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Sweet As Honey
By JENNIFER BECKSTRAND KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
Copyright © 2016 Jennifer Beckstrand
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4201-4021-7
CHAPTER 1
Dan Kanagy stopped his open-air buggy in the middle of the deserted road and turned on his flashlight. Shining it along the roadside, he squinted into the darkness.
There it was. The sign that marked the turnoff to the lane he was looking for, a big, white board decorated with flowers in every variety of paint color imaginable. In bold, black letters it read: BEWARE THE HONEYBEES.
Dan had never been able to figure out if that warning referred to the large number of hives that dotted the Christners' farm or if it referred to the Christners themselves. The community had nicknamed them the Honeybee Sisters a dozen years ago. The three Honeybee schwesters were pretty enough and smart enough to be intimidating, and they lived with their aunt, who was said to be slightly odd. At least that's what Dan had been told. He'd never met the aunt, the aendi, but he knew the Honeybee schwesters well. He'd gone to primary school with all three of them.
The youngest, Rose, had seemed so delicate that Dan had feared she'd break if he looked at her the wrong way. Poppy Christner had punched him in the mouth on more than one occasion, and the eldest, Lily, was too wonderful for words, and entirely too wonderful for a plain, ordinary boy like Dan Kanagy.
Beware the Honeybees indeed.
Holding the reins with one hand and the flashlight in the other, Dan turned his horse, Clyde, down the long lane. It was a good thing he had his flashlight. At two o'clock in the morning under a new moon in late May, the darkness was profound. Clyde's hooves clip-clopped over a small wooden bridge just wide enough for a buggy or a car to pass over. The light of his flashlight reflected off a pond of still water meandering under the bridge. Maybe pond was too generous. It looked more the size of a puddle.
Across the bridge, the lane curved to the right. A variety of tall and short bushes lined the lane to his right, some thick with leaves, others abloom with flowers. To his left, he could just make out a row of beehives, standing guard over the farm.
The line of bushes came to an abrupt stop as he got to the end of the lane. To his left, a small barn loomed above him. A house stood to his right fronted by a lawn full of dandelions and a wide flower bed bursting with blooms. Even by the light of his flashlight, they looked wonderful-gute. The bees probably thought they were wonderful-gute too.
Dan jumped out of his buggy and tiptoed up the path of flagstones that led to the house, not sure why he tried to be quiet. He was about to awaken the whole house. It couldn't be helped, but he still felt bad about interrupting their sleep like this.
He walked up the porch steps, tapped lightly on the door, and listened. Nothing.
If he wanted anyone to wake up, he'd have to give up trying to be subtle. He rapped his knuckles five times against the sturdy wooden door. Holding his breath, he listened for signs of movement from within. After a few seconds, a faint light appeared behind the front window curtains. The door slowly creaked open, and Dan found himself nose to nose with the barrel of a shotgun.
He should have paid more heed to that sign.
CHAPTER 2
Dan's heart pounded like a two-deep team of horses as, still gripping his flashlight, he slowly lifted his hands above his head. Lord willing, he had a long life ahead of him and hadn't quite figured out how he wanted to die, but getting shot in the head was not it.
The woman on the other end of the shotgun wore a neck-to-toe white nightgown and a seriously ferocious scowl on her lips. She had fashioned her salt-and-pepper hair into a braid that rested on her shoulder like a strange pet. Dan couldn't begin to guess why he noticed her hair at a time like this, but it seemed to be tinged a light shade of blue. Lovely and odd at the same time.
This must be the aendi.
Dan had been warned she was strange, but a shotgun to the face was not quite what he had expected. He hoped "strange" didn't mean "crazy wild woman apt to shoot unsuspecting boys who came to her house."
The three Honeybee schwesters, all clad in baby-blue flannel nightgowns and matching braids, flanked their aunt on both sides. Lily, with that cute upturned nose and bright, intelligent eyes, held the lantern and frowned in Dan's direction. Poppy folded her arms and scowled at him while Rose looked so terrified, Dan nearly felt compelled to gather her in his arms for a brotherly hug.
"Ha! We finally caught you," said the aunt.
Lily drew her brows together. "It appears more like he turned himself in."
The aunt motioned in his direction with the barrel of the gun. "What do you want? Come to confess?"
He certainly hoped her trigger finger wasn't sweaty. "I mean no harm. I've come with a message for Lily."
The aunt, Poppy, and Rose turned to Lily with wide eyes.
The shotgun seemed to droop slightly. "You must be Aunt Honeybee ... I mean Lily's aendi."
"My name's Bitsy. But you can call me Hyacinth, if you like."
A laugh escaped Lily's mouth before she pursed her lips together and resumed her determined frown.
Bitsy glanced sideways at Lily with a smile dancing in her eyes if not on her face. She lowered the shotgun halfway. "Don't you like Hyacinth, Lily? It's very British."
"Hyacinth is awful fancy and takes too long to say. We like you as plain, sensible Aendi Bitsy."
Bitsy scrunched her lips to one side of her face. "The curse of an Amish woman, always having to be plain and sensible."
Dan lowered his hands slowly and carefully. "My name is Daniel Kanagy. We've never met, but your nieces and I went to school together. I've been away in Pennsylvania for two years, so maybe they don't recognize me. I got back yesterday morning."
"Did you forget where you live?" Bitsy asked.
Dan glanced at Lily. "You remember me, don't you? I called you Amtrak in school." Amtrak because she used to have these really cute braces that looked like railroad tracks across her teeth.
Bitsy scowled and raised an eyebrow and the shotgun. She looked at Lily. "Is he the one who ... ?"
"Jah," Lily mumbled, lowering her eyes. "He's the one."
Is he the one who what? The one who they were planning on murdering tonight?
Bitsy's expression was not neighborly. "Do you want me to shoot him?"
Dan pasted a smile on his face as if he were in on the joke. The Amish were pacifists. Bitsy was teasing him.
Probably.
Lily sighed, reached out, and nudged the barrel of the shotgun so it pointed to the floor. "Nae, Aendi B. Don't shoot him. We've both grown up since then."
Grown up since when? Had he missed something important? And why in the world had he offered to be the one to fetch Lily Christner? Aunt Bitsy would never have pointed a gun at Dat.
Well, most likely not.
Bitsy rested the gun at her side and leaned on it like a cane. "So, what do you want at two in the morning, Daniel Kanagy? If you're here to try your chances with one of the girls, you'll have to come at normal hours like the rest of the boys."
In the excitement and sheer terror of having a gun pointed at him, Dan had almost forgotten what he'd come for. "It's about my mammi."
Lily gasped and put a hand to her mouth. "Is she okay?"
"She's taken a turn for the worse. It won't be long now, maybe before morning. She really wants to see you before she goes."
"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" Bitsy scolded.
"Well, because ..." he stammered, "there was a shotgun pointed at my face."
Bitsy harrumphed. "There was no need to panic about it."
Dan nodded, trying to be agreeable. He and Bitsy obviously didn't see eye to eye about that. "I'm here to take Lily to Mammi's house if she wants to go. The whole family is gathered to say good-bye."
Lily handed the lantern to Poppy. "Of course I want to go. Give me a few minutes to get dressed."
She disappeared up the stairs while the other three continued to stare at him. Did he look that frightening? He only had a day's growth of whiskers on his chin.
Rose finally broke the uncomfortable silence. "Why don't you come in and sit at the table while you wait?"
Bitsy nodded almost imperceptibly, propped her gun against the wall, and stepped back so Dan could enter.
He stepped into the house as if it might explode — as if someone might start shooting at him if his boots were muddy.
The main floor of the house looked to be mostly one big room. An ample kitchen with a large butcher-block island stood to his left, a sitting room with a fireplace, two sofas, and two overstuffed chairs to his right. A heavy wooden table, large enough to seat a dozen comfortably, sat right in front of him.
The honey-colored wood floor had seen some use. It shone like it had just been polished, but scuff marks and scratches marred the entire surface. And had someone taken a swing at one of the floorboards with an ax?
Dan pulled a chair from the table and sat, never taking his eyes from Bitsy's face. He wanted to be ready in case she pulled a knife on him.
Rose took a coffeepot from the cupboard. "I'll make you a cup of kaffee."
"Jah, okay, denki," he said. Even though he'd already had two cups before coming, he instinctively knew it would be best to agree with everything and not give Bitsy an excuse to pull out a peashooter.
Bitsy and Poppy folded their arms and stood over him, like two giant maples guarding the forest. "Hold out your hands," Bitsy said.
Dan tried to act as if he saw nothing amiss with this request. "I ... I ... what did you say?"
"Do you have any bee stings?"
Dan held his arms out straight while Bitsy and Poppy examined them. He pushed his short sleeves above his shoulders, just in case they wanted to be thorough.
Bitsy nodded. "You have the muscles of a hard worker."
A grin pulled at his lips as he lifted his trousers legs. Might as well let them inspect up to his knees and be satisfied. Satisfied with what, he hadn't a clue.
This night was getting stranger and stranger by the minute.
Poppy turned her face away when he exposed his legs, but Bitsy chuckled and took a good look. "You have a sense of humor, Daniel. I'll give you that."
He gave her a self-deprecating smile.
She gave him a self-satisfied one. "You're clean, but I still need to know where you were last Monday evening?"
Rose brought a steaming mug of kaffee and a slice of some sort of cake to the table. "Bee Sting Cake," she said, setting the plate in front of him. "Lily made it."
The two-layered cake was golden brown with what must have been a whole tree of slivered almonds on top. It looked irresistible. The Honeybee Schwesters were well-known for their baking skills.
"We shouldn't accuse him, Aunt Bitsy," Rose said. "He's a guest in our home."
"I got back from Pennsylvania yesterday," Dan said. "I've been there for almost two years."
Poppy frowned and slid her arm around Bitsy's waist. "He didn't do it, B."
Bitsy slumped her shoulders. "I know. But it would be very convenient if he were that easy to catch."
Bitsy and Poppy each slid a chair from the table and sat down. Rose sidled into the chair farthest from Dan. He drank a sip of kaffee and took a bite of cake. It melted in his mouth and almost made up for all of the uncomfortable staring.
Almost. Three pairs of eyes bored into his skull. He supposed it was only to be expected. He was a relative stranger sitting in their kitchen in the middle of the night trying not to drown in the kaffee Rose had graciously brewed for him.
Rose spoke as if she hoped no one heard her. She'd been timid like that in school. "We're sorry for unjustly accusing you. Aren't we, Aendi Bitsy?"
"Unjustly accusing me of what?" Dan asked, guessing that the apology had something to do with the inspection of his arms.
Bitsy squared her shoulders. "You're right, Rosie. I shouldn't have been so hostile. He's still out of my good graces, but I'm sorry for thinking he could be low enough to hurt our bees."
Why was he out of Bitsy's good graces? They'd only just met.
Poppy glanced at Dan. "Last Monday night, someone tipped over one of our hives."
"Are the bees okay?" Dan said.
Bitsy pressed her lips into a hard line. "We think so. One of the supers is cracked and we lost some brood, but the queen is alive and the bees are still foraging."
"We figure whoever did it must have gotten stung at least a dozen times before he could get away," Poppy said.
Bitsy raised an eyebrow. "Be on the lookout for someone with an unusual amount of bee stings."
What was an unusual amount of bee stings? Dan hoped he'd know it when he saw it. He took another bite of cake, which was turning out to be the best thing about the whole evening. "Do you have a dog? A dog would warn you if someone trespassed onto your property."
Bitsy propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. "We have a cat."
Was that a tattoo on her wrist? It looked like a picture of the honeybee, but Dan averted his eyes before he got a good look. He didn't want to gawk.
An Amish woman with a tattoo. Had that ever been done before? And he couldn't be sure, but he thought maybe she had three holes in each ear where earrings might go. Who was this woman, and had the bishop ever gotten a good look at her earlobes?
It made his head hurt thinking about trying to figure out Bitsy Honeybee.
A large, puffy ball of brilliant white fur brushed up against Dan's leg. After all he'd been through tonight, his nerves were a little tight. He nearly jumped out of his skin.
Bitsy rolled her eyes at the ball of fur that turned out to be a fat kitty. "She's not much of a security system. Doesn't make a peep at trespassers and wouldn't attack a robber even if he had a slice of bacon wrapped around his neck."
Dan tried to imagine a place where robbers wore bacon as scarves.
Bitsy picked up the cat and went nose to nose with her as if she were scolding a young child. "Some watch-cat you are, Farrah Fawcett. You're supposed to protect the family from danger."
The cat seemed a little put out with Bitsy's lecture. Her tiny pink nose looked as if she had pressed it against a window and squished it flat. Her eyes glowed bright mustard yellow and her mouth curved in a perpetual frown. Bitsy nuzzled the cat's head against her chin before handing her off to Rose who cooed and cradled the cat in her lap.
Dan's lips twitched into a grin. Bitsy had named her cat after a bathroom fixture? "I suppose the shotgun works if the cat doesn't."
Bitsy waved her hand in the direction of the shotgun propped against the wall. "It's not loaded. I don't believe in guns."
She could have fooled him.
Dan's heart did a little flip when he heard Lily coming down the stairs. For years he'd had a crush on Lily Christner, even if she had completely ignored him since eighth grade. Right before he had left for Pennsylvania, Lily had started going to Dan's mammi's house to read to her. Lily's kindness and Mammi's letters only served to keep her fresh on his mind for two whole years.
Of course, nothing could ever come of his infatuation. Paul Glick was the twenty-foot-high brick wall that stood in his way. And Dan had never been good at climbing walls.
CHAPTER 3
While she pinned her hair into a tight bun, Lily seriously considered sneaking down the stairs and out the back door and driving herself to Dan's mammi's house. The thought of being within a mile of Dan Kanagy sent her into a panic. The thought of being in the same buggy made her ill. What would Paul say? He hated the very sight of any member of the Kanagy family. Even the thought that Lily read to Erda Kanagy three days a week made Paul break out in hives.
She growled in frustration. Hitching up the horse and buggy at two in the morning wasn't practical, and Dan had gone to all this trouble to fetch her. She would ride into town in his buggy, but that didn't mean she had to talk to him. Or look at him. Or fret about him.
Unfortunately, she would have to hear him if he chose to speak. If he called her "Amtrak" one more time, she thought she might burst into tears.
She quickly slipped out of her nightgown and into her dress. She chose the blue dress because Erda liked blue, even if she couldn't see it anymore. Lily felt a hitch in her throat. Was Erda really going to God tonight? And how would Lily fill the hole in her heart when Erda left her?
Lily had already taken her contacts out, so she slid on her old pair of thick glasses. Her eyesight was terrible, and before she got contacts, Dan had teased her persistently about her glasses. She had to give him credit for creativity. He never called her something unoriginal like "Four Eyes." Instead he called her "Coke Bottle" or "Scuba Diver" or his most hurtful favorite, "Frog Eyes."
She'd spent a lot of afternoons after school watering her pillow because of Dan Kanagy. It had been eight years since then but the memories still stung like a hive of bees.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sweet As Honey by JENNIFER BECKSTRAND. Copyright © 2016 Jennifer Beckstrand. Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
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