by Vivi Holt
He rubbed his hand over his chin, and a frown line appeared on his forehead. “Hmmm … no, I’m sorry. Your dad called me. I think he had me on speakerphone, so I could hear your mum too. They sounded upset and said they needed to speak with me right away. I told them I was home and they hung up. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
“That’s okay. I was just hoping to figure out what was going on. I had a look at the hives the other day and they don’t look good.”
“What’s wrong?” questioned Baker, concerned.
“I’m not sure. There should be a lot of activity this time of year and there wasn’t. The honey didn’t look good either. I don’t know … I thought maybe they were going to talk to you about the bees.” She frowned and chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully.
“It’s possible, though I don’t really know anything about beekeeping. I wouldn’t have been much help, I’m afraid.”
Isabella smiled and ducked her head as the music faded.
A tap on her shoulder made her jump. “Sorry,” laughed Meg. “Are you ready to go?”
She nodded and turned to leave.
“Hey, if you like, I could come by tomorrow and take a look at the hives with you,” Baker added. “Maybe we could figure it out together.”
She turned back to face him. “Thanks – that would be great.”
“See you then!” His eyes were fixed on hers and made her stomach twist. There was something so strong, so confident and at ease about Baker Pritchard. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but he’d always had it, even when he was a gangly teenager with pimpled cheeks. Like he’d always known who he was.
Isabella waved goodbye and left, ignoring the hint of a smirk on Meg’s face as they stepped outside.
4 December
The coffee cup warmed Isabella’s hands as she turned it between them, studying the swirl of cream in the light brown of the drink. Lounging on the porch, she sipped as steam rose from the cup. She breathed deep and sighed, then tucked her bare feet beneath her to lie back in the rocker.
Hector sprawled beside her, his black-and-white head on his front paws. Without looking up, his tail thumped against the porch when her gaze landed on him. She smiled and reached down to stroke his back. The dog’s head flew up and his ears pricked, then he jumped to his feet and ran down the front stairs, barking. She leaned forward and set the cup of coffee on the side table.
Dust swirled near the farm gate and down the long winding drive. Someone was coming – a dual-cab red truck. Baker. Her heart fluttered and she smoothed her hair back against her head as her gut began to churn. Why had she agreed to have him come over? He wasn’t likely to be of any help with the bees and they both knew it. Just thinking about that made her heart pound harder. Did he have feelings for her? Was he fabricating a reason to spend time with her? Surely not.
What about her own feelings? She didn’t know how she felt. He was a Christian pastor, she an atheist … at least she had been until yesterday. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Something had happened in that church – something inside her had changed. It was as though her spirit had been awakened, and she hadn’t been able to think about much else since.
He pulled the truck to a stop and leaped out with a wave and a smile. She returned both, then lifted her hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. “Hi, Baker. Where are the girls today?”
He laughed and bent to pat Hector, who bounded about his feet, his tail flicking from side to side and his tongue lolling. “At school. My parents are going to collect them and take them back to their place for dinner and bedtime. So I’m a free man tonight.”
Her cheeks burned. Was this a date? She swallowed. “Oh, well, that’s good. Only you shouldn’t have wasted your one free night on me. You should go out, have fun.”
“I wanted to come and see you. Don’t worry, the kids actually spend every Monday night with their grandparents. They love it and so do I!” He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “So what’s going on with those bees?”
Baker put on the helmet of the bee suit, coughed at the musty smell and let it fall at a weird angle. Isabella laughed and tugged at it, righting it. “There you go.”
“Thanks.” He watched her walk toward the hives in her own bee suit, the smoker already throwing out a cloud of white that trailed behind her. He took a deep breath, then coughed again. What was he doing here? He was attracted to her, always had been. In high school he’d had a gigantic crush on her, but she’d barely seemed to know his name. Then she’d moved to Sydney, he to Brisbane – both studying at different universities – and he’d only seen her on summer break or at the occasional Heartstone community event. Once he’d married, he’d lost touch with her completely.
But now he’d been alone, and lonely, for three long years since Joy died. And Issie was back, but she was grieving. He knew he should just be there for her, to support her in what was likely the hardest thing she’d ever been through. That’s what he was here to do. He had to put his feelings aside and consider her well-being. Anyway, it was highly like she saw him as the same pimply, scrawny teenager she’d successfully avoided all those years ago.
He set off across the field after Isabella, stumbling over the tufts of grass, cow pats, foxtails and thistles that dotted the pasture. She turned to watch him, waiting patiently as he tried in vain to look at his feet. Every time he did, the helmet slipped backward, making it impossible to see anything.
He heard her chuckle as his foot hit something hard. He glanced down, saw a fire ant hill, shuffled sideways to go around it and tripped over a foxtail bunch. Unable to gain his balance, he sprawled face down on the ground with his hands outstretched – directly on top of a thistle. Its prickles found their way beneath the mask, through the mesh and into his neck. “Ouch!” he cried, scrambling quickly to his feet.
Isabella hurried to him. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” He felt the colour rise up his neck and gritted his teeth. If he was trying to make her believe he was still the awkward teen with the impossible crush, he was doing a bang-up job. He reached beneath the mask and plucked the prickles from his skin. “Just a few, thankfully.”
She giggled and reached up to pull several from his mask.
His eyes caught hers and held them for a moment. Everything around faded away, and he could hear his heart pounding. Her eyes were wide and blue and full of promise. A tingle ran through his body, and he had to resist the urge to lift a gloved hand to caress her mask-covered face – it would likely be the most unromantic gesture of all time. And he was supposed to be there to support her, nothing more. He swallowed hard. “Thanks.”
“Okay, then, follow me.” She stepped back and headed for the closest hive. “Do you see that? There should be hundreds of bees buzzing around there. Instead, there’s only a couple of dozen, and the ones that are there look …”
“Lazy,” he finished for her.
“Yeah, lazy. Like something’s wrong.”
“I see what you mean.” He frowned. The bees definitely seemed lacking in vitality.
He watched as she tugged a long thin frame from the hive. “And see this honey? It’s dark and thick. It shouldn’t be like that.” She sighed loudly and returned the frame to its place. “I wanted to harvest today, but I’m afraid there’s not much to harvest.”
“So what do we do now?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Dad always kept log books of his inspections, harvests, seasons … maybe I should take a look in his office to see what I can find. If the bees have been suffering awhile, it’ll be recorded in those for sure. Maybe he had some theories about what’s going on.”
Baker’s mask slipped sideways again and he impatiently pulled at it, setting it right. His gloved fingers felt fat and uncoordinated. And as he adjusted it, several bees that had been walking sedately across his suit crawled inside. “Ahhh!” he cried, as he felt one sting, followed by two more in quick succession.
“What? What�
��s wrong?” asked Isabella, hurrying to his side.
Two more stings – his neck felt as though it was on fire. “They’re stinging me!” He grabbed his mask, flinging it off.
Isabella took him by the arm and hurried him away from the hives as a few disgruntled bees chased after them. As soon as they were a safe distance away, she stood on tiptoe to examine the sting marks and raised an eyebrow. “You’re not allergic, are you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Come on, then, let’s get back to the house and I’ll put some ointment on those.” She pulled her own mask off, then yanked her hands out of her gloves.
“I’m fine. Really. It hurt at first, but it’s already feeling better. I mean, it’s only a few bee stings.” He didn’t want to tell her that it felt as though a tiny branding iron was being pressed to his skin. He pulled off his own gloves, then struggled out of the bee suit.
“Still, I really think I should take a closer look at those stings, just in case.”
He nodded. It couldn’t hurt. Could it? To spend more time with her alone. After all, he could control his impulses. “Okay, thanks.”
He watched her walk toward the two horses grazing peacefully beneath a jacaranda tree. She wore jeans and a blue-and-white button-down cotton shirt. He sighed deeply, knowing he’d need every ounce of self-restraint he could muster to keep his hands to himself. “I still don’t see why I have to ride Butthead,” he called after her as he hurried to catch up.
She laughed, a huge guffaw that warmed him to his core. “Well, come on now. Out of Beavis and Butthead, which did you think I was gonna ride?”
He rolled his eyes. “And who would name horses that, anyway?”
She smiled. “A teenage girl.”
Baker grinned despite himself.
Back at the house, Baker waited patiently on a worn barstool at the kitchen counter, tapping a finger against the glass of lemonade Isabella had poured him. Condensation trailed down the outside of the frosted glass.
“Okay, we have betadine, calamine, some kind of anti-itch cream …oh, I think it’s for stings too …”
“That sounds fine,” he said, trying to think of something wittier. Anything to break through the polite chitchat and broach the idea of a date, a real date.
She sat on the stool beside him, squeezed some cream onto her finger and began to spread it over the welts around his neck and beneath his chin.
“Thanks, but you really don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t mind.” She seemed fixed on the task at hand, but when she finished, her gaze crept up to meet his. He saw the curiosity lingering behind her eyes, and they crinkled around the edges when she smiled. “What?”
“What do you mean?”
Her nose wrinkled. “You’re looking at me funny.”
“Sorry,” he chuckled. “I didn’t realize.”
She pulled her hand back, but he grasped it before she could move away. She gasped as he linked his fingers through hers. “What are you doing?” she asked softly.
“I …” His face hovered over hers, inching closer with each moment. Her eyes were blue and ringed by a faint circle of gold flecks. Her nose tipped up at the end and was covered in a smattering of faded freckles. He longed to touch each one. The air between them thickened as he kissed her gently, unable to resist any longer, half expecting her to pull away.
She put her free hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer to deepen the kiss, taking his breath away. He hadn’t expected that.
With a smile, he broke the embrace. “Wow.”
She laughed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He twisted his fingers through hers. “We, uh, should probably take a look at those log books, I guess.” He hated to interrupt the moment – everything in him cried out for more of her – but he wanted to take things slowly.
She stood and extracted her hand from his. “The office is in here. I think I know where he kept the log books. I wish I’d paid more attention when I had the chance …” Her voice drifted off, choked with emotion.
He followed her to the office. She pulled a series of worn books from a shelf, piling them neatly on the floor, then sat beside them cross-legged. He lowered himself beside her and took a book from the pile. As he pored through it line by line, he couldn’t help marvelling at the detail and depth of the reports. He’d known Keith Proctor his whole life, but he saw him in a whole new light through the words scrawled onto the thin blue lines of each page.
Isabella interrupted his musings. “Here – I found something.”
He leaned toward her. “What is it?”
“There’s an entry from two months ago – he noticed the bees weren’t looking as healthy as they had been. He’s wondering if it was the location, though he’d had the hives there for years.”
They read through the entries for the rest of the month, but couldn’t find anything else to shed light on the issue. After a while, Baker stood and stretched his arms over his head with a yawn. It was dark outside and his stomach growled. Isabella looked up at him with a laugh. He waited, hoping she’d invite him to stay for dinner, but she didn’t.
Finally he bit his bottom lip and ran his hand through his hair. “So I think I’ll be heading home, then.”
She stood with a groan. “Oh man, I’m getting old. Sitting on the floor isn’t quite as easy as it used to be.”
He chuckled. “I know what you mean.”
“Well, thanks for your help – I really appreciate it.” She followed him out to the front door and held it open for him.
He paused and spun to face her. “Issie, would you like to have lunch with me?”
Her eyebrows arched in surprise.
“On Wednesday, at the Horned Owl. It’s a new cafe downtown.”
She nodded slowly. “Oh yeah, I think I saw it. That sounds nice. Uh … can I ask you something? Would that be a date?”
His cheeks flamed. “Yeah, that’s what I was hoping for.”
“Oh. Okay, then.”
He swayed awkwardly. “I’ll see you on Wednesday. Should I pick you up here?”
“Um … no, I’ll probably be visiting Cindy anyway, so I’ll just meet you there.”
He nodded again. “Okay, see you there.”
As he walked away he rolled his eyes. Why was it he could be smooth as butter with anyone but Issie Proctor? She made him trip over himself, literally and figuratively, every time he was in her presence. He got in the truck and watched as she shut her front door before turning the key to start the engine. Well, at least she’d said yes to a date – she’d never done that before.
Baker grinned again. There was hope.
6
6 December
Rain beat on the tin roof while Isabella ate her breakfast, drowning out the sound of the news program. She stirred the bowl of muesli and scooped a spoonful up to her mouth. She usually loved the sound of the rain, but today it just added to her misery.
She’d planned on taking another look at the hives. She had to try to figure out what was going on with the bees before it was too late. Just the idea of losing the lot of them made her stomach clench with nerves. She couldn’t let them die. They were her father’s pride and joy – if they died … well, she just couldn’t let that happen.
A blonde lady behind a circular desk was gesturing emphatically about something on the telly. The dark-haired Ken doll beside her threw his hands up in the air and laughed, and the picture shifted its focus over to the weatherman. She picked up the remote and turned it off. There was no need for her to watch the weather report – a glance out the window would suffice. She carried her now-empty bowl to the sink, rinsed it and set it in the dish rack to dry.
The light on the answering machine blinked and she glanced at it. Fifteen new messages – mostly from Simon, no doubt. His calls had only increased with her continued silence. She’d call him back sometime, but she still couldn’t deal with him yet.
She padded to her bedroom. She shou
ld go and check on the horses, and Hector – he was nowhere to be seen. He might be sheltering in the stable with them. But she didn’t have any gumboots or a rain jacket. She’d not had much need for gumboots in the city. Mum had a pair, though, so she’d just borrow those … she stopped with a gasp. Was it borrowing if the person would never take them back again?
Her eyes smarted with tears as she stumbled into her parents’ bedroom. She hadn’t ventured in there since picking out their clothes for the funeral. The curtains were drawn and the room wallowed in stuffy darkness. A pair of jeans lay neatly folded on one end of the bed. The bedside tables were covered in a thin layer of dust. On one side, her father’s reading glasses balanced on top of the latest book he’d been reading. His last book. The thought made her shiver.
Gumboots. That’s what she’d come in there for.
She hurried to the closet and slid the door open. Her mother’s clothes hung in neat rows, arranged by colour and season. She smiled at the sight. She hadn’t inherited her mother’s neatness; her own room back in Sydney was always in disarray. A row of shoes stood on the floor of the closet from shortest to tallest, with the gumboots clean and tall at one end.
As she pulled them from the closet, a package wrapped in red paper with a green ribbon around it fell to the ground. She picked it up and her eyes skimmed over the attached card, the tape decorated with fir trees. It was a Christmas gift. A gift for her.
There was a large stack of gifts that had been hidden from view by the boots and now teetered precariously. She slid them into the open and sat on the bedroom floor to look through them. There was one for her father, with a sweet note penned in her mother’s neat hand. Another for Aunt Cindy. Two more for herself. A cardboard box piled high with gifts for other friends, neighbours and family members.
As she pulled each one out, she set it on the floor until she was surrounded by a circle of red, green and gold packages, decorated with reindeer, snow-covered fir trees, manger scenes, sleighs. Gifts her mother would never get to give, for a Christmas she would never see.
