Length7h 20m
About this audiobook
The joint tapping requirement passed unanimously. All competitors must work in teams of two to access designated groves. Safety concerns, insurance liability, a letter from a lawyer.
*"I've been tapping those maples since I was twelve. My father tapped them. My grandfather tapped them. Nobody ever needed a partner then."*
His sister Maeve is working the lunch shift at the diner and has quietly stopped thinking about culinary school in Burlington and started applying. His brother Finn walks with a cane. And the loan their father's illness got deferred is not deferred any longer: forty-three thousand dollars, due in two months. The competition prize is fifty thousand, and only if he wins it.
Then the door opens and the temperature drops.
Caleb Hartwell walks in with a pressed flannel, clean jeans, boots that look like they have never touched mud, and a leather satchel that cost more than Liam's entire wardrobe. His father Harold fills the doorway behind him and does not acknowledge Liam at all.
*"If you can't find a partner, that's your problem. Not mine."*
Nobody in Maplewood will partner against the Hartwells, because everybody in Maplewood depends on them for something. The hardware store. The lumber yard. The winter plowing contracts.
And then Caleb turns up at midnight on a Tuesday, looking like a man who has run out of angles, and makes the offer himself. Combine the operations. Liam's trees and his knowledge, Caleb's equipment.
What comes after that is a season of shared shifts at the evaporator with sap residue drying on their forearms, a secret Caleb never asks Liam to keep, a cardiologist with a number she does not want to say out loud, and a man learning what it costs to stop being his father's son.
It ends with a certificate on heavy paper, gold embossed, naming the highest score in festival history. A committee voting to suspend the team rule. A brother standing straight without his cane the night before surgery. And Harold Hartwell in the sugar shack doorway with a hospital bracelet still peeking out from under his coat sleeve, asking his son for five minutes outside.
A closed-door small-town MM romance about two rival maple families, a debt nobody can outwork, and the moment competing stops being the point.
Audiobook details
GenreRomance, Biography and Memoir
Length7 hrs 20 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 15, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Dedication
2Chapter 1 - The Sap Bucket I Almost Threw at His Head
3Chapter 2 - The Oath I Made at My Father’s Grave
4Chapter 3 - The Sugar Shack I Promised I’d Never Enter with Him
5Chapter 4 - The Call I Never Expected at Midnight
Mostrar todos os capítulosVer menos
6Chapter 5 - The Pancake That Almost Broke Me
7Chapter 6 - The Secret He Didn’t Ask Me to Keep
8Chapter 7 - The Betrayal I Should Have Seen Coming
9Chapter 8 - The Porch Light I Left On
10Chapter 9 - The Taste of Sap and Apology
11Chapter 10 - The Town Meeting I Couldn’t Avoid
12Chapter 11 - The First Time I Chose Him Over Sense
13Chapter 12 - The Promise I Made Under the Sap Bucket
14Chapter 13 - The Hospital Room Where Everything Changed
15Chapter 14 - The Dinner I Dreaded
16Chapter 15 - The Distance He Put Between Us
17Chapter 16 - The Last Straw I Picked Up
18Chapter 17 - The Race I Lost Before It Started
19Chapter 18 - The Truth That Broke the Rest of Me
20Chapter 19 - The Goodbye I Didn’t Get to Make
21Chapter 20 - The Fury That Freed Him
22Chapter 21 - The Grand Gesture I Didn’t Deserve
23Chapter 22 - The Sap Run That Saved Us Both
24Chapter 23 - The Promise I Kept to Myself
25The End
26About the Author
27Also by Emmy Sutton
28Acknowledgements
29A Note from the Author
More from Emmy Sutton
Realm of FrostEmmy Sutton6h 53m$5
Realm of SilverEmmy Sutton7h 8m$5
The Rival's BargainEmmy Sutton7h 52m$5
The Rival's SecretEmmy Sutton8h 34m$5
The Rival's WeaknessEmmy Sutton8h 20m$5
The Roommate's SecretEmmy Sutton8h 8m$5
The Roommate's VowEmmy Sutton7h 46m$5
The Roommate's ConfessionEmmy Sutton7h 49m4.2 (1.4K)$5
The Rival's EnemyEmmy Sutton8h 50m$5
Realm of RuinEmmy Sutton7h 52m$5
The Don's DebtEmmy Sutton7h 12m4.2 (3.1K)$5
The Don's EmpireEmmy Sutton8h 41m$5
Her Duty Bound DefenderSharee Stover6h 30m4.6 (559)$12 · $0.00
Defending from DangerJodie Bailey5h 46m4.6 (588)$24 · $0.00
White HotIlona Andrews13h 18m4.5 (136.9K)$5 · $0.00
Explosive RevengeMaggie K. Black6h 18m4.6 (545)$12 · $0.00
Her Brand of JusticeB.J. Daniels6h 48m4.6 (1.3K)$12 · $0.00
Search And DetectTerri Reed5h 51m4.6 (706)$24 · $0.00
Driving ForceElle James4h 58m4.6 (407)$20 · $0.00
Danger in the WildernessDarlene L. Turner6h 54m4.7 (299)$12 · $0.00
Yukon JusticeDana Mentink6h 15m4.6 (751)$12 · $0.00
The Rogue WarriorCindy Roland Anderson5h 44m4.6 (410)$17 · $0.00
Trail Of ThreatsJessica R. Patch5h 47m4.6 (425)$24 · $0.00
Ironwood, a Fae Universe SeriesAlessa Thorn26h 57m4.6 (835)$30 · $0.00
Ready to ProtectValerie Hansen5h 38m4.6 (981)$24 · $0.00
Searching For EvidenceCarol J. Post6h 21m4.6 (552)$24 · $0.00
New Beginnings at Lullbury BayGeorgia Hill6h 59m4.6 (423)$13 · $0.00
Hiding in MontanaLaura Scott6h 18m4.6 (1K)$12 · $0.00
Christmas K-9 Unit HeroesLenora Worth, Katy Lee5h 51m4.6 (507)$24 · $0.00
Three ComradesErich Maria Remarque15h 50m4.5 (47.3K)$2 · $0.00
Craft BrewLayla Reyne7h 50m4.5 (986)$26 · $0.00
THE BLUE CASTLE (Unabridged) (Annotated)Lucy Maud Montgomery9h 18m4.5 (61.8K)$2 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m4.6 (11.9K)$29 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
Will You Love Me?Cathy Glass9h 5m4.6 (9.3K)$29 · $0.00
Designing Terry Pratchett’s DiscworldPaul Kidby3h 52m4.7 (343)$20 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m4.6 (10.8K)$24 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m4.6 (256.4K)$29 · $0.00
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m4.7 (385)$20 · $0.00
Birdie & HarlowTaylor Wolfe7h 50m4.6 (6.5K)$26 · $0.00
The Lives of BrianBrian Johnson9h 45m4.6 (3.5K)$29 · $0.00
I Am The StormJanice Dean9h4.6 (1.5K)$8 · $0.00
Black History CollectionFrederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois27h 9m4.6 (2.6K)$18 · $0.00
Just as I AmCicely Tyson16h 8m4.6 (99K)$33 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
My Bondage and My Freedom (Annotated)Frederick Douglass15h 30m4.6 (2.4K)$2 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
CrossroadsKaleb Dahlgren7h 56m4.6 (4.9K)$26 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
The Biography of Robert Murray M'CheyneAndrew A. Bonar7h 41m4.6 (2.2K)$1 · $0.00
You may also like
Just BreatheLeeanna Morgan6h 55m4.3 (2.1K)$4.99
An Alaskan ChristmasJennifer Snow9h 29m4.0 (3.3K)$27 · $0.00
Old JulesMari Sandoz15h 24m4.1 (691)$23
The Bright SpotJill Shalvis9h 6m4.0 (8.8K)$29 · $0.00
WarriorRenee Rose, Vanessa Vale5h 4m4.3 (2.8K)$20
The Valley of the GiantsPeter B. Kyne11h 16m3.9 (1.7K)$20
Animal FactoryDavid Kirby21h 9m4.0 (724)$32
A Maid of the Silver SeaJohn Oxenham9h 3m3.8 (81)$2 · $0.00
The Orchard of Second ChancesJuniper Halloway9h 8m$5
The Anniversary He ForgotMarlowe Vance10h 3m$5
The Cabin in the Chestnut WoodsMaeve Caldwell11h 3m$5
Ruined by the Rival VintnerMarisol Reyes10h 51m$5
The FloodÉmile Zola54m3.9 (715)$2.30
The Boss He RuinedTeagan Ash7h 23m4.4 (232)$5
Village Life and the Peasant WorldSantiago Machain7h 39m$25 · $0.00
Small farmers for a food system transition: Evidence from Kenya and TanzaniaNunzia Borrelli, Patrick Ndakidemi4h 4m$11
That Lass o' Lowrie'sFrances Hodgson Burnett7h 30m3.8 (208)$5
Dog of St. Bernard and Other StoriesAnonymous6m$2 · $0.00
Smoke and EmberHarley Nash11h 10m$5
When the Wisteria BloomsLewis M. Yarrow7h 54m$5 · $0.00