Page 78 of The Beekeeper

“That’s what you really wanted to know,” I teased as we reached the hives.

“No, it’s nice to know, but what I really want to know is everything. What did he say? What did you say? What did he do? How was it?”

“You want to know your brother-in-law is pierced?”

“He—say what now?” She stopped—comically—in her tracks. “He’s—like Jacob’s Ladder?”

“Prince Albert.”

“Ahh.” She nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Does it?” I asked with a strangled laugh. Sometimes, none of this felt like it made sense. “I don’t think I should be sharing this.”

“Why not? I’m happy to share with you all the delicious things Chandler does with hot wax⁠—”

“I’m good,” I stopped her, setting my equipment down by the hive.

Frankie grabbed my arm, claiming my attention like suddenly this was serious. “Harper, it’s okay to talk about sex, you know. You talk about bee sex all the time. Those queens basically have a reverse harem orgy fest in order to build the hives.”

“That’s bees, Frankie. And this is just sex. Per the contract,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it like it’s something more.”

And even that was too much, I realized when I saw a flit of sadness over her face. “Do you want it to be more?”

“It was one night,” I blurted out. And a morning. “Of course not.”

Maybe that was why I finally caved to her questions—because it had been a week since Blaze and I had done anything even remotely sexual. Between my business—which was now slammed thanks to the new marketing campaign—and Paisley around all the time and such a light sleeper, I could count on one hand the number of times Blaze and I had even been alone in the same room for more than a handful of seconds.

And I didn’t even have my lemon to take the edge off.

“I’m just saying I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. We had sex. It was phenomenal. The end.” I slid off the lid of the hive, my stomach tightening at how few bees I saw.

“Well, I’m glad it was phenomenal.” I heard her grin, clearly ignoring my attempt to downplay the truth.

I smoked the first tray and slid it out, my heart sinking. Something was definitely—majorly wrong. Spraying the next tray, I lifted it out, and then the one after that. Frankie kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her; my heart was pounding louder in my ears.

No, no, no.

I made it to the very bottom and my heart cracked.

“Harper!”

NO.

I turned, horrified, as Paisley came bounding over, Blaze following in the distance behind her.

Oh, no. I panicked, looking at the tray of dead bees and then back at Paisley who was sprinting closer. Crap. She couldn’t see this—especially not this. I quickly set down the tray in my hand.

“Hey, Paisley,” I stammered and crouched in front of her, blocking her path. “Do you think you could take Aunt Frankie back to the house and show her your design for the Cinn-sational honey? She hasn’t seen it yet.”

“What’s wrong?” Her frown popped any bubble of hope I had; I was a terrible liar. She looked over the trays of honeybees.

“Are the bees okay?” She’d been with me enough times out here to know what normal looked like and this wasn’t it.

I quickly pivoted to damage control. “This hive is a little sick, but I have some medicine that I’m going to put in the hive to help them get better,” I told her truthfully and nodded to the package of tins I’d brought from my shed.

“Will they be okay?”

“Once the medicine starts working, they should be okay.” I knew better than to promise anything. “But while I treat them, why don’t you go back to the house with your dad and Aunt Frankie?”