Chapter 24
“The apple blossom is the best.”
“No, bro. It’s wildflower all the way.”
“Whatever, J. You just have broken taste buds.”
Zander chuckled from his spectator’s spot in Penny’s honey shed, where he watched three tweens debate honey varietals as Penny, bright-eyed and smiling, recapped the last jar.
Her warehouse contained shelves of supplies, two industrial sinks, and a few long worktables, all sparkling clean and organized.
This was where she spun and processed the honey from the Becker Farms hives, and where she was ending the tour she’d set up for Winter, Jazz, and Adam.
“But how do you know this is just from wildflowers?” Jazz asked, dipping another wooden spoon into the open jar of wildflower honey.
Since the Fourth of July picnic, the trio had been nearly inseparable, splitting their time between exploring the woods, yelling at video games, and messing around on the ice.
Winter had remained abundantly cool about making friends, so Zander went along with the vibe that it was no big deal, even though he thrilled at the sight of his kid finding people who made him laugh.
Of course, making friends here meant Winter was no longer counting down the days until they left Sullivan’s Glen, and Zander suspected that his son’s mood might crash when it was time to return to Boston.
It was possible that Winter wouldn’t be the only one who would have a hard time with the transition.
“We know where most of the nectar is coming from based on what’s blooming at any given time.
” Penny sat across the large table, the sunglasses on her head holding back her spill of golden hair.
“Plus, once bees have a taste of a certain kind of nectar, they’ll keep collecting from that plant as long as it’s blooming.
So if a bee leaves the hive in the morning as clover is blooming, and she collects some of its nectar, she’ll spend the day finding more clover, then do it again the next day and the next day, until the bloom is over.
It’s a cool system called floral fidelity.
It’s what makes bees such great pollinators, because if they stopped off at a bunch of different plants every day, they wouldn’t necessarily be moving the pollen around where it needs to go. ”
Floral fidelity. Penny had mentioned it before when she was telling him how the apiary in the apple orchards ensured that the trees would be properly pollinated for a good harvest. And while it was a biological concept, not a romantic one, it made Zander feel a kinship with the bees.
Because once Zander had had a taste of Penny, he couldn’t imagine wanting anyone else.
“Dad, can Jazz and Adam come over? Jazz brought new Pokémon cards we wanna go through.”
“Sure. You all can walk over and I’ll help Penny clean up. But don’t make a mess. Monica is sending someone over to take pictures for the listing later today.” Something she’d asked to do a week ago, and that Zander had avoided, telling her for days he hadn’t had time to clean up.
The kids all muttered thank-yous to Penny as they gathered up the honey she’d given them to take home.
Once they were left alone, Zander worked his way to Penny and wrapped his arms around her waist as she recapped the wildflower honey.
“Just one second, missy. I didn’t get a taste.”
“I think you’ve had enough honey in the past few weeks to last a lifetime.”
“Please.” He pouted into her neck. “Just one more.”
She spun in his arms and peered up with those eyes he couldn’t get enough of, an endless blue that messed with his equilibrium, whisking the solid ground from beneath his feet each time.
Back in Boston, Zander’d had a pretty good run of things.
He had a healthy relationship with his co-parent, enough friends to meet his needs, a positive if hormonally strained relationship with his kid.
Yeah, his apartment was cramped and the city was a little loud.
And his once-reasonable work schedule was more demanding of late, sometimes keeping him up at night.
But he had a good life. A life he was proud of.
Then Mallory dragged him back to Sullivan’s Glen and he met Penny Becker in a clearing full of bees, and now he was all fucked-up thinking about things he had no right to think about.
Like what the trees around the house would look like in the fall, or how the storefronts of Sullivan’s Glen might be decorated at Christmas.
And, more dangerously, he yearned to know how Penny would fare through all of it—welcoming people to the farm to fill their baskets with apples, or tucking inside with a blanket for the season’s first snowfall.
Would she stand outside her cabin in the spring, watching the first flowers press up through the dirt and remember when Zander kissed her on her doorstep?
Pushing aside the questions he couldn’t answer, Zander caged Penny against the table, picking up the jar of honey in one hand and a wooden sample spoon in the other.
He’d had plenty of samples, but was fixated on tasting it just like this, so he scooped up a glob of shiny golden honey and smeared it along her lower lip.
She grinned, then pouted her lips to make his work easier.
Zander marveled again at how devastatingly well-matched they were.
Penny was as fierce in bed as out of it, stepping up to his every flirtation and dirty suggestion.
And though she had the sort of strident independence that made it hard for her to accept help washing the dishes, she let go when they were together in bed, often ceding control to Zander and letting him take care of her like he craved.
When both her lips were gleaming, he moved in for his taste, dragging his tongue through the honey and then sucking the rest into his mouth.
He reveled in the sweetness—Penny, the honey, one and the same.
It was a crime he hadn’t yet sucked honey from her pink nipples or made sweet streaks to lick off her inner thighs.
But he couldn’t do that now, much as he’d love to mark the honey shed as one more place where he’d made Penny come. He had to return to the house soon to check on the kids, but first he had an idea to pitch to Penny.
Penny chased the kiss, but Zander kept her at bay with hands on her shoulders. “Before I go, I want to talk about something. I have an idea for the festival.”
Her brows pulled together. “As in, the festival that’s in two weeks? Are we still in idea mode?”
“I know it’s kind of late in the game.” Zander walked around the table, collecting used tasting spoons and tossing them in the large silver trash can near the door.
“But hear me out. Imagine this.” He pulled a paper from his pocket and unfolded it, flattening it out on the table.
It was a crude drawing of the festival—several blocks of Main Street dedicated to rows of vendor booths, with performance stages at each end, and a children’s area in the adjoining park that surrounded the town square.
“I want to put a culinary station here.” He tapped the basketball courts in the park.
“Think several cooking stations, set up with cooktops and portable counters, kind of like in those cooking shows. And we can have local chefs and folks from farther away, too. I have a buddy in the city who said he thinks he can make it, somebody else who said she’d come from Toronto.
They can do cooking demos, using local ingredients, real farm-to-table stuff.
And the best part? We can have a special focus on honey, give everybody ideas on more ways to use it, then send them straight to Becker Farms to pick it up. ”
He bounced on his heels, eager for Penny’s thoughts.
He’d begged to be part of festival planning to prove himself to Winter and his old doubters in the town at large, but now Zander was invested in how the whole thing turned out.
And while his expertise and connections were clearly a help, most of his work had been toward Penny’s vision.
But this plan spoke to his interests and skills, a way to really bring himself into the Honey Festival.
As Penny stared at the crude map, Zander continued. “I thought of this the other night with RJ, actually. We were hanging out while he was making pies, and I realized how much fun he was to watch, how people would probably line up to see him in an apron.”
And once he’d started thinking about it, it seemed perfect. He put together restaurants for a living, and he could do it here, building a master kitchen at the Honey Festival.
Penny stared at the map, not meeting his eyes. “This sounds like a big thing,” she said tensely. “And we only have two weeks left.”
“I know. But we have everything else sorted out, and I really think we can pull it off.”
Her fingers traced along Main Street. “It would mean getting another permit.”
“I can handle that,” he answered quickly. “Dolores down at the township office likes me. I think I can get it expedited.”
Penny blew out a long breath. “Cooking stations like on TV sounds fancy. What would that cost?”
“It would be a few thousand to rent everything, and some of the chefs would need some money for travel costs. But before you—”
“Tell you that we don’t have thousands to spare? You know this is all happening on a shoestring.”
“Sure, but with higher vendor fees, there’s some extra money that we could—”
“There’s not extra money, Zander. I need—” She shook her head. “We need all of that.”
“I can show you the breakdowns. It’s not like I haven’t thought this over.”
“I can tell you’ve thought it over,” she said sharply. “You didn’t want to clue me in?”
Zander narrowed his gaze on her, struggling to read her reaction. “I wanted to come to you with a plan, Penny. I’m clueing you in now.”
He circled the table, but when he reached an arm toward her, Penny ducked his touch and headed toward the door. “I just—” she started. “I need some air.”