Chapter 7
“And believe me, dear, I understand that everyone has busy schedules these days. But if we let people get used to putting their trash bins out a day early, what’s to stop them from putting them out two days early? Or even three? And from there it’s just anarchy, isn’t it?”
Penny glanced up from her laptop, smiling just enough to be friendly but not encouraging. Or so she hoped. “I wouldn’t say anarchy necessarily, Ms. Splicer.”
Lee Splicer, who’d been Penny’s former kindergarten teacher, now spent her retirement looking for violations of Sullivan’s Glen town ordinances. “I don’t think you understand the consequences of allowing—”
What Penny hadn’t considered the consequences of was trying to do her festival planning in Brewtopia, the small coffee shop nestled in the strip of stores and restaurants in downtown Sullivan’s Glen.
She’d been awake since early light to squeeze every extra minute from the day.
With only eight weeks until the festival, Penny’s brain buzzed with the last details she needed to hammer down.
Between morning chores, a meeting with RJ, and a trip to Mystic Mayhem to deliver a restock of beeswax candles, she still had the vendor tables to finalize, supplier contracts to sign, and permits to sort out with the township.
If it were up to Penny, she’d have settled this all months ago, but any attempts at early planning had been met with grumbles.
The residents of Sullivan’s Glen moved at their own pace.
Brewtopia seemed like as good a place as any to concentrate, away from the distraction of chores at the farm, and she’d gotten down to business making her Best Honey Festival Ever Checklist!—the exclamation point added in an effort to feel optimistic.
But now Ms. Splicer, one table over, would not stop talking about the trash bin crisis.
And she hadn’t been the only one eager to chat.
Since ordering her tea and muffin, Penny was interrupted by no fewer than four people eager to pass on their juiciest piece of gossip.
For better or worse, she now knew that Lorraine Langston was going to prom with her best friend’s brother, that Sun Lee’s nephew would be home from Marines basic training in August, and that Nancy Watkins was on a mission, again, to convince the Mason County volunteer firefighters to pose for a racy calendar.
But the people hadn’t just wanted to dish out info. They’d also asked a lot of questions.
Each interview began innocently enough, asking after her mother or grandmother, wondering how things were at the farm. But they all circled around eventually to one topic: Zander Bouras.
One would think the man had shown up in Sullivan’s Glen and walked straight across the lake, given how interested people were in his return.
And now, after he’d stepped in to help her at the farmer’s market—without being asked, when Penny was doing just fine—she was also a matter of public interest.
“I just want people to show some self-respect regarding their own property, Penny, you understand. And speaking of property, I heard a little rumor that someone is here to take care of Nikolai’s place….”
Penny took a long sip of her tea to keep from screaming. Even Ms. Splicer was infected with the Zander Bouras virus.
“I really don’t know anything about that.” Penny threw out the line she’d been using all morning. “I’m actually just trying to—”
“Penny!” A blur of navy slumped into the seat across Penny’s small table. Natasha Wrenfield, dressed head to toe in blue coveralls and holding a cup of coffee in each hand, beamed at Penny. “So fun seeing you out—you’re never here!”
Natasha was a local like Penny, and now ran her family’s mechanic’s shop with her younger brother.
Resolved that her morning was already lost, Penny closed her laptop. “I thought I might get some work done.”
“Ha!” Natasha put down the cups and gathered her curly black hair into a ponytail. “My sweet summer child. Tourists can sit here and work because no one will interrupt them. Locals, on the other hand, come here to gossip.”
Penny cast a sideways glance at Ms. Splicer, who’d now spotted someone new in line to warn about the impending anarchy in Sullivan’s Glen. “I figured that out the hard way.”
“And I’m sure everyone else tried to be subtle and beat around the bush. But I’m on limited time, so tell me.” Natasha leaned in. “What is the deal with Zander Bouras?”
Penny blinked innocently. “I really wouldn’t know. We don’t know each other.”
Natasha only raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Penny said. “We don’t.”
“Oka-ay, except he’s living right next door, and I heard you guys were buddy-buddy at the market.”
“We were not—” Penny lowered her voice. “No one is buddy-buddy. He inserted himself into my business because I had a little bit of a line and he was too impatient to wait to talk to me.”
Natasha’s eyes narrowed as she spun one of the cups in her hand. “So… he saw you were swamped and stepped in to help? That’s sweet.”
“It’s not sweet,” Penny said, reminding herself at the same time. It was not sweet, or generous. He’d helped only for his own purposes. “He wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart.”
“Was he helpful, though?”
Yes, very. That was the worst part.
“Mildly.”
Zander had worked wonders with that line, and clearly had a knack for customer service. She’d even heard him encouraging someone to grab an extra bundle of herbs, giving them advice on how to best use the rosemary with the chicken they were making that night.
How did Zander Bouras know how to use rosemary?
And when had he acquired all those tattoos?
And what was it about his knowing smirk that sent her stomach rioting?
Penny swallowed a groan and tugged at the end of her braid. She was sick of questions about Zander, especially the ones spiraling in her own head.
Natasha was still talking. “… don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”
“Sorry.” Penny shook her head. “What?”
Natasha grinned. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that that man is hot. I saw him as he was leaving the market, walking like a bull with his head down trying to get out of there. I mean, his tattoos?”
Penny shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”
Except for the snake twisting around his forearm, and an intricate snowflake on the soft underside of his wrist. His short-sleeved shirt had left more room for examination than when she’d seen him in the bee yard.
“I don’t know what he’s been doing all these years,” Natasha continued. “But the guy looks like he could toss a girl around the bedroom, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Natasha.” Penny’s face flamed.
“Jorge’s new boy toy, Finn, was in line during the whole Brad thing. I heard Zander handled him like a pro, sent him off with his preppy tail between his legs. Tell me everything.”
“It was…” Penny sighed, knowing she couldn’t shrug her way out of this one. “It was impressive, okay? I’ll give him that.”
When Brad started in on Zander about Mallory, Penny braced herself for the worst. Her mind shot five steps ahead, when she’d be screaming at Zander for losing his temper and scaring away her customers.
But he’d stayed calm, and he’d been smart, handling Brad with mastery. It was unexpected, just like the wave of heat it sent through Penny’s body.
For a flash, some boundary between them had cracked, revealing a glimpse of this grown-up Zander against the one who’d glared at her each summer years ago. So she’d told him to give her his number to follow up about bringing Winter over to see the bees.
But every time Penny opened to his contact, where he was entered as “Zander B,” she froze.
Natasha groaned as she checked her phone. “Shit. Little bro wants to know where his coffee is, I gotta run.” She pinned Penny with a knowing look. “But we will continue this conversation later, Penny Becker.”
As the door jingled behind Natasha, Penny dared to reach for her computer. Maybe she could still review last year’s invoices to look for places she could cut corners. Trying to squeeze a significant profit from the Honey Festival meant looking for efficiencies wherever she could.
But before she could get started, someone else took Natasha’s recently emptied chair. Penny prepped herself to smile and nod through another round of gossip, but the woman across from her definitely wasn’t local.
She was stunning, with sharp cheekbones and black hair cutting across her face. Silver rings decorated her left eyebrow.
“I’m sorry, I am being so weird.” The words spilled from her mouth. “But I heard that person call you Penny Becker. Are you Penny Becker?”
“Um.” Penny closed the laptop again. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Awesome. I’m Quinn. I’m Mallory Robinson’s girlfriend. But also Zander’s friend. I was Zander’s friend before I was Mal’s girlfriend, actually. It’s a whole thing.”
Wow, Natasha would be devastated she was missing this.
Quinn’s hand thrust over the table, the word T-R-U-T-H tattooed along her fingers. Penny met the hand in a quick shake. “Um, good to meet you?”
“I just wanted to say hi because I heard about you through Winter. He was telling me about the bee stuff. And I don’t know anyone here, beside Mal and Z of course, so—”
Quinn looked down at her own fingers, twisted together on the table. Penny realized she was nervous, which was sweet, considering she looked like she’d blend in fine at a biker bar.
“I’m glad you said hi,” Penny offered warmly. “And welcome to Sullivan’s Glen.”
Quinn brightened as she smiled back at Penny. “Thanks! It’s beautiful here. From what I’ve heard about this place from Zander, you’d think you had to pass through the gates of hell to enter. But it mostly seems to be a normal place.”
“Yeah,” Penny answered. “No demons in sight.” Despite his polite smiles at the farmer’s market, Zander clearly hadn’t been forgiving about the town in his stories to Quinn. “I guess he’s always hated this place.”
Quinn rubbed at her jaw. “He thinks he hates it, for sure. But Zander is…” She let a full breath draw in and out.
“You know how when you come back to a place from a different time in your life, and it’s like you’re traveling through all the same places and interactions, but now there are these potholes all over?
” Quinn’s painted nails tapped the table.
“Like all your old habits of who you were then wore everything down, and it’s easy to trip and drop into one and kind of fall into being that person you used to be. ”
Penny opened her mouth to say she didn’t know. Even when she left for college, she came home frequently, and had never truly had an experience of coming back after a long time away.
But she did have her own potholes—cycle of conversations with her mom that were as regular and reliable as the seasons that set the rhythm of Penny’s life.
Maybe it was a spontaneous idea from Ruth that Penny quickly shot down with a dose of reality, or another promise that if Penny just worked less everything would turn out just fine.
Each time those holes were worn a little deeper.
And over and over, each time Penny fell into one, she smiled and kept the peace, making sure everything ran smoothly.
“Look at me.” Quinn shook her head. “I sat down to say hi and try to make a local friend, and I made it dark right away. I would tell you I’m not normally like this, but it would be a lie.”
Penny laughed quietly. “No, it’s fine.”
Refreshing, actually, after a morning of gossip and surface-level conversations.
“And it’s not my place to say, but I’ll say it anyway.
I know you haven’t followed up with Zander, and if you don’t want to, I would get it.
He’s kind of mean and prickly. But it’s because he had to be, for a long time.
We all have the armor we put on to survive, but most of us are soft underneath, Z especially.
” Quinn blushed and swiped at her hair. “Yikes, there I go again. I have this inability to do small talk, I apologize.”
“I appreciate it, actually,” Penny assured her, her thoughts still circling on potholes and armor, the kind she wore and that Zander might don as well.
Quinn glanced at the line. “I should get moving, but think about texting Zander, okay? It’d mean a lot to him if he got to bring Winter over for the bee stuff.” She stood and shot Penny one more smile. “It was awesome to meet you, Penny, and I hope we cross paths again.”
“I do, too.” And she really meant it.
As Quinn hustled to the end of the line, Penny slipped her laptop back into her bag. She had to meet RJ at the warehouse soon to extract honey, so festival work would have to wait until tonight.
But before she stepped back out onto Sullivan Glen’s Main Street, she pulled out her phone and typed a message to Zander B.
I’m free Thursday at 10 to show Winter the bees. We’ll meet at your place.