Merry Cherry Christmas - Keira Andrews Page 0,43
curved for a few kilometers through endless trees that Jeremy assumed were all maples. The snow would probably be up to his knees. For a second, he thought there was a strange single-rope fence before realizing it was a line of blue plastic tubing strung horizontally along the trees.
“It’s beautiful,” Jeremy said.
“Thank you!” Valerie beamed at him in the rear-view mirror, her eyes crinkling. “I was born here, and my family’s been producing syrup for almost half a century.”
Meg sighed dramatically. “Are you seriously going to give him the full tourist spiel? Also, you were born in the hospital, not on the hearth in the middle of a blizzard like Mamy and Papy were pioneers.”
Valerie blew a raspberry and they all laughed. “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by my darling daughter, this is my family’s pride and joy. We have fifty-five acres of maple bush here near the shores of Georgian Bay.”
“Wow. The tubes are for the syrup?” Jeremy asked.
“Yep,” Valerie said. “We operate thirty-four hundred taps during the season. These pipelines bring the sap to two collection points, where we transfer the sap to our sugar house in our tanker that holds four thousand liters.”
Jeremy asked, “How many liters of sap do the trees, uh, leak?”
“Oh, thousands a day. Keeps us hopping in the season.”
Meg jumped in, using a TV reporter type of voice. “The season can begin as early as February, but typically it’s March.”
“And how do you determine that, Meg?” Max asked, holding his fist to his mouth like a microphone.
“Well, Max, that all depends on Mother Nature. And we all know what a fickle bitch she can be.”
“Language!” John and Valerie scolded in unison.
Ignoring them, Meg added, “Frosty nights and thawing days get that sap running so farmers know it’s time to ‘tap that.’ The season typically lasts four to six weeks, although it can be shorter.”
“I see what you did there.” Max gave a fake laugh. “Very punny.”
Meg laughed falsely. “You know I can never resist a pun, Max.”
“Are you two done?” Valerie asked, although she was smiling. “Jeremy, I’m sorry for boring you with syrup talk.”
“No, you’re not! I’d love to learn more.”
Max and Meg groaned, and Max said, “You asked for it, Cherry.”
“Wait, what? Cherry?” Meg’s brows drew close.
“Oh, a dumb nickname I can never seem to shake,” Jeremy said. “My little brother Sean couldn’t pronounce my name at first. Called me Cherry.”
“Aww. Bless him.” Valerie slowed, and around a bend a clearing with buildings came into view. “Here we are. Home sweet home.” She pulled up to a freestanding garage and shut off the engine.
“It looks like a postcard,” Jeremy said, peering at the brick farmhouse, two stories with a covered porch in front, red shutters, and a yellow door. Snow covered the gable roof, smoke curling from the chimney.
“You really don’t have to work so hard to butter them up,” Meg said. “They’re easy.”
Jeremy cringed. Did he sound like a suck-up? He was momentarily speechless, and Max snapped, “Meg!” as John and Valerie protested.
The SUV door open and one leg out, Meg’s smirk vanished. “I was just kidding. Honestly.” She touched Jeremy’s arm. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “It really does look like a postcard to me.”
“Thank you,” Valerie said emphatically. “That’s a wonderful compliment.”
They all climbed out, and Jeremy knew his cheeks were flaming and wished he could dial down the redness. A thin layer of snow crunched under his new heavy boots, the area in front of the garage cleared.
Max came around the SUV and murmured, “You didn’t say anything wrong. Meg’s just being a brat.”
Valerie pointed to a red barn on the right. “That’s the sugar house over there. We’ve got a little storefront inside it. Those big doors on the front swing open.”
Jeremy nodded, listening to Valerie as John opened the back of the vehicle. Jeremy grabbed his suitcase and put it on the ground, but Max snatched it up and said, “Better to carry it so the wheels don’t get all snowy and then puddle on the floor inside.”
“Oh, sorry! I can do it.”
“It’s cool. I got it.” Max winked.
And shit, that wink made Jeremy’s knees weak. He supposed it was normal to be so affected since it had only been a couple of days since they’d—
Nope, don’t think about what we did on Tuesday. It’s in the past. That was then, this is now.
Now he was with Max’s family at their Christmas postcard farm, the scent of burning wood sweet and