Chapter 1 – Silas
People think syrup-making is about sweetness, but it's really about patience.
I check the lines stretching between the sugar maples, blue tubing barely visible under fresh snow. The forecast called for six inches by nightfall, but the sky hangs heavier than that. I tug my wool hat lower, fingers already stiff despite the thickness of my gloves.
My boots crunch through the crust as I move between trees, checking connections. The sugar shack sits downhill, smoke curling from the chimney where the evaporator runs steady.
A foreign sound breaks the silence—the high whine of tires spinning against ice. I pause, frowning toward the access road. Nobody comes up here, especially during tapping season. I've made damn sure of that.
Through the falling snow, I make out a small car, wheels churning helplessly. City car. Summer tires, probably.Brilliant.
I could pretend I didn't see it. Could finish my rounds and let whoever's trespassing figure out their own solution. But the storm is worsening, and I'm notcompletelyheartless.
Sighing, I trudge toward the road.
As I approach, the car door swings open. A woman emerges, and my first thought is:young. Too young to be out here alone. My second thought follows immediately, unwelcome and irritating:beautiful.
She's bundled in what looks like a fashionable but useless coat—camel-colored wool that probably cost more than my monthly grocery bill. Her hair whips across her face as she turns, spottingme. For a moment, she freezes, wariness flashing across features flushed pink from cold.
"Oh!" she calls over the wind. "Thank God. I'm completely stuck."
Her voice carries a note of practiced confidence that doesn't quite mask the relief. City girl, definitely. Probably some weekend tourist who ignored weather advisories to grab rental cabin photos for her Instagram.
"You shouldn't be on this road," I say, voice gruff from disuse. "It's private property past the county marker."
She pushes hair from her face, revealing large green eyes. "I'm sorry. I think I got turned around. The GPS kept rerouting, and then I lost signal entirely."
"You're about five miles off course if you're headed to the resort cabins," I tell her. "And you won't make it there in this. Storm's getting worse."
"I realized that about ten minutes ago." Her smile seems genuine, if strained. "I'm Sage, by the way."
I don't volunteer my name in return. Instead, I assess the situation—her car is well and truly stuck, wheels sunken into what was probably a drainage ditch beneath the snow.
"You have someone expecting you?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "Not really. I rented a cabin for a few weeks. Nobody specific is waiting."
That raises questions I don't ask. Young woman, alone, no one expecting her.
"Well, you can't stay here, and I can't pull you out until the plow comes through. That won't be until tomorrow, earliest." Igesture toward the trail. "My place is about half a mile down. You can wait out the worst of it there."
Uncertainty flickers across her face, the appropriate caution of a woman being invited to a stranger's isolated cabin. But the alternative is freezing in her car.
"I really appreciate that," she says finally. "Let me just grab my bag."
She reaches into the back seat, emerging with the overnight bag and, to my surprise, a professional-looking knife roll. Not standard tourist equipment.
"Force of habit," she explains with a small shrug. "I don't go anywhere without my knives."
Interesting. A cook, then. Probably some culinary school graduate who works at a trendy farm-to-table place, making dishes with names longer than the ingredient list.
"It's this way," I say, not offering to carry her bags. Test of character, maybe. Or simple stubbornness.
She follows without complaint, matching my pace despite the depth of snow and her clearly inadequate footwear. Still, she stays upright, adjusts her stride to step in my footprints. Not entirely clueless, then.
The wind picks up as we crest the ridge, bringing a wall of white that momentarily blinds us both. She gasps, instinctively moving closer to me. I feel the brush of her shoulder against my arm, a point of heat in the surrounding cold.
"Sorry," she says, immediately creating distance again.
