Forever's Embrace (Forever In Luck Series Book 2) (22 page)

“Here,
Merrill, Wisconsin.”

“Nice
to meet you, Alex. Hmmm, interesting… Jake Albrecht?” she called out, as she
stood in front of the class looking out. She chuckled. Feeling shy Mr.
Albrecht?” she asked, as she looked at Jake.

What
the hell? “Ahhh, here,” he answered tentatively.

“How
are things in Luck, Wisconsin?”

Who
the hell was this woman? “Ahh, good.”

She
smiled. “Vet tech, huh? I thought it was cheesemaker?”

Jake
looked at her with trepidation.

“Ladies
and gentleman, this is Jake Albrecht, of Albrecht’s Creamery and Dairy in Luck,
Wisconsin. His family was among some of the earliest settlers to our great
state, and are known throughout for producing some of the finest cheeses and
butters Wisconsin had to offer, before they closed that end of the business
down a few years back. He, his two brothers, and his father run a dairy
operation of nearly a thousand cattle. Glad to have you here, Mr. Albrecht.”

Jake
wanted to crawl under his desk. “Thanks.”

“Give
Karl a message for me would you, tell him I won that competition fair and
square, and he still owes me a pair of hair ribbons. Oh, and tell him if need
be, I could still out milk him.”

The
class burst out laughing, and Jake couldn’t help but laugh along. He’d heard
this story, and it was bound to get his dad’s dander up.

“Moving
on, Melissa Bergmann…”

“Here,
Mondovi, Wisconsin.”

Jake
took a deep breath, this was going to prove to be an interesting semester, for
sure. Two hours later, as he gathered his stuff, the professor called him over.

Smiling
at him as he approached, she said, “Let’s get straight to the point. You could
probably teach this class with your background. I can’t imagine you’re wanting
to get into the small animal end of things, so if you’re going to do this, why
not become a large animal veterinarian?”

“I
don’t want to take it that far. I just want to learn some skills and take them
back to the farm.”

“Like
what?”

“Selective
breeding and how to artificially inseminate. I want to work to improve what we
have, and the product we produce.”

With
a bow of her head, she responded, “Admirable. I have connections with one of
the largest dairy operations in the state. I think we can get you everything
you want to know, from beginning to end, in a hands on manner. Plus, we can do
it all in a matter of weeks, and get you back on the farm. How does that
sound?”

“Well, as I once
told Linnie, everything happens for a reason. Maybe you’re meant to be in
Madison for a few months…”

This
felt right, Jake thought. This was why he was meant to be here. “Great! I’d
appreciate it.”

Pulling
out her cell phone, she dialed a number and put the phone to her ear, all as Jake
stood watching. He couldn’t believe she was doing this for him.

Smiling,
she indicated it was ringing. “You’re going to want to plan for about five
weeks. That’ll give you time to practice, and have you around long enough to
see if what you’ve done, took. Stan, this is Mickie. I have a student who wants
to get his hands dirty. He’s looking for everything you’ve got on selective
breeding and artificial insemination procedures. Yeah, that’d be great. Oh, the
standard course, a five week internship of hands on should do just fine. Sounds
good, I’ll send him your way.”

Holy
shit. Jake watched as she pulled out a business card and handed it to him.

“Be
in Albany early tomorrow morning. Check in with Stan, he’ll get you going. If
you need housing, talk with him. Have fun, and tell Karl he owes me dinner, as
well as new hair ribbons. Oh, and there’s a nice little tavern in Monroe you’ll
want to check out. It’s right up your alley.”

Taking
the card, he looked at it in shock. “I will. Thank you! Thank you so much.”

*****

Three
weeks had passed since the accident, and Jules was sitting in a wheelchair as
she was wheeled down to the patient pick up area of the rehab. Watching as
Linnie pulled up and came to a stop, the attendant opened the car door and
wheeled her closer. Reaching for the door, Jules took hold and slowly stood up,
careful to keep her center of balance even over her feet as she turned to sit
on the passenger seat.

Safely
in the car, her belongings already having been loaded, Jules looked over at Linnie
and asked one more time, “Are you sure about this?”

Linnie
nodded her head. “Of course I’m sure. The farm is the best place for you to be,
and as your family, we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Jules
chewed on her lip. They hadn’t talked about Jake since the night she’d asked
him to leave. Jules cringed inside. She’d been so emotional then. Well, she
still was, but she was much better. Speaking softly she asked, “What…what about
Jake?” Jules watched as Linnie tried holding back a smile as she drove.

Keeping
her eyes on the road, Linnie responded, “What about him?”

Jules
swallowed and looked away. “Umm… Things could get uncomfortable. He has reason
to be angry with me.”

“Well,”
Linnie said, taking a deep breath and letting out, “you were right about one
thing, you two had just begun to get to know one another. If you knew him
better, you’d know if he were to be angry about anything, it would be over
letting you go back to Chicago.” She glanced over and shook her head. “Trust
me, he won’t be angry, besides, he’s not even there.”

 
Jules heart began to race, and she felt her
insides tense up. “Whwhwhere is,is he?” she stuttered and stammered, as her
breathing sped up.

“Gone,”
Linnie answered flatly. “He left a few days after you last saw him. He’s down
by Madison, staying with some guys while he takes classes to finish up his
degree. He’ll be back over spring break in March. If you have things your way,
you’ll be looong gone by then.”

Jules
heart fell. She thought she’d be seeing Jake today. “Ohhh, right,” she said
quietly, “good for him.”

Rubbing
it in a little, Linnie went on, “So the coast is clear, you can recuperate on
the farm without worry of being bothered by Jake. You’ll get home therapy
there, and then each day you can walk the barn to strengthen your leg muscles
and work on your coordination and balance. Pretty handy, considering its winter
out, and you wouldn’t have as great of an opportunity in Chicago. Unless of
course, you went to another rehab facility, but even then you wouldn’t be
guaranteed long halls to walk.”

Turning
on her signal and exiting the freeway, Linnie continued, “We’re all excited to
have you there with us. The guys have already made up a rest area for you in
the barn, and we ordered you one of those walkers that has a seat and brakes on
it, so you can stop and rest whenever you get tired. Then, when you feel you’re
strong enough, you can head to Chicago, or Connecticut, or wherever.”

Jules
nodded as she listened, all the while crying inside. She wanted Jake something
fierce. Her heart was aching, and he was the only cure. “Thank you,” she said
softly. “I’m fortunate to have all of you.” She had to remind herself that
Linnie was only reiterating what she’d been saying all along.
 

CHAPTER 12

The
next day after breakfast, Nik carried Jules out to the barn. “Nik, I could
probably wa—”

“Nope,
not happening,” he cut in, shaking his head stubbornly. “Its winter and we’ll
not have you walking over snow and ice to get to the barn. So get used to being
carried, it’s the way it’s going to be.”

Jules
sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to win. “Fine.”

Stepping
through the door, Nik walked past the office and down the hall that Jake had
said was storage. “Why are we going this way?” she asked, as she looked around.

Moving
along an aged corridor, he responded as he turned and pushed through a pair of
old swinging doors with his shoulder. “It’s the old creamery, and the place
where we set up your rest area.”

Looking
around, Jules gasped. “Wait! Stop! I need to see this. Put me down—she
squirmed—please, hold on to me so I don’t fall, and then tell me about this
place.”

Nik
looked at her with wide eyes. “You mean Jake didn’t bring you here on the
tour?”

She
shook her head. “That would be a definite nada,” she answered, looking around.

Setting
her on her feet, Nik, stood behind her and held onto her arms. “This is the
original creamery from when our ancestors settled here and began making cheese.
It’s been outfitted with modern day conveniences, but the old world
craftsmanship and décor has remained. This room is a tasting room of sorts.
It’s where we have lunch. The women in the family have always worked in the
creamery, and never had time to go to the house to make lunch, so for
generations, this is where we’ve eaten lunches of cheese, bread, smoked meats,
milk, and so on.

Jules
looked up at him. “Come to think of it, you guys don’t come to the house and
have lunch. I never really thought about it. This place is phenomenal. Gosh, by
the looks of that table, your family must’ve been quite large. It must hold
twenty people.”

Nik
laughed. “Family and a few farm hands.”

Staring
at one long wall, she couldn’t get over all the awards. “Please, help me to the
wall.” Walking over carefully, she perused the awards and triumphs of the Albrecht
family. “This is stunning, absolutely stunning.” Turning to look at the
opposite side of the room, she saw a long carved bar and counter area, a large
sink, a six burner old fashioned stove, and an industrial sized refrigerator
door to a walk in cooler. There was another set of swinging doors, too. “What’s
behind those doors?” she asked.

“That’s
the creamery, the place where we made our butter and cheese.”

Oh
God, she had to see this. She had to, and she knew it was going to be nothing
short of momentous. “I, I, I need to see, please.” Slowly walking her up to the
doors, Nik stopped and flipped some switches on the wall, and Jules could see
lights turn on through the cracks around the doors. Stepping through the doors,
she let out a strangled scream. Overwhelmed, she fell back against Nik.

“Whoa,
you alright?” Nik asked in alarm, taking a firm grip of her arms.

“Yes,”
she choked out, distracted by the sights all around. “Is this a dream? Am I
dreaming? Pinch me, would you please.”

Nik
really laughed at that. “You’re the who likes to pinch people, not me, and
you’re being silly, give me the barn over the creamery any old day.”

Jules
shook her head, as she looked at several long vats for making large batches of
cheese, and then cheese presses of all different sizes and quantities hanging
on the walls, then row after row of old world butter molds with cute little
designs in them stacked on shelves. All manner of equipment was present, some
very old and some new, all dying to be used. A long industrial sink area was on
one side of the room, and on the other, a long counter with large writing on
the wall above it. She stared at the writing. It was Norwegian, poorly written,
but Norwegian nonetheless. “I thought your family was Danish.”

“Primarily,
but we have some Norwegian and German too,” he answered.

Looking
up at Nik, she asked, “Can I stay here and look around for a while?”

“Sure,
let’s go over to that pillar, you can hold onto it while I go get your walker.”

Several
hours and one nap later, Jules sat having lunch with the guys in the tasting
room. She loved that name, the tasting room. Admiring the long dining table
with its old world craftsmanship, she couldn’t help but think that generations
of Albrecht’s had sat in this very room, at this very table, creating a life
for themselves, and as she glanced to the wall of awards, a legacy. Amazing!

“You’re
mind looks like it’s working pretty hard there, tootsie,” Karl Albrecht
commented.

 
Jules smiled widely. She loved being called
tootsie by Linnie’s dad. Sometimes he shortened it to just toots, but no
matter, she loved it because it made her feel like a real member of the family.
“It is!” she exclaimed. “I love this place. Before today, I didn’t even know it
existed, but I could spend hours here.”

Not
sure if she should continue, but unable to contain her curiosity, she went on.
“Ahh, Jake, never brought me here. He mentioned that at one time he was going
to be a cheesemaker, but then things, ahh, well, happened and it didn’t work
out. If it wouldn’t be too much of an intrusion, would you be willing to give
me a little history, and tell me the whole story.”

Karl
took a drink of his milk, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and sat back in his
chair. “Sure. I was an only child, and I inherited this farm from my father,
who was to share it with his brother, my uncle. My uncle joined World War II
and was killed, so that left it all to my dad. Mom and dad wanted lots of
children, but they only got me, and I wasn’t interested in making cheese or
butter. I helped here and there, but never paid much attention to the ins and
outs.

“When
I met and married Katherine, we called her Katie by the way, it was with the
understanding that she’d learn that part of the business from my mother,
Britta, and she did. Because of a lack of education over the years, our
family’s cheesemaking trade and recipes have been handed down from generation
to generation by memory, and with each generation we’ve lost bits and pieces
along the way. With Katie’s death, we lost it all, well mostly, as she didn’t
have time to teach Jake what she knew before passing on. So, we had no choice
but to close it down.”

How
tragic, Jules’s heart cried for the loss. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry for
your family’s loss.”

Karl
nodded in acknowledgement. “The decision to shut down was a hard one, and
although Jake said he understood, that he didn’t bring you here tells me much.
He had big dreams of getting his master’s mark for several of the cheeses we
made, and for carrying on our family’s tradition.”

“What’s
a master’s mark?” she asked.

“An
assurance to consumers that they’re getting the best and highest quality of
cheese made. It’s a rigorous program, and there’s only one in all of the United
States, and its located right here in Wisconsin. The rest are in Europe. Once
you’ve been certified as an expert in the cheese you’ve chosen to study, you
can put your mark on that cheese once you’ve made it. You must complete the
program for each cheese you want a mark in, for a limit of two at a time, and
you must have ten years’ worth of experience making cheese before you can
apply. In addition, Wisconsin is the only state in the country that requires
cheesemakers to be licensed. Another assurance to consumers that they’re
getting top quality cheese. Jake had just gotten his cheesemaker’s license when
Katie died.”

Amazing,
she thought. How had she never known this? She’d learned something new today.

“We
still have people calling, looking for what we once made. Quark, or Kesella as
you call it, being one of the requested items, the herbed and flavored butters,
then there was Fynbo, Cream Harvarti, and Danbo to name a few more. That’s why
we all behaved the way we did that day you made breakfast. I’m sorry about that
by the way, it’s just that you were doing and describing things that have been
lost to us. And please, don’t take Jake’s reaction to your working at the
bakery to mean anything bad, it just hit too close to home, and reminded him of
the opportunity he’d had and lost. ”

What
was it Jake had said that day?
“There’s
more going on than you know…”
Hmmm, it was all starting to make some sense
now. “You said you lost it all with Katie’s death, then you back tracked. Do
you have some information?”

 
Karl nodded with a frown, then shook his head.
“Well, there’s what Jake knows from having learned from Katie, and then we have
an old, old book. A diary of sorts, we think, its well over a hundred years
old. Gosh, I guess it’s more accurate to say it’s closer to two hundred years
old by now. Anyways, no one knows what it says really, and we won’t let it out
of the family because we’re fairly certain it contains our family’s cheese and
butter making secrets. We’ve tried to decipher it, but without much luck.”

Oh
my, her heart leapt to life. This was right up her alley. She had to see this,
she just had to. She wanted a crack at this. “Might you trust me? Would you let
me see it?”

Karl
looked to Kris and Nik. The three of them staring at one another, unspoken
messages passing back and forth. Then Kris stood up and left the room.

Karl
turned back to her. “Kris will be right back with the book.”

Glancing
towards the creamery, she asked, “Do you know what’s written on the wall and
pillars?”

“Only
that which is written in English.”

Kris
returned with the book and brought it to her, setting it on the table. Opening
to the first page, she looked it over, then turned, and turned, and turned,
page, after page, after page, skipping through the tome. It was a large book,
broken up by recipes, along with recommended variations, feed suggestions for
milk quality, then information on ripening the various cheeses they made. There
was even a section on problems and troubleshooting. The person who’d written
this had put some time into it, she thought. Going back to the first page she
read aloud,

“Kære familie,
heri er mit forsøg på at holde tilbage vores familie 's fremtid. Mine
beklagelser er, at jeg ved ikke hvordan man stave. Heri, er i Albrecht
tradition, vores smør og ost indskrifter. Med kærlighed, Nana Silva, eighteen
twenty-four.”

Then
she translated in English.

“Dear Family,

Herein is my
attempt to hold forth our family's future. My regrets are that I know not how
to spell. Contained herein, in Albrecht tradition, are our butter and cheese
inscriptions.

With love, Nana
Silva, eighteen twenty-four.”

Looking
up to the shocked faces of Jake’s dad and brothers, she said, “I can read this,
and it’s all here. She’s right about her spelling and grammar, I can see many
errors throughout, but it’s a workable piece. The Danish language is similar to
Norwegian and Swedish, both of which I speak. I also see some German reflected
here, but I’m not fluent in German. It will take a little investigation, but I
can translate this for you if you like.”

“But…it’s
like gibberish,” Kris threw out in disbelief, “things like three hog sheds for
twenty cloves. It’s impossible to figure out.”

Jules
tried not to laugh, but she did smile. “How much of this have you translated?”

Nik
snorted. “Like nothing,” he said, with frustration. “We got one of those
electronic translators, and we used the computer some too, but what we could
figure out was weird stuff like Kris said.”

She
looked down as she chuckled, not wanting to insult their efforts. “Her spelling
and grammar is what’s throwing things off, and I imagine by today’s standards,
it would seem like gibberish. But you need to take into consideration the
context in which this was written. We can assume from Nana Silva’s writing of
eighteen twenty-four that that was the date of documentation. But what we don’t
know is, how old she was at the time. Maybe a young women born in the eighteen
hundreds, but more likely an older woman born in the later half of the
seventeen hundreds with the use of the term Nana. And as such, she was writing
what she’d learned from family born in the early seventeen hundreds.

“At
the time, old world weights and measure dating back to the Middle Ages were in
use, and it was complicated by variations within regions and communities. It
wasn’t until the mid-eighteen hundreds that the English unit began to take
hold, and attempts were made to regulate a wide and diverse measuring system.”

“How
do you know all this?” Karl asked.

“The
study of weights and measures, old and new, was part of my pharmaceutical
degree. I had to do all that, just so I could say I knew how to count and
convert drams, minims, grains, and scruples.” Stopping to close the book, she
continued. “Luckily, your ancestors wrote notes on the pillars and wall in the
creamery, identifying their means of converting and measuring.”

Looking
at Kris, she said, “She meant hogshead by the way, not hog shed. So…” Jules
stopped and tapped her finger to her temple. “Let me think. If my memory serves
correctly, one hogshead was equivalent to about sixty gallons. In Kris’s
example, three hogsheads would be roughly one hundred eighty gallons of milk I
presume, and a clove was something like…seven or eight pounds of wool or
cheese. I think. Multiply that by twenty would mean, one hundred eighty gallons
of milk to get around one hundred sixty pounds of cheese, give or take, as I
did round to the nearest whole number? Does that sound about right?”