Page 71 of Kandie Shoppe

“Then what?” I ask, watching as she fills my plate with cheese grits, patty sausage, and biscuits split with cinnamon butter.

“Juice or decaf?” She pours the juice after I answer her query. “Then Maxim is going to show you the ropes. While I run the shop, you can take orders and I’ll have him to take them to Nikodemus and them so they can get them to customers.”

I nod at her plan, grateful to have a way to make money now that my shop has been shut down by Angel’s trifling ass.

“We have to be in for the long haul. He’s crazy about Ezekiel-Jane,” Ember-Jane says, then adds, “Just like Ulysses is for you.”

“Then both should have acted right,” I scoff, digging into my meal.

Chapter

Twenty-One

Ulysses (Months Later)

I’m still kicking myself and I turn down the road to the Honey Love Farm. Seven fucking months. Pain tears into my chest like I’m having a fucking heart attack. Angel and I almost came to blows more than a few times when I began to think he had found her and was holding her hostage. I could have told him that he’s never getting where Ezekiel-Jane is from Kandie. She’s made different. She’s lost so much and the way she did has made her the toughest, most loyal person I know.

She’s too loyal to bend and if he broke her, I’d have to kill him no matter how honest and good his intentions were in rescuing kids from trafficking rings. Noble as we try to be, we are still dirty. He’s running everything but kids and I’ve helped him because the goal is not to fight losing battles. I did enough of that shit for my country. Helping people find their way to a better life from the chaos we’ve caused is the least we can do. I know well from my dad the part my family has paid in the migrant crisis with their greed and avarice. Thankfully, Mathias wants no part in it and is making changes. He’s giving hisworkers fair pay and a path to citizenship — something Shelby Sugar has never done since its inception. He’s a better man than his father and any head of the production side of the company. Jericho and Jackson agree but our Grams still rules corporate with an iron fist and wresting control for her would upset the entire corporation. They have to be far less obvious in their intentions, though their lingering bitterness between the Love-Shelby legacy permeates everything. They were spoon fed that hatred from the time they were left in Gram’s custody. I guess we all have our shit, but hanging on generational curses is wild as fuck to me.

Pulling off into the private drive, I pass the sign, making the start of the Honey Love Farm. No one has to tell me that she’s here. She’s all but advertised that fact. Flaunted it even. She really thinks after everything that went on with us that I’m the man to toy with. Well, she will come to realize, like many before, that she is sorely mistaken.

The little shop is the first thing I see when I pull up. It’s built like an old timey mercantile store. Has a potbelly bear statue holding a jar of honey on one side of the entrance and a life size bumblebee on the other nibbling a flower.

Ember-Jane peeks her head out the door and takes one look at me before ducking inside. Dead giveaway if there ever was one.

Cutting off the truck I get out of the cab heading inside at a leisurely pace. No need to rush there, there’s nowhere to run this far out. The apiary covers a vast amount of Love land. The story goes they turned to beekeeping when cotton took its toll on the land.

“Hey, Sheriff.” Waving, she looks up like she didn’t just rush in to warn her cousin I was here.

“It’s just Ulysses today. I’m not acting as sheriff, Em.” Hazel eyes meet mine and she presses her lips hard with worry.

“I know she’s here,” I tell her, holding up my hand to stop any protest. “Naming the honey liquor y’all released to go with the new bourbon the family is producing Wildcat Kandie was a dead giveaway.” It was a run over to The Shack to see if she’d been by that gave it up. The drink was in heavy rotation. Though I don’t drink, I couldn’t help but notice the bottle with a cat swatting a bee on the label that drew my attention. Seeing the label was all it took.

“That was my idea,” she says sheepishly. “She didn’t want to take the credit when it was her recipe. Well, Maxim helped. They split the patent, and he insisted that we name it after her.” The little shrug is so cute you can almost forget she’s been aiding and abetting a fugitive.

“Where is she?” I can hardly believe she’s actually here. The fact I didn’t think to come here sooner has me wanting to kick my own ass. I thought I’d been thorough. Ember-Jane always keeps a low profile and has since they lost their parents. Not that their parents kept up a fuss. No, this part of the land and part of Valentine’s hold the acres that are the source of the feud. It is vast and butts up against the Shelby’s sugar cane fields. For all its notoriety and potential, it’s the least visited by outsiders.

“Now, Ulysses, I’m not going to tell you, but you’re way too big for me to stop.” Turning her back on her, she starts shelving honey.

“Alright,” I huff out a laugh before heading back out the front.

“Aye.” I turn to see those bright hazel eyes pinning me. “Yeah?”

“Don’t hurt my cousin's heart no more.” The sweetshop owner and beekeeper and the woman who became the fierce advocate for her autistic brother when she was barely a teen after her parents died in a tornado emerges.

“She left.” I push down the guilt of the awful words that still won’t let me sleep most nights.

“You’re not the one who heard her crying herself to sleep every night for months until she had no more tears. I was.”

She might as well have shoved a dagger in my heart with her words and the look accompanying them.

Giving her a jerk of my head, I head out the front then circle round back to where they keep bees.

Soft soil, the smell of honey and smoke greets me as I get closer to the hives.

I stand back watching two figures, one almost as tall as me and one just as diminutive, smoke the hives to remove the honey. I say nothing — just drink her in. She’s hard to miss with the uniform that shouldn’t be alluring on anyone but has my length hardening in my jeans as I watch the material stretch across her juicy ass.

I let them finish their task, not wanting to upset Maxim’s work or routine. They load the honey into boxes and turn to bring them to be processed. Only they have to pass me.

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