“You have your veil too?” He’d already backed up to the shed, then they’d drive over to the hives and lever them up from there.
“Already in the truck!”
“Okay.” He gave her a thoughtful look. “You know we won’t be back until late, right?”
“That’s okay. How many hives are you bringing?”
“Twenty should be enough. He only has ten acres in flower right now.”
“Is this the apple guy?”
“Peaches.”
“Where?”
“Easton, not far from the apple guy.”
Lilah was a good lieutenant when she was in the mood. Last year, the apple farmer had been taken with her, impressed that a girl so young had her own bee suit and knew a thing or two. Glenn had been quietly proud, and they’d stopped on the way home at their favorite ice cream shop, a little shack in Ridgefield, which was out of the way but had the best soft-serve around.
“Remember that time his wife gave us fritters?” Lilah reminisced.
Glenn grinned. “I remember. You scarfed down a whole one and had diarrhea on the way home.”
“I did not!”
“Oh, yes you did. I know exactly where we stopped, that Shell station on 57.”
“Oh my God…” She collapsed with laughter. “How could I forget something like that?”
He tousled her hair on his way back to the shed. “Because you were six.”
“But how come I remember the fritter?”
He gave her an amused look. “Who wants to remember diarrhea?”
“Not me! That’s for sure.”
Whatever the reason, Lilah was in a fine mood. A good thing too since Cassie was coming and she knew absolutely nothing about moving bees. He’d been half kidding when he invited her along, but she was game. He wanted her to see what his life looked like. All of it, not just hiking or dinner, but what he really did. The gritty work of dragging bees around to pollinate. Nothing glamorous about that. Not that she was under the impression he lived a glamorous life but if anything was todevelop between them—and he very much wanted it to—she needed to look under the hood, so to speak.
And yeah okay—he was hoping Lilah and Cassie would hit it off. They’d only met briefly a couple of times. Maybe they’d stop for ice cream on the way back.
“Rope’s on the peg behind the extra frames,” he said, nodding to the shelves at the rear of the shed.
“Got it.” She brought out a length of rope that he’d wound neatly, then looped through itself.
His bee shed was orderly, the way he liked it. You could never be too organized when it came to bees. And you needed to have all your supplies at hand. Once things got away from you, they spun out of control fast. When he was first starting out, he made the mistake of extracting honey in the yard instead of inside the shed. Within minutes, every insect within five miles had shown up for a free meal. Wasps were the worst—just plain nasty—and they could sting repeatedly. He never made that mistake again.
He motioned for Lilah to take the other end of the ramp, and they hiked it over to the truck. Now he just had to staple lightweight hardware cloth over the entrances and get the hives on board. It was nearly dusk, and most of the bees should be back from foraging by now. You didn’t want to take off too early and leave stragglers with nowhere to go.
“So what’s the story with you and Cassie?” Lilah said.
“What?” He nearly dropped his end of the ramp. Oh geez, now she was going to ask him a bunch of questions. “I um…we uh, well I like her.”
She arched an eyebrow. Where didgirlslearnthat? “Duh, that’s obvious.”
“It is?” Was he being obvious? Did Cassie think so?
Lilah grinned. “So what’s the story?”
