The Beekeeper's Daughter (Harlequin Super Romance) (10 page)

“Great. I think I’ve passed into Beekeeping Part Two.”

“Up for another day or two?” She held her breath, praying he’d say yes.

“Definitely. I’ll be around at eight and fill you in on what I did while you were gone.”

“Could we make that ten? And thank you for staying here, Will. The trip would have been twice as difficult if I’d had to worry about the apiary.”

“Get a good night’s sleep.”

As she changed into her nightie and brushed her teeth, she was aware of cleaning-up noises from below. Crawling into bed, she thought about how comfortable she’d felt talking to him. Being in his arms. Feeling that someone cared. She closed her eyes and didn’t hear him leave.

S
HE’D SAID TEN
,
but he’d been awake since six, after tossing and turning most of the night. Finally at daybreak, he got up to make a pot of coffee. He was just stringing his fishing rod when a car drove into the campground and parked in front of the office. It wasn’t quite eight-thirty and Waters was nowhere around. Will worked on the fishing line, but kept an eye on the car. No one got out, and after a few seconds the car made a sharp left turn and headed his way.

Will had no idea who it was until the driver stepped out of the car. He propped the fishing rod against the picnic table and sauntered over to greet Scott Andrews. As he drew closer, he saw that Andrews had had a rougher night than he’d had.

“Morning,” he said.

Andrews nodded, shaking Will’s hand absent-mindedly. “See you found the campground all right.”

“Yeah. Thanks for steering me to Waters.”

“Speaking of…seen him around this morning?”

“No, he doesn’t come in this early.”

“Coffee smells good,” Andrews said, tilting his head to the propane stove Will had set up on the picnic table.

“Have a seat,” Will said. “I’ll get a mug from the van.” When he came out, Andrews was mopping his forehead with a well-used handkerchief.

“Tough night?”

The fire captain didn’t reply until he’d poured milk and stirred a heaping spoonful of sugar into his coffee. “Could say that,” he muttered as he blew across the mug. Andrews took a long, careful sip.

Will waited, knowing he’d get to the point eventually. He sensed the man was ticked off about something.

“Arsonist struck again last night. Only it was a shed this time, instead of a barn. Place about ten miles south of here.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“Yeah. One of my men. There were some cans of paint and paint thinner in the shed, along with a few jerry cans of gasoline the owner forgot to tell us about until the whole damn thing blew up.”

“How is he?”

“Burnt. He’ll be in the hospital a few weeks.” He stared at Will’s scar. “You know all about that.”

“Think it’s the same guy?”

“Oh yeah. Ninety-nine percent it is. ’Course the fire marshal’s gotta have a look-see but given his report on the Lewis fire, it’s gonna read the same.”

“So the Lewis barn was set by the valley arsonist? That’s what the marshal decided?”

“Yeah.” He drank from the mug, obviously savoring the brew. “Heard you were working at Ambrosia.”

“Word gets around.”

Andrews grinned. “Hey, it’s Garden Valley. What more can I say? Anyhow, I came by for two reasons. One, to find out where Sam Waters was last night when all hell was breaking loose and second, to find out if you planned to stay in the valley. Thought you might, since you were working for Jack and Annie.”

“Can’t help with the first one, but I’m here until Jack gets back from Charlotte. Why?”

“I’m a man short and with this arsonist running around, I can use some help. You interested?” He added, “It’s volunteer work, but I might be able to find some money in the budget for you. It wouldn’t be what you’d get back home, but enough to pay the rent here and keep you in food and beer.”

“How would you get in touch with me?”

“I’ll give you a cell phone. We all use them. When a call comes in on the emergency number, it goes directly to all of our cells. You have to keep it on all the time, though.”

Will wanted to help the guy out, but the thought of fighting fires again made his stomach churn.

“Look, maybe this is all too much for you. I don’t know exactly what happened to cause that—” he gestured to Will’s scar “—but if you’re not working now because of…”

Will turned the scarred side of his face away from the other man.

“Well, could you at least think it over and let me know by tomorrow evening?” Andrews got up from the table and pulled a billfold out of his trousers. “Here, take this.” He handed Will a business card. “Call me. Not the number in red. That’s the fire alert line. Okay?”

“I can’t promise anything.”

“Fair enough. If you see Waters anytime soon, ask him to give me a call. He’s not answering his cell phone.” Then he got back in his car and drove off.

Will looked at his watch. It was a little after nine. No time for fishing now. Although Will had plenty of mixed feelings about taking Andrews up on his offer, one thought shone through. Volunteering would give him another excuse to stay in Garden Valley. Another excuse to see more of Annie Collins.

A
NNIE WAS TOWEL-DRYING HER HAIR
when she heard the tapping at the kitchen door. It wasn’t locked, but obviously the city boy in Will Jennings was reluctant to simply walk inside. She dashed down the stairs to let him in.

“Hi!” she said, somewhat breathlessly.

He smiled, his eyes skimming from her bare feet, up over the cutoff denim shorts and T-shirt to her damp head. “Am I early?”

She moved aside for him to come in. He’d recently showered himself, she decided, detecting the fragrance of some kind of soap. Not flowery, but spicy. And his
hair—what there was of it—glistened in the sunlight pouring through the screen door. As he stepped past her, she saw a fleck of shaving cream at the edge of his jaw near his right earlobe and for some reason, she found the oversight touching.

“No, right on time. I slept in.”

“Catching up on a sleep debt?”

“A few days’ worth.” He just nodded. She was relieved they weren’t going to have to dredge up last night’s conversation. In fact, she was feeling almost embarrassed about unburdening herself so readily to someone she’d known such a short time.

“Shall I make coffee while you…uh—” he glanced at her hair “—finish with…?”

“Sure. The filters are in the drawer next to the sink and the coffee’s—”

“In the canister on the counter.”

He didn’t miss much. “Okay then. Be right back. Have you eaten?” She paused midway to the door.

“Toast.”

“Help yourself to anything,” she said as she left the room. Taking the stairs two at a time, she made for the bathroom. A few minutes of blow-drying and she was all set. Although makeup was something she used in frequently and only for special occasions, she took a second longer to smooth skin cream over her face and apply a trace of eyeliner. She gave herself a once-over in the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom
door, tucking an elastic into her pocket for a ponytail later, when it was hot.

Pausing in the hall outside the kitchen, she wondered why she was behaving like a teenager on a first date. Pheromones. That’s all it is. Bees have them and so do humans.
So calm yourself, girl. There’s work to be done and it can’t be done if you’re fantasizing about your employee.

Mugs of steaming coffee sat on the table next to a stack of toast on a plate. His face lit up as soon as she came into the room. Pheromones, she reminded herself, as she sat across from him and reached for her mug.

“I didn’t know what you’d want with the toast,” he said, studying her face. He gestured to the tub of cream cheese and the jars of jam and peanut butter.

She picked up a knife and began to smear on cream cheese. “This is a treat,” she said. “I usually grab a bowl of cereal and eat it standing by the sink. When Dad’s here, he’s always humming and hawing by the kitchen door, wanting to know why I don’t get up earlier.”

Will laughed. “He sounds like a character.”

“Oh he is, trust me. If you pass the Jack Collins test, you can win over anyone.”

“Even his daughter?” His voice was teasing but his eyes were dead serious.

Annie choked on the toast. “Ha ha,” was her lame response after she managed to swallow.

“So what’s on for today?” he asked, getting down to business.

“What did you finish while I was gone?” She drank her coffee while he talked.

“I set up the bee excluders on all the colonies at the Vanderhoff place and I collected about half of the supers at the McLeans’.”

“Not bad for a beginner.”

“Like I said, I’m in Part Two now.”

He had a nice grin. She wondered what kind of person he’d been before the accident. Already she’d noticed a change in him since the day he’d arrived at the farm.

“The plan for today?” he prompted.

Annie felt her face color. “Get the rest of the supers from the McLeans’ and extract them. Have you been putting the honey into the settling tank?”

“Yes. Wasn’t that the right thing to do?”

“Yes, of course. Just that one of my regular customers is a commercial bakery in Essex. They don’t care if their honey has bits of wax floating in it because it’s used for baking.”

“So we leave it in the buckets for them?”

“The sixty-pound ones. They’ll send a truck to pick them up when we call.”

“And the honey in the settling tank?”

“That goes into jars for retail sale. We’ve got several customers in Essex and the valley. Some shops in Charlotte. Plus, a few locals pick them up to sell at farmers’ markets.”

“Much business competition here?”

“Lots of people keep hives, but we’re the largest apiary in the valley and beyond Essex. Our biggest competitor is a commercial outfit called Sunrise Foods. They supply to the major grocery chains—the Red and White in Essex carries their produce—and to most of the other commercial bakeries. But because we don’t pasteurize our honey, we pick up a lot of the health-food business.”

“Sounds like business is good.”

Annie swallowed the last of her coffee. “It is and it isn’t. The problem is that on one hand, we have more customers than we can supply. We’ve had to reduce the number of our colonies the past two years because Dad and I couldn’t handle three hundred hives. Right now we’ve got about two thirty, and can scarcely manage those without extra help. That’s why we had to hire Danny.” Her heavy sigh underlined her point.

“We’re kind of on the cusp. Too big for the standard Mom-and-Pop thing, and too small to keep up with the demand. We seldom advertise anymore because we can’t physically handle any more customers. Yet we don’t have the cash flow to upgrade the way we should or to hire more help.” She paused, adding as an afterthought, “Even if we could
find
the help around here. Most people—unless they’re farming—want to work for those big box stores or factories outside the valley.”

“Well I’m available, if you need me.”

He played with the spoon on the table next to his coffee mug. The thing was, she did need him. But she
wasn’t quite so ready to admit that she liked his presence. She liked the way he fit right in, making himself at home. She was beginning to like too much about him, which made working together complicated.

“The pay isn’t great,” she said.

“But the perks are.”

That grin again.

He scanned the kitchen, his eyes lingering briefly on her before dropping to his coffee. “Breakfast, maybe a lunch or two in quaint surroundings… Scott Andrews came by early this morning and offered me temporary work with the volunteer unit. Seems one of his men is out of commission.”

He doesn’t want me to see what must be in his face. What he feels about fighting fires again. She wished she could offer some sentiment that would reassure him. Not knowing exactly what had happened to him would make anything she might say incredibly trite.

“Whatever you decide, I’d be very happy to have you stay on here.” She stood to clear the dishes.

“I’ll let you know.” He carried his mug over to the sink where Annie was rinsing the dishes. “Thanks,” he said, without looking at her.

She nodded, unsure what exactly he was thanking her for. “I’ll meet you in the honey barn in about five minutes. Okay?”

“See you there.” Without another look her way he sauntered out the screen door.

Annie watched him go, fighting the impulse to call
him back, tilt his head to hers and whisper in his ear that everything would be just fine.

T
HE SUN BEAT DOWN
and seemed to permeate right through to the bone. Annie had to stop several times to blink away sweat dripping from her hairline under her hat. The bees were in a foul mood, too, which didn’t help. She’d smoked them twice and they still clustered around, dive bombing at the mesh around her face. She glanced over at Will, bent over the hive across from her, and wondered if he was experiencing the same difficulty. Judging by the way he kept bobbing his head back and forth, he was. Still, he hadn’t complained.

He was a decent person and sensitive, too. And not in the sappy “new age man” kind of way, but truly aware of what others might be feeling. Considerate. A sense of humor. Sexy. Yes, she had to admit he was sexy. The scar didn’t do anything to diminish his good looks. If anything, it made his appearance more interesting. And…. one caveat.
Married?

That tidbit, dropped two days ago, lurked in the back of her mind. Was he still? She doubted it. He wasn’t the type to cheat. Nor the type to run off. So there had to be some kind of separation. And she prayed it was permanent.

Annie stuck her gloved hands into the slots on either side of the super and tugged hard. It was heavy with good clover honey. She could smell it and so could the few
dozen bees that hadn’t escaped into the bottom of the hive. They flew in frantic circles around her head and hands.

Gasping, she bent her knees under the weight of the super and duck-walked to the pickup, a few yards away. She propped the end of the super against the lowered flap of the truck and, with as much energy as the heat and the end of the work day allowed, pushed the super against the others.

Before she had a chance to catch her breath and move aside, Will was right behind her. Although he slid his super onto the truck with relatively more ease, she saw that it was a struggle for him, too. Spring weather conditions had been perfect and there would be a good harvest this year.
If only they could get it all in.

She hadn’t understated their situation the other night. Jack would rebound after his convalescence, but he’d never be the man he was even ten years ago. And given his unexpected heart complication…

When she’d come home a year ago she’d made it clear to her father that the move was temporary. She’d needed a break from teaching and city life. At least that was the superficial reason, but escaping the painful reminders of Jim Fraser was the main one. So it seemed Ambrosia Apiary’s days were numbered. The question of what Annie would do with her life when that point in time arrived was one she’d deferred answering.