Page 28 of Must Love Bees
Trey’s smile was hard, his head-to-toe appraisal of her downright insulting. “I guess we know who wears the pants in the family.” He sneered at Charlie.
“Walk.” Charlie was upset. Very upset. “Now.”
For a minute, no one moved. There was a shift in the air that doubled the size of the lump in her throatandmade breathing difficult. Trey was sizing Charlie up. Charlie was sort of staring straight ahead, not bothering to return Trey’s goading stare but undeniably at the ready. Astrid held her breath, scrambling for a way to defuse the situation—until Trey and Lyle turned and headed down the trail she’d indicated.
They were out of sight, but Trey’s grumbled invectives were plain to hear. The man spouted off more insults and curses than Astrid had ever heard strung together. Some new insults and curses, too. Aunt Magnolia said obscenities were the sign of a small mind. But Trey’s brain couldn’t be too small considering the way he wasstillverbally eviscerating Astrid’s supposed superiority and mocking how whipped Charlie was.
Charlie. Charlie was as still as a statue. Tension rolled off him in waves. He was flexing his hands, over and over, while his jaw tightened until Astrid was wincing.
“Do you think I acted superior?” She waited, watching the muscle in his jaw.
His heavy-lidded gaze met hers and held. Slowly, his jaw muscle smoothed. “No.”
She smiled up at him. “Are your ankles okay?”
Her question caught him off guard and his furrow deepened. “My ankles?”
“The suit is too short. I’m hoping the bees knew you were on their side and focused all their energy on Trey.” She remembered the numerous red spots on the man’s face and neck and glanced down the path the men had gone. “And I hope they go to the ER.”
“My ankles are fine.” Charlie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “If they don’t, that’s on them.” When he opened his deep brown eyes, he looked everywhere but at her.
“I suppose.” She tugged off her gloves and reached up, running her fingers along a painful telltale bump. “They got me.” She smoothed her hair back and used one of her braids to tie the rest into a knot. “My own fault for not making sure I’d zipped the hood all the way up.”
Charlie lifted her knotted hair and leaned down. “Do you need medicine? Ice? What helps?”
The gentle probing of his fingers was too distracting for her to feel much pain. And his closeness, his breath along her ear... A shudder rolled over her. “No,” she mumbled, turning to look at him.Oh, my. Whatever was happening, she liked it.
He let go of her hair and took two large steps back, wearing an expression of horror.
It was so sudden, and not in the least bit subtle, that Astrid found herself laughing. It was laugh or run away and cry. She was too tired and hot to run or cry or apologize for...whatever. “Did the girls say something about lemonade?”
He nodded, the blank mask he normally wore slipping back into place. “Didn’t you have something to discuss with me?”
“I do.” But how would he feel about letting the Junior Beekeepers handle these bees when he’d just seen them at their worst? No, that’s not true. They were doing what any living creature would do when threatened. Just thinking about Trey knocking over the hive, which she felt certain he’d done, had her temper rising again.
“Is it bad?” He was watching her.
“No.” She smiled. “It’s good. Rebecca had an idea, a wonderful idea really. She’d put everything in place right before her passing.” Her smile dimmed somewhat, missing the dear old lady. “I’m not sure you’ll feel the same way as she did, though.”
The furrow was back. “It sounds bad.”
She took a deep breath, the words coming out in a rushed stream. “Well, it all depends on how you look at it. She’d volunteered her beeyard for the Junior Beekeepers’ summer project—”
“No.” It was firm.
She wasn’t going to give up so easily. “It won’t take too long. All of them know what they’re doing and Rebecca worked so hard with the Junior Beekeepers—”
“No.” No hesitancy or hint that he was listening.
“Charlie, please consider it. Please.” She didn’t want to beg but that was exactly what she was doing.
The furrow in his brow eased but his lips pressed into a thin line.
She swallowed, processing the not-so-blank expression on his handsome face. Not that she could get a read on what he was thinking... She added, “Rebecca said you two spent hours out here when you were younger. That you made all sorts of special memories together. She wanted to share this place with kids.” As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. “That sounded manipulative. I apologize.”
Charlie’s gaze shifted to the dirt path at their feet.
“It’s just...well, it was something she wanted to do.” She stopped then, knowing she’d said all she could. “So... I could use some lemonade before I start cleaning up that mess.” She pressed her hand to the bump on the back of her neck.
