Emily
Dawn has just colored the horizon when I'm jarred alert by my phone vibrating. A text from a number I don't recognize. Three words slowly register as I blink my sleep-fuzzed eyes at the screen.
Busy little bee.
With a groan, I hurl my phone to the other side of the bed.
This
is Kade's promised text? I guess he's really drawing a line in the sand. Keeping things as distant and neighbourly as possible. I'm not sure what I was hoping for but the wifi password that I already knew was definitely not it.
Despite my frustration with the message, I end up spending the morning putting that wifi password to good use: watching Youtube videos to learn how to repair my leaky sink. After over an hour of labouring under the dripping pipes, I emerge triumphant. I finally fixed something in this cabin all by myself. I am not
completely
dependent on other people out here.
The triumph is short-lived. After setting down my wrench on the kitchen table, I notice Kade's jean jacket hanging off the chair. I stare at it for a good ten seconds, an insistent reminder of what I cannot have.
I decide to face the music then and there. Return the jacket to it's owner, humiliation be damned. I'll get it over with and keep my distance from now on. Something I should have done the moment he called me
city girl
.
Jacket under my arm and head held high, I leave my cabin. Twist around the oak trees and walk with determined legs up Kade's driveway. The black Volkswagen is gone, only the blue pickup truck shining over the dirt.
His gnarled front porch makes my palms sweat as I approach the steps. A stag skull looms above the doorway, antlers huge and sharply pointed, holes where eyes once peered now glaring at me. A dried-black bouquet of roses hangs upside down from the window. Clean animal bones sit in the center of the small coffee table in front of the rocking chair. Bird skulls and claws. Sinister beauty.
I knock on the wooden door. No one answers. Another knock and still no answer. I wander back down the steps, veer around the side of the house and pass through an open garden gate.
Kade is on the opposite side of the yard, that strong back to me like our first meeting. Except this time there's a beekeeping veil over his head. Arms gloved to elbows. Hive before him as he extracts a frame gooey with honeycomb.
Before I can greet him, I'm met with a husky "Hey, Red." first.
I pause in the center of his lawn, squinting at the broad back still facing me. Was I really walking that loudly? I'm barefoot too, a new habit I seem to be taking on as the days pass."Hi, erm, sorry to trespass but...I have your jacket." I cautiously stay where I am. Not exactly confident around beehives. Or Kade, for that matter. "Where should I put it?"
Kade leans to inspect the guts of the hive, bees circling overhead. "You can bring it over here if you want."
Yeah, right. "Uh." I take a step forward, then back, fingers wringing denim. "Do you have a hazmat suit I can borrow first or...?"
Kade answers with a chuckle, sliding the frame back down, gently closing the hive. He lifts his veil, removes his gloves and sets them down on a nearby table. With long strides he closes the space between us and takes the jacket from my arms, sliding it on his own lean body.
What's left of my confidence crumbles, all goosebumps and heart flutters again. I struggle to not lower my eyes, wondering what he must think of me now. The pathetic girl that couldn't keep her lips to herself.
"Did you get my text?" His question punctures my frenzied thoughts.
My teeth worry at my bottom lip. "You mean, the the wifi password?" I sound more disappointed than I probably should. "Yeah. I did."
"Good." He clears his throat and lengthy silence follows. A chicken rustles past.
Awkward. This unresolved tension between us was less excruciating before the cat got out of the bag and he discovered how stupidly desperate I am. I shift from foot to foot, preparing to bolt. "Well, I should be going back now." I spin towards the gate. "Have a nice day-"
"Hold on a sec." His fingers brush my arm and my breath catches. Our eyes lock and I am sucked in far too deep. "Are you busy right now?"
I am profoundly
un
-busy. Kindergarteners have a more stressful schedule than I do. "Kind of..."
"It's just-" He glances towards his house, face turning a bit distraught. "My sister was supposed to help me with the hives and the garden today but she bailed. I was really counting on a second pair of hands."
"Your...sister?" I go very, very still. Mind sputtering.
He nods. "You've probably seen Phoenix around. She's been living with me for the past month or so. Said she was going to lend a hand on the regular but you know how teenagers are."
"
Teenagers
," I echo dumbly. Rendered stupid by the cyclone of confusion and relief whirling in my stomach. "You have a teenage sister..."
"Well, she'll be twenty next month," he confides. "But she's just an overgrown baby to me."
I'm still reeling as the pieces click together. "I thought she was, like, twenty-six. My age."
"She's always seemed older than she is. It's a blessing and a curse." He pauses, sucking his teeth. "Not to pressure you, but I could really use a hand." A grin suddenly bewitches me. "Maybe we could consider it a fair exchange for the free wifi."
I take a moment to consider. "I suppose I could help out for a little while." I have to admit. I've always been curious about what beekeeping entails.
Then a stark question hits me. If Kade has a sister, and he likes me enough to give me constant hungry looks, flirt with me, be extra helpful...
why
is he not available?
"Here." He reaches for the veiled hat, places it on my head. Hands me the gloves before he guides me towards the hive.
The gloves come on, far too big for my hands. "Is this really enough to not get stung?" I don't like the thought of my arms and legs still exposed.
"You won't." He gives me an assured glance. "I promise."
The conviction in his voice soothes my nerves, muscles loosening slightly. "What about you? What if
you
get stung?"
"I've only been stung once in over two years of doing this. I just wear the gear for kicks." He grabs a strange looking metal contraption from the side of the hive. Something that looks like a cross between a frenchpress and half an accordion. "Hold this."
I take the weird device in my hands. Watch as he opens its lid to stuff the inside full of dried herbs. "What's this for?"
"It's a smoker." Kade holds a lit match to the kindling until a sweet-smelling haze fills the air. He deftly shuts the lid. "Lavender smoke. It gets the bees sleepy. Makes this whole process a lot easier." He turns to open the hive and my pulse escalates at the rising buzz. "Now pump the bellows and aim it towards the bees."
I step closer, dutifully aim the spout at the hive, pushing the accordion-looking side in and out. Smoke fills the air in languid plumes.
He removes a screen of honeycomb. Golden, oozing, rich. I salivate inadvertently. "It looks amazing." A few more pumps of smoke. Fat bees slowing to a waddle across the screen. "I've never seen honey straight out of the hive before."
"Wait until you taste it." His gaze touches my lips.
Those words shouldn't make my mind race towards sin but there it goes. "This is kind of fun," I say with a nervous laugh, words thick and syrupy in my mouth.
He scrapes honeycomb off the screen with a knife, waxy chunks falling into a plastic bin. "It's a lot more fun with two people."
Later, Kade and I are in his tiny, dark shed. Half-light streams through dusty windows. Lavender bundles hang from the rafters. Cupboards are stuffed full of homemade canned goods. We transfer honeycomb into a hand-cranked machine that spews out a glistening amber.
"This is more complicated than I thought. Also, more fascinating." Honey pools into a large bucket below and I watch, entranced.
"Want to try some?" Kade retrieves a spoon from a mason jar of cutlery. He dips it in the filling bucket and hands it to me.
I take the spoon to my mouth, swallowing as our gazes meet. Kade's jaw muscle ticks, shoulders holding tension as he watches me. Cool nectar travels down my throat. A sensual glide. "It's delicious." The truth, but my mind isn't on the honey right now.
The corner of his mouth lifts. He takes the spoon from me and licks the spot I missed.
Lust ripples up my spine.
"Did you draw anything today?" Kade asks me as we cross his yard towards the garden beds. I keep close behind him, stopping to watch him inspect his plants. He rubs a leaf of thriving rainbow chard between his fingers, weeding dandelions around the perimeter.
"A little. I added to a sketch I already made." Of him. The portrait in his truck.
"You've got a lot of talent, Red." Honesty lights his voice. "Glad you're able to get back into your art out here."
"It's an inspiring place," I admit, face heating at his compliment. "Actually, the more you bring it up, the more I want to draw my surroundings."
"Well, feel free to draw anything you want back here." He gestures to his plot of land, his free-range chickens, a rabbit disappearing into the brush. The overflowing flowerbeds competing with the beauty of the sky-high oak trees. "Or if you want anything from the garden, just ask. That way you won't have to go into town too often."
This is becoming too much. It's
so
