“Can I help you?” she asked.
Her voice was confident and challenging. She was blocking the sun and as Will peered up, he realized that it was her. Annie of the magazine article. Same honey-colored hair, no longer braided but skimming her shoulders, and same heart-shaped face. And definitely no longer an eleven-year-old girl.
He cleared his throat. “I, uh, was driving by and noticed the sign. Thought I’d buy some honey. Are you the owner?”
Her golden brown eyes narrowed. She pursed her full, naturally rosy lips and didn’t speak for a long moment. “Buy some honey,” she repeated slowly.
Her tone made the excuse seem wildly implausible.
She scanned the side of the van. “You’re not from Sunrise Foods, are you? A private investigator?”
“I’m just here for honey. And I’d love to see your apiary.” He climbed out of the van and leaned against the door.
“See the apiary,” she echoed, giving him the once-over.
Will sighed. He took off his baseball cap, realizing at once from the way her eyes widened that the inch of hair covering his scalp wasn’t a reassuring sight. “It’s actually a long story. Some years ago I read a magazine article about a family of beekeepers.”
Something flickered in her eyes.
“I know this may sound crazy,” he continued, “but ever since I read it I’ve wanted to see the place. And, uh, well, so I came.” When she still didn’t speak, Will reached through the window for the article on the passenger seat. As he straightened, he saw that she was looking at the scar on the right side of his face. Her eyes moved quickly back to his.
“Were you in some kind of accident?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“Another long story.”
“Does it still hurt?”
It was a refreshing question, not the standard two or three he usually got. “Sometimes.” He stretched out his hand and she took the magazine article. She skimmed it for a few seconds, smiling.
The effect was transforming and when she raised her face again, her smile washed over him like warm water. He felt lighter somehow and the knot between his shoulder blades was gone.
“I remember when this was written,” she said.
“Is that you in the picture?”
“Yes, and my dog, Skipper. Long gone now.”
“And your parents?”
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