Kristin Hardy - Vermont Valentine

“Including a mansion.”

Jacob nodded. “That didn’t stop Isaac, though. He just put his head down and started building. Spent every penny he had on materials—marble sinks, crystal door knobs, Tiffany stained-glass windows. He even sold off some of his part of the sugarbush to finance it. He figured if he just worked hard enough, just persisted, he’d win her hand.”

“It didn’t work, though.”

“No. He had it just about finished by 1906—mahogany furniture, running water, even electrical power from a generator out back. She’d gotten engaged by then to her brother’s school friend. No way a house in the woods could compete with Beacon Hill. I still have the ring he bought her.”

“It must have shattered him,” Celie murmured, looking up at the house, lonely even in its splendor.

“He never got over it. Never looked at another woman.”

“She didn’t care for him at all, did she?”

Jacob shook his head. “Isaac thought they had an understanding. The Embrees were just hedging their bets. I tracked down their papers the summer I read the journals. Edwin didn’t even mention Isaac. Sarah Jane’s had a few entries, mostly about how he was always pestering her with plans for the house when all she cared about was the social scene. I don’t think she ever even saw the place.”

“It was a quest. Slay the dragon and you get the maiden.”

“Kind of like that. But when he completed his task, the maiden was gone. Not even his family knew what he was building out here. He kept it a secret.”

“He was obsessed.”

“He was in love,” Jacob said simply.

It seemed unbearably sad to her. “She wasn’t for him.”

“Didn’t matter. He really believed if he just worked hard enough, offered her enough, he could win her.”

“But a house can’t do that. Things can’t do that. All it takes is the right person, if they really love you.” She glanced at Jacob. And she felt a sudden dizziness, as though the world had tilted on its axis. Their gazes met and tangled and then his eyes were all she could see, endlessly blue, endlessly deep, like pools she might fall into, sinking forever into him.

A furious barking broke the spell. With a shake of her head, Celie turned to see Murphy barreling toward them down the aisle of trees. She fell upon him in relief, the strange moment ended. “Who’s this? Who’s this? Who’s this doggie?” she asked, ruffling his neck fur while he leapt around her deliriously.

“Down, Murph,” Jacob said and Murphy subsided, tail wagging so furiously his whole body shook with it.

“Look, Murph, it’s a cookie. I’ve brought you a cookie.” Celie brought the baggie of dog biscuits out of her pocket. “Here’s a cookie for you, here’s a cookie for this good dog.” She held it up. “Do you think if I give it to you your dad will let me look at the inside of the house?”

Murphy barked.

Celie looked at Jacob, laughter in her eyes. “I’d say that’s a yes. What do you say, daddio?”

And he, this generation’s Trask loner, merely nodded.

Isaac Trask had been far more than just a maple-sugar-maker, Celie thought in the glorious entrance hall of the house. He’d had an architect’s sense of design combined with a builder’s meticulousness. The golden oak floors gleamed, the ceilings soared a good ten feet overhead. Sunlight streamed in through the beveled glass oval that lay in the center of the front door.

“My God, this is gorgeous,” she murmured.

“Isaac went ahead and lived in it even without Sarah Jane. He died pretty young—basically drank himself to death.”

How could something so beautiful come from tragedy? “It’s incredible, like something you’d see in Newport, Rhode Island. Tell me it didn’t just stay vacant.”

“Oh, different people from the family lived in it for a few years here and there. Never for long, though.”

“Bad karma?” she asked, but it didn’t feel forbidding. It seemed like a house that would welcome life and warmth.

“It was too remote, I think, even when we tried to rent it. Hard to find people who want to be so isolated.”

“So what happened?” She trailed her fingers over the antique wallpaper and turned to him. “Did it just sit empty?”

“More or less. My dad and my grandfather did enough to keep it from falling apart, anyway. You know, replacing windows and that. When I read Isaac’s journals, it really got to me. After that, I did some stuff here and there when I got the chance. I started in earnest when I moved in.”

“When was that?”

“About seventeen years ago. My parents wouldn’t let me until I’d turned eighteen, and then I wound up spending about a year working on major structural stuff first. Some of the subflooring had rotted out, and the porch pillars. Once I got that out of the way, it just came down to a lot of interior detail work.”

“Which you excel at,” she murmured, trailing her fingers over the gleaming moldings around the French doors leading to the living room. “May I?” she asked, tipping her head.

“Sure.”

The carpet was Persian and swirled in a complicated pattern of geometric wines and blues. An ornate plaster ceiling medallion surrounded the chain that held up the bronze-and-crystal light fixture. And the walls were almost entirely lined in bookshelves, bookshelves groaning with books. Some were leather-bound and perhaps dated back to Isaac’s time; mostly, the shelves were filled with the splashy color of paperbacks. She’d understood from Ray that Jacob read; she’d had no idea how much.

“Were the bookshelves Isaac’s idea?”

Jacob shifted his feet a little. “No, those were mine.”

“A house like this ought to have a library.”

“Yeah, but I like my books close at hand.”

Actually, the room felt like a library with its shelves and green lamps and its leather couches and chairs. And then she was surprised again, because next to the chair that faced the fireplace and sat under a brass floor lamp, the chair that was obviously Jacob’s favorite sat…

“You play guitar?” She sat down to admire the satiny wood of the well-worn and perfectly cared for acoustic.

He looked suddenly trapped. “Yeah, some.”

“How long have you played?”

“Oh, I don’t know, since I was about eleven, I think.”

She looked at him in amusement. “A little, he says? Twenty-five years? What do you play?”

“Oh, different stuff,” he said, drifting toward the door. “Old Creedence, roots music, some classical, some blues.”

He was uncomfortable, she realized. Solid, certain Jacob Trask was embarrassed. There was something about it that tugged at her heart. “Well, don’t walk away, play something for me.”

He stopped and stared at her. “I don’t play for people.”

“You must have played for your family, at least.”

He shifted uneasily. “It’s mostly just for me.”

“So Murph’s the only one who’s gotten a concert?”

Hearing his name, Murphy raised his head and rose from his cushion in the corner.

Jacob played with the dog’s ears absently. “Playing for other people turns it into something else. It’s not about impressing people for me. It’s just something I like to do.”

“How about if I promise not to be impressed?” Celie offered.

That had him fighting a smile. “Later,” he said, walking to the door.

“Is there going to be a later?”

His glance brought warmth to her cheeks. “We’ll see.”

The light was fading to dusk. The living room was empty but for Jacob and Murphy. The soft and somehow plaintive strains of an Appalachian finger-picking piece he’d found sounded through the room. He stopped and frowned. Play for me, she’d said. It was absurd for him to feel bashful at the idea. He’d probably sounded more than a little eccentric when he’d told her he hadn’t even played for his family. Not that he should care what Celie Favreau thought of him.