Travis pushed back his chair and stood. “Arianne, wait.”
The waitress returned, and Arianne swiped the box of fattening pasta from the woman’s hands. She’d need some comfort when the shock wore off.
Weaving through the tables as fast as she could, attempting to escape an Oscar-worthy performance, her ankle twisted in her ridiculous heels, and she steadied herself on the passing sommelier. Chilled wine soaked the front of her dress.
And the award goes to…Arianne Winters.
Warmth flooded her cheeks, and she fled the restaurant. The cool night air brushed across her heated skin. She sucked it in like a fish gasping for water. Dare she wonder if this day could get any worse?
“Arianne.” Travis’s voice trailed behind her.
She wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t.
His footsteps pounded closer. He touched her elbow, and she jerked away.
“Arianne, I’m sorry.”
Ahh! If one more person said that today, she’d commit herself. “How dare you, Travis? I am not that kind of woman.”
The corners of his eyes and mouth drooped. Was he disappointed by his actions, or that she wasn’t a floozy?
“We’re technically separated. I filed for—”
“Save it!” She hobbled down the sidewalk and dug through the junk in her purse for her cellphone.
“At least let me drive you home.”
No way was she giving him the opportunity to try to talk his way out. Arianne shook her head and continued limping, ignoring the stares from other couples entering the restaurant. Missy would rescue her.
It went straight to voicemail. Twice. Her shoulders wilted. She’d walk home if she had to. Stilettos and all.
An hour later, a cab driver deposited her safely at her front door. She’d refused to look at the meter on the way home, afraid the dollar amount would make her vomit in his backseat. The haul from Bar Harbor would cost a small fortune she didn’t have. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. Someone called the station and pre-paid before I picked you up.”
Travis. Well, it was the least he could do.
“Thank you.” She tipped him and exited the car.
“Have a good night.”
She shut the door, and he pulled away from the curb, leaving her alone in the dark with the chirping crickets. “Too late for that.”
On her way to the door, her heels clacked the pavement, one scraping the concrete with every limp. Her ankle, now double in size, throbbed. Why not add lameness to this tragedy, too?
With a bump of her hip, the door unstuck from the frame. She stepped inside and turned on a nearby lamp. Missy was snoring like a hibernating bear, arms and legs sprawled all over the couch. Luckily Arianne hadn’t inherited that.
She kicked off her heels and considered throwing one at Missy for persuading her to wear the absurd getup in the first place. But she didn’t have the energy to argue, or recap the day’s events. All she wanted to do was slip into her pajamas and bury herself under her blankets with a gigantic, triple-layered chocolate cake.
Drifting: The return of field bees to colonies
other than their own.
5
Steam lifted from Huck’s coffee mug, and the young waitress offered a shy smile. She turned and weaved between the too close tables; the white ribbon in her hair bounced with her ponytail. Huck dug his fork into the cheesy hash brown casserole. Mmm, just like Mama never used to make.
Giada nibbled her unbuttered whole-wheat toast. No wonder the woman was as skinny as a porch post. In the two weeks since they’d met—and they’d been spending a lot of time together—she’d hardly eaten a thing.
The man next to them vacated his table, leaving behind a few dollar bills and a newspaper. Lips pressed against the mug in his left hand, Huck stretched across the tabletop with his right, sliding the paper toward him as he read the front page headline.
Couture Bridal Salon’s Grand Opening in Bar Harbor.
He relaxed against the padded booth, skimming the article. Arianne had serious competition. Like he’d told her before, Pine Bay wasn’t a good location for a bridal shop. He’d given her several options, and she’d refused them all. He was done feeling guilty. He wasn’t cut out to be anyone’s knight in shining armor. Least of all hers.
“Find something interesting?” Giada sipped her skim milk.
He tossed the paper aside. “Not a thing.”
She glanced down at the paper. “Well, look at that.” She pointed to the picture accompanying the article.
The photo showed headless mannequins in wedding dresses. Giada’s long, white-tipped fingernail rested on one in the middle. “That’s my wedding gown.”
Huck choked on his last bite of maple pancakes. “You’re married?”
She didn’t wear a ring. He always checked for a ring.
Giada laughed. “Not yet. But when I do, that’s the one.” She continued tapping the dress with her fingernail, her face dreamy.
Huck ran a hand along his neck. “You’ve picked out a dress before you’re even engaged?”
“Of course.” She took another sip. “I’ve been planning my wedding since I was five.”
He crumpled his napkin beneath the table.
“Don’t look at me like that, Huck. All girls do. It’s perfectly normal.”
Normal? Planning from childhood the million ways to make a man miserable wasn’t normal. The process never took his mother that long. She could ruin a man from start to finish in less than a week.
“When the right man comes along, a girl wants to be ready.”
Time to go.
Throwing his head back, he downed his remaining coffee. “I’ve got to get back to the farm.”
She placed her hand on his arm as he stood to go. “I didn’t mean to scare you off.” She pulled him down next to her. “I wasn’t proposing, you know.”
“Good thing.”
“And why is that?” She leaned close, brushing the end of his nose with hers.
He hooked a finger below her chin and gave her a quick kiss. “I’d have left you disappointed.”
She laughed as if she didn’t believe him.
“Meet you outside.” He tossed the tip on the table and joined his favorite waitress at the cash register. Her blue uniform enhanced the blue flecks hidden in her gray eyes, their edges weary and wrinkled. He’d never known his granny, but he imagined she was just like Marge.
“This is the third time you’ve treated her to breakfast this week.” Marge hiked her chin toward Giada. “You plan on keeping her around awhile?”
He twisted, looking across the diner at Giada, who was finishing her milk. Why did she have to go and mention marriage? They’d been getting along so well.
He passed Marge a twenty.
Gorgeous or not, he refused to sleep on floral bed sheets with lacey pillows or shower with fancy monogramed towels. “You’re my favorite girl, Marge. I can’t go givin’ my heart away to just anyone.”
Marge plucked the bill from his hand, and the register popped open. She grinned, revealing a pink lipstick smudge on her teeth. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Huck. I haven’t been a girl in over fifty years.” She stretched across the counter and squeezed his forearm. “Thank you, handsome. You made my day.”
He winked, refused his receipt, and then turned the knob on the toothpick holder.
“I hope you settle down one of these days. Though I expect it’ll take a very special woman to win you over.”
He popped the wood sliver into his mouth. “I pity the woman who tries.”
She cackled. “Me too.”
The only woman who’d come close was living in his building, reminding him of everything he wasn’t.
As Marge vanished into the kitchen, Huck noticed her worn tennis shoes. The widow worked hard for not much pay, he presumed. He tugged an extra twenty from his wallet and dropped it into a glass jar labeled Marge, where customers could leave notes and extra tips fo
r the veteran staff.
He stepped through the door and into the sun. Huck straddled his bike and slipped on his helmet. The Harley’s black leather seat warmed his thighs. It was a perfect morning for a ride—cloudless sky, sunshine, the freedom of the open road.
Freedom.
Giada joined him, her black bag secured diagonally across her loose white shirt. She kissed his cheek, put on her helmet, settled on the seat behind him, and wrapped her arms around his waist.
He fired the engine. The bike rumbled out of the parking lot. They coasted down the narrow two-lane highway, gliding along the smooth blacktop. Wind wrestled his T-shirt.
The road dipped and curved around a small cove. A pebbled shoreline bordered the water, reflecting pine trees on the glassy surface. Mountains covered the distance on both sides.
Marriage. Though Giada’s hands only gripped his waist, he felt them tightening around his neck too.
Nope. When a man shared his name in matrimony, his freedom was gone. He refused to give this up for anyone. Better not to commit to a woman at all than to change his mind later.
The speedometer climbed. They raced toward Somes Sound, leaving all voices of commitment and regret in the wind. He didn’t need anyone or anything. He controlled his own life, his own destiny.
He and he alone.
The engine zipped louder. Adrenaline surged through his veins. He gripped the handlebars and hugged the curve.
The grill of a black Cadillac. In his lane. His pulse switched gears.
A rock wall flanked his right. He jerked the handlebars left and skidded into the next lane. Screeching tires slid onto loose gravel. He lost control. The bike flipped. The stench of burning rubber filled his nose.
They slammed into the guard rail. Indescribable pain shot through his body. His skin was on fire. For a second, he went airborne then hit the pavement. Metal crunched. A scream pierced the air right before his world went black.
Women became prominent beekeepers during and after the Civil War, when their men returned wounded. Or dead.
—Bees in America: How the Honeybee Shaped
a Nation by Tammy Horn, The University Press of Kentucky, 2005
6
Arianne climbed the steps outside her shop to her second-floor apartment. Her feet weighed as heavy as her heart. She struggled with the door that had swelled in its frame from the summer heat and stopped the complaint rising to her lips. At least she still had a home. With a bump of her hip, the door gave way easier than expected, and she dropped the mail to the living room floor.
“Mommy!” Emma threw her arms around Arianne’s knees.
Arianne gripped the doorknob for support and rubbed Emma’s head. “Hey, princess. What’cha been up to?”
“Watching Beauty and the Beast.” Emma bounced on her tiptoes. “Aunt Missy let me paint her toenails.”
“She did?”
“Uh, huh. She said I make a great bootishan.”
Arianne stepped into the room and closed the door so the air whirring from the window air conditioner didn’t escape. “Maybe after supper, I’ll let you paint mine.”
Emma beamed. “Yay, but you have to sit still.” She gestured for Arianne to lean her ear closer. “Aunt Missy’s not very good at that,” she whispered.
“She never has been,” Arianne whispered back.
Mrs. Potts’s voice floated from the TV while Belle twirled around the ballroom in a golden gown.
“How’d it go?” Missy entered from the kitchen with cotton balls wedged between her toes. The pristine bubblegum-pink paint was too perfect to be Emma’s handiwork. Missy grabbed the remote and tuned to an entertainment news program.
“Exactly how I thought it would.” Arianne picked up the envelopes off the floor and tossed the stack on her desk. “They turned down my loan.”
Missy scrunched her face. “Bummer.” She returned her attention back to the TV. “I can’t wait to see Matt Damon’s new movie.”
Not quite the word Arianne would use to sum up the predicament, but, yeah, bummer. “Who cares about movies when there’s real news going on in the world?” She seized the remote from Missy and flipped to a local news station.
Missy scowled. “What are you going to do now?”
Arianne had two weeks to make a decision. Stay and fight, or go. She had a valid case in court, since Martin had allowed her to stay rent-free for almost a year now, and she had an eyewitness to their verbal agreement. Problem was a lawyer would want payment for his services. Money she didn’t have. “I don’t know yet.”
“Well, I started supper, but you’ll have to put it in the oven. I’ve got a date.” Missy inspected her fresh pedicure.
“Hope it goes better than mine did.” Arianne sank onto the couch.
“A date with Hannibal Lector would go better than yours did.”
Arianne frowned. “Thanks for your support.”
The humiliation of her date with Travis was still so fresh, it was like pouring turpentine on an open wound. A couch spring bore into her tailbone, and she shifted to find a more comfortable spot. “What’d you fix for supper?”
“Lasagna.” Missy smoothed her khaki miniskirt.
Whatever Hannibal served for dinner had to taste better than Missy’s lasagna. She was an even worse cook than Arianne.
Arianne waved. “Good luck.”
Missy knelt to buckle the thin ankle strap of her new sandals then plucked out all the cotton from between her toes. “Look at it this way, your next date has to go better than your last one.”
Next time? There wouldn’t be a next time. Arianne had officially given up. Her Elvis had left the building.
Missy left, deserting the cotton balls on the carpet. Arianne’s gaze roamed the small apartment. Dirty laundry overflowed the hamper and spilled into the hallway. Was it asking too much of her sister to help out? She’d babied Missy far too much when their mother died, but her sister had been just a toddler at the time, and Arianne had known Missy needed her. Except now, Missy relied on everyone to do everything for her.
Arianne leaned her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. The voices on TV mingled with her exhausted emotions and beckoned her closer to sleep.
How she craved a man’s strong arms right now, a deep voice to whisper assurances that all would be fine as long as they had each other. To know at the end of a long, hard day, she had someone to come home to. Of course, she had her precious daughter, but motherly love couldn’t fill all the rooms in her heart.
Would she ever know a real family again?
“Mommy, can I take a bath? Aunt Missy said I could use her new vanilla bubble bath.”
Arianne opened one eye.
Emma clasped her purple skirt and danced on her toes. Gold curls bounced around her cheeks.
“All right, but when you’re done, you have to pick up your toys.”
Emma hung her head, and her shoulders wilted in a dramatic performance. She released a long, exasperated sigh. “Yes, Mommy.” In slow motion, Emma trudged to the bathroom.
“Drama queen.” Arianne forced her legs to stand and listened to the news anchor on TV discuss the wreckage lying behind him. The guardrail was mangled, and the black Cadillac was completely smashed in on one side. Motorcycle parts lay strewn across the highway.
She cringed. On her way to the bathroom, she silently prayed for the victim’s safety. The words “Huck Anderson” stopped her cold. She raced back to the television. Her fingers fumbled to increase the volume.
The camera faded to a female reporter at the station, who reminded viewers the clip was filmed earlier that morning and that Highway 233 was now clear and open for traffic. Another news anchor began an interview with the new superintendent for Hancock County schools.
What about Huck? Arianne’s heart raced as she sped through the channels, searching for another news station reporting the accident. She fought the urge to shake the TV.
Her heart stumbled over the thousand questions runnin
g through her brain. Was he alive? She recalled the metal pieces that littered the road and winced. It would take a miracle to survive that.
Tears burned her eyes. She’d wanted an escape from the eviction, but this wasn’t the solution she had in mind.
~*~
Disinfectant and bad cafeteria food assaulted Arianne as she walked the cold hallway toward the ICU. She hated hospitals. Every experience she’d had in one always ended with a loved one dying. Memories of her beautiful mother lying pale in a hospital bed, wrapped in thin, white blankets, clinging to life, soured her stomach.
Huck’s alive. She’d comforted herself with those words repeatedly since yesterday morning. After Channel 5 reported that Huck was air-lifted to Bangor Regional Hospital, she’d called a hundred times until she spoke to a nurse willing to at least admit he was still breathing. She thanked God again for His mercy.
Huck’s passenger, however…Arianne’s heart broke for the woman’s family.
Goosebumps crawled along her skin. She shivered and rubbed her palms up and down her arms. Hospitals were always so cold. Why hadn’t she brought a sweater?
A nurses’ station came into view at the end of the hall. She passed an empty gurney. A small family stood in a patient’s doorway, weeping. Death was evident all around her.
Would they let her see Huck? Was she ready to see him?
She inched to the nurses’ station. “I’m here to see Huck Anderson.”
The nurse looked up from a stack of charts and slipped a pencil behind her ear. Arianne recognized her instantly. Lucy Cosgrove, former head-cheerleader and homecoming queen. Still slim, still gorgeous. The blonde highlights in her dark hair reflected the fluorescent lights. “Name, please.”
“Arianne Winters.”
Lucy plucked a chart from a metal divider and opened it. “I’m sorry, but you’re not listed as—” Her eyes narrowed and she leaned her head to the side. Then her brows arched and crinkled her forehead. “Arianne, from Ellsworth High? “
Arianne nodded.
“Gosh, it’s been a long time.” Lucy plunked down the chart and sped around the desk, her mouth gaping as if a dentist were about to inspect her molars. “Look at you. What a transformation.”
How to Charm a Beekeeper's Heart Page 4