she came to be, but at the time . . .”
“It was rough.”
“Yeah. My dad didn’t speak to Emma for a couple of months. He was so damned mad, but I don’t think he was mad at her. He was mad at life, but you couldn’t tell Emma that. Took a long time for them to get back on track.”
“And you were square in the middle of it.”
“Right. I met Cameron around that time, and she really helped me through a lot of it. We had an immediate bond because of the ADD, too.”
“ADD? You have ADD?”
“I told you that.”
“No, you didn’t. That’s not something I’d forget, because I have it, too.”
“You do? Really?”
“Uh-huh. Fully medicated since seventh grade, thank you very much. How have we not talked about this when we’ve talked about everything else under the sun, the moon and the stars?”
“It’s not something I like to talk about,” she said with a sigh. “I wasn’t diagnosed until I was in college, and neither was Cam. We both slogged through high school thinking we were stupid, and because I felt stupid, I did stupid things.”
“Like what?”
“Drinking, for one thing.”
“Did that help?”
Laughing, she said, “Not really. It just caused other problems. And then there’s my ADD romantic track record, which consists of more first dates than any girl in the history of the universe.”
“Well, clearly you’ve overcome that because this is easily our thirty-sixth date.”
She looked over to find him smiling smugly, which made her belly flutter with something that wasn’t nerves, exactly. The feeling was far too pleasant to classify as nerves. “How do you figure that?”
“If each day counts as three dates—morning, afternoon and evening—then we are easily at thirty-six by now. Twelve weekend days times three dates per day . . .”
“All that sexy ruggedness and you can multiply, too.”
“Ha ha.”
“That certainly sets a record.”
“Happy to be of assistance.” He glanced at her before returning his attention to the road. “So you’ve never really done the relationship thing. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, I guess it is, so it’s no wonder I suck at it, right?”
“You don’t suck at it, Luce. It’s a tough situation. We’ve both found something here that interests us. We want to spend more time together, but geography and work and life are conspiring against us. The best thing you can do is what you decided to do yesterday—relax and take it as it happens. That’s all either of us can do.”
“You make that sound so simple when we both know it isn’t.”
“It can be. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying each other’s company and seeing each other as much as we can without worrying about where it might be going. That’s not something we have to figure out right now—or any time soon for that matter.”
“At the risk of overanalyzing things, I’m not really wired to chill and take it as it comes. I’ve had to be one step ahead of disaster for most of my adult life, so relaxing and rolling with it doesn’t exactly gel with my DNA—or my ADD.”
“Stick with me, kid. I’ll teach you how to relax and roll with it.”
His playful smile sparked the flutters in her belly again. She looked down at her hands in her lap as she thought about what he’d said. Could she become someone who relaxed and rolled with it? Probably . . . Under the right conditions. However, the more time she spent with him, the more mixed up and muddled her emotions became where he was concerned. That was especially true after what’d transpired between them this weekend.
“Tell me what’s on your mind. Put it out there and get it off your chest.”
He made it so easy to tell him things she wouldn’t have dreamed of sharing with any other man she’d ever dated. Of course she hadn’t gotten to thirty-six dates with any of them. Since she’d decided to take a chance on Colton, she drew in a deep breath and looked over at him. “I’m wondering what happens when this becomes a more emotionally charged situation.”
“It isn’t already?”
He floored her with the question, and her brain went totally blank.
Chuckling, he said, “Nothing to say? That’s not like you.”
Since her brain was still empty of all thoughts, she shook her head.
“I don’t think you’ve been paying attention, Lucy, but I don’t fault you for that because I know better than most people how hard it can be to focus when you suffer from attention deficit disorder. So let me lay it out there for you, okay?”
Even though she was somewhat apprehensive as to what he might say, she nodded because she was too curious not to.
“You said you’ve been on more first dates than anyone in the world. That’s sort of been my thing, too. I go out with someone once, it’s kind of boring or she’s not easy to talk to or I have to try too hard, and I don’t go out with her again. I’ve tried the relationship thing exactly once, and it lasted for two months. I knew I was in trouble when two weeks passed between dates and I had no desire to see her. I used to chalk it up to the ADD, you know?”
“Yes.” She knew all too well.
“Now I’m not so sure that was it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Thirty-six dates, Lucy. Six full weekends together, and I’ve never been bored. Not once.”
“Neither have I.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“So there you have it.”
She was almost afraid to ask. “There I have what?”
“Our situation. It’s already emotionally charged or we wouldn’t both still be here. We would’ve bailed a long time ago.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. It was supposed to be a fun diversion.”
“Hasn’t it been that?”
“Well, yeah, but . . .”
“No buts. Just because we didn’t intend to get involved doesn’t mean things can’t change. We are involved, Lucy. I thought I showed you repeatedly yesterday and last night how involved I am with you. Apparently I didn’t do a good enough job. I’ll have to try harder tonight.”
“Stop it,” she said as a flush set her face on fire.
His ringing laughter filled the cab of the truck and roused the dogs in the backseat. When Elmer poked his head over the seat to investigate, Colton rewarded him with a scratch between the ears. “You have no idea how much I love making you blush like that.”
“You’re very good at it.”
“Thank you very much.”
“I didn’t mean that as a compliment,” she muttered. Here she was the supposedly sophisticated city girl feeling like she was way, way out of her league and seriously outmatched by the mountain man. How’d she let that happen?
“Can we talk about my place on the mountain?”
“Sure.” Anything was better than allowing him to talk more about the many ways he planned to show her he was emotionally involved with her.
“I’ve told you before it’s kind of rustic, right?”
“Yes, but I’m not entirely sure I get what you mean by rustic. You’ve been somewhat vague on that.”
“Well, there’s no electricity for one thing.”
“No electricity? Who lives without electricity in the twenty-first century?”
“Um, I do. There’s no running water or indoor plumbing either.” This was said in a rush of words that set her head to spinning. Before she could formulate a reply, he continued. “I promise you’ll be very comfortable despite the lack of modern conveniences.”
“How do you take a shower?”
“Oh that’s easy. I have solar-heated water that’s particularly warm this time of year. It’s not so great in the winter, but I survive.”
“I wouldn’t. No hot shower would be a deal-breaker for me.”
“Good to know. So have you ever been camping?”
“Not if I could avoid it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“My parents took us once when we were like eleven and twelve. We hated it. Bitched the whole time about the bugs, the smell, the cold, the hard ground. Everything we could think of, we bitched about.”
“So what you’re saying is you’re a city girl through and through.”
“As if that was in question?”
“All I’m asking is that you give it a chance. No bugs, no bad smells, no cold, no hard ground. You’ll be warm and cozy the whole time—and I do offer a hot shower at least once a day and a warm body to sleep with.” He glanced over at her. “Okay?”
“I promise to give it a chance, and I’ll do my best to refrain from bitching.”
“Excellent,” he said with a satisfied smile.
“I’m looking forward to seeing where you live and work.”
“And I’m looking forward to showing you. In a way, I’m sort of glad we ended up with company at the lake. I’ve been wanting to bring you to my place for a while now.”
“Who takes care of it while you’re away?”
“There’s not much to take care of this time of year, except the retail store, which stays pretty busy all year long. Max was staying there while I was gone.”
“Does his girlfriend stay up there with him?”
“I’m not sure if she came this time. She has before.”
“Do you like her?”
“Sure, she seems nice enough. I don’t really know her all that well. They hadn’t been dating long when she got pregnant.”
“Are you looking forward to the baby?”
“Definitely. I can’t wait to be an uncle. I just can’t believe he’s going to be first. He’s always last at everything.”
“Not this time.”
“Nope.”
“Is he ready?”
“As ready as anyone can be, I suppose.”
“I remember when Emma was expecting Simone and how big and scary it was for her—and for me. I wanted to be there for her and help her in any way I could, but like her, I didn’t know the first thing about babies.”
“You guys survived, right?”
“It was dicey at first. Babies don’t come with instruction manuals, unfortunately. But we figured it out. Simone was a good baby. That helped.”
“Is her father in the picture?”
Lucy shook her head. “Never has been.”
“That’s got to be tough on Emma.”
“It was, at first. But she figured it out, and Simone is eight now, so it does get easier.”
“I’d like to meet them when I’m in New York. Do you think we could do that?”
“I suppose that could be arranged.”
“Good. Since we’re emotionally—and physically—charged, I’d like to meet the people who are important to you.”
“Do you really have to keep saying that?”
“Yeah,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips and setting off a jolt of excitement throughout her body when he kissed her knuckles. “I really do. I need to keep reminding you that you’re here with me for all the right reasons, and it’s going to be fine.”
When he put it that way, it became much easier for Lucy to relax and roll with whatever happened next. They might not be preparing to spend the rest of their lives together the way Will and Cameron were, but there was no reason she couldn’t enjoy this—and him—while it lasted.