The Beekeeper's Daughter

She peered down at the article again. “Yes, those are my parents. My mother and grandfather, next to Dad there, are dead, too. My great-grandfather was the J in the sign back there. John Collins. Dad was named after him.” She held out the article.

Will stepped closer, relieved she didn’t inch away. Up close, he noticed a smatter of pale freckles across the narrow bridge of her nose and a tiny dark mole at the corner of her mouth. A beauty spot, it would have been called once. In her case, appropriate. She had the healthy, wholesome looks of the all-American girl but there was something else in her face, too, he decided. A hint of sadness perhaps.

“I guess you should come up to the house then, and get your honey.”

“I’d like that,” he said. “By the way, I’m Will Jennings.” He held out his right hand.

She clasped it, surprising him with her quick, strong grip. “Annie Collins—but you already knew that.” Her eyes held his a moment longer and then she said, “Follow me in your van. It’s about a quarter of a mile up the driveway.”

Will waited until she’d climbed into the truck and fired up the engine before his fingers fumbled at the keys in the ignition. As he followed the truck up the driveway, he caught glimpses of fields through the row of trees lining the gravel road. The fields seemed to stretch out forever. When the white-framed farmhouse with its wraparound veranda and gingerbread trim came into view, Will felt as though he had come home.

CHAPTER TWO

ANNIE CHECKED her rearview mirror. She couldn’t believe she’d just invited this guy up to the farmhouse for a tour of the apiary. What had she been thinking? She was supposed to be back at the Vanderhoff place to retrieve the swarm in their apple orchard. That’s where she’d been heading when she’d almost forced him off the road. At least, she was pretty certain now that it had been his van she’d spotted at the last second as she’d made the turn.

He wasn’t the first person to wander into the apiary in search of honey or even out of curiosity. The year after the magazine article came out, the place had been deluged with tourists. But it had been a long time since anybody had arrived, magazine in hand.

Twenty years later and he still had the article? If she were in the city, alarm bells would have been clamoring in her head. Stalkers. But this was Garden Valley, for heaven’s sake. Besides, the look in his eyes and her own instincts convinced her his story—though weird—was legit.

Her father would have given the man a tour. There was nothing he liked better than talking to unexpected visitors about the habits of the honeybee and the curative powers of honey.

She took her foot off the accelerator and let the truck coast the last few yards around the side of the house to the kitchen door. No sign of Danny yet. When she’d seen the size of the swarm at the Vanderhoffs’, she knew she’d need help to get it down and had come back for Danny.

Annie was unlocking the door to the barn when Will Jennings climbed out of his van. He paused to look around the yard and his smile wiped out any doubts she’d had about bringing him up to the house.

“This is…” He stopped, as if he couldn’t find the right words. “You were very lucky to grow up in a place like this.”

“Hmm.” More or less. She was about to ask where he’d grown up but something in his ensuing silence warned her off.

“Come on inside,” she said, pulling the door open. “This is the honey barn. Years ago when my great-grandparents were alive, this was still a working farm and they kept animals in the barn, as well as storing grain and hay. They only had one or two hives back then. It was my grandfather who made the transition from farming to beekeeping.” She flicked on the lights and watched his reaction.

Will didn’t say anything at first, just made a slow turn, taking it all in—the huge gleaming stainless steel extractors, the settling tank, shelving units filled with various beekeeping essentials, frames for supers neatly stacked in corners and two long, sturdy wood tables. Counters ran along two walls beneath windows obviously not original to the barn. Will stretched to peer out one of the windows. “There was a picture of rows of hives in a meadow in the article,” he said.

“When the article was written, my father and grandfather were still planting crops in the back acreage. We have a few hives in a buckwheat field my father plants every year but most of them are on neighboring farms.”

“Why? Don’t you have to rent the land from them?”

“No. They’re happy to have our bees because they pollinate their orchards and crops. Plus, we give them honey.”

“How many hives are there?”

“We used to have about three hundred, but after Pete retired a couple of years ago we’ve been gradually reducing the number. I think we’ve got about two hundred and thirty now.”

He whistled. “What’s this?” he asked, leaning over the extractor.

“A honey extractor. It’s electric, but they used to be hand-crank. The frames from the supers—those white boxes over there—are slipped into these slots—” she pointed “—the extractor spins and the honey falls into the well and comes out the spigot. It all works by centrifugal force.” She bumped against him as she turned away from the extractor. “Sorry.”

Annie lost her train of thought. She felt her face heating up and she turned aside, gesturing to one of the shelves. “After extraction, we transfer the honey into a settling tank where all the debris rises to the top. Then we pour it into buckets. It’s a pretty simple process.”

Annie stopped, her voice echoing in the spacious barn. She was babbling, she suspected. But then wasn’t that understandable when the guy’s only response was to fix his blue-gray eyes on hers?

“Look,” she said, unsettled by his level stare, “I’ve got to remove a swarm of bees down the road. I’ll get you some honey and then—”

She broke off when she saw him frown, obviously disappointed. “Oh, sorry,” he said quickly. “Well, uh, thanks for showing me around. As I said, I’ve been curious about this place ever since…since I read the article.”

Again, Annie relented. “My hired help hasn’t turned up yet. Maybe you’d like to come with me? It won’t take long and I could show you the rest of the place after.”

His smile took ten years off him.

“I’d love that, if I won’t be in the way.”

“Not at all. In fact, I think you may actually be a help.” Annie headed for a nearby cupboard. She couldn’t explain why she’d been so impulsive, but he’d roused her curiosity. Handing him a tub of honey and waving goodbye was the last thing she wanted to do.

“I’ll just get my suit and a cardboard box, check for phone messages to see if Danny’s called and then we’ll be off.”

“Danny?”

“He’s a high school student who’s going to work for us this summer. Why don’t you wait by the truck while I pop into the kitchen?” When she came out less than five minutes later, he was standing by the truck, looking around him as if he’d just landed in some exotic locale. “All set?” she asked.

“That’s it? Just the canvas and a cardboard box?” His frown reappeared. “How can you catch a swarm of bees with that?”

Annie smiled. “You’ll see.”

WILL CONSIDERED Annie’s deft handling of the pickup as she maneuvered it around the potholes in the gravel road and realized that, in spite of his first impression of her driving skills, she knew what she was doing. “Was the swarm the reason you almost collided with me at the corner up there?”

“So that was you I almost mowed down.” She grinned. “Not really. I mean, I should get the swarm as soon as possible before it moves somewhere else, but I was expecting Danny any minute and I was rushing to assess the situation and get back before he arrived. I didn’t notice your van till the last second. Sorry about that. Dad’s always on my back about my driving but I’m not really as reckless as I look.”

Will thought about how she hadn’t noticed a van on an otherwise empty country road, but decided not to belabor the point. He stared out the window, spotting the red barn and the farm at the junction ahead. “So, three of you manage all those hives?”

“Actually it’ll just be the two of us for a few weeks. Dad’s gone to Charlotte for a hip replacement. Afterward he’s supposed to be taking it easy, though I’ll probably have to tie him to a chair to stay put.”

Turning, he caught her wide grin. With the splash of freckles across her nose, she looked like a teenager.

“Have you always lived and worked here?”

“I grew up in Garden Valley—as you know. But I left to go to University of North Carolina in Charlotte and after graduation I taught high school in New York. Queens.”

“A long way from home,” Will said.

“Yes,” she said, “a long way.”

He tried to picture her in front of a class of street-smart adolescents. “That must have been tough—teaching high school in New York.”

She shrugged, keeping her eyes on the road. “At first, but by my fifth year I was a pro.”

“How long did you teach altogether?”

She glanced his way. “Almost six years before I came back to the Valley.”