Kiss of the Bees

been annexed by the City of Tucson.

As she turned off Speedway onto the dirt drive leading up to the house, she could tell by the tire tracks left in the dust that several large, unfamiliar vehicles had come in and out that way earlier in the day. That was one thing about living at the end of a dirt road. You learned to read tracks.

She expected to find Brandon still outside, laboring over his wood. Instead, after hanging her car keys up on the pegboard just inside the kitchen doorway, she wandered on into the living room, where she found a showered, shaved, and nattily dressed Brandon Walker sitting on the couch reading a newspaper. Two champagne glasses and an ice bucket with a chilled bottle of Schramsberg sat on the coffee table in front of him.

“What’s this?” Diana asked.

“A little surprise,” he said. “Could I interest you in a drink?”

Nodding, Diana sank gratefully down on the couch beside him. “How was it?” he asked.

“Awful. It seemed like it went on forever,” she replied. “And it’s not over yet. We ran out of time to do the pictures. Those are scheduled for two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

“After spending half of today, you’re still not done? What’s this guy doing, writing an article or a biography?”

Diana laughed. Just being home and watching Brandon pour the sparkling liquid into one of the glasses made her feel better. “As a matter of fact, it may be a little of both. Monty Lazarus has an unusual approach to doing an interview. Calling it roundabout is giving it the benefit of the doubt.

“So what have you been up to all afternoon, and what’s the big occasion? I haven’t seen you this dressed up or happy in months.”

Brandon handed her a glass and then touched his to hers. “To us,” he said.

“To us,” she nodded.

Brandon took a sip. “I spent most of the afternoon loading up three livestock trucks full of wood,” he answered. “Fat Crack told me yesterday that he thought he knew someone who could use it. Today Baby Ortiz came by with a bunch of other Indians, and we loaded up three truckloads to take to the popover ladies over at San Xavier.”

As a toddler, Gabe’s older son, Richard, had wandered around with his diapers at half-mast, much the way his father always wore his low-riding Levi’s. It hadn’t taken long for people to start calling him A’ali chum Gigh Tahpani—Baby Fat Crack. Now forty years old and half again as wide as his father, most people simply called him Baby.

“Baby says he thinks the wood chips might help with the mud problem on the playfield down at Topawa.”

“And whoever’s going to use the wood will come get it?” Diana asked.

“That’s right. They’ll come load it and haul it away.” Brandon laughed. “I’ll bet you thought you were going to be stuck with that mountain of wood permanently, didn’t you?” he teased.

“It was beginning to look that way,” Diana agreed.

“It makes me feel good that someone’s going to get some benefit out of all my hard work,” Brandon added seriously. “And as for my being dressed to the nines, I thought I’d straighten up and give the Friends of the Library a real treat, show up as author consort in full-dress regalia.”

He put one arm around Diana’s shoulder and pulled her close. “It’s also an apology of sorts. I’ve been a real self-centered jerk of late, haven’t I?”

“Not as bad as all that,” she answered with a laugh.

They sat for several minutes, enjoying their champagne and the comfort of a companionable silence. “What time do we have to be at the dinner?”

Diana looked at her watch. “Megan said six, but we don’t really have to be there until seven.”

“You mean we have two whole hours all to ourselves?”

She smiled at him over her glass. “Wait a minute,” she said coyly. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

Brandon shrugged. “You saw Lani’s note. She said she was going directly to the concert . . .”

One of the first and most ongoing casualties of the loss of the election had been to their sex life. Diana had managed to put it out of her mind, but now that Brandon was actually suggesting making love, she wasn’t about to turn him down.

Diana stood up and started for the bedroom. “Here goes my hairdo and makeup,” she said.

“I didn’t think about that,” Brandon said. “If you don’t want to . . .”

Stopping in the bedroom doorway, she turned and smiled. “Nobody said anything about not wanting to,” she said. “It just means that I’ll go to dinner with the natural look. It’s a lot more like me than this is. Now come in and close the door,” she added. “And go ahead and lock it. Lani said she wouldn’t be home before the concert, but let’s not take any chances.”

As Mitch Johnson drove back toward the RV, he was almost wild with anticipation. He had come through the interview with flying colors, done his capework admirably, but the next segment of the adventure would contain the two parts of the plan Andy had lobbied for so adamantly. The rest of the program he had been content to leave entirely in Mitch’s hands, to let the person with the ultimate responsibility for putting the plan into action noodle out the details. But for Andy, this was the sine qua non.

“If you can manage to lay hands on the girl,” Andy had said, “whatever else you do to her, be sure her mother knows that it’s coming from me. Understand?”

Understand? Of course, Mitch had understood. How could he have spent seven and a half years living with Andy Carlisle and listening to the man obsess about women’s breasts without understanding? The trick was doing what Andy wanted without being caught.