The subject hadn’t come up again between himself and Eleanor. Neither had she produced any veiled hat or smoker, so he decided to go it without them. Every book and pamphlet advised that the first step toward becoming a beekeeper was to find out if you are bee-immune.

So Will did. One warm day in late October he followed instructions minutely: took a fresh bath to wash any scent of Madam from his body, raided Eleanor’s mint patch, rubbed his skin and trousers with crushed leaves, folded his collar up, his sleeves down, tied string around his trouser cuffs and went out to the derelict Whippet to find out what the bees thought of Will Parker.

Reaching the car, he felt his palms begin to sweat. He dried them on his thighs and eased closer, reciting silently, Move slow… bees don’t like abrupt movement.

He inched toward the car… into the front seat… gripped the wheel… and sat with his heart in his throat.

It didn’t take long. They came from behind him, first one, then another, and in no time at all what seemed like the whole damn colony! He forced himself to sit motionless while one landed in his hair and walked through it, buzzing, the rest still in flight about his face. Another lighted on his hand. He waited for it to drill him, but instead the old boy investigated the brown hair on Will’s wrist, strolled to his knuckles and buzzed away, disinterested.

Well, I’ll be damned.

When he told Eleanor about it, she made up for the stings the bees had foregone.

"You did what!"

She spun from the cupboard with her hands on her hips, her eyes fiery with anger.

"I went out and sat in the Whippet to see if I was bee-immune."

"Without even a veiled hat!"

"I figured you never found one."

"Because I didn’t want you out there!"

"But I told you, I rubbed mint on myself first and washed the smell of Madam off me."

"Madam! What in the sam hell has she got to do with it?"

"Bees hate the smell of animals, especially horses and dogs. It gets ’em mad."

"But you could have been stung. Bad!" She was livid.

"The book says a beekeeper’s got to expect to get stung now and then. It comes with the job. But after a while you get so you hardly notice it."

"Oh, swell!" She flung up a hand disparagingly. "And that’s supposed to make me feel good?"

"Well, I figured since I read it in the pamphlet it must be the right way to start. And the book-"

"The book!" She scoffed. "Don’t tell me about books. Did you wear gloves?"

"No. I wanted to find out-"

"And you didn’t take the smoker either!"

"I would have if you’d have given it to me."

"Don’t you blame me for your own stupidity, Will Parker! That was a damn-fool thing to do and you know it!"

She was so upset she couldn’t countenance him any longer. She spun back to the cake she’d been making, grabbed an egg and cracked it against the lip of the bowl with enough force to annihilate the shell.

"Damn! Now see what you’ve done!"

"Well, if I’d have known you were gonna get mad-"

"I’m not mad!" She fished out a smashed shell and flung it aside vehemently.

"You’re not mad," he repeated dryly.

"No, I’m not!"

"Then what are you hollering about?"

"I’m not hollering!" she hollered and rounded on him again. "I just don’t know what gets into men’s heads sometimes, that’s all! Why, Donald Wade would’ve had more sense than to go out there into a beehive with no more protection than a smear of mint!"

"I didn’t get bit though, did I?" he inquired smugly.

She glared at him, cheeks mottled, mouth pursed, and finally swung away, too frustrated to confront him any longer. "Go on." The order came out low and sizzling. "Git out of my kitchen." She slammed another egg against the bowl, smashing it to smithereens.

He stood five feet away, arms crossed, one shoulder braced indolently against the front room doorway, admiring her angry pink face, the spunky chin, the bounce of her breasts as she whipped the batter. "You know, for someone who’s not mad, you’re sure makin’ a hell of a mess out of those eggshells."

The next thing he knew, an egg came flying through the air and hit him smack in the middle of the forehead.

"Elly, wh-what the hell-"

He bent forward while yolk ran down his nose and white dangled from his chin, dripping onto his boots.

"You think it’s so funny, go stick your head in a beehive and let them clean it off for you!" She stabbed a finger at the door. "Well, git, I said! Git out of my kitchen!"

He turned to follow orders but even before he reached the door, he was laughing. The first bubble rippled up as he reached the screen door, the second as he jogged down the steps, scraping the slime from his face. By the time he hit the yard he was hooting full-bore.

"Git!"

He shook his head like a dog after a swim and cackled merrily. Behind him the screen door opened and he spun just in time to form a mitt for the next egg she let fly. It burst in his palms, against his hip.

He jigged backward, chortling. "Whooo-ee! Look out, Joe DiMaggio!"

"Damn you, Parker!"

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

All the way to the well he laughed, and kept it up while he inspected his shirt, stripped it off and rinsed it and himself beneath the pump. He was still chuckling as he hung it on a fencepost to dry.

Then the truth struck him and he became silent as if plunged underwater.

She cares!

It caught him like an uppercut on the chin, snapped him erect to stare at the house.

She cares about you, Parker! And you care about her!

His heart began pounding as he stood motionless in the sun with water streaming down his face and chest. Care about her? Admit it, Parker, you love her. He scraped a hand down his face, shook it off and continued staring, coming to grips with the fact that he was in love with a woman who had just fired an egg at him, a woman seven months pregnant with another’s man’s baby, a woman he had scarcely touched, never kissed and never desired carnally.

Until now.

He began moving toward the house in long, unhurried strides, feeling the awesome thump of his pulse in his breast and temples, wondering what to say when he reached her.

She was already on her knees with a bucket and rag when he opened the screen door and let it thud quietly behind him. She went on scrubbing, riveting her attention on the floor. The boys were napping, the radio silent. He stood across the room, watching, wondering, waiting.

Go on, then. Lift her to her feet and see if you were right, Parker.

He moved to stand over her, but she toiled stubbornly, her entire body rocking as she scrubbed with triple the energy required for a simple egg.

"Eleanor?"

He’d never called her by her first name before and it doubled his awareness of her as a woman, and hers of him as a man.

"Go away."

"Eleanor"-spoken softer this time while he gripped her arm as if to tug her up. Her head snapped back, revealing green eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

She was angry, so angry. And the tender tone of his voice added to it, though she didn’t completely understand why. She dashed away the infuriating tears and looked up the considerable length of him, to his bare, wet chest, his attractive face still moist with well water, his hair standing in rills. His eyes appeared troubled, the lashes spiky with moisture. His skin was brown from a long summer’s shirtless labor, and he had filled out until he looked like a lean, fit animal. The sight of him sent a thrill through her vitals. He was all the things that Glendon hadn’t been-honed, hard and handsome. But what man who looked like that would welcome the affections of a plain, crazy woman seven months pregnant, shaped like a watermelon?

Eleanor dropped her chin. He tipped it up with one finger and gave her face a disarming perusal before letting a grin tip the corner of his mouth. "You got one hell of an arm, you know that?"

She jerked her chin away and felt his charm seep through her limbs, but nothing in her life had led her to believe she could attract a man like him so she assumed he was only having fun with her. "It’s not funny, Will."

Standing above her, he felt disappointment spear him deeply. He dropped to a squat, his gaze falling on her hands, which rested idly over the edge of a white enamel bucket. "No, it’s not," he replied quietly. "I think we’d better talk about this."

"There’s nothing to talk about."

"Isn’t there?"

She suddenly made an L of her arms and dropped her face against her knuckles.

"Don’t cry."

"I’m n-not." Whatever was wrong with her? She never cried, and it was embarrassing to do so before Will Parker for absolutely no good reason at all.

He waited, but she continued sobbing softly, her stomach bobbing. "Don’t…" he whispered, pained.

She threw back her head, rubbed the tears aside and sniffed. "Pregnant women cry sometimes, that’s all."

"I’m sorry I laughed."

"I know, and I’m sorry I threw that egg." She dried her face roughly with her apron. "But, Will, you got to understand about the bees."

"No, you’ve got to understand about the bees."

"But, Will-"

He held up both palms. "Now wait a minute before you say anything. I’m not going to lie to you. I havebeen in the orchard… a lot. But I’m not him, Eleanor, I’m not Glendon. I’m a careful man and I’m not going to get hurt."

"How do you know that?"

"All right, I don’t. But you just can’t go through life shying away from things you’re scared are going to happen. Chances are they never will anyway." He suddenly dropped both knees to the floor and rested his hands on his thighs, leaning forward earnestly. "Elly, there are bees all over the place. And honey out there, too, a lot of it. I want to gather it and sell it."

"But-"

"Now wait a minute, let me finish. You haven’t heard it all." He drew a deep breath and plunged on. "I’ll need your help. Not with the hives-I’ll take care of that part so you don’t have to go near them. But with the extracting and bottling."

She glanced away. "For money, I suppose."

"Well, why not?"

She snapped her gaze back to him, spreading her palms. "But I don’t care about money."

"Well, maybe I do. If not for myself, for this place, for you and the kids. I mean, there are things I’d like to do around here. I’ve thought about putting in electricity… and a bathroom maybe. With the new baby coming, I thought you’d want those things, too. And what about the baby-where you gonna get the money to pay the doctor?"

"I told you before, I don’t need any doctors."

"Maybe you didn’t the day the boys got stung-we were lucky that day-but you’ll need one when the baby is born."

"I’m not having any doctor," she declared stubbornly.

"But that’s ridiculous! Who’s going to help you when the time comes?"

She squared her chin and looked him dead in the eye. "I was hopin’ you would."

"Me?" Will’s eyebrows shot up and his head jutted forward. "But I don’t know the first damn thing about it."

"There’s nothing to it," she hurried on. "I’ll tell you everything you need to know beforehand. About all you’d have to do is tie the-"

"Now, wait a minute!" He leaped to his feet, holding up both palms like a traffic cop.

Riveting her eyes on him, she got clumsily to her feet. "You’re scared, aren’t you?"

He stuffed his hands into his back pockets, gripping his buttocks. A pair of creases appeared between his eyebrows. "Damn right I’m scared. And it doesn’t make a bit of sense, not when there’s a qualified doctor down there in town who can do it."

"I told you once, the town’s got no use for me, I got no use for it."

"But that’s cr-" He stopped himself short.

"Crazy?" She finished for him.

"I didn’t mean to say that." Damn his thoughtless tongue. "It’s risky. All kinds of things could happen. Why, it could be born with the cord wrapped around its neck, or breech-what if that happened?"

"It won’t. I had two that come out with no trouble at all. All you’d have to do-"

"No!" He put six feet of space between them before facing her again, scowling. "I’m no midwife, goddammit!"

It was the first time Elly had seen him truly angry and she wasn’t sure how to handle him. They faced off, as motionless as chess pieces, their color high and their mouths set while Eleanor felt uncertainty creeping in. She needed him, but he didn’t seem to understand that. She was afraid, but couldn’t let it show. And if what she was about to say backfired, she’d be the sorriest woman in Gordon County.