LITMIR.BIZ

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alerting Helena to Elliott’s presence as effectively as a herald. The dog was mostly dry now, and had traded damp dog smell for fresh grass smell, and he responded immediately to Wilbur’s eager-eyed entreaty with a solid wrestle and coat-rub.

      ‘Hey, there, Captain Furry-Pants.’ Well, they were kind of friends now, right? And Wilbur’s haunches were particularly furry. ‘Still got energy left?’

      ‘Boundless,’ Laney said without looking around, her attention very much on what she was doing at one of dozens of belly-height boxes.

      She’d thrown a long-sleeved shirt over her summer dress but that was it for the protective wear he’d imagined they would wear on a busy apiary. One for the ‘risks’ column in his report. A handful of bees busied themselves in the air around her but their orbit was relaxed. A steady stream of others took off for the fields behind them and made way for the ones returning.

      It was as busy as any of the airports he’d passed through in his time. And there’d been many.

      He slid his sunglasses on and felt, again, a pang at Laney’s earlier kindness: a woman who had no use of her eyes taking the trouble to watch out for his.

      ‘Can I approach?’

      ‘Sure. Watch your feet in case any bees are on the grass.’

      His focus shifted from the airborne bees to the possibility of stealth bees underfoot. There were one or two. ‘Are they sick?’

      Her laugh caused a whisper of a ripple in the steady hum coming off the bees. Like a tiny living echo. ‘They’re just resting. Or moisture-seeking.’

      ‘How do you not step on them?’

      ‘I slide rather than tread,’ she said, without taking her focus off what she was doing. ‘Kind of a rollerblading motion. It gives them a chance to take off.’

      He stepped up closer. ‘You’ve rollerbladed?’

      ‘Of course.’

      As if it was such a given.

      ‘That’s probably close enough,’ she confirmed as he moved just behind her shoulder. ‘And if I say run, do it. Straight back downhill to the carriage.’

      He studied her face for any indication that she was kidding. There was nothing. ‘Is that my safety induction?’

      ‘Sure is. It’s a fairly simple rule. Don’t touch and don’t stick around if things get active.’

      And leave a blind woman undefended while bees swarmed? Not going to happen. But they could argue that out after they were both safe.

      Her fingers dusted over the surface of the open hive, over the thronging mass itself, but the bees didn’t seem to mind. Some hunkered down under her touch, others massed onto the back of her hand and crawled off the other side, or just held on for the free ride. None seemed perturbed.

      ‘What are you doing, exactly?’ he asked.

      ‘Just checking them.’

      ‘For...?’

      ‘For hive beetle.’

      ‘What’s your process?’

      He held his most recent breath. Would she hear the subtext clearly? How can you do that, blind?

      But if she did, she let it go with a gracious smile. Just as well, because he had a feeling that a lot of his questions were going to start that way.

      ‘The bees are kind of...fluid. They move under touch. But the beetles are wedged in hard. A bit like pushing your fingers through barley in search of a pinhead.’

      There was a truckload of bees swarming over the hive and Laney’s hands, but something about the totally unconcerned way she interacted with them—and her own sketchy safety gear—gave him the confidence to lean in as she pulled a frame out of several racked in the hive. It was thick with bees and honeycomb and—sure enough—the odd tiny black beetle.

      Which she cut mercilessly in half with her thumbnail as her fingers found them.

      ‘Pest?’

      ‘Plague.’ She shook her head. ‘But we have it better here on the peninsula. And want to keep it that way.’

      Her bare fingers forked methodically through the thick clumps of bees.

      ‘How are you not a mass of stings?’

      ‘My fingers are my eyes, so I can’t work with gloves. Besides, this hive isn’t aggressive—they’ll only react to immediate threat.’

      ‘And your hands aren’t a threat?’

      ‘I guess not.’

      Understandable, perhaps. Her long fingers practically caressed them, en masse, each touch a stroke. It was almost seductive.

      Or maybe that was just him. He’d always been turned on by competence.

      ‘Hear that note?’ She made a sound that was perfectly pitched against the one coming from the bees. ‘That’s Happy Bee sound.’

      ‘As opposed to...?’

      ‘Angry Bee sound. We’re Losing Patience sound. We’re Excited sound. They’re very expressive.’

      ‘You really love them.’

      ‘I’d hope so. They’re my life’s work.’

      Realising was his life’s work, but did he love it? Did his face light up like hers when he talked about his latest conquest? Or did he just value it because he had a talent for it, and he liked being good at things. A lot. Getting from his boss the validation he’d never had as a kid.

      Laney gave the bees a farewell puff of smoke from the mini bellows sitting off to one side and then slid the frame back into its housing, her fingertips guiding its way. They spidered across to the middle frame and he grew fixated on their elegant length. Their neat, trim, unvarnished nails.

      She lifted another frame. ‘This feels heavy. A good yield.’

      It was thick with neatly packed honeycomb, waxed over to seal it all in. He mentioned that.

      ‘The frames closest to the centre are often the fullest,’ she explained. ‘Because they focus their effort around the brood frame, where the Queen and all her young are.’

      It occurred to him that he should probably be taking notes—that was what a professional would have been doing. A professional who wasn’t being dazzled by a pretty woman, that was.

      ‘Seriously? The most valuable members of the community in one spot, together? That seems like bad planning on their part.’

      ‘It’s not like a corporation, where the members of the board aren’t allowed to take the same flight.’ She laughed. ‘There’s no safer place than the middle of a heavily fortified hive. Surrounded by your family.’

      ‘In theory...’

      In his world, things hadn’t operated quite that way.

      ‘If something does happen to the Queen or the young they just work double-time making a new queen or repopulating. Colonies bounce back quickly.’

      Not all that different from Ashmore Coolidge. As critical as their senior staff were, if someone defected the company recovered very quickly and all sign of that person sank without a trace. A fact all the staff were graphically reminded of from time to time to keep them in line.

      ‘So the bees work themselves to death, supporting the royal family?’

      ‘Supporting their family. They’re all of royal descent.’ She clicked the frame back into position. ‘Isn’t that what we all do, ultimately? Even humans?’

      ‘Not everyone. I support myself.’

      She turned and faced him and he felt as pinned as if she could see him. ‘Are you rich?’

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