As frustrated as J.P. was with the situation, he wasn’t heartless.
“I won’t go to the county if you can guarantee I won’t continue to get stung.”
“The only way I can ensure that is if I give you a beekeeping suit, but I’m pretty positive that’s not the ideal attire for construction,” she said knowingly. “But you could stand to cover yourself up a little more with long sleeves. Long pants and gloves. Things like that.”
The chatty friend’s gaze landed on J.P.’s bare arms appreciatively. “I don’t like that idea,” the woman said in a tone steeped in shameless flirtation.
J.P. ran his palms along his biceps, insecurity catching him off guard. “I’ll hold off on involving the county for now. But I’m giving you fair warning: if I run into any more bees, I’m going to take care of them before they have an opportunity to bother me.”
Nora looked stricken. “You’re going to kill an innocent bee?”
“Believe me, these bees aren’t as innocent as you think they are. They’re taunting me. Buzzing around my face and my head. It’s like they’re trying to start something.”
In wedge sandals that made her balance as shaky as her voice, she clomped down the creaking porch steps, coming to a stop only when her face was mere inches from his. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you to pick on someone your own size?”
He knew she referred to the bees, but their disparity in height couldn’t be ignored, not with her squared off directly in front of him, her slender neck craned to meet his gaze. She was so much tinier than she’d appeared standing up on that deck, and something about her frustrated tenacity had J.P.’s heart quickening within his ribcage. He tried not to swallow because if he did, he was positive it would come out as an audible gulp.
“If you so much as lay a finger on my beehives, I will have you cited for trespassing.”
Hot air puffed from her mouth and swept over J.P.’s lips. “Is that a threat?” he asked in a voice that unintentionally came out at the volume of a whisper.
“It’s a promise.”
Chapter Three
The thought of anything happening to her bees had Nora’s stomach bottoming out.
It started off as a hobby. She’d been cleaning houses part time for the last five years, and while she loved her clientele and viewed it as fulfilling work, she wanted something of her own that could occupy her time when Connor was out of town. Which, in recent years, had been more often than not.
She’d done all the research. Attended a few online beekeeping meetings and even had a mentor who showed her the ropes and introduced her to the various styles of hives on the market. Ultimately, she’d picked a setup that gave the bees the chance to build their combs in a way most natural to them. While the Warre-style hive didn’t allow for as much honey production as the other setups did, Nora didn’t mind. She would take whatever the bees provided her, thanking the hives for her small share in their bounty.
At the time, she never could have imagined the selection of a beehive had the potential to break up a three-year relationship. But her ex-boyfriend, Connor, had used it against her, a line item in his tally of obscure reasons Nora didn’t operate in reality.
“If you’re starting a new business, you utilize the equipment that will help you yield the highest output,”he’d said one night as she scrolled through hive options on the internet, making her final decisions.“You’re setting yourself up for failure before you even get started.”
Irony drenched his words. Their own relationship had been set up for failure long beforeitever started.
Nora didn’t have aspirations to leave Harmony Ridge, the place where her grandmother had raised her from the time she was a young girl. She was small town bound, her roots deep, woven, and secure.
Connor Michelson had hopes of making it big in metropolitan real estate, a career only possible outside of the Ridge. Sure, Nora liked venturing into Hamilton on occasion, but she couldn’t imagine living there permanently. While there was a white-noise hum in the city too, the subway rumbles and car engines didn’t put off the same energy as her bees. It was chaos over calm, manmade cacophony over Mother Nature’s melody.
And those weren’t the only ways they were incompatible as a couple. Nora wanted a family. Sunday dinners and matching Christmas pajama pictures, and enough relatives to fill up an entire church pew. All the things she never experienced in her own upbringing. She wanted a ring on her finger and a brand new last name. She wanted to love someone so deeply that their very lives blurred until the two became one with their routines, their faith, and their dreams.
Connor would never marry. That just wasn’t something he needed. And while Nora had hoped she could change his mind, she learned that wasn’t a fair expectation to pin upon him. It was a lesson three years in the making, but they both finally arrived at the same answer (with a little nudge from Tillie).
They just weren’t right for one another.
That epiphany didn’t make the breakup any less painful. But as the saying goes, time truly did heal all wounds. Time and the steadfast company of her honeybees.
Success also helped. And boy, was it even sweeter when that success had been questioned from the get-go.
Nora wasn’t one forI-told-you-so’s. She let her quiet accomplishments speak for themselves. Her first season in business, word of mouth spread throughout town until nearly all of her honey jars were spoken for, either through preorders or bulk purchases. She’d never intended to make a real living from her hobby hives, but that was exactly what happened as her bank account finally had a sizable balance and her cupboards housed more than a few day’s worth of food behind their doors.
Beekeeping and housekeeping were her two passions, and she laughed a little that there was one thing she couldn’t keep: her composure.
The confrontation with J.P. had rattled her. Two glasses of wine and a long bubble bath, complete with salts and scrubs, weren’t even enough to ease the pull of her shoulders and the tension in her back. He’d wound her up so tightly, she feared she would snap.
What right did this man have to show up at her house and threaten not only her, but her bees? All because he’d gotten stung a few times? Honestly, she wouldn’t blame the bees one bit for jabbing him. She had wanted to herself, and even came dangerously close to stabbing her index finger into the center of his chest. His very muscled, incredibly firm chest that was aggravatingly right at eye level. The guy was fit, but Nora figured that went with the whole construction worker territory. He didn’t have a body builder type of frame, but more of a toned physique achieved through hard work and repetition. Still, it took more than a good body to impress Nora.
