MORE THAN PANCAKES
BY CHRISTINE DEPETRILLO
Rick Stannard makes maple syrup and builds barns in
the peace and quiet of picturesque Vermont. Noisy New York City nearly killed
him a few years back, and now he lives a calm, simple life with his coyote,
Poe, and his beloved book collection. It’s the only way he’s guaranteed to wake
up each morning.
When Lily marches her expensive boots onto Rick’s land
and proposes turning it into a mega resort, the serenity of the woods is
shattered. Lily always closes a deal. Rick never intends to sell. They’ll need
to compromise, or someone else will do it for them. Someone who is not afraid
of the woods or the city.
Or spilling a little blood.
BUYLINKS:
First Chapter:
“Leave it, Poe. Quit fooling
around.”
Rick Stannard wrestled his
glove away from his coyote. She was forever burying, slobbering all over, or
chewing holes in his good work gloves. Ever since he’d rescued the abandoned,
starving pup from the woods at the edge of his property, he’d been living with
the eccentricities of having an animal meant for the wild living in his cabin.
He’d trained her. Knew she wouldn’t attack him while he slept, but now and
then, her feral nature would flare up. Poe considered it playing, and most of
the time so did Rick, but today he had to insert the taps on his maple trees
and inspect the lines. The sap was about to run and that meant the Stannard
Mountain Pure Vermont Maple Syrup Company—Rick’s company—was all systems green.
“C’mon, you beast. We don’t
have all morning to waste. We’ve got work to do.” Rick gave a final tug that
freed his glove from Poe’s jaws. He stumbled back, landing on his backside on
the hickory floor of his small kitchen. “Brat.” He swiped Poe’s muzzle with his
glove.
The coyote licked his hand and happily
trotted beside Rick as he went into the garage to load his sled with the
necessary tools. Clothed in his snow pants, thermal shirt, fleece jacket, knit
hat, boots, and snowshoes, Rick was ready for a day out on his three-hundred
acre property in the woods of Danton, Vermont. He’d upgraded his equipment, all
gravity-fed lines, about three years back. The only assistance he accepted was
from his aunt, Joy Stannard, and his cousins, Hope and Sage, who ran the bakery
and book swap storefront of the business during the late winter and early
spring months. Customers needed a cozy, friendly little shop from which to
purchase their maple products. Rick didn’t do cozy or friendly, but Aunt Joy
and his cousins excelled in both areas.
Leaving the sled outside, he
pushed open the door to the storefront and let Poe scurry in first.
“Morning, Rick! I was
thinking if we arranged the tables this way, it would allow for more
interaction between customers, and if the customers interact more, this place
could become the social center of Danton. It would mean more sales, more book
swapping, more action. Sometimes this place can be such a tomb, but with the
tables like this, maybe some hot, interesting guys will come in and whisk me
away to—”
Rick held up two hands
to stop Hope from continuing her verbal assault. Too much. Too early.
“Sorry.” Hope pushed in
a chair at one of the tables she’d moved. “I forgot you aren’t a morning
person.”
“Isn’t much of an
afternoon or evening person either,” Sage, Hope’s sister, called from behind
the pastry case where she had been vacuuming the shelves.
Rick shot her a glare
to which she responded with a snarl that ended in a grin.
“What brings you
amongst the people, Grouch?” Sage gathered her long, blond hair into a ponytail
then leaned against the pastry case.
Rick pointed down to
his winter attire. “What does it look like I’m going to do?”
“Sumo wrestle with
Bigfoot?” Hope offered, making Sage chuckle.
“If you weren’t so busy
turning this place into a dating club, you’d know what’s going on.” Rick pulled
his glove off to scratch Poe between the ears as the coyote pushed her muzzle
into his knee.
“I’m not turning it
into a dating club, Rick.” Hope gestured to the tables arranged in a tight
little formation that made him a little claustrophobic. “It looks better this
way, doesn’t it?”
“It looked fine the old
way.” Rick shrugged.
“How is it that you’re
only six years older than me but seem as if you’re eighty-six years
older?” Sage asked. “Change is good, old man.”
He knew Sage was only
busting his chops, but it stung a little today. He didn’t know why, which made
him feel exactly like an old man.
“I don’t care what you
do with the tables, Hope, as long as there are tables and they’re clean.” Rick
headed for the door. “Where’s Aunt Joy?” And why do I want her around?
Because Hope and Sage are picking on me? Foolish.
“She went into town to
buy some fabric. Don’t freak out, Rick.” Hope grabbed his biceps and opened her
brown eyes real wide as she stood on tiptoes in a useless attempt to look him
in the eye. “She wants to make new curtains for these windows. Now I realize
she didn’t clear it with you first, O Master of Keeping the Status Quo, but I
don’t think a curtain change will destroy the world as we know it.”
Rick growled at Hope,
and she laughed along with Sage. Even Poe let out a few short barks that
sounded like chuckling.
“Whose side are you on,
mutt?” He nudged Poe with his knee, and the coyote let out a whimper of
apology.
“You headed out now?”
Sage asked.
“Yep.”
“Take this.” Sage placed
a thermos on top of the pastry case and slid it toward him. “Minestrone like no
other, Cuz.”
For all her poking fun,
Sage took care of him just as Aunt Joy and Hope did. They were his family, all
he had. All he needed.
“Thanks.” He took the
thermos and held it out of Poe’s reach as the coyote tried to climb up his leg
for it. “Down. No meat in this one.” He tapped her on the nose, and Poe sank to
all fours. Even if the soup did have meat in it, he wasn’t sharing. Everything
Sage made tasted like heaven. That was what made her a fantastic caterer when
it wasn’t sugaring season. She was busy cooking all times of the year. And her
cookies? Off the charts tasty.
“I’ve got some website
updates I’ve been working on.” Hope gestured to her laptop on one of the tables
she’d moved. She handled all their online sales, promotional materials, and
website. She was awesome at it too, which was good because Rick didn’t want to
handle that stuff. Lots of people didn’t want to handle that stuff, so Hope was
busy with that work in the off season.
“Okay,” Rick said.
“Make them happen. I’m sure it’s all good.”
Hope patted his cheek.
“I love that I have you trained to believe I’m always right.”
“Except when you move
my tables.”
Hope stuck her tongue
out at him then said, “Don’t get lost out there.”
“Have I ever?” Rick
zipped the front of his fleece coat.
“No,” Sage said, “but
we can dream.” She smiled sweetly and turned on the vacuum again.
He could still hear his
cousins’ laughter as he left the store with Poe on his heels. He put on his hat
and picked up the cable attached to his sled. A day out in the tranquility of
the woods stretched before him, and he couldn’t think of a more perfect way to
spend his time. The morning sky was clear, and a fresh snow had fallen last
night making his property seem like uncharted territory, free from any
indications of civilization.
On a whistle, Rick and
Poe headed out. His snowshoes cut a trail across the blank white page of his
land, and he fell into the easy rhythm of his work. He moved at a steady pace,
covering more ground than he’d expected. The terrain was a bit hilly in this
section of the sugar bush, but he pushed onward. He chewed up some of his time
watching a moose and her calf at the edge of the still frozen Cassie’s Pond.
The cow’s ears constantly twitched as she listened for signs of danger. The
baby huddled beside her, its thick brown coat lightly dusted with snow.
When a hawk cried
overhead, the cow nudged her baby and the two wandered deeper into the woods.
Woods that weren’t a part of Rick’s property, but were tapped by him. When he’d
first started his syrup business on his land, he’d cut a deal with his neighbor
to lease and tap her trees. She received a specified amount of money per tap
for the intrusion, which she didn’t seem to mind, and Rick always supplied her
with free syrup every year. She was a great neighbor. Not around much and as
respectful of his privacy as he was of hers. A marvelous business arrangement
if such a concept existed. Someday Rick hoped to own her land when she was
ready to sell it and double his empire without having to go all big city and
corporate.
He continued inserting
spiles until the sun faded and hunger knocked on the walls of his stomach. He’d
install the taps on his neighbor’s trees tomorrow and spend tonight going
through three boxes of donated books back at his cabin for the book swap. The
bonus was he got first dibs on anything of interest in the donations, and he’d
made some good finds in the past. An early edition Kafka. A leather-bound
collection of Shakespeare plays. An autographed Jane Austen. Those finds were
now displayed on the floor to ceiling bookcases that lined three of Rick’s
living room walls.
Anticipating the buzz
he always got when surrounded by books, he pulled his sled around to head home,
but as he turned he dropped the rope attached to the sled. He was on enough of
a hill that the sled immediately slid away from him. Not wanting to have to
chase the sled and his tools all the way to the bottom, Rick ran after it in
his snowshoes.
No easy feat.
He started off all
right until the tip of his left snowshoe got caught under a fallen branch
hidden below the snow. His ankle made an unnatural grinding sound as his foot
stayed wedged in one direction and his body fell the opposite way. He let out a
howl of pain that had Poe darting over to sniff his face.
“Back, Poe.” Rick
pushed the coyote out of his space, but she circled around him, sniffing and
whimpering.
The hurt in his ankle
was a slow burning that got hotter as he tried to release his boot from the
snowshoe. Every movement sent ripples of fire up his entire left leg. After too
many minutes of struggling, he finally managed to unfasten the straps. His foot
spilled off the snowshoe and when it landed in the snow, he hurled a shout into
the arm of his fleece jacket. The muffled agony further agitated Poe who began
howling. A few dogs replied, and Rick suddenly felt very Stephen King.
Not a great feeling.
Knowing it would be
dark soon, he tried to stand. That went okay until he put his weight on his
left foot and crumpled right back down to the ground.
Da**it. I don’t need this now.
He grumbled under his
breath as Poe ran a little ahead of their position and then galloped back to
him. When she came close enough to sniff him again, he grabbed her. Pointing
her toward the sled resting at the bottom of the hill, he said, “Go get it. Get
it, Poe.”
Poe barked once and
shot down the hill toward the sled. She dug in the snow a bit and touched her
nose to the ground. When she raised her head, the rope was in her teeth. She
bounded back up the hill with the sled gliding along behind her, and Rick
cursed over his stupidity.
What good is having a coyote if I don’t know how to use her?
Poe continued past him
with the sled until it rested on level land. The coyote stood by the sled and
barked at him as if to say, “C’mon. Let’s go.”
“Would love to, Poe.”
As much as he didn’t want to, Rick untied his boot and slid it off with a few
grunts of pain. He removed his thermal sock and glanced at the instant swelling
in his ankle. That was the last thing he saw.
When he opened his eyes
again, the snow-covered canopy of trees had been replaced by the
tongue-and-groove pine ceiling of his living room. He was still in the jeans
he’d worn during the day and his thermal shirt, but a flannel blanket had been
thrown over him. Good thing too, because he was freezing.
And maybe a little
dizzy. Definitely tired as all hell.
“You awake, sugar?”
Aunt Joy came in from the kitchen.
He attempted to sit up,
but found he didn’t have the strength.
“Easy, Rick. Take it
slow.” Aunt Joy stood over him with a smile on her face he knew was forced.
“How’d I get back
here?”
“When nine o’clock
rolled around and we didn’t see this face,” she bent to pat his cheek, “we knew
something not good had happened.”
Aunt Joy helped him
wiggle up to a sitting position on the couch, and a plastic air cast spanning
up to his calf stared back at him from the armrest on the other end. Rick let
out a groan and flopped his head onto the back of the couch.
“Yeah, it’s severely
sprained. Doctor Reslin made a special house call so we didn’t have to take you
to the h-o-s-p-i-t-a-l.” Aunt Joy whispered the letters, and despite his
situation, Rick appreciated the woman’s tenderness. She knew better than
anybody how much he hated hospitals.
“The police found you
in the snow, one shoe on, one shoe off, and out cold in more ways than one.”
Aunt Joy sat on the edge of the old chest Rick used as a coffee table and
rested her chin in her hands. “Gave an old lady a good scare, sugar. I don’t
like when you do that.”
He pulled his gaze from
the cast and looked at Aunt Joy’s face. Her brown eyes were watery, her nose a
little red. He reached his hand over and tugged one of hers out from beneath
her chin. Giving it a squeeze, he said, “I’m sorry, Aunt Joy. I tripped. It was
stupid.”
“It was an accident.
Could happen to anyone.” She placed her other hand atop his. “Just glad you’re
okay. You’re a miserable hermit most of the time, but I kind of love you, you
know?”
“I love you too.”
“Of course you do.
Nobody takes better care of you than me.” Aunt Joy patted his cheek again and
stood. “Okay, here’s the scoop. Cast for a few weeks. Stay off the ankle for
the rest of this week and keep it elevated, then Doc left you a cane so you can
hobble around.”
Rick opened his mouth
to protest, but Aunt Joy waved him off. “I know. I know. ‘Aunt Joy, how am I
supposed to stay off my feet when there’s so much to do?’ Listen, kid, this is
the way the cards got dealt this hand. Roll with it.”
She made it sound like
no big deal. No big deal that he was reduced to the functioning level of an
infant during a key time for his syrup business.
“It doesn’t hurt that
much,” Rick said.
“That’s because you’ve got these in you.” Aunt Joy reached
to an end table by the couch and shook an orange bottle of prescription pills.
“Wonder drugs. Once they wear off, you’ll be writhing in pain.” She leaned in
close to his ear. “Here’s a tip, sugar. Don’t let them wear off.”
****
Christine DePetrillo tried not being a writer. She attempted to ignore the voices in her head, but they would not stop. The only way she could achieve peace and quiet was to write the stories the voices demanded. Today, she writes tales meant to make you laugh, maybe make you sweat, and definitely make you believe in the power of love.
She lives in
Rhode Island and occasionally Vermont with her husband, two cats, and a big,
black German Shepherd who guards her fiercely against all evils.
ONLINE LINKS:
WEBSITE: www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com
TWITTER: at @cdepetrillo
www.rosesofprose.blogspot.com
--on the 4th and 14th of every month
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