Vermont Valentine

And then she was gone and only small footprints in the snow gave any evidence that she’d ever been there at all.

How was someone that beautiful allowed to just walk around in the woods sneaking up on women? Celie wondered feverishly as she drove away. Good lord, the man made her palms sweat. Not to mention the fact that he’d come across her on his land without permission. Strictly against the policy and procedure manual her boss loved to wave in front of her face. You were required to get permission from property owners before venturing in, and mistakes—however well-intentioned—weren’t allowed. Oh yes, Gavin Masterson would have a field day with the incident. Shoot, it would give him fodder for a whole week of lectures.

Assuming he found out.

She breathed a silent prayer that the hunk of a property owner—the very large hunk of a property owner—would just let the incident go. Then again, there wasn’t much she could do about it if he didn’t. He’d do what he was going to do. All she could do in return was roll with the changes, something she’d always been good at.

“Thank God,” she muttered at the sight of the Woodward Institute sign at the side of the road. At least something was finally going right.

The Institute occupied an unprepossessing two-story building faced with biscuit-colored vinyl siding and roofed in pale brown. Rising behind it she saw the high venting peak of a sugarhouse. In all directions stretched different varieties of maples.

The inhabitants of the facility didn’t stand on ceremony. When she walked through the doors, she stepped into an empty reception area separated from the central room beyond by a waist-high wooden barrier fitted with a gate and a bell. To get someone’s attention, presumably, you rang, although she supposed yelling was always an option. The central area held a few cubicles inside the perimeter of offices. A number of the doors were open, letting winter sunlight stream through.

A bearded man in a flannel shirt and jeans stood in front of a copy machine. He glanced up at her, the light glinting off his gold-rimmed glasses. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Bob Ford.”

“You’ve found him.” He collected his copies and took the original off the glass plate. “Are you Celie?”

She nodded. “Sorry I’m late. I had some adventures finding the place.”

“I’m not surprised. We really need to sit down and redo our directions. Come on in.” He waved her through the barrier and put his hand out to shake. “Pleasure to meet you. Come on, my office is over here.”

She followed him along the aisle to where he turned in a door. “Wow.” She stopped short, staring through the wide band of windows at the sugarbush beyond. “Quite a view you’ve got here.”

“A corner office.” His teeth gleamed against his neatly trimmed silver beard. “The perks of command.”

At his gesture, she sat in the client chair. “It’s gorgeous up here.”

“We like to think so. It won’t be for long if your bug gets loose, though.”

Her bug. Celie had studied the scarlet-horned maple borer since undergraduate school, shocked by the toll it had exacted in Asia. Finding a way to destroy it became a personal mission, not just the subject of her doctorate. When the beetle had emerged as a threat to the northern forests of the United States, she and her advisor, Jack Benchley, had been recruited for the science advisory panel that determined a plan of action. From there, it had been only a short step to taking the job heading up the eradication program.

And there she’d been ever since, her name synonymous with a predator of increasing destructiveness.

“Do you think you’ve got things under control in New York?”

That was the question, wasn’t it. She moved her shoulders. “We took down a lot of trees. Will it help? I don’t know. I suppose in our own way we’re just as bad as the borer.”

“You don’t destroy trees for the sake of destruction,” Ford said quietly.

“Neither do they. They’re just going about the business of life.” But they were relentless, implacable, and every time she had to take out an acre of century-old trees it made her soul sick. “Do the sugar-makers around here know that you’ve discovered evidence of the borer?”

“We’ve done some inspections but I haven’t said anything. I thought you ought to get a look around. There’s a county growers’ meeting tomorrow night. You can fill them in on the details then, let them know what to expect.”

“When I figure that out, I’ll let you know.” Through the open door, she heard the sudden sound of voices as a group of people came in from outside.

Ford glanced out toward the central room and his jaw set a fraction. “You should be aware, we’ve also got an…official from the Vermont Division of Forestry to oversee the project.”

Hairs prickled on the back of her neck. “To oversee the project? This is a federal program. I’m running it.”

“Not in my state,” said a voice from the door.

Without turning, Celie knew who it was. Dick Rumson, the old guard head of forest resource protection for the state. Undereducated and overprotected, he was a political appointee who ran roughshod over far-more-qualified people by virtue of his connections. He’d wangled a spot on the science advisory panel for the maple borer and obdurately contested the findings put forth by Celie and Benchley. Fortunately, they’d had the data to back up every assertion, whereas he’d had only bluster. Ultimately, she and Benchley had carried all the votes, with Rumson as the lone holdout. That he still bitterly resented being shown up was obvious by the set of his beaky mouth.

“Dick,” she said smoothly, rising to put out her hand. “Good to see you again.”

“We can handle this ourselves,” Rumson said brusquely, ignoring Celie to aim a stare at Bob Ford. “We don’t need federal folks in here.”

“I think it’s too early to assume that,” Celie countered, jamming her hands in her pockets. “The staff here has reason to suspect an infestation, and I think they might be right.” Calm, she reminded herself. Calmness was the best way to get to him. He wasn’t a threat, only an irritant. Everything would be twice as hard and take twice as long with him around, but it would get done. “I’ll know more about the situation after I’ve had a chance to do some inspections.” She toyed with the items in her pocket: a coin, a paperclip, a hard cylinder she didn’t remember putting in there.

“We’ve already inspected and we haven’t found anything. You might as well save your time.”

“Now, Dick,” Ford began, “you know we’ve found—”

“You university types jump to conclusions,” Rumson said contemptuously. “I’ve got a staff of experienced forestry specialists and we haven’t found anything.”

Celie touched the hard cylinder again. The sample vial, she realized. “Really?” She brought it out. “You want to tell me what this is, then?”

Rumson squinted over at it. “What’s that?”

“A sample from a bore hole.”

Rumson gave a contemptuous snort. “That’s bark.”

“Look closer,” she invited. “That greenish powder on the top might be maple-borer fungi.”

“Or it could just be bark dust.”

“You want to come into the lab with me and find out?”

“I don’t have time for this load of time-wasting horse hockey,” he barked, a sure sign he was feeling on unsteady ground.

“I’ll be happy to call you with the results,” Celie said silkily. “I’m not doing this for entertainment, Dick. If the maple borer is in your woods, we’ve got to find it and act quickly. Unless you want to lose your entire maple syrup industry and all those tourist dollars the leaf peepers bring in the fall. How many billion dollars does that add up to again?”

Rumson’s face turned a dull red. “Now just a minute here. Don’t you think you can come in and just start clearing acres. How do I know you didn’t bring that in?”

“Careful, Dick.” Somehow, Ford’s voice managed to be both mild and steely with warning.

Rumson worked his jaw a moment in silence. “I want to talk with your supervisor.”

“I’ll be happy to give you his number. We need to work together on this.”

“I saw how you cooperated at the advisory panel meeting,” he said, his expression sullen. “I want my team overseeing everything you do.”

“I’ll go you one better. Once I’ve trained them, your team can be involved in every inspection. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and very little time to do it in. We’re going to need every pair of eyeballs we can get.”

“If you think that—”

“What I think is that as head of resource protection you want what’s best for your forests, Dick. I’ve always thought that. How we work out the specifics is just details.” She gave him a friendly, open smile.

It stopped him for a long moment while he tried to work out a response. “Don’t think this is over,” he said finally, turning toward the door.

Celie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Trust me, Dick, I know it’s only the start.”

Chapter Two

“Sorry you had to deal with that,” Ford said as Rumson slammed out. “I was going to warn you but there wasn’t time.”

Celie shrugged. “I should have expected it. Dick and I go back a ways.” And little of their history was pleasant.

Ford studied her. “Is he going to get in the way of you getting the job done?”

“I’m sure he’ll try, but he’s never managed to be more than an annoyance so far.”

“Let me see that sample.” He reached out a hand and she passed over the glass cylinder.

Ford studied it, turning it over in his hands. “You really think this is the fungus?”

“I don’t know. It’s not as green as it usually is but the trunk showed the typical thickening of the bark, and holes, although they looked like a bird had been at them. Hard to say if they were made by our boy or not.”

“Where’d you see it?”

“A sugarbush on the way here. I’m not sure where. I ran into the owner while I was out there—a big, tall guy with black hair.” And shoulders to die for but she didn’t figure he wanted to hear that.

“Jacob Trask,” Ford said. “He’s got about a hundred acres of maples adjoining the Institute.” He shook his head. “Let’s hope this is just bark in here. He lost his father last spring. That family doesn’t need any more bad news.”

He hadn’t looked like someone’s son but like some wood-master sprung out of the earth to walk the forest, with his black hair and those cheekbones and those eyes, those impossibly blue eyes. And he’d stood there staring at her until all she’d been able to do was babble like an idiot and scramble away before she just started whimpering and salivating right there in front of him.

“Well, there’s nothing for it,” Ford said, handing the sample vial back and rising. “You’ve got to do your job. Come on, I’ll show you the cube and the lab you can use.”

The cubicle was small but more than adequate for her purposes. The lab facilities were what counted. It was there that the major detective work went on, there that the test she’d developed could confirm or deny the presence of the maple borer.

Setting down her computer bag, Celie began to pull out files and hook up her computer to the network.

“About damned time you showed up to do some work,” said a voice from the doorway.

Celie whipped around to stare at the rangy blonde who leaned against the cubicle entrance. “Marce!” She jumped up and threw her arms around the newcomer. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You, too.” Marce gave her another squeeze and released her. “I thought you were coming in last night.”

“I left you a message. I got a late start yesterday so I just stopped somewhere overnight and finished up this morning.”

Marce eyed her. “Tell me it wasn’t some rest stop.”

“Why do you think I got the camper shell put on?” Celie said reasonably.

“It was one thing when we were in grad school,” Marce protested. “You’ve got a job now. You can afford to stay in a real hotel with real locks and a real bed.”

“On a government travel stipend?” Celie snorted. “Anyway, I’m going to be staying in a real bed while I’m here, aren’t I? Didn’t you tell me you got rid of your futon in the guest room?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s already a step up from my camper shell and what I’ve got back in Maryland.”

“You’re still sleeping on a futon? Celie, you’re practically thirty.”

“And I spend a day or two there a month if I’m lucky. I ought just to rent a storage unit and bunk there.”

Marce rolled her eyes. “You’re no better than you were in grad school.”

“Hey, your average storage facility is miles better than that pit we all lived in during grad school.”

“Agreed.” Marce grinned. “Anyway, it’s almost the end of the day. Why don’t we knock off early and get you settled? I made a pot of barley soup last night.”

“Still into the junk food, I see.”

“I don’t consider burgers and potato chips two of the major food groups, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well I do. So I’ve got a better idea: let’s knock off early, get me settled and scare up a pizza.”

“All right,” Marce sighed, “I can tell when I’m beat.”

“I can’t believe you. I live here for three years and I barely see anyone human. You stop in the woods to sample a tree and you stumble across a god?” Marce shook her head and bit into a slice of pepperoni pizza.

“It’s not like he was falling at my feet or anything,” Celie pointed out. “In fact, I think he was pretty pissed that I was in his trees. All I wanted to do was get out of there.”

“Before or after you decided to have his baby?”

“His baby? Maybe in a parallel universe.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see him in a parallel universe? I can’t think of anyone around here who looks like that. Trust me, I’d have remembered.”

“Bob Ford said it was someone named Jacob Trask.”

“Jacob Trask?” Marce almost dropped her pizza. “Wait a minute, the Jacob Trask I know looks like the kind of guy who trapped beaver during the Gold Rush. We can’t be talking about the same person. I mean, he’s big enough but…”

“Well, I didn’t describe him in exhaustive detail to Bob. Maybe he had it wrong.” Celie raised her beer bottle.

“Let’s hope so. Jacob Trask is not the friendliest guy around, I’ll warn you. I had to go out and help him thin his sugarbush last year. I think I got two words out of him the whole time. Of course,” she said thoughtfully, “that’s not exactly going to be a problem for you.”

Celie froze with the bottle at her lips. “Are you suggesting I talk too much?”

“Far be it from me to suggest. I mean, I do use semaphore with you when you get on a roll, but I’m sure there are times when you’re merely voluble rather than garrulous.”

“I just talk a lot when I’m nervous,” Celie protested.

“I guess you spend all your time nervous, then,” Marce replied, ducking when Celie tossed a wadded-up napkin at her.

“Serve you right if I never talk again.”

Marce snorted. “That’ll be the day.”

Jacob walked the hall of the James Woodward Elementary School, remembering the days he’d run down the tile floors to the playground at recess. He’d always hated being cooped up inside; he didn’t fit. He fitted outdoors, in the sugarbush. Going into class was something to put off until the last minute.

The passage of years had made it no different, even if he was going to a growers’ meeting now instead of a class. It still meant a room full of people and making conversation. Granted, the talk was mostly about sugaring, but still, he’d rather be at home with a book or playing guitar than standing about searching for things to say.

The auditorium echoed with the voices of sugar-makers, louder than usual. When he saw the cluster of people crowded around the coffee machine, he wondered if some kind soul had brought in free food. And then the crowd parted enough for him to see what was attracting all the attention.

Or who.

It was the pixie he’d stumbled over in his maples. She wasn’t enveloped in a parka now but stood in narrow red trousers and a shiny white blouse with a little black and white checked sweater over the top. She looked impossibly lively and bright against the muted tones of the clothing around her, seeming to take up more room than just her body would explain, as though her energy occupied physical space.

She’d stuck in his mind after he’d seen her the day before. At odd moments he’d thought of those laughing eyes, that soft, tempting mouth. And when he’d closed his own eyes and fallen into sleep, she’d drifted through his dreams, leaving him to wake feeling vaguely restless.

Now, he watched her amid the crowd, animated and quick as a butterfly. And he heard her laughter, spilling out across the room in a bubbly arpeggio that invited everyone around to join in. For a moment, he was tempted to go over. Only to find out who she was, he told himself, not to get a better look. Then again, given the fact that she’d shown up in his trees one day and at the growers’ meeting the next, it was pretty obvious she had something to do with the Institute.

And if he’d figured that out, there was no point in fighting his way through the crowd to talk with her. Not his style, first of all. Second, he had more important things to focus on than a pretty face and an inviting laugh. Like finding out the status of the situation and what, if anything, his exposure was. He’d done his Internet research, he knew the enormous risk posed by the maple borer. Now he had to find out what that meant for him, personally.

At the front of the room, Bob Ford from the Institute tapped the mike. “Okay, everybody, let’s get started.” He waited a few minutes as people drifted toward the rows of seats. “There are some contact sheets being circulated. Please fill them out and hand them in as you leave. We need to update our roster.”

Someone handed Jacob a clipboard. He pulled out a pen and bent over the form, filling out the top. When he looked at the questions, though, he frowned. Number of taps? Monoculture or mixed population forest? What the hell?

Then a scent drifted over to him, something tempting and subtle and essentially female. Something immediately distracting. He glanced up to see her sitting beside him.

And all his senses vaulted to the alert.

“Hi,” she whispered. “Is this seat taken?”

Low and quiet, with a little husk of promise beneath it. The way she might sound over drinks, in some dark, quiet bar.

Or in a bedroom, late at night.

“All yours,” he said, fighting the image.

Her smile bloomed like a summer flower.

At the podium, Ford cleared his throat. “Since I know everyone here, I’m going to skip introducing myself and get to business. As some of you may have heard, there have been scarlet-horned maple borer outbreaks in New York. It’s something we need to be concerned about here. Understand, if this thing gets a chance to spread it can take down entire forests. Entire forests, people. No maple syrup, no fall foliage, no tourist dollars, nothing.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve invited Celie Favreau of APHIS, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, to come to the Woodward Institute to take a look around the area. She’s going to tell you a little more about what we’re up against and what happens next. Celie?”

“Wish me luck,” Celie murmured, squaring her shoulders and rising to walk to the front of the room. From a distance, she looked even smaller than she had in the woods. She didn’t stand behind the podium but leaned against the table next to it, microphone in hand.

“Good evening. I’m Celie Favreau with APHIS. I head up the program to eradicate the scarlet-horned maple borer. How many know something about the beetle?” Only a sprinkling of hands went up, including Jacob’s, and she nodded. “All right, let me give you a quick rundown. The scarlet-horned maple borer is a nasty customer. It’s about half an inch long and is often mistaken for a benign bark beetle unless you look closely at the horns. Unlike the bark beetle, though, the maple borer targets live wood, not dead. And it’s particularly fond of maples.

“It bores through the bark down near the root collar and lays its eggs at the cambium, where the bark and wood interface. Over the course of a few weeks, a fertilized female can lay several dozen eggs in galleries in the first few rings of wood. When the eggs hatch, the larvae live on the cambium. I don’t need to tell any of you what that means.”

No indeed. A few dozen larvae merrily eating their way into maturity could easily girdle a tree. No fluids could travel from root to leaf. Presto, instant death. Jacob could hear the rustling around him as his fellow sugar-makers took it all in. It wasn’t news to him but he still felt the hot press of anxiety.

“Of course,” Celie continued, “there’s a bigger problem than just girdling. The maple borer carries a fungus that’s deadly to maples. Each time a borer works its way into the tree, the fungus spores rub off on the sides of the hole. At that point, the tree is both infected and infested and it’s just a matter of time. Our trap tests have shown that the mature beetle will range up to a hundred yards in search of a suitable host tree.”

There was some shifting and muttering at this. Celie scanned the room, making eye contact with each of them in turn. “So you see what we’re up against. We can’t take chances with this one. If one adult gets loose, population growth is exponential. And that means if we find any infestations, we have to take radical action to control them.”

In the audience, a craggy-faced man with a lantern jaw raised a hand. “Just how radical do you mean?”

“It’s pointless to talk about action until we’ve investigated the scope of the problem. I’ll be teaming up with forestry specialists from the Institute and the state to cover as much territory as possible before the days warm up. We can’t afford to play wait and see. The maple borer hatches early, so we’ve got to find any infestation pronto and take measures.”

“And they are?” the sugar-maker persisted.

Celie took a breath. “We have to take down any infested trees we find, plus a buffer circle of at least a hundred and fifty yards in radius around that host tree. The felled trees have to be cut up, chipped and burned immediately, and the stumps ground down to eight inches below ground level.”

An angry buzz erupted in the room. The men who’d been charmed by her weren’t charmed any more. “You’re talking about clearing acres,” a burly redhead protested.

“Let’s not get ahead of things,” she said calmly. “We don’t even know what we’re dealing with, yet. In Michigan, they called me in and I didn’t find a sign of infestation.”

“And in New York, you cut down half the state,” the craggy-faced man retorted.

For an instant, Jacob thought, she looked like she didn’t know whether to sigh or laugh. Instead, she merely shook her head. “We took out a total of twelve hundred trees, spread across three different sugarbushes and a town common. I don’t take felling trees lightly.” She looked around the room. “But I’ve seen what the maple borer can do and I’m ready to do everything in my power to stop it. If there’s infestation here, all of your trees are at risk. All of them. I hope you’ll cooperate with me to stop it.”

“You’re not here for your health. You’re here because you know there’s a problem,” the redhead accused.

She hesitated and locked eyes with Jacob. She’d been crouched at the foot of his tree, he remembered, and felt the clutch of foreboding in his gut. “I’ve seen early signs that might be cause for concern. If we take care of things quickly, before the weather warms up, we can get a handle on it. If anything slows that down, well, this time next year your sugar-bushes are going to look very different.” She let out a breath. “Next question?”

The session dragged on nearly an hour before Celie finally passed around handouts on the maple borer. Jacob waited impatiently for the meeting to end. He didn’t need handouts. He didn’t need to hear any more questions. What he needed was to talk to Celie Favreau.