Chapter One
Athousand bees swarmed around Nora Paisley.
For most people, that might cause panic. At the very least, an elevated heart rate or sweaty palms.
Not for Nora. Like a comforting white noise, the buzzing bees created calm with their low and steady hum, to the point where she found joy in their consistent tune. She even caught herself humming right along with them as she pumped the smoker to puff air into the hives.
Sure, it might seem silly to harmonize with insects, but Nora couldn’t help herself. Gladness and gratitude poured out of her each time she checked in on her little honeybees. Honestly, it still amazed her that these colonies even existed. Worker bees, drones, and most importantly, the queen, all had a role to play. And Nora had one too. As a beekeeper, it was her responsibility to make sure her bees had enough room to expand and thrive. Food when they needed it in the form of spoonfuls of sugar in the winter and rows of fresh, blossoming flowers in the spring and summer months.
Nora tried to create a flourishing existence for her bees. She knew their life cycle was only a short thirty days, but it was her goal to make sure those days were filled with beautiful blooms from which to gather pollen, peaceful surroundings in which to spread their little wings, and a cozy place to call home.
Nora smiled as she lowered the smoker to a nearby cinderblock and took inventory, arms crossed in front of herself. All was well on the beehive front and in life in general. She absolutely could not complain.
Unzipping the neckline of her protective beekeeping suit, she gently pushed back the mesh face covering and let the wide-brimmed hat settle at the nape of her neck. The August sunshine heated her cheeks with a soft, warm kiss. Several bees still whirred about, but she didn’t worry about them. They were much more preoccupied with the recently blossoming zinnias and cosmos that had exploded in the garden in a riot of bold color earlier that week.
This was the best time of year, when the sun shone brilliantly and the temperatures tipped the thermometer toward triple digits. Nora favored the heat and so did many of the plants in her summer garden. Plus, there were always creative ways to cool off, her preferred method being the lemonade sit-and-sips with her best girlfriends on her porch.
It was a standing weekly date on the calendar during the summer months, a time to fill their cups, both figuratively and literally.
And she was about to be late for it.
She climbed out of her beekeeping suit and folded it into a neat square, placing the bulky white garment onto the shelf of the garden shed near the back of her property.
Tillie and April could let themselves in and locate the jug of fresh-squeezed lavender lemonade in the refrigerator door just fine. That wasn’t a problem. But Nora had wanted to spruce up her porch with the new buffalo check pillows she’d purchased for her Adirondack rockers. She wasn’t trying to impress the women—their friendship was well past those initial best-foot-forward days—but Nora took pride in these little decorative touches. They were the small pieces that had transformed Grandma Kay’s old farmhouse into a personalized home of Nora’s own.
With her feet moving double time over the dusty acreage, Nora reached the house only moments before Tillie’s pink convertible bug rounded the corner and ground to a halt in the driveway, hissing as the engine started to cool.
Nora made quick work of gathering the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge and three jadeite glasses from the open cupboard above her sink. It was a wobbly, precarious stack, but she’d had practice. This had to be their tenth sit-and-sip of the season.
With everything in hand, Nora hip-bumped the rickety screen door and pushed through, then balanced the beverage tray on the porch railing to free her arms for an incoming hug that never happened.
Tillie barreled completely past her.
Okay. So Tillie was in no mood for pleasantries. The woman stomped up the porch steps and into the house, strangling a bouquet of white daisies gripped upside down by the stems. With her free hand, she shoved her sunglasses up to her forehead and the crown of chestnut curls, pushing her hair back from her face like a headband. “I thought you would appreciate these more than I do.” She whirled around and squished the flowers into Nora’s stomach as she passed them off.
It wasn’t the first time Tillie had re-gifted a perfectly good bouquet.
“Travis still isn’t taking a hint?” Nora rotated the blossoms. They were beautiful—likely store bought and imported from somewhere far from Harmony Ridge—and the notecard slipped into the greenery answered her own question. “Your beauty is as lovely as a rose, as fragrant as a daisy.”
“I didn’t know beauty had a smell.” Tillie harrumphed under a short breath. “And I don’t know how else to get it through to him that I’m not interested.”
Tillie trailed a few paces behind Nora as she wove her way back into the house to collect a hobnail vase from her grandmother’s curio cabinet. Nora filled the vase with cool water and arranged the cheery flowers, unable to mask the smile they brought even though she figured her appreciation only ruffled Tillie’s feathers further. Tillie would probably be just as happy to have them pitched into the waste bin. “Have you tried telling him that? I mean, in those exact words.”
“I’m pretty sure‘Even if we were the last two people in Harmony Ridge, we would not be a couple’translates the same.”
“Ouch.” Nora winced, the secondhand embarrassment for poor Travis turning her stomach.
Tillie was so no-nonsense, Nora was fairly confident her dear friend hadn’t been born with a filter. In fact, Tillie’s opinions when it came to men impacted more than just her own personal dating life. That unabashed honesty was actually the reason Nora ever entertained the idea of breaking things off with her ex, Connor.
They’d been out to dinner at the Campfire Café one evening, discussing—or more accurately, debating—Nora’s plans for the renovation of her late grandmother’s front porch when Connor had excused himself to the restroom. He hadn’t been absent ten seconds when Tillie twisted around in her seat at the booth behind them and blurted,“You need to unhitch yourself from that guy, like, yesterday.”
The bold statement had been met with Nora’s quirked brow and baffled expression, but within the span of the time it took for Connor to make his way back to the table, Tillie had easily convinced Nora she was right. They were all wrong for each other. While Nora had wanted to rebuild the porch to create a tranquil space she could enjoy for years to come, Connor sought to find the most economical way to restore it purely for curb appeal and resale purposes.
And that was the thing; Nora didn’t have plans to sell.
Inheritances often equated to dollar signs, but not in this case. Nora’s beloved grandmother had gifted her with the security of knowing she would always have a roof over her head and peace in her heart. The farmhouse and the sprawling property beneath it was home, and while Nora didn’t doubt it could fetch top dollar with the current state of the housing market, the thought that she should sell it flitted in and out of her brain faster than a hummingbird bouncing from flower to flower.
With the bouquet now in a proper place on Nora’s kitchen island where it could be appreciated, the women headed back to the porch to await the arrival of the last woman in their trio.
