Page 16 of Treated to a Mountain Man
"But she is you."
"She was me. At my worst. At my most desperate." Tears streamed down her face now. "Do you want to be defined by your worst moment? By the thing you did to survive when you had no other choice?"
"It's not the same—"
"Isn't it? You hide up here, pushing everyone away because you got burned once. That's your coping mechanism. Mine was selling the only thing I had left to sell. Neither one is particularly healthy, but at least I'm trying to move forward."
"By lying about it?"
"By starting over! By trying to be something more than what I was forced to become. That's what recovery means—becoming someone new, someone better."
"Built on a foundation of lies."
She stared at me for a long moment, then shook her head. "You know what? You're right. This was all built on lies. The lie that you might be different. The lie that you could see past the surface. The lie that I deserved a second chance."
She turned toward her car.
"Where are you going? We have work to finish."
"No, you have work to finish. I'm done. The deal's off." She spun back to face me. "Thanks for nothing, Sawyer. Thanks for reminding me that no matter how hard I work, no matter how much I change, I'll always just be Sweet Cinn to people like you."
"Cinn, wait—"
But she was already in her car, gravel spraying as she tore down the mountain road.
THE SILENCE SHE LEFTbehind was deafening.
I stood on the porch, staring at the thermos lying on its side, coffee pooling around it and seeping into the wood. The scones she'd brought lay scattered where the basket had fallen.
Slowly, I cleaned up the mess, wiping up the spilled coffee with an old rag. Her words echoed in my head. Choosing between degradation and death. Car accident. Opioid addiction. Rehab.
The sugar shack felt wrong without her. I tried to work, collecting sap from the buckets we'd set together, but every tree reminded me of her. How she'd compared everything to candy making. The way she'd squared her shoulders when things got difficult.
By evening, I found myself back at the laptop, searching differently this time. Found fragments—a Cinnamon M. from Pennsylvania at some charity event, an old honor roll listing, a mention in an article about the opioid crisis. Pieces of a life that had derailed and been rebuilt.
I couldn't find the whole story, but I found enough. The woman in those images hadn't been running a con. She'd been surviving.
I thought about Dad, how losing everything to Sweetland had killed him. But at least he'd had family, the land, something to fall back on. Cinn had faced her catastrophe alone.
The truth hit me like cold water. I hadn't been angry about her past. I'd been looking for an excuse to push her away before she could leave on her own. Just like Beth had.
But Cinn wasn't Beth. She'd stuck it out through every challenge I'd thrown at her. Until I'd finally found the one thing that could drive her off—my own cowardice dressed up as righteous anger.
I stood at the window, looking out at the sugar maples in the fading light. What was the point of protecting myself so carefully that I drove away anyone who mattered?
The hair tie sat on the mantle. Such a small thing, but it felt like evidence now. Proof of what I'd wrecked.
I poured a whiskey and sat in Dad's old chair. Tomorrow I'd finish the harvest alone. Give her the syrup I owed her. Watch her win that competition and get on with her life.
The whiskey burned going down. Cinn was right—I was a coward on a mountain, judging others for battles they'd fought while nursing my own smaller wounds.
My father died, but she'd rebuilt from nothing. My trust got broken, but she'd lost everything and started over. I'd had family support. She'd been completely alone.
And when she'd finally trusted me enough to let me in, I'd thrown it in her face.
No wonder she'd slapped me.
Outside, the maple trees stood silent in the darkness. Tomorrow the work would continue. But tonight I sat with the truth—I'd just run off the best thing to find me in years because facing my own feelings was scarier than facing her past.
