14. Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Wyatt
“My line of clothes made it easy.”
“Let me see.”
She holds her arms out.
I give her a quick once-over. “You'll do.”
She smiles. “You're very bossy when bees are involved.”
“Keeping you alive is my job today.”
“Good. I'd like to be kept alive.”
“Then put on the suit.”
She takes it from me, still smiling.
“Might not fit great. We don't keep a small size around, never had the need.”
She steps into it, wrestling the zipper up, and by the time she's got both arms through she looks swallowed whole by canvas, veil hanging loose around her shoulders like a costume two sizes too big.
“I look ridiculous.”
I study her a beat too long before I answer.
“I wouldn't say that.”
She goes still for half a second, like she heard something underneath it.
I hand her a wide-brimmed hat with a mesh veil hanging from it.
“Now this.”
She puts it on and lets the veil fall around her face and shoulders. I show her how to tuck the bottom securely into her shirt so there aren't any gaps.
She holds her arms out. “How do I look?”
“Protected.”
“I was going for astronaut.”
“You're taking this very seriously.”
“You'll thank me when none of them are inside your shirt.”
She immediately checks the tucked edge of the veil again.
I smile. “Good job, Savannah.”
She goes back to wrestling with the gloves.
“These don't fit either.”
“Nothing about beekeeping fits right the first time.”
I tug the cuff of her glove down over the suit sleeve, sealing the gap.
“You get used to it.”
The closer we get to the hives, the slower Savannah walks.
“You okay?”
“Absolutely.”
A bee passes in front of her veil.
She stops walking.
I bite back a smile. “Absolutely?”
“Mostly.”
“You don't have to do this.”
“I know.”
“There's no prize at the end.”
“There better be honey.”
“That can be arranged.”
She takes another step, then another, until she's beside me.
“Just stay close,” I tell her.
Her eyes meet mine through the veil.
“That was already the plan.”
I light the smoker, a few short puffs at the hive entrance, and the hum inside shifts — not louder, just different, the bees settling into whatever instinct tells them smoke means stay calm and eat. I ease the lid off and set it aside.
The hum gets louder.
Savannah takes one quick step closer to me.
“That's a lot of bees.”
“About forty thousand.”
Her head turns slowly toward me.
“That number would've been more useful before I agreed to this.”
“You would've come anyway.”
“You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I know you.”
The words are out before I think about them.
And the surprising part is, I think I do.
She goes quiet.
So do I.
I clear my throat and reach for the hive tool.
“Here. I'll show you how to pull a frame.”
I lift the first frame partway, checking the wax — most of it capped, ready, a few cells still open and glistening.
I set the hive tool in her hand.
“Straight up. Don't twist.”
She's tentative, the tool trembling slightly against the frame, so I step in behind her, my arms around her and my hand over hers, guiding the angle.
“Easy. Straight up.”
“Are you making the moves on me, Sheriff Stapleton?”
I laugh. “I'm trying to keep you from dropping a frame full of bees.”
“That's what you're calling it?”
“Steady now.”
I probably should move. Instead, I guide the frame the rest of the way up.
“So where's the queen?” she asks.
“Farther down, probably. We're not after her today.”
“There's really only one?”
“One queen. Whole hive built around her.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
I laugh, more than the joke deserves.
“She doesn't run things the way people think. Workers do most of it. Every one of them has a job — nurse the brood when they're young, build comb, guard the entrance, and eventually they graduate to foraging, flying out for nectar. Nobody's telling them what to do. They just know their part.”
“So everybody's got a role.”
“Pretty much.”
She studies the frame, thousands of bees moving over it in a pattern only they understand. “And it just — works. All of it.”
“It works because every one of them does their part. That's the whole thing.”
She goes quiet at that, still watching the bees.
We pull the frame the rest of the way free.
“There,” I say. “You've got it.”
Savannah lets out a breath. “I did it.”
“You did.”
I'm still behind her, my arms around hers, helping her hold the frame steady.
“If we weren't holding a frame full of bees right now, I'd keep my arms around you a little longer.”
She laughs. “I’d like that.”
“Maybe later we can re-enact this scene.”
“Smooth, Sheriff.”
“I'm holding several thousand bees. I'm doing the best I can.”
That makes her laugh again.
I ease my hands away and step beside her.
“Now take a look.”
She tips the frame slightly, and the sunlight catches the capped honey just right, turning the whole thing gold.
“Oh, wow.” Her voice drops. “That's all honey?”
“That's all honey.”
“How much?”
“More than you'd think.”
She tilts the frame a little too far.
“Keep it upright.”
“Right. Sorry.” She corrects it. “What's wrong with those?”
She points to a corner of comb where the cells are still open.
“Nothing. That's nectar. Too much moisture in it yet. The bees fan it down, thicken it, then cap it when it's ready.”
“How do they know?”
“They just do.”
She studies the frame another few seconds, turning it just enough to catch the sun again.
“I can't believe all of that came out of a box of bees.”
I laugh. “You're never going to stop calling it that, are you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Come on. Let's get this one inside.”
We uncap the frame together, the wax peeling back in long golden ribbons, and I set her up at the extractor to crank the handle while I steady the frames inside.
“This is oddly satisfying,” she says, cranking harder than she needs to. “Like the world's most delicious workout.”
“You say that now. Give it ten minutes.”
“I could do this all day.”
“Everybody says that. Nobody makes it past twenty minutes.”
I check the flow at the bottom of the tank, honey starting to pool thick and gold.
“You're doing fine, though. Better than my first time.”
“What happened your first time?”
“Grandpa let me crank too fast. Frame came loose, honey everywhere. Took me an hour to clean up and I never fully lived it down.”
I nod toward the tank.
“Slower's better. You're not in a race with it.”
She eases off, and the two of us work in a rhythm that doesn't need words for a while — her cranking, me checking seals, the smell of warm wax and honey filling up the whole room. When the tank's ready, I draw off a small jar and hand it to her, still warm.
She tastes it straight off her finger before I can even offer a spoon, and her whole face changes.
“Oh, that's not the same as store-bought. That's not even the same food.”
“Told you.”
“No, Wyatt, I mean it. This tastes like—” She searches for the word, still chasing the last bit off her thumb.
“Like it actually came from somewhere. Like it has a whole story behind it instead of just a label.”
“It does have a story. You just helped write the last chapter of this one.”
Ellie finds us on the porch afterward, both of us sticky-handed and grinning like a couple of kids who got away with something. A thin ribbon of honey runs over the side of Savannah's thumb before she catches it.
She licks it off without thinking.
Then she looks at her sticky hands and laughs.
“Okay, where can I wash these before I touch something and permanently glue myself to it?”
“Bathroom's through the kitchen, first door on the left.”
“Thanks.”
She heads toward the house, still examining her fingers like she's not entirely sure how honey managed to get everywhere.
I watch her go.
As it turns out, it was a second too long.
Ellie appears beside me and catches my sleeve.
I look down. “What?”
She motions for me to come closer.
I bend down, and she cups a hand around my ear.
“Are you gonna marry her?” she whispers in my ear.
I nearly choke on nothing. “Ellie.”
“What? It's a normal question.”
She says it with the absolute certainty of a nine-year-old who hasn't learned that adults need six extra steps to say anything true.
“You like her. She likes you. You made honey together. That's basically a wedding already.”
“That's not how any of this works,” I whisper back.
“And besides, that is not something you ask people.”
“I didn't ask her. I asked you.”
Which is unfortunately true.
“Then how does it work?”
“Ellie.”
“What?”
“Go find your grandfather.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You didn't answer.”
“There's nothing to answer.”
“That means yes.”
“That does not mean yes.”
“It kind of does.”
“Ellie.”
She grins and takes off toward the porch before I can come up with a response that doesn't make this worse.
Savannah is still inside.
Good.
Because the last thing I need after spending half the morning with my arms around her is for her to come back and hear my nine-year-old niece planning our wedding.
Later that afternoon, we end up on the porch, Savannah in one of the rockers and me on the steps. Ellie and Moose are in the yard, locked in some kind of argument over a tennis ball neither one of them seems particularly interested in throwing.
Moose finally drops it at Ellie's feet, then immediately picks it back up when she reaches for it.
“That's cheating,” Savannah calls.
Moose trots away.
Savannah laughs, tipping her head back, and I find myself watching her instead of the dog.
The afternoon light catches in her hair. There's still a faint crease across her forehead from the bee veil.
She’s comfortable here.
Not like a visitor.
Not like somebody counting the days until she leaves.
Ellie's question from earlier comes back to me.
Are you gonna marry her?
I almost laughed when she asked it.
Maybe Ellie wasn't as far off as I wanted her to be.
I'm not thinking about marriage. I’m not planning a wedding.
But I am done pretending I don't know what this is.
Two weeks of circling it, telling myself it's history or nostalgia or too much time spent with someone I used to love.
It's not.
I want Savannah.
Not the nineteen-year-old girl I lost.
Her.
The woman sitting on my porch laughing at my dog.
I know what I want now.
I just haven't said it out loud.