Awakened by His Touch

by Nikki Logan

  ‘That makes more sense.’

  Because Laney just wasn’t about the money. Or the market. She was all about the bees. Bees and family. And maybe those two things were one in her mind.

  ‘I’m glad. I would hate to be doing something you didn’t understand.’

  Wow. Sarcasm really didn’t sit well on those lips. ‘Laney—’

  ‘So anyway,’ she bustled on. ‘That’s it. Bees in here, pollen catches there, and we empty it twice a day for a week and then they get two months off.’

  Now she sounded just like the disaffected tour guide she was trying to be. All her passion gone.

  And he missed the other Laney horribly. This one made her business sound like...a business. Regular Laney made it sound like her life.

  But at the end of the day it was the business that he was here to talk about. Not her. Not her great love for what she did or how fascinating the various aspects of the apiary were. His job required him to stay focussed.

  On getting Morgan’s signed up. On getting his promotion.

  ‘What time are we meeting your parents?’ he asked, forcing himself back on track. Just as the debacle that had been last night had.

  ‘Lunchtime.’

  Noon. That was still a couple of hours away. What the hell were they going to not talk about for that long?

  ‘So what’s next?’

  She turned to face him. ‘That’s it, actually. You’ve seen everything. I’ve got to get on with doing my job, so you’ll have to entertain yourself until our meeting.’

  Right. ‘You need any help?’

  ‘I’d say yes if I thought you could do much.’

  The barb glanced off his corporate-thickened hide, but the fact she’d fired it off at all really bothered him. It was symptomatic of how much he’d hurt her last night. And he was not going to leave things like that.

  ‘Laney. I’m really, really sorry about last night. You were right. I shouldn’t have indulged myself in getting to know you better. It was unfair of me.’

  She kept her face averted so he couldn’t even read her accidental expressions. Only her silence.

  ‘I should have known better,’ he went on. ‘And been stronger.’

  She turned, straightened. ‘What’s the matter, Elliott? Trying to ingratiate yourself before the meeting?’

  His head reeled back. Actually, it hadn’t occurred to him that last night might go against him in his presentation. Because that wasn’t Laney. She loved Morgan’s too much to let something personal get in the way of its success.

  But there was no way she’d believe him if he told her that. ‘I am trying to make good, Laney. But not because of the meeting. Just because I’ve hurt you. And I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. I appreciate knowing where you stand. And what you think of me.’

  ‘I think highly of you.’

  Her hands balled on her hips. ‘You think I’m too afraid to step off this property.’

  Every moment they spent on her deficiencies distracted him from his own.

  ‘You have good reason to be—’

  ‘I am not afraid!’ she urged. ‘And I don’t need your patronising concern. I stay because I love it here. I love what I do and the way I do it. This is my home.’

  This wasn’t making things better. ‘Okay, Laney...’

  ‘And I don’t need you to humour me, either, Elliott.’ She stepped closer. ‘I get it, you know. I may be inexperienced romantically, but I’m a big girl. I know what this is. You’re interested. I can tell. But you’re interested in your career more. That’s just how it is.’

  Before he could reply she barrelled onwards.

  ‘I’m not angry that things didn’t work out between us last night. I’m angry because it’s revealed a barrier between us much more fundamental than geography. We have different values. Despite the chemistry. Despite everything. And all the good fit in the world can’t change a person’s values.’

  Did she mean his values? As if hers weren’t half the problem?

  ‘So this isn’t anger at you, Elliott. It’s disappointment. And resentment that something so fundamental is in my way. And anger at myself for not being more alert for the possibility. I was just enjoying you so much.’ She shuddered in a big breath and when she spoke again all the vulnerable momentum of her last words was gone. ‘That’s all this is. And there is nothing you can do or say to undo that. Is there?’

  Sure there was. He could say, Hey Laney...screw everything I’ve worked towards for years, and screw the big, freaking terrifying void inside me. Let’s just see where this leads. But he wouldn’t. Because he couldn’t just throw away everything he’d worked at his whole adult life. Not to address someone else’s fear.

  He’d walked away from that once before—left his only family rather than diminish his life down to his mother’s level. And that sacrifice would be totally meaningless if he didn’t keep chasing his dream.

  Success challenged him and drove him. And it defined him. Without that, who the hell was he?

  And it was the only thing that kept him from collapsing back into that big void inside.

  ‘If things were different—’

  ‘But they’re not. Let’s get real about that. I’m a bee farmer from the country. You’re a corporate realiser from the city. And ne’er the twain shall meet.’

  And there it was. Their almost-relationship fully nutshelled. She was right—it didn’t matter how much either of them wanted things to be different; they were what they were.

  ‘I’ll see you at the meeting,’ he murmured after a long silence.

  ‘Yeah. You will.’

  But after that...? Whether or not Morgan’s went ahead with expansion, chances were good he wouldn’t be seeing Laney again. Not if he wanted to be fair to her. Because the two of them couldn’t spend time together and not feel this thing they had. And it was impossible to feel it and not want to act on it.

  Like he did right now.

  He just wanted to pull her into his hold and rest his chin on her head and promise her that everything was going to be okay.

  But he couldn’t, because that would be lying.

  Nothing about this was okay.

  And so all he could do was leave her in this place she loved so much, with the bees that were her life, and trust that it could heal the damage he’d done since arriving.

  * * *

  Laney gave it a full sixty seconds after Elliott’s steady, heavy footfalls on the turf had diminished to make sure he was really gone. Then she sagged back against the hives and buried her hands in her face.

  Not her finest moment.

  None of this was Elliott’s fault any more than it was hers. They just didn’t fit. This must happen to people all over the world every day. Relationships that had a lot going for them but suffered from some fundamental flaw that just...broke them.

  Not that what they had was a relationship, but it had started to feel like one. Hadn’t it?

  Wilbur shoved his snout against her thigh and she lowered one hand to his damp, cool nose.

  ‘It’s okay...’ she murmured.

  Though she was pretty sure that was what he was trying to tell her.

  Yeah, she was all right. None of her feelings were terminal. She wanted to be like everyone else, didn’t she? Well, ordinary didn’t come much more ordinary than heartbreak. Just another life experience she was coming to late in life.

  Her own thought stopped her cold.

  Was her heart broken?

  She peered inwards. Yep, just like the big divot that Owen had put in their ute last year when he was jack-arsing around. Nice and dented but nothing terminal.

  Except the deeper ache still bothered her. The fingers of her imagination probed and poked, looking for rifts that she
couldn’t find, but as they did so pain oozed out from below. As if the dent had damaged something much more delicate deep inside.

  Hope. Self-belief. Faith. Haemorrhaging away quietly.

  Yep; those were the things that had suffered most last night. That had taken such a knock. The pain of rejection she could learn to live with, but if she let him damage those essential parts of herself she’d never forgive herself.

  Or Elliott.

  She turned and felt her way along the hives until she reached the ones she knew were in the down phase of pollen collection. Where the bees didn’t have a grudge to bear. She lifted the top two boxes off and let her hands rest on the open hive. Bees swarmed up and over her hands in a mix of surprise and curiosity—each of their soft feet a gentle, tiny kiss on her skin—until their collective weight became tangible. She slowly turned her palms up and the mass crawled around, chasing gravity, surrounding her with happy bee sounds and the comforting tickle of all their oscillating wings.

  This was what she did. This was what she’d been born for. And who she was.

  She had an idyllic life here on the Morgan property—a life she loved, where she was safe and happy, and where her proficiency as an apiarist gave her immense satisfaction. She’d be foolish to brush all that off like so many bees. Some people never had any of those things in their lives, let alone all of them.

  So it wasn’t going to come with a romantic happy-ever-after...? Three out of four was pretty darned good.

  But consigning herself to a life without love didn’t sit comfortably, and her gently waving fingers trembled to a bee-laden halt even as her chest squeezed down into a ball.

  Love.

  Did she love Elliott? Surely that took more time than they’d had?

  So what if he was the first man she’d ever met who treated her like a regular person? He made allowances for her sight but he didn’t treat her as if she was deficient.

  Sure, he was the first man she’d kissed when she had initiated and really wanted his kiss. And more.

  And, yes, he was the first man she’d ever met whom she truly saw. Both as a man and as a glorious, rich glow in the nothing of her visual perception.

  And that was what she was going to miss most. Elliott was the only person other than her family that she’d ever had inside her head. Rarefied ground.

  She tipped her fingers down towards the hive and gently shook most of the bees free, then turned them over and repeated the exercise. Some clung to her, exactly as she was clinging to a stupid wish that things could be different. But eventually they gave in and dropped off—just as eventually she’d realise the truth.

  Elliott Garvey was going to be her ‘once upon a time’ man.

  The man she’d kissed, once.

  The man she’d gone parasailing with, once.

  The man she’d started to fall in love with, once.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘SO WHAT DO you think?’

  The whole Morgan clan watched him intently except for Laney, who faced off to one side, looking for all the world as if she was a million miles away. Though Elliott knew by her stillness that she’d been concentrating one hundred per cent during his long spiel.

  Wilbur snored over by the crackling fireplace.

  ‘Surely customs issues would make it impossible?’

  ‘Collectively, they’re losing hundreds of millions of bees every year as northern winters worsen and lengthen. This is now a priority for their agricultural boards. Customs are prioritising supply from apiaries like yours.’

  ‘Won’t it be a problem that we haven’t used pesticides?’

  ‘Outweighed by the benefits of your geographic isolation and good disease rankings.’

  The whole family fell to silence. He’d given them a lot to think about. A whole new market that could be more lucrative than all their other operations put together. Shipping ready-to-go hives to the northern hemisphere in time for spring to replace their disturbingly depleted local species. Populations that were suffering from ever-worsening northern winters.

  He took a breath and focussed on the only silent person in the room.

  ‘Laney? Nothing to say?’ Quite the opposite, he suspected. Something about her posture said she was fighting to hold her tongue.

  ‘It’s certainly a big market—’ she said, still flat.

  Even her mother looked around, frowning, at the death in Laney’s tone. Then Ellen’s perceptive regard came straight to him.

  He couldn’t return it.

  ‘But I’m sure everyone’s getting on the bandwagon.’

  ‘Everyone doesn’t have Morgan’s spotless organic pedigree.’

  ‘We’d be sending our bees overseas to die.’

  Was she serious? ‘After a full season of foraging. Just like they would here.’

  ‘They’re biologically adapted to do best here.’

  ‘They don’t have to do “best”—they just have to do okay. Even okay is better than nothing when you have no other choice.’

  ‘They belong here.’

  The fervency of her assertion bothered him. It was as if she was talking about something much bigger than bees. Okay... ‘You’re just looking for reasons to say no.’

  She sat up straighter. ‘I don’t like the presumption that our bees are just a product to be packed up and shipped into a biological warzone.’

  ‘You’re an apiarist, Laney. Your bees are a product, no matter how well you treat them while they’re here.’

  ‘What you’re describing is a massive undertaking.’

  ‘It’s big in scale, sure, but you have the skills.’

  ‘I do?’

  ‘Morgan’s does. And, yes, you definitely do.’

  Her hands twisted in her lap and he realised, too late, that he’d said the wrong thing.

  ‘So this comes down to me?’

  He opened his mouth to respond and then discovered he didn’t know what to say. So he just looked at Ellen.

  ‘It’s a family decision, love,’ she ventured.

  Laney’s lips pressed tighter. ‘But let’s be realistic, Mum. Are either of you going to want to run this? You guys are gearing up for retirement.’

  There was a strange kind of agony in her voice. Controlled panic. Almost palpable. And her parents’ silence was another nail in the coffin of his promotion at Ashmore Coolidge. If they weren’t going to support this then he was dead in the water.

  That vast nothing inside him seemed to swell and loom, almost in celebration. Had it just been waiting for everything to fall in a pile?

  Laney turned back in his direction but her gaze overshot him. ‘So it does come down to me, then? A massive change in direction, constant overseas travel, mountains of paperwork. All taking me away from what I love doing. Why would I do that?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Owen said quietly.

  ‘Between waves?’ Laney snorted and didn’t even bother directing it at her brother. ‘No, this comes down to me. As it always was going to.’

  ‘Your mother could help with the administration—’ her father started.

  ‘Seriously, Dad? She can barely keep up with the admin as it is.’

  ‘You’d be making enough that you could hire someone,’ Elliott pointed out.

  ‘Laney, it could set us up—all of us—for life.’

  ‘Aren’t we already set up, Dad? What more do we need?’

  ‘You’ll need a place of your own,’ he said. ‘And Owen will. Then your children will, and his. What will you do? Continue to subdivide Morgan land until our descendants are living on quarter-acre blocks?’

  ‘Children? I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little.’ She kept her words firmly averted from Elliott. Even putting them in a thought together hurt her physically. ‘A coup
le of months ago we were thrilled with how the business was going. Now suddenly I’m being short-sighted?’

  No one laughed at the poor joke.

  ‘It’s the same business, Laney,’ Elliott urged. ‘You just scale up and add an export arm.’

  ‘My existing arms are kind of full,’ she practically shouted back at him.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Owen tried again.

  Elliott glanced at him where he sat across the room. His gaze was steady in his father’s direction. The most serious he’d ever seen him.

  ‘It would be massive, Owen,’ Laney tossed back. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  He lifted one eyebrow, but then went back to watching his father. ‘I’m not Superwoman over there, I realise,’ he said, ‘but even Helena would have to learn that side of things—why not me?’

  ‘Because you would rather surf than work,’ Laney dismissed him.

  ‘Only because what we do here is boring and repetitive.’

  ‘It’s not boring!’ she defended, turning her anger to him. ‘It’s streamlined through years of perfection.’

  ‘It’s mind-numbing, Laney. Same tasks, over and over. I’d love a chance to do something new. And to travel.’

  ‘Helena, you can do anything you set your mind to,’ Robert said, firmly dragging the conversation back to her again.

  ‘I don’t want to do it, Dad.’

  ‘You’d be great at it.’

  ‘Why is no one listening to me?’ she urged. ‘I’m not interested.’

  ‘Take one trip,’ Elliott offered. ‘Come with me and meet some of the apiarists who are really struggling.’

  ‘Why? So I can add their guilt trip to yours?’

  ‘What guilt trip?’

  ‘“Come on, Laney, my promotion hinges on this”.’ Her excellent impression of him was none too flattering. ‘You’ve made it abundantly clear that you’ve hitched your star completely to Morgan’s. And to me.’

  ‘To you, how?’

  ‘Please... Do you seriously expect me to believe that you wouldn’t use my vision to get a point of difference in the market?’

  Injustice bit low and hard. Was that what she thought of him? ‘I would not.’