Sweet as Honey Read online

  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 Three

  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.

  She quickly slipped on her crisp white kapp and then her shoes. Even with dread growing in her chest like mold, this was no time to stall. She would feel terrible if Erda passed away before she could say good-bye.

  She clomped down the stairs as if she were going to her own funeral and chastised herself for acting so childish. The most important thing was to see Erda before she went to Heaven. Erda was ninety-five years old, eager, and ready to go. They’d been expecting it for several weeks, but now that her death was so close, Lily felt heartbroken. Despite her unfortunate grandson, Erda had become one of Lily’s most cherished friends.

  When she walked into the kitchen, Dan stood so fast that his chair almost tipped over. His hand shot out and grabbed it before it went down, then he self-consciously shoved his hands into his pockets. “Ready?”

  “Jah,” she said, grabbing her black sweater from the hook by the door. The first day of summer was almost four weeks away, and the nights were chilly yet.

  To her surprise, he sort of yanked the sweater from her hands and helped her into it. “I’ve got a blanket in the buggy if you get cold.”

  “Jah. Okay.”

  Aunt Bitsy reached out and pinched Lily’s earlobes between her thumbs and index fingers, which was her way of saying “I love you.” Aunt B had a thing for ears. “Make sure Erda knows we’re thinking of her.” Her expression looked stern, like a good librarian, but Lily knew her well enough to recognize the tender emotions in her eyes.

  Dan opened the door for her and then offered a hand to help her into his two-seater, open-air buggy. Lily groaned inwardly. She would be forced into very close proximity to Dan Kanagy. How would she stand it?

  He sat next to her and snatched a blanket from behind them. “Do you want this? It’s pretty cold.”

  Keeping with her resolve not to talk to him, she shook her head.

  Even in the dark, she could see his grin. “Are you sure? It was a gift from an Englisch friend. It’s got a print of a strange creature on it. His name is SpongeBob SquarePants.”

  Dan shined his flashlight on the blanket. It was covered with images of a yellow square with eyeballs and buck teeth. Lily had never seen anything so strange. Dan chuckled. “Weird, huh? I knew you’d like it.”

  Meaning, he thought she was weird. He seemed intent on mocking her with every breath he took.

  She folded her arms to ward off the chill. It really was cold, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of wrapping his weird blanket around the weird girl sitting next to him. “You don’t seem very concerned about your mammi,” she said, knowing it wasn’t a very nice thing to say but hoping to deflect his attention from her strange and ugly self.

  He immediately stiffened, and she felt bad that her chiding had hit home. She never dreamed she’d be able to make a dent to his exterior. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. My mammi is blind and arthritic and in constant pain. She misses my dawdi something awful and has been wanting to follow him home ever since he died twelve years ago.”

  “Jah, she has.”

  Dan stuffed the weird blanket between them, laid the glowing flashlight on top of the blanket, and turned the horse around so they were headed down the lane. “I’m not happy to see her go, but she’s happy to be going. I rejoice at a life lived in Jesus. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  “I’m not offended,” Lily stuttered.

  You think I’m weird and ugly. I’m not offended at all.

  She fell silent and pretended to be interested in the scenery to her right, even though it was too dark to see much of anything. Hopefully he’d get the hint that she didn’t want to talk.

  Nae. He didn’t take the hint. “While I worked in Pennsylvania, I got a letter from my mammi every week. My schwester would write it down for her and send it to me.” He actually leaned closer and nudged her with his shoulder. “Mammi is very fond of you. Every letter included at least a paragraph about sweet Lily Christner.”

  Lily’s face got warm. No doubt Dan would use something from his mammi’s letters to poke fun at her. “I didn’t do all that much.”

  Without warning, Dan pulled on the reins and stopped, actually stopped the buggy on the small bridge that spanned their even smaller pond. He turned his whole body toward her and pinned her with a look that, even in the dim light of the flashlight, could have melted butter. “Nae, Lily. You brought so much joy to my mammi’s last years. You are not just some girl who read to an old lady. You changed her life. Our whole family is very grateful.” His gaze intensified. “You need to understand how we feel.”

  Lily nodded because her tongue had tied itself into a very tricky knot. How could she resist such surprising sincerity? She didn’t deserve it, but she could see Dan believed it.

  Smiling sadly, he jiggled the reins and turned his gaze to the road up ahead. “Besides family, you’re the only one she wants to see before she goes. That should tell you something.”

  Lily cleared her throat. She couldn’t have anyone thinking better of her than she actually was. “I enjoyed reading with your mammi as much as she did. Sometimes I felt almost selfish I took so much pleasure in it.”

  “You still made a sacrifice, and I am in awe of your kindness.”

  “It broke my heart when Erda told me she couldn’t see well enough to read anymore. I knew how much she loved books, so I suggested we read together. I can’t consider it a sacrifice. Erda is like the mammi I never had.” Lily bi
t her tongue. Hopefully Dan hadn’t noticed that little slip. Lily’s own mammi lived not ten minutes from here. She should never have implied anything bad about her mammi. “Erda shared recipes and wisdom with me, and I brought books and honey.”

  He didn’t say anything immediately, as if he were mulling over what she had said, probably thinking what a wicked girl she was for saying that about her mammi. Well, he hadn’t exactly been the best example of Christian charity either. He wasn’t one to judge. “I just . . . just know that I think you’re an angel, and I want to be more like you.”

  In the dimness, the light of his eyes could have burned a hole through that weird blanket of his. Lily caught her breath and held it, as an unfamiliar shiver traveled up her spine.

  He’d caught her unprepared for whatever it was he was doing with her senses. She hadn’t expected out of the ordinary. Dan’s intense gaze seemed a country mile from ordinary.

  Dan’s lips curled into a tenuous smile as he cleared his throat and snapped his gaze back to the road. “Almost there.”

  Erda lived by herself in a tiny home right in the heart of their little town. In the last few months, one of her family members had stayed with her around the clock because she had refused to be moved from her own house. Lily smiled at the thought of petite and determined Erda Kanagy refusing to budge from that chunky lavender armchair she liked so much. Her family had rearranged their lives so Erda could be comfortable. No matter what Paul Glick thought of Daniel’s family, they had treated their mammi with exceptional grace.

  Dan turned the corner, and Erda’s house came into sight. Four bright kerosene lanterns hung from the eaves of her porch, making the small cottage seem like the center of the universe. Lily counted no less than seven buggies parked on the road in front.

  Her heart tripped all over itself. She shouldn’t be here. She wasn’t family. What would they think of Lily Christner barging in on such a solemn, intimate occasion? Was it too late to ask Dan to turn around and take her back?

  Dan parked behind the last buggy on the street. Before she even knew what he was doing, he jumped down, slid his hands around her waist, and lifted her to the ground.

  That was totally unnecessary, but nice all the same.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  She glanced toward the house with her hands clenched to hide her trembling. “I . . . maybe I should wait outside after all.” Her voice sounded weak and uncertain, just like she felt.

  Dan gently cupped his hand over her elbow. “It’s going to be okay, Amtrak. Don’t you worry for one minute that you don’t belong here. Every member of the family is eager to have you come. They know how happy you made our mammi.”

  The warmth and sincerity behind his low, musical voice snaked its way into her veins. She forgot her anxiety and remembered how to breathe.

  Her lips curled into a half smile. “Denki. I am grateful for your kindness.”

  He smiled back. She’d never seen any expression so reassuring.

  It wasn’t until they walked into the house and she stood at Erda’s bedside that she realized he’d called her “Amtrak.” She hadn’t even flinched, because when he’d said it just now, she could have sworn there was some affection behind it.

  Chapter Four

  The sweat trickled down Lily’s neck, tickling her skin and leaving her with the almost overpowering urge to scratch, even though it was nearly impossible to scratch when dressed for beekeeping. She bit her bottom lip and ignored the tickle. No beekeeper could afford to be itchy.

  A traditional veiled helmet sat on her head with the drawstring pulled tight around the collar of her short-sleeved jacket. She wore a smooth white sweatshirt beneath the jacket and canvas gloves with cuffs that went almost to her elbows. Her jeans legs were stuffed into her boots, and she wore a pair of long socks for good measure. Her outfit provided good protection from stings, but oh, sis yuscht, it sure was hot. And today was only June first.

  Dressed similarly, Aunt B and Lily’s sisters inspected the ten hives on the east side of their farm. A row of half a dozen basswood trees and a barbed-wire fence formed a border between the hives and the wide country road that ran to the east of their farm. The small pond provided a water source for the bees, and the plentiful trees and flowers they’d spent years cultivating supplied pollen and nectar for their hives.

  “B?” Poppy said, sending a puff of smoke into the hive with her smoker. “I think this hive is getting ready to swarm.”

  Aunt B nodded. “Let’s split it. I have three extra supers in the honey house.”

  Lily stepped away from the hive and picked up the sturdy notebook she’d laid on the grass a few feet from where they were working. After peeling off her glove, she made a few notes about Poppy’s hive with date and time.

  She dropped the notebook and put her glove back on. “The nectar flow has been extra gute this spring.” Good nectar meant plentiful honey. It would be a good year.

  She blew a strand of hair from her eyes. Every couple of years, Aunt B would take Lily and her sisters to Walmart to buy a new pair of beekeeping jeans, which weren’t any different from regular jeans, except that the Christners only wore them for beekeeping. The bishop approved as long as the worldly trousers were never worn for other activities. Their farm and apiary were far enough from town that few neighbors wandered onto the property to discover them so outrageously dressed.

  Ten hives stood here near the basswood trees. Ten were located next to their field of clover, and ten more sat on the edge of the small orchard of apple and cherry trees they had planted ten years ago when Aunt Bitsy realized they would need some extra money to pay for Lily’s braces.

  Few Amish people got braces. They were too expensive, as was the mere thought of a dentist. But Aunt B insisted that her girls have gute teeth. When Lily’s teeth had grown in like a clump of toadstools in the wet grass, Aunt Bitsy set out to find ways to supplement their meager insurance money to pay for braces.

  Thus the beehive idea had been born. They’d planted trees and bushes, flowers and herbs. It was strictly forbidden to pluck a dandelion from the lawn and a mortal sin to spray any chemical within a mile of the hives. Aunt B adamantly protected her bees. She had once chased a giant raccoon away from the hives with a frying pan and a turkey baster. She said the sprained ankle was a small price to pay. Farrah Fawcett got a good scolding that day for not being a better raccoon cat.

  Proceeds from the honey had kept their farm going, provided money to put away for weddings, and paid for contacts for Lily and a set of braces for each of the girls.

  Lily had hated wearing braces and headgear, especially since boys like Dan Kanagy wouldn’t leave her alone, but she was glad that now her teeth weren’t crammed into her mouth like swimmers at the pool on a hot summer’s day. She knew it was pure vanity, but she liked having a nice smile that she didn’t have to be ashamed of.

  Jah, Paul would say she was as vain as a peacock.

  She pumped more smoke into her hive and pried up a frame with her hive tool. Good nectar flow. This super was almost full.

  Rose put the cover back on her hive.

  “You’re so much faster than the rest of us, Rosie,” Poppy said.

  “She has a calming influence on the bees, same as she does with people and animals,” Aunt B said.

  “The bees are my friends,” Rose said, a shy smile forming on her lips.

  Even though they were sisters, Rose, Poppy, and Lily were nothing alike. Lily felt like a plain, hardy dandelion, while Rose was like a rare pink-petaled flower that only bloomed in the moonlight. Poppy fit her nickname perfectly. In the garden, Priscilla—though no one called her that—would have been a bright orange poppy demanding to be noticed. Beautiful, showy, and irresistible. Lily didn’t mind that both her sisters surpassed her in every way. She loved them better than her own heart.

  “How is Dan doing since his mammi’s passing, Lily?” Rose asked.

  Why did her heart seem to swoosh to her toe
s and back again at the mention of his name? She hated the sight of Dan Kanagy, even if he had been exceptionally sweet to his mammi right before she died. “Dan? How should I know?”

  Rose’s voice sounded as small as a mouse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Had she sounded upset? “You didn’t upset me. Dan and I aren’t exactly friends. He treated me badly in school.”

  Rose moved on to the next beehive. “Maybe he’s sorry for all those times he teased you.”

  “You talked yesterday after the funeral,” Poppy said. “What did he say?”

  Oh, well, it . . . hadn’t been anything. Except it had been very thoughtful of him to seek her out and ask how she was holding up and could he do anything for her? He had lost his mammi. She had to be holding up better than he was. “He asked how I was doing.”

  Rose checked the fuel in her smoker. “And how is he doing?”

  “I . . . uh, didn’t ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “He just . . . Well, he didn’t seem to want to talk about himself.” Lily groaned inwardly. After the funeral, her mind had been full of thoughts of Erda, and then Dan had looked at her in that strange way that made her spine sort of go tingly. She hadn’t been thinking straight. She should have at least expressed her sympathy to him. “He asked how you schwesters were doing and Aunt B.”

  Rose glanced in Lily’s direction. “That was thoughtful of him.”

  “Did he say anything mean to you?” Poppy asked, as if she were looking for a fight. She always stood ready to defend her sisters against stupid boys who called them names.

  “Nae, very nice. He didn’t make fun of my freckles or call me Amtrak.”

  “I used to punch him when he called you Amtrak,” Poppy said, narrowing her eyes. “That one always made you cry.”

  Except for that one time at Erda’s house.

  Aunt B raised her eyes to the sky. “Lord, I’m getting a little impatient down here waiting for permission to use the shotgun on that boy.”