Page 1 of Like Bees to Honey
CHAPTER ONE
“WHATINTHEWORLD?” Camellia Hill read over the weekly store sales flyer and winced. “Sugar-free sugar-cookie-flavored coffee creamer?” She shuddered. “I don’t know how anyone tolerates that low-calorie, no-flavor stuff as it is. But then they go and add that artificial sweetener and flavoring? All those chemicals can’t be good for the taste buds. Not to mention the body.” Her mother had had a simple philosophy: if it was made in a laboratory or manufactured in a warehouse, don’t eat it. Growing up, their house had always been full of good, homemade food. Camellia tried to keep it that way. “I don’t think I’ll be using this coupon.”
Leif Knudson grinned at her. “People buy that stuff because most of them can’t cook like you can. They don’t know what real food tastes like.”
“He has a point.” Her niece Astrid pushed their grocery cart alongside them. “It’s sad, really.”
“It is,” Camellia agreed. “How good could your morning be if that’s what you’re putting in your coffee?” Camellia was a “one teaspoon of sugar and healthy dollop of cream in her coffee” woman.
“I don’t drink coffee so...” Leif shrugged.
“I didn’t when I was sixteen, either.” She patted the boy’s cheek. “Now? I can’t imagine going without it.”
“I mostly have Pop-Tarts or cereal or frozen waffles or something easy.” Leif paused, frowning. “Guess none of that’s real food, either, huh?”
“No.” Camellia was horrified at the thought of Leif eating those things for breakfast. “Remind me to make up some sausage rolls and biscuits and cinnamon pull-apart bread for you to take home.”
Leif had eaten enough dinners with them for Camellia to see how much the boy could pack away. He was all long limbs, knobby knees and Adam’s apple, but teen boys had magical metabolisms. Camellia could barely remember the days when she had anything that resembled a metabolism. She smoothed her blue-and-white floral-print dress over her rounded hips and skimmed over the sheet of coupons. “I can’t use any of these.”
“Wait? No coupons?” Astrid regarded her with exaggerated surprise, pressing a hand to her chest. Camellia was known for her love of couponing—and her sister and nieces loved teasing her for it. “Are yousure? Does this mean...we’re goingrogue?”
Camellia grinned. “That’s me.” She giggled—out of all the Hill women, she was the least likely to go rogue.
Leif laughed, too.
“At least we have our list to guide us.” Astrid sighed, still hamming it up. “All is not lost.”
Leif kept on laughing.
“Didn’t you request some honey brittle?” Camellia asked her niece. Honey brittle was Astrid’s favorite treat—she could eat a whole tin in one sitting.
Astrid stopped. “I’m teasing, you know that.” She stooped and wrapped her slender arms around Camellia, hugging her tight. “And, yes, please, on the honey brittle. I’ll help, of course.”
“Not that I mind being called rogue.” Camellia gave her niece a quick peck on the cheek. “It makes me sound like a superhero. What would my superpower be? I wonder.”
Leif didn’t ponder his suggestion long. “No one bakes like you. Maybe superbaker?”
“Flatterer. That’s why I can’t say no to you.” Camellia smiled at the boy. “And why I’m making four dozen cookies for you to take to the Junior Beekeepers meeting tonight.” She glanced at the slim gold watch strapped to her wrist and sighed. “And why we need to pick up the pace. Leif, you get heavy whipping cream—none of that half-and-half stuff, either. Astrid, go get the flour—make sure it’s the all—”
“All-purpose flour.” Astrid nodded. “I know. There is no substitution.” She hooked arms with Leif. “Let me give you a rundown of the no substitutions list. It’ll help for future shopping trips.”
Camellia watched the two of them heading off, content. Leif’s request for her brown butter honey cookies had been awkward and bumbling, and it’d touched her too much for her to refuse. Leif wasn’t a Hill, but he held a special place in her heart. He wouldn’t remember, of course, he’d been a baby. But some of her most treasured memories were when he was an infant. Changing his diapers, reading him bedtime stories, watching him take his first steps and kissing away his boo-boos until he was smiling again. For a precious sliver of time, she’d loved him as her own. When her relationship with his father abruptly ended, her time with Leif ended, too. She’d grieved for the boy—oh so much.
But he was back now—in her life and her heart.Since Leif’s big brother, Dane, began courting Camellia’s other niece Tansy, Leif had become a fixture in the Hill home. Dane said Leif was a totally different boy there, happy and carefree and everything a sixteen-year-old boy should be. At home? Well, Camellia knew things weren’t easy for him or Dane. Their father tended to be on the scoundrel side of things.
Speak of the devil. There, walking toward her was the man himself. Harald Knudson. Years ago, her heart would have been bouncing around inside her chest and she’d have been all weak in the knees and tongue-tied. She wasn’t the same naive, trusting woman who blindly jumped in—heart first—that she’d once been. And she had Harald Knudson to thank for that.
Still, he was one of the most handsome men she’d ever set eyes on. He wore his age well, just as proud and upright as he’d been as a young man. He was fit and trim, no paunch or hunch to his shoulders. The lines that bracketed his clear blue eyes were, to Camellia, an improvement. He had aged—just right. Like a fine wine, her sister, Mags, would say.
“Miss Camellia Hill.” Harald’s voice rolled over her. His gaze fixed on her face, those blue, blue eyes holding a familiar spark of enthusiasm.
More like mischief.“Good day, Mr. Knudson.” Camellia congratulated herself on keeping her tone casual and bland. There were times, like now, she wished she was more like her sister. Magnolia was the master of intimidation. With one cocked red eyebrow and a few well-delivered barbs, Mags could have someone shaking in their boots—even someone as self-important and egotistical as Harald Knudson.
“Did you paint those galoshes?” he asked, his gaze lingering as his eyes slid over her rain boots and up her thighs and hips.
She’d always been the short, funny, jovial Hill—a “what you see is what you get” sort of woman. And that included her love of food—preparing itandeating it. Curves and all, Camellia was comfortable in her own skin. But she wasn’t feeling all that comfortable being on the receiving end of such an openly admiring look. Or the stirring of Harald Knudson–related feelings best forgotten.
When Harald’s eyes met hers, the corner of his mouth cocked up. “You must have painted them—you and that magic paintbrush.”
