Cupid’s Confederates

Elizabeth’s poppy color shaded down to pale pink.

“And she certainly is shy. Terribly shy,” he said gravely, and added, “she’s a good girl.”

The phrase sparked a smile. “I-that’s just the thing. I always knew that. My Brittany is the kind of woman a man wants to marry, not just-”

“She certainly isn’t that,” Zach agreed, praying silently that not an ounce of emotion showed on his face. “Do you think you can sleep now?”

“Yes. I’ve been worried about this for so long. I wish that Chet could have had this little chat with you…”

Zach stood up; so did Elizabeth. “Everything okay now?” he questioned gently.

Elizabeth heaved an enormous sigh. “Fine,” she agreed. “I just knew I could talk to you, Zach. I think we can both go to sleep now.”

Ten minutes later, he was cuddled against his delectably hot-blooded little wife, his disgustingly male instincts appropriately subdued when she murmured in her sleep, sensually curving her limbs around him. He knew damn well what Bett was dreaming about. The same thing he was about to.

Chapter 10

From a distance, Zach watched Bett at the hives. The morning sun was bright and warm, even though the leaves in the orchard had already turned gold and brown; it was a glorious fall day. Bett wore a red flannel shirt tucked into her jeans and the crazy straw hat that she’d rigged up with netting that dropped to her shoulders.

She was humming, a husky, low love song. As she slid a tray from the farthest hive, a hundred bees whirled up and around her, and Zach unconsciously shuddered. She wouldn’t wear gloves, said she just couldn’t work with them.

She transferred the tray of honey to the bed of the pickup, where others already rested. He made an instinctive move forward to help her-and stopped himself. Zach was as familiar with the intricacies of raising bees as Bett was; he was also violently allergic to the formic acid in bee stings.

Bending over, she accomplished the last stage of the morning’s project-transferring brood combs to the new hive in an effort to balance the overabundant population of the insects. It was a sticky, awkward business. Bett whipped off the straw hat in obvious exasperation at its hindrance, and appreciatively Zach shuddered again. Somewhere between five hundred and a thousand honeybees clouded around her.

Finally finished, she very gently brushed them off her shirt and jeans, then walked toward the truck where he waited, the sun glowing on her face.

“You have that look on your face again,” she teased.

“It drives me crazy, watching you. If I had to choose between handling those bees and a vat of boiling oil, you know what I’d choose.”

“The vat.” Bett chuckled, and tucked her fingers into his belt as they ambled toward the truck. “You’d feel differently if you were female. In the meantime, you realize we’ve got at least two hundred pounds of honey to do something or other with this afternoon.”

“I can see that. What I don’t see is what being male has to do with not loving your bees.”

“It’s a lady’s world, obviously. The queen gets warmed, cooled, entertained and fed the equivalent of honey steaks, all at her whim. Who’d want to be a boy bee? The drones get kicked out of the hive in winter to starve; they never get to do anything interesting in the summer.” Bett swung into the passenger seat, pulling the door shut, and regarded her husband demurely. “The boys are only good for one thing.”

“And how you love that line.”

“Actually, he must be pretty darn good, considering the queen gets as many as a million eggs out of one… um…quickie. And I certainly hope she’s good, since he dies afterwards.” Bett propped one foot on the dash, relaxing against the seat. “I’ve worried for a long time whether he dies happy. Maybe he dies depressed. I mean, he’s lived his whole life for that moment, and then what if the queen’s frigid?”

“Tough luck,” Zach said dryly.

“For the queen, too. What kind of deal is that, to only get to make love once in a lifetime?”

“It wouldn’t suit you by a long shot,” Zach agreed. His wife sent him a sidelong glance and he chuckled. “Is your mother going to survive our honey harvest this afternoon?”

“I doubt it.” There was no reason to expect that life would suddenly take a smooth path after doing hairpin turns all week. Bett had felt worlds better after talking with Zach about her mother, but that didn’t change unalterable facts. When Zach wanted her in the woods to help him cut wood for the winter, her mother expected her to go shopping. When her mother had decided to “fall clean” Zach’s study, half the receipts for the year had disappeared. And on the first free Sunday afternoon they’d had since summer, Zach had sat down to watch a football game. Elizabeth had spent every football game when Chet was alive chattering next to him. Bett’s dad had sort of tuned her out; Zach couldn’t.

“Bett, it’ll go fine this afternoon,” Zach assured her. He added wryly, “We’re not doing too well at matchmaking so far, are we?”

“You’d think my mother would catch on to the odd coincidence that we only have single male friends over fifty.”

Zach chucked, but only half in humor. The Monroe household was used to taking it a little easier by mid- October. The grain harvest was still going on; machinery had to be winterized; wood had to be cut for the cold months; but this was still the time of year he had extra time with Bett. Time to rest, time to fool around, time just to steal an afternoon together. And if Elizabeth miraculously found one more project for Bett to do, he would seriously consider strangling her. The instant Bett sat down and relaxed, her mother got nervous. Easy solutions were proving elusive.

The thing about getting Elizabeth married off…Zach sighed. No matter how irritated he was with her, he didn’t have in mind getting rid of the lady, but getting her involved with other people-something that Elizabeth was curiously shy about initiating on her own.

A handful of neighbors were coming over for their “honey bee” this afternoon. And if a “honey bee” wasn’t a good way of forcing people to let down their hair, Zach couldn’t imagine what was.

***

“My Lord,” Elizabeth said faintly.

“Now, just relax, Mom. Keep stirring,” Bett ordered cheerfully, as she lugged the huge kettle over to the stove. Elizabeth had come downstairs only moments before, dressed “for company” in expensive green linen slacks with a purple-and-green blouse, having ignored Bett’s suggestion that she wear something old. Bett, in jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, had briskly transformed the kitchen during the half hour her mother had been upstairs.

Honeycombs were stacked on a white sheet on the floor, their sweet smell permeating the entire house. A long table took up half the available floor space, again covered with a freshly washed sheet. On top of that were four five-gallon earthenware crocks and assorted glass jars. The counter next to the refrigerator was covered with cloves, lemon and cinnamon bark, those spicy smells mingling with the sweet one. Bett was wearing a white sweatband Indian-style across her forehead. And she’d immediately put her mother to work on the opposite counter with two bowls in front of her. One contained oatmeal, the other mud.

“My Lord,” Elizabeth said again.

Bett cast a critical eye at the mud mixture. “A little more dirt,” she said absently.

Elizabeth, looking more cowed than Bett had ever seen her, added a handful gingerly. “My kitchen,” she murmured. “My beautiful, clean kitchen…”

“Mother. You are going to have fun,” Bett insisted. “Really. You just have no idea-”

The front door opened. A chorus of laughter and conversation floated through from the living room, and in a moment the group descended, packing into every available space and cranny, Zach trailing behind them. He made