The Sugar House. Christine Flynn

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.