Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
To be fair, the boys were good kids.
Sure, a little wild than most.
Loud like all boys, too.
They were also capable in the woods, independent, hard-working alongside their mother and father on their family’s farm and business, and not once had either teenager come face to face with Lucas without taking their caps off their head to shake his hand when they said hello. Respect counted for a lot where he came from.
For them, too.
Who cared if they made a bit of ruckus?
Wasn’t that what made them fun?
Mack and Theresa raised a good pair of boys that would turn into decent young men soon enough. They might as well enjoy the two as they were now—it wouldn’t last forever.
“They’ll only be young once,” Lucas added.
Mack, still heading the sleigh, laughed with a boom that carried up the trail. “True, friend. That is very true.”
Lucas, having been to the maple farm owned by the Smiths a couple of times before, knew the first leg of the journey felt like the longest and wasn’t the most interesting. A long trek through a maintained woods trail to the back part of Birch Ridge where there was nothing to see but land and trees for days. On the way, however, one only had the horses and trail to enjoy.
Delaney shivered next to him on the seat, and he pulled her tighter into his side beneath the pair of quilts the Smiths had brought along for them to use.
“Put your hands in my parka, if you need to,” he told her. “We’ve got a ways to go yet.”
Her eyes sparkled up at him. “Just how far, exactly?”
Theresa answered that question. “Another half hour on the trail, at least.”
At the news, Delaney snuggled in even closer, and beneath the quilt, her mittens worked their way under his parka after getting it unzipped to find the warmth at his chest. Lucas laughed.
“Good news,” Theresa added, “is Mack sent the boys up this morning to get a fire going in the warming shack where we boil the syrup. It’ll be perfect when we get there.”
“Perfect,” Delaney told him, “just a half an hour more in the cold to go.”
He chuckled. “You’ll survive.”
“Barely,” she teased right back.
Conversation dwindled in the sleigh as the horses took them deeper into the trail. The canopy of tree branches over their heads let off a constant stream of falling snowflakes from the wind rustling overhead. If he could have taken a picture of that moment to keep forever, Lucas would have added it to the many decorating the walls of his cabin.
Instead, he imprinted it to memory.
And the way Delaney smiled with her head propped against his side.
Distracting himself with tucking the stray strands of her hair behind her ears and fixing her toque once he was satisfied, Lucas didn’t pay much mind to the quiet conversation happening between the couple at the front of the sleigh.
Until he heard a name.
“Jacob.”
He missed how his brother’s name had come up.
Or why.
The shift of his attention at the name being used wasn’t missed by the woman sitting across from him. Theresa shot a sad smile his way.
“We’re sorry to hear about Jacob,” she explained, her hands fidgeting under the quilt she used to cover up and stay warm during the ride. “We weren’t sure if we should mention it, or …”
Mack shot a glance over his shoulder, adding, “They mentioned it on the radio this morning. I heard it in passing.”
Ah.
Given the obituary for his brother should have run in the Telegraph Journal that morning, it wasn’t a surprise that the news of Jacob’s untimely death had also found other media outlets. There were so few Daltons left in New Brunswick. Especially with a connection to the infamous brewery that made the family so powerful.
The death was news.
Under the quilt, Delaney’s hands found Lucas’ and held on tight. A silent support that he hadn’t known he needed for the conversation.
“I wouldn’t have sent the syrup had I known,” Theresa added.
“I’m gonna save it for the cabin, if that’s okay,” Lucas returned.
Her sending it hadn’t caused any harm.
Maybe it was a little bittersweet, though.
She only nodded.
“Guess you were looking for some time away from it all?” Mack asked from the head of the sleigh.
“And time to breathe,” Lucas replied.
Delaney had helped with that.
A lot.
Mack’s head bobbed understandingly. “Too young—that’s a damn shame, Lucas.”
Tell me about it, he thought.
“I know,” was all he said instead.
A quiet moment passed before the bbrraappp of the skidoos in the distance broke the silence first.
Lucas asked Theresa, “I assume they said nothing other than a notice of his passing?”
“Basically.”
Mack cleared his throat, but never turned away from facing the horses as he asked, “Was he still struggling, friend? The last time I talked to him, all he talked about was keeping his nose clean, you know?”