Mail-Order Millionaire Read online

  Chapter One

  Miranda Morrison peered hopefully into the depths of the plastic gallon bucket, but it was dry. Pressing her head against the bark of the giant red maple, she swore under her breath. Damn, double damn, not a trace of sap, and here it was mid-March. No sense in even checking the other pails on the other trees. If Big Red didn’t produce, there wasn’t much hope for the rest of them. Mud oozed over the toes of her black rubber boots as she plodded back to the house to change her clothes. Good thing she didn’t count on the farm for her living. Good thing she had a job in town, or she’d have to sell the farm.

  It wasn’t the best job in town, she reflected as she maneuvered her old pickup truck down the two-lane road, it was the only job in town. Northwood was a company town and she worked for the company—Green Mountain Mailorder Merchants. Her job was not only to handle customer complaints, but to pose for the catalog pictures, along with most of the other employees under the age of sixty-five. She hadn’t been there all that long, but sometimes it seemed as if it were an eternity. It was just that she didn’t want to work for anybody but herself. If she could only spend all of her time on the farm, then she’d see some progress, wouldn’t she?

  As Miranda drove, she noticed that the snow was disappearing as fast as her hopes for a good sapping season, taking with it chunks of the road. She swerved to avoid a giant pothole and missed. The next thing she knew there was a jarring thud and she was leaning at a forty-five-degree angle, the front left wheel of her truck lodged in the pothole.

  Gingerly she examined herself for injuries and found none. She slid out from under the wheel and stood on the deserted road, staring at her lopsided truck. Why hadn’t she allowed time for these mishaps, which happened all too frequently? She couldn’t be late, not again. But after pacing back and forth on the slick road for ten minutes, she got lucky. Howard Tucker came along and pulled her out with the winch and pulley he always carried in the back of his Jeep.

  “Thanks, Howard,” she said, back in the driver’s seat again. “I owe you one.”

  He waved his hand, dismissing the thought. “Pay me back in syrup.”

  She sighed, closing the door and rolling down the window. “I wish I could. But I’m afraid we might not have much of a season this year.”

  He ambled closer. “Ever think about selling the old place?”

  “Not really. What would you want it for anyway? You’ve already got eighty acres of your own.”

  He shrugged. “Just thought I’d take it off your hands. Seems a shame, you burying yourself way out there. Must get lonely after being in the big city.”

  She shook her head. “I like it. It’s home.” She didn’t tell him it was more than just home. It was a safe haven, a refuge where she could be herself, maybe even support herself one day. She looked at her watch and grimaced inwardly. “Thanks again.”

  Miranda sped into town and entered the Green Mountain Mailorder Merchants parking lot only fifteen minutes late. She raced into the building, threw her jacket on the coat rack and stopped just long enough to fill her cup with coffee in the linoleum-tiled lunchroom. Then she hurried to her desk in a tiny cubbyhole, which was next to four other desks in four identical cubbyholes that made up the complaints department. A quick glance told her she wasn’t the only one who was late. In fact, she was the only one there so far.

  Before she attacked the pile of yellow complaint forms on her desk, she looked over her shoulder. There was no time clock, not yet. But there was old Mr. Northwood, who always padded through the knotty-pine offices in his rubber-soled duck-hunting shoes, looking for those workers who didn’t embody the Vermont work ethic. But not today. Apparently he was late, too. Relieved, she turned back to her desk, noticing that her voice mail was overflowing and eight of the ten incoming lines were flashing urgent orange signals.

  “Good morning, Green Mountain Merchants,” she said eight times, and then, “Will you hold?” They all said yes, except for number eight, who wouldn’t hold, wouldn’t even consider it.

  “I’ve been holding for twenty minutes, since nine o’clock, listening to a recorded message telling me to call between nine and five. I guess I should be grateful you people come to work at all,” he said in a deep sarcastic voice with just a tinge of a Southern accent.

  Miranda took a deep breath. “How can I help you, Mr....”

  “Carter. Maxwell Randolph Carter.”

  She watched the orange lights on her phone console flash, imagining seven angry people hanging up, redialing and getting the recorded message all over again. “What can I do for you, Mr. Carter?”

  “You can call me Max and then you can get my all-weather boots up here. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for those boots?”

  She grabbed a sack of already-processed customer forms and thumbed through them. “Uh, no...no I don’t, but I can assure you...”

  “That they’ll be here tomorrow, I know, that’s what they always say.”

  “Have we talked before?” she asked, knowing fully well that if she had heard that voice before, she’d have remembered the slight drawl, which some might find irresistible, but which under the present circumstances, she found quite resistible.

  “I may have talked to you, ma’am. I don’t know. I’ve lost count. I assume you work in the complaint department and that you handle complaints when you’re not too busy out walking through the winter wonderland, although I don’t know your name.”

  “Miranda Morrison,” she said as politely as she could through clenched teeth. Her fingers flew through the stack of papers and her eyes lit on his order at last. “Here we have it,” she said reassuringly. “Aha. The boots have been sent. That was two weeks ago. You should have them by now.”

  “I know they’ve been sent. But they haven’t been received. That’s the problem. What are you going to do about it?”

  Miranda took a deep breath. “We’re going to make everything right. That’s our policy and our philosophy. Now let me have your address again, just so we get it right. Can you wait just a minute?” Knowing he’d probably say no, she put him on hold without waiting for an answer and went to the other lines, praying they were easier problems. But the first was a woman who wanted to know how to refill her plastic bird feeder.

  Miranda flipped through the winter catalog and found it on page thirteen. She turned the picture upside down, but she still couldn’t figure out how to fill it. If only someone else would show up and take some of these calls! She put the woman on hold and went back to Maxwell Carter.

  “Where were you?” he demanded.

  “I had another call, something urgent,” she explained.

  “More urgent than a man in three feet of new snow without boots?”

  “It’s about a bird feeder.” She looked around nervously. The Northwoods hated it when the conversation deviated from the order at hand in any way. She suspected they listened in randomly on her and the others.

  “What about the bird feeder?” he asked.

  “She doesn’t know how to fill it. She’s trying to pry the suction cups off the glass.”

  “Maybe I can help. Is it the one on page thirteen in your winter catalog?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Tell her to slide the tray out.”

  “I was just going to do that, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

  There was a sound that was a cross between a snort and a chuckle. “I’ll wait,” he said.

  In less than a minute she was back on the line with him. “Thank you. The woman was very grateful to you.”

  “You told her about me?” he asked, faint surprise in the deep voice.

  “There wasn’t much to tell, except that you’re bootless in three feet of snow. Now if I can have your address...”

  “Is that you holding the bird feeder?” he asked abruptly.

  Miranda tapped her knuckles against her desk, praying someone wasn’t listening to them in the back office. “No, that’s Mavis Lund. I’m on page eighteen, in the thermal underwear.” Belatedly she heard the pages turning on the other end of the line and she felt the color flood her face. What was wrong with her, blurting the page number and exposing her body to a total stranger? Yes, the underwear was double-ply, but it was one piece from head to toe and it did cling in certain places. Drat the Northwoods for being too penny-pinching to hire real models! There was a long silence and she thought she heard a quick, sharp intake of breath.

  “Is that what you’re wearing right now?”

  “This is what everyone is wearing now,” she said briskly, “under their clothes until the end of winter, and if you’re in three feet of snow, I suggest you order a pair of men’s underwear from the next page.” Anything to get his mind off her picture.

  “Fine. Throw one in.”

  She grabbed an original order blank. “Size?”

  “Extra large.”

  “And now your work address.”

  “Mount Henry, New Hampshire, home of the world’s worst weather.”

  “What are you, a park ranger?” she asked, scribbling furiously.

  “Meteorologist. Every three hours I go outside and read the instruments at six-thousand feet.”

  “Isn’t a six-thousand foot climb a bit much to ask of a mailman?”

  “All I ask is that you send the boots by express mail. The mailman brings them to the ranger station at the bottom of the mountain and the ranger brings them up in the Sno-Cat,” he explained with exaggerated patience. “It’s a very good system, foolproof. U
ntil now, that is.”

  Ignoring the implication that somebody at the company was a fool, she promised she’d send another pair of boots that very morning, and that if he didn’t get them the next day, she’d come up there personally and deliver than. As soon as she said the words, however, she knew the Northwoods would never approve such a plan, despite their “customer is always right” policy. But why worry about something that would never happen?

  “Will you bring them up in your long underwear?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” she promised airily, certain that now she had fed Maxwell Carter’s name into the computer the boots were as good as in his hands, or on his feet. Then she said goodbye and proceeded to clear all the other lines by taking care of the remaining problems in record time, exchanging sweaters, making adjustments in shoes, jackets and flannel-shirt orders. And after that she went back to the warehouse, ordered another pair of boots and slapped the preprinted label on the package. But instead of trusting the mail room, she walked down Main Street to the post office, where she said goodbye to the boots and to Mr. Maxwell Carter forever.

  On slushy sidewalks she trudged back toward the three-story brick building that dominated the town, sidestepping pools of muddy water. New Englanders called it the mud, the season between winter and spring, and for good reason. Of course, she wouldn’t care if the mud came up to the top of her boots if the sap would run. If the sap would run she’d make syrup, and if she made syrup, she’d sell it and when she sold it...

  “Miranda.” Her sister Ariel almost bumped into her on the sidewalk. She grabbed Miranda by the arm. “I was looking all over the office for you. Are we having lunch today or what?”

  Miranda looked into the round blue eyes of her older sister, surprised to find it was noon already. Together they headed back down Main Street toward Simpson’s Diner.

  “Where were you?” her sister asked when they were sitting across from each other in a booth.

  “At the post office, rushing an order to a customer.”

  “Must be pretty special if he rates a trip to the post office,” Ariel said with a hopeful gleam in her eye.

  Miranda pulled her gloves off and looked at the menu. “He thinks he’s special because he works outside in three feet of snow and he expects me to drop everything and rush his boots to him— Oh, no.” She slapped her palm against her forehead. “I forgot to send the pair of long underwear he ordered. Knowing him, he’ll complain to Mr. Northwood next.”

  The waitress came by and Ariel ordered the clam chowder and half a sandwich before asking, “What do you mean, ‘knowing him’? How well do you know him?”

  Miranda told the waitress she’d have the same, then turned her attention to her sister’s probing gaze.

  “I don’t know him at all, but I told him I’d deliver the boots in person if they don’t get there tomorrow.”

  “How exciting. Is he married?”

  Miranda leaned back against the vinyl padding of the booth and sighed. “How should I know? I suppose you would have asked him?”

  “There are ways. You could have said, ‘What about a pair of boots for your wife or your small barefoot children?’ Or, ‘Will there be someone home, your wife maybe, to sign for the package?’“

  Miranda shook her head in awe. “Honestly, sometimes I wonder how your mind works. I don’t have the time or energy to delve into the personal lives of the customers, especially not today. Donna and Mavis are out sick. Penny’s son has chicken pox and Lianne’s at the dentist. So I’ve had a lot of complaints today, all theirs and mine, too, but his was the worst, he was the most insistent.... And then he had the nerve to call me ma’am.” She bit into her sandwich and chewed vigorously.

  “I wonder why he called you ma’am.”

  “Probably because he’s from the South.”

  Ariel cocked her head to one side. “What’s his name, anyway, or did you forget to ask?”

  “Carter, Maxwell Randolph Carter.”

  Ariel licked her spoon and gazed dreamily past Miranda. “From an old aristocratic family, I’ll bet, with a mansion just dripping with magnolias.”

  “We’re from an old family. We go back to the revolutionary war.”

  “Only we had icicles dripping from our house,” Ariel reminded her.

  “I remember Grandma wouldn’t let us keep them in the freezer for the summer. She made us throw them out.”

  “I don’t know how Grandma and Grandpa managed. And we weren’t even their own kids. We just got dumped on their doorstep.”

  Miranda sighed. “I wish I’d had a chance to tell them I was coming back.”

  Ariel squeezed her hand. “They knew you would.”

  “Did they ever have a sapping season when there was no sap?”

  Ariel shook her head. “Never. Just be patient. Conditions aren’t right yet. Temperatures have to drop below freezing at night and then warm up during the day.”

  Miranda frowned. “I’m counting on the sap.”

  Her sister leaned forward. “Miranda, don’t count on the sap. Find a man and count on him.”

  “Like you did.”

  “Yes, and then when things go wrong at work and someone yells at you or the sap doesn’t run, you’ve got somebody to lean on and a shoulder to cry on. That’s what husbands are for. And if anybody needs one, you do.”

  Finished with their food, they laid their money in the little plastic tray provided on top of the check on their table and walked out the door. “That sounds like a song I heard on the radio this morning. Why don’t you quit your job in the retail outlet and write the words to country music?” Miranda asked teasingly.

  Ariel shook her head, taking her sister’s words seriously. “No, I don’t think so. I need to get out of the house for a few hours every day. Besides, I like it in the store. People from New York come in and they think everything’s so quaint and rustic. Then when I go home to the kids and Rob I forget about it. Why don’t you ask to transfer? You need to get out of that cubbyhole and meet some people. Normal people, who have no complaints.”

  Miranda tossed her scarf over her shoulder. “I’ve already met enough New Yorkers. That’s why I left the city, so I wouldn’t have to meet any more of them.”

  Ariel slanted a long, sympathetic glance in her direction. “You can’t blame the whole population for what happened to you.”

  “I don’t blame anyone but myself. I shouldn’t have ever gone to the city. You warned me. But I guess I had to find out for myself.” Miranda felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind blowing up the street. No matter how unpleasant things got back in complaints, she’d never been mugged or harassed or burglarized in Northwood, and she probably never would.

  “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Ariel said, “but I’m glad you came home. For two years I had no one to eat lunch with, no one to leave the kids with...”

  “No one to nag about getting out and getting married.”

  Her sister grinned and they parted at the front door of Green Mountain Merchants. Ariel turned right, to the retail outlet, and Miranda went back to her desk to solve more problems. But in between calls she thought about the man without the boots. She filed his order under unsolved mysteries and shoved it to the back of the drawer, but the sound of his voice came back to her, the way he rounded off his consonants and hung onto his vowels. He had the accent all right, but he was no Southern gentleman. Maybe he’d been up north too long, long enough to lose any Southern charm he’d arrived with.

  Disgusted with herself for daydreaming, she turned on her answering machine at precisely five o’clock and went to get her jacket. Maybe Ariel was right, maybe she did need to get out and meet people. But what people? She already knew everyone in town. On the way home she prayed for cold weather, cold enough to make the sap run so she could make a living selling syrup and she’d never have to deal with irate customers or work for anyone again.

  A hundred and twenty miles to the northeast, Max Carter scanned the sky from the weather station on top of Mount Henry. The wind blew across the rooftop observation deck, nowhere near the record two hundred and thirty miles per hour, but strong enough to knock all six feet three inches of him down to his knees as he tried to read the barometer. He picked himself up and braced his hands against the railing. This wouldn’t have happened if he’d had his new boots with the rubber chain-tread outsole on.