The Beekeeper's Daughter (Harlequin Super Romance) (15 page)

Will resumed hammering the chicken wire in place, but every now and then his gaze shifted to the two men on the bench. At the first sign of Henry appearing upset, he’d counsel the old man to call a lawyer. But after a few minutes, he saw Andrews pat Henry on his shoulder, get up and walk in Will’s direction.

“I suggested Henry call himself a lawyer.”

Will set down the hammer onto the frame of the coop. “Yeah?”

“I know the report’s not ready yet, but I talked to the marshal this morning. He agrees there’s something different about this one. The ignition source was Henry’s own jerry can.”

“Could be a teenager,” Will countered.

“We haven’t ruled that out.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

The captain shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe.” He lowered his voice. “And in spite of what you may think, I find it hard to believe—damn hard—that Henry would torch his own barn, risking his pigeons like that. No way. But—” he heaved a sigh “—all we’ve got is the gasoline can. If his are the only fingerprints on it…”

“That means nothing,” Will said angrily. “Of course his prints will be on the can. The perp could’ve been wearing gloves.”

“And he does have a motive.”

“What? Insurance?”

“He still owes money for his wife’s medical bills.
According to the bank that covered the loan, he’s been making regular but small payments over the last fifteen years. A few weeks ago they gave him a deadline for the balance. He’s got three months to pay or they’ll collect his collateral. This place.” He ducked his head closer to Will’s. “And between you and me, I doubt the guy’s old age security is going to cover the balance. Unless he’s got a fortune hidden under a mattress in there.”

“He told me he sold land to the Waters family to pay his bills.”

“I think the cost of treatment came to more than what he got for the land.”

“Captain, as you said, there’s no way Henry would endanger his birds. You’ve got to consider other possibilities.”

“Such as?”

“Such as maybe someone set the man up.”

Andrews frowned. “What would be the motive? I was only kidding about the coins under the mattress thing. The bank told me all Henry owns is the house and the property. He’s living from month to month on his security. I mean, unless someone around here covets his pigeons…”

“You think you’ve got enough evidence to have the sheriff lay a charge?”

“Not yet.”

“So why call him in?”

“I just wanted to see his reaction. The sheriff will
probably come around in a day or two as part of the investigation, but right now his office is too busy to make the valley arsons a priority.”

He sounded bitter, which might explain his negative attitude. But it wasn’t a good enough excuse for Will. “So you were trying to intimidate him? An old man?”

Andrews’s gaze turned cool. “I’ve lived my whole life in this valley. My father went to school with old man Krause. Please don’t assume you’ve got things figured out here after a week or so. I wanted to give Henry a heads-up that things are serious. If he has anything to confess, better he does it to us than to someone from the sheriff’s office.”

“He’s got nothing to confess, Captain.”

After a long moment, Andrews looked away. “Let’s hope not.” He headed for his vehicle, waving to Henry on the way. The SUV made a dust-raising three-point turn and sped down the driveway.

A
NNIE KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG
the instant Will stepped out of his van. His face was tight and his eyes grayer than a November day in New York. It was just past noon and she’d only returned from town minutes ago.

“Hi,” she said uncertainly. She watched him stand by the van, as if catching his breath. Or calming down. Then he walked toward her, managing to conjure something that resembled a smile.

“Did you pick up the queens?” he asked.

She nodded, realizing he wasn’t going to talk to her about his problem right away. “Come and see them.” She led him to the worktable in the barn and pointed to a wooden box the size of a small chocolate bar. He gingerly picked up one of the boxes and brought it close to his face for a better look. There were three small cavities covered with a fine mesh. At each end of the flat box was a tiny cork.

“How does this thing work?”

“It’s called a queen cage. There’s a piece of sugar at one end, on the other side of that cork. I’ll pull out that tiny cork just before I put the box upside down in the hive. The worker bees will start to eat the sugar candy and will eventually release the queen and her attendants.”

“Her attendants?”

She had to smile at the incredulity in his voice. “That’s what we call those other bees in the box with her. There are about eight or ten of them. They look after her in transport.”

Will shook his head. “She really is a queen in every sense of the word.”

“For sure.”

“Why not just dump the queen into the hive?”

“Because the bees already there won’t accept her. They’d probably kill her. This way, by the time they’ve eaten the sugar, they’re used to her smell. When she’s free in two or three days, they’ve accepted her.”

“When will we put them in the hives?”

She liked the way he used that word,
we.
“Tomorrow, if the weather’s right. It’s kind of an involved procedure and I don’t have time today.”

He put the queen cage down on the table. “So what’s the plan for today? Are we setting excluders in the other hives at the Vanderhoffs’?”

“No, there’s no rush on them yet. I have to fill some orders. We need to pour off honey from the settling tank into those jars.” She pointed to boxes stacked on shelves above the table. “Then we pack the jars and send them to a couple of specialty food shops in Charleston. They want a hundred each so we’ll be—”

“Busy.”

He’d warmed up since his arrival. But still no hint about why he was upset. He’ll tell me in his own time, she figured. “Have you eaten?” she asked.

“Had lunch with Henry.”

“Oh? Did you finish the pigeon coop?”

“All done.”

“Henry must be thrilled.”

“Happy as a pig in…you know, the proverbial.”

Annie laughed. “Okay, well shall we get started?”

They worked steadily for more than an hour, seldom speaking except to ask for something to be passed. When Annie mentioned she was thirsty, he went to get sodas from the fridge in his van. She paused to watch him, straight-backed and confident. He was the kind of
man her father would like and for some reason, she found that reassuring.

She sealed up the box she’d been working on and made for the barn door. Will was taking a bit longer than she’d expected. When she stepped outside, she saw him talking to a man in a khaki-colored suit. Both men turned her way.

Will’s face was flushed and his eyes flicked coolly across her as she drew nearer. The stranger, a pleasant-looking thirty-something business type, beamed at her as he extended his right hand.

“Miss Collins? Tom Farnsworth.”

She frowned.

“From Sunrise Foods.”

“Oh.” She shook his hand and asked, “Did you not get my message?”

His brow furrowed. “Message? Did you call the office?”

“Yesterday.”

“I’ve been on the road and haven’t got around to checking in today. Are we still on for the tour?”

Annie glanced quickly at Will. “Um, I guess so…since you’re here. But you should know that I…that is, we…haven’t made a decision yet.”

“About selling the apiary? No rush, Miss Collins. As I explained when I first spoke with you, we’re on a fact-finding mission. Just to check things out, see your operation and make an assessment to determine if it’s the kind of asset we can use.”

Will interrupted. “Still want that soda, Annie, or do you have other plans?”

She turned his way. His eyes were darker than ever. “Uh, I guess not. I should show Mr. Farnsworth around.”

Will shrugged indifferently. “Then I’ll call it a day,” he muttered, climbing behind the steering wheel. Before he started the engine, he stuck his head out the window and said, “See you in the morning.”

He’d forgotten she’d invited him to dinner. Or had he? Annie wondered, watching his van disappear down the driveway.

P
ARTWAY THROUGH HIS MEAL
with Henry, Will remembered Annie’s dinner invitation. He almost choked on a piece of chicken and had to fumble for the water.

“You all right?” Henry asked.

Will could only nod and gasp. After leaving Annie’s, he’d headed for the campground and a shower. But en route, he’d spotted Henry’s pickup parked in his driveway and dropped in to see if he needed any help transferring pigeons to the new coop. Then Henry had asked him to stay for dinner.

What to do? Henry ate early, so presumably Annie might still be preparing their meal. Or was she? Maybe she was relieved he’d forgotten. He’d left angry. When the agent had said he was there to view the property, Will had known right away what that meant.

How could she consider selling the family business? On the way back to the campground, it occurred to him that perhaps Jack Collins didn’t know about the visit either. Will doubted he was the type to sell out to a big conglomerate. Another apiary, perhaps, but not a food giant like Sunrise.

All through his meal with Henry, the more he thought about it, the more it rankled. But if the old man suspected something was amiss, he didn’t let on. He was preoccupied himself, probably from Andrews’s visit that morning. The only reference he made to the fire investigation was his comment, while they watched the pigeons swooping about their new cage, “I’d never hurt those birds.” And Will believed him.

After helping wash up, Will asked if there was any heavy work around the place Henry would like him to do. Henry hesitated and looked at the ruined shell of the barn. Will knew what he was thinking. The debris needed to be removed, but it would be expensive to hire the job out. He thought about what Andrews had said about Henry’s financial state.

“If you’re not in a rush about cleaning that up,” Will said, “I could probably haul away a few pieces every day. Is there a dump around here?”

“They won’t take that, but I can use some of the boards for my woodstove. The rest could be taken out to the back of my field over there.” He looked back at Will. “Sure you wouldn’t mind?”

“Hey, nights are long with no television in the van. I’ll come by tomorrow after I leave the apiary.”

“Any word when Jack will be home?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Will said. He realized he didn’t know a lot about what was happening in the Collins household.
Witness the Sunrise Foods visit today.
What irked him most, though, was his reaction
to being left out. As if he had some entitlement to the family.

It was dusk when he got back to the campground and the place was deserted. Waters kept saying people were going to start showing up any day, but Will had yet to see anyone but the workmen applying the finishing touches to the laundry facility. He’d thought Waters would be pleased when he made a down payment for the duration of the summer on his campsite—considering he was the only paying customer. Instead, the man had almost questioned his sanity about staying on in the valley.

At the moment, Will was inclined to agree. If he’d been able to maintain an appropriate working relationship with Annie, he wouldn’t be having such doubts about staying. Problem was, the longer he hung around the more difficult it would be to leave. That was where the sanity issue came in. Even if Annie was as attracted to him as much as he was to her—and he had little doubt about that—where would that take them?

The end to his brief marriage had left him feeling he was no good at long-term relationships.
You never talk to me. You never share things. You never open up.
His ex-wife’s breakup mantra. At the time, he’d thought he had been doing all those things. But in retrospect, he knew some part of himself was always held in check, as if he’d sensed all along that she wasn’t really interested. When he learned about her affair with a friend of his—
make that former friend
—he’d been
almost relieved that he no longer had to pretend the marriage was a happy one.

After parking and setting up the van for the night, he lit the kerosene lamp, made a cup of coffee and sat outside on his folding aluminum lawn chair. It was a clear, warm night and the sky was filled with stars. He leaned back, staring up at the canopy directly overhead. It was a perfect night for stargazing. A perfect night for romance. He wondered what Annie was doing.

Annie.
He liked saying her name in his head. And he’d liked her, too, right from the start. Of course there’d been that instant physical attraction, but he also simply liked being around her. He liked the efficient, quiet way they worked together. She wasn’t the type who needed to have empty space filled with talk. Silence didn’t make her feel uncomfortable.

She had a strong sense of place, too. He admired that most of all, not ever having felt a particular connection to any one spot until the day he drove up to the apiary. Leaving Garden Valley and losing that sense of belonging frightened him. Losing
her.

Will poured the last of his coffee onto the grass. He was restless and needed to be active. Anything but to sit and ponder a future without Garden Valley and Annie Collins. Maybe he’d drive into Essex to check out the flicks at the only movie theater in town. He was closing the van’s side door when headlights traveling up the long gravel road into the campground caught his eye.

He paused, wondering if it was Waters coming to see him about something. The lights suddenly veered his way, holding him in their glare like a moth at a screen. He held a hand up, shielding his eyes, and the headlights extinguished. As the vehicle came closer, a warm calm eased through him. Annie’s pickup.

The truck stopped a few yards from his van. He walked toward it, heart racing. If she’d arrived even ten minutes later, he might have been gone. The door swung open and she leaned over to pick up something from the seat beside her. Will reached her just as she climbed out, holding a plastic container.

She was wearing loose cotton trousers and a filmy, Indian-style top with bits of mirror that sparkled in the light spilling out from the interior of the truck. Her hair shimmered, and bounced against the top of her shoulders when she turned her head to him.

“You forgot about dinner,” she said, holding out the plastic container, “so I brought dessert. Brownies. Made them myself.”

Her beauty lit up the night, leaving him speechless. He closed the truck door behind her, took the brownies and set them on the roof. Then he gently drew her to him, tilted her chin slowly upward and kissed her. It was a tender and forgiving kiss.

“That thing about the Sunrise Food man—”

“Just a big misunderstanding,” she murmured, nibbling at his lower lip.

“Would you really think about selling?” he asked.

“Can we talk about this another time? It’s distracting me from what’s really important here.” Then she pulled his head down, parting his lips with the tip of her tongue.

“I love brownies,” he whispered, tasting her lips, “but I think they can wait.”

He clasped her hand, picked up the brownies and led the way into the van. She stood in the doorway while he swiftly pulled the fold-down bed onto the tabletop.

“These things are quite compact,” she said, then laughed. “I can’t believe I said that.”

She looked nervous, one hand at the base of her neck while the other grasped the edge of the banquette seat, now transformed into the end of the bed. Will pressed down on the foam mattress, securing it into its frame. Then he reached out and gently pulled her close.

“I think this is how we both want the day to end.” He stared down into her eyes. “Isn’t it?”

Her breathless
yes
was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard and he lowered his lips onto hers, wanting to sear every sensation into his memory. He couldn’t remember when—or even
if
—he’d felt such abandon making love. From the way she responded, he guessed it was the same for her, too. And when she came, clinging to him, her eyes were alive with passion—and something else. He wasn’t certain what, but he hadn’t seen it in a woman’s eyes for a long time.

Later they crept out of the van whispering and giggling like teenagers. The balmy air cooled their bare
skin and Will spread the heavy comforter on the grass. They made love again, more boisterous this time. There was one breathtaking moment when she ran her fingertips along the ridge of his scar, tracing its outline with her lips.

Will tensed, unaccustomed to being touched there, until her mouth left to explore other parts. He closed his eyes, giving himself up to the exquisite sensations of her body on his, her round full breasts and smooth satin skin.

“Tell me about it,” she whispered afterward as they lay, spent, gazing up at the sky.

He knew at once what she meant. He also knew he wanted to talk. So he began, halting at first, until it all came back—the sounds and smells, the cries for help.

She listened in silence and then rose on one elbow to lean over him, her hair across his chest. She studied his face. “You couldn’t have done anything more, Will.”

“Maybe not. I just wish one day I could really believe that.”

“You will.”

Her eyes burned with an intensity he wished he could match. He wasn’t certain he could ever share that kind of optimism but he sensed that if healing was at all possible, Annie was the person who could make it happen.

He tucked her into his arms and stared up at the night sky until he fell asleep.

Much later when he awoke, he lay still, listening to the wind rustling the trees at the stream. Will tightened his arm around Annie’s sleeping form and figured his world was pretty much perfect. But when he rolled onto his side, he thought he caught a movement across the flat stretch of land between his site and the office.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to penetrate the dark. A large shape was moving slowly toward the campground office. He carefully extricated his arm from around Annie and sat up. Some kind of vehicle. It stopped and Will waited for the interior light to come on, but it didn’t. Perhaps some teenage couple seeking a lonely place for a bit of romance.

He smiled and looked down at Annie. A faint metallic noise drew his attention back to the vehicle. Was it a door, opening or closing? Not teenagers, Will suddenly decided. They might coast in quietly, but they’d leave the headlights on. The campground was usually deserted until later in June. They’d have no reason to expect someone else to be there. Will carefully folded back the sleeping bag and tucked it around Annie. He tiptoed into the van and felt around in the dark for his jeans.

Barefoot, he set out across the grassy field. As he got closer, he could see it was a pickup, but he was still too far away to identify anything else about it. Something wasn’t right. He started jogging. The vehicle suddenly lurched forward, made a wide semicircle and headed back to the road. Will watched it disappear into the shadows.

Puzzled, Will noticed a small flicker of light behind the new laundry shed. He stood absolutely still, reading the dark for sounds that had meaning for him. And then he found them. Crackling and hissing.
Fire.

He ran toward the van.

S
HE WAS FALLING
. More like floating, actually. Somewhere in that suspended state between sleep and wakefulness. Annie burrowed deeper into the warmth, remembering, then reached out a hand to feel him. Except he wasn’t there. She was raising her head, groggily, when Will suddenly loomed over her. Annie smiled up at him.

“Get dressed,” he said, his voice urgent.

He looked far too serious for someone who had just been making love with her. Annie sat up and the sleeping bag fell away, exposing her breasts. His smile was quick, tight with disappointment.

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“A fire. Someone drove up seconds ago and set fire to the place. I have to get my cell phone and call it in.”

He dashed into the van and she heard crashing inside until Will emerged, now wearing running shoes and a T-shirt. He stood in the doorway with a flashlight in one hand and the phone in the other, using the light to punch in the numbers. “Get dressed, Annie. They’ll be here soon.”

She brushed past him, fumbling in the dark for her underwear and the gauzy outfit that now, in the dead
of night with a fire raging, was not only impractical but ridiculous. By the time she stumbled out of the van, Will had disappeared. She strained her eyes against the darkness and thought she saw someone running. A flare of crimson burst skyward and Annie started to run, too.

The sight of the flames licking up the end of a shed near the office stopped her cold. She’d never seen a fire blazing out of control and the awful beauty of it both fascinated and terrified her.

“Will!” she cried.

He appeared from the other side of the building, pulling what looked like a garden hose. “Get back,” he hollered. His face was taut, almost angry. Not at her, she knew, but at the person who’d started the fire.

She moved toward him. “What can I do?”

“Nothing except stay back. I don’t know what’s inside that shed. The workmen could have left acetylene tanks or God knows what. Go back to the van. If something happened to—”

The expression in his face conveyed what he couldn’t. She moved backward, keeping her eyes on him, ready to do whatever he needed. The rumble of an engine distracted her and she moved farther out of the way. Headlights streaked across the road, bouncing up and down as a black Chevy Blazer roared up. The door flew open and Sam Waters jumped clear.

“What the hell?” He stared, confused, first at Annie and then at the blaze.

She pointed to Will, frantically spraying the office and the building adjacent to the shed. Waters ran over to Will, gesticulating madly. She couldn’t hear what he was yelling over the fire. Then the wail of an engine sounded from the road and Annie began walking back to the van. She wrapped her arms around her to ease the shakes. When she reached the van, she pulled the sleeping bag close and sat on the picnic table to watch.

Silhouettes of men dashed back and forth in front of the fire engine’s headlights. Another truck arrived with more men. Shouts filled the air. After a long time, when the column of smoke seemed to have dissipated, Annie went inside the van and lay down on Will’s bed.