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Chapter Five
Slate had no idea how to maintain a beehive. Jill did, though, and she ordered him around in a strong, sure voice for most of the afternoon. He did whatever she said, asking a few questions along the way. Nothing he really wanted to know, though, and as she prepped the last hive for the relocation of part of the swarm they housed at Hope Eternal, he asked, “How’d you learn how to do this?”
“My grandmother raised bees,” Jill said, grinning at him from behind the headgear she wore to protect herself. It was hot and stuffy in the hood, but Slate hadn’t dared to remove his. He wasn’t allergic to bees, but he didn’t want to get stung either.
Energy buzzed through his veins, the same way the low drone of buzzing bees had been in the air for the past couple of hours.
“She raised everything,” Jill continued. “She’d plant different flowers in different patches just to see if the honey would taste different. She had chickens and turkeys she’d raise. I can’t remember a Thanksgiving where we didn’t have one of the toms she raised.” Her voice took on a wistful, bygone tone, and Slate sure did like it.
“Is she still alive?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jill said, turning away from him to slide in one of the trays. “She doesn’t do much anymore. Just putters around in her yard—which is still beautiful. And she’s still got her dogs.”
“I want a dog,” Slate said. “What kind does she have?”
“She’s got little lap dogs,” Jill said. “Bichon Frise’s. Three of ‘em.” She shook her head as she turned around, and her smile really was gorgeous. “One time, I asked her if it made her sad she couldn’t keep her bees and her chickens anymore. If she couldn’t keep up with canning the peaches and making applesauce and shucking all the corn. She has an acre-big garden she’d plant, cultivate, and harvest every year—and that didn’t include the orchards surrounding her house.”
“And?” Slate asked when Jill paused for several moments.
“Bring that one over,” Jill said, and Slate did what she said. Not a whisper of wind disturbed the air, and Slate felt like he was suffocating—especially when he got close to Jill. With their bee suits, he wasn’t anywhere able to touch her, but just being with her made him feel something he hadn’t in so long.
He needed to talk to Luke tonight, because he didn’t want to hurt Jill needlessly. He also didn’t want to lose part of himself just when he’d finally gotten everything back.Not quite everything, he thought, but he pushed the thought away.
Listening to Jill talk about her family made him think about his, and the fond memories of his childhood kept surging in his mind.
“She said she’s not too sad,” Jill said, picking up the story again. “She said when you get old, or if you get injured or whatever, and you can’t do what you used to be able to, you only do what’s absolutely necessary.”
“That’s her dogs,” he said. “And doing a little yard work.”
Jill nodded. “She misses my grampa terribly.” She sounded like she did too. “She reads the Bible every day too, and she never misses church.”
“Wow,” Slate said. “Only doing what’s absolutely necessary.”
“Mm.” Jill slid his tray into the hive and looked up at him. “Now we need to move the queen, and all her drones will follow her.”
“What about the other hive?” he asked. “Won’t they be just as crowded in this one as that one?”
“No,” Jill said, stepping over to the old hive. “This one is full of honey, and we’ll harvest it while they work on making more. So it’s definitely bigger.”
“Okay,” Slate said, but he didn’t really get it. Jill did, though, and he liked watching her work with such sure movements. The bee activity in the air increased as she moved the queen, and a few minutes later, she pronounced the job done.
“And we’re going to be late for the meeting,” she said. “So let’s get out of these suits and back to the West Wing.”
Slate did what she said, and he rode in her truck along the bumpy dirt road that led to a better one that went to the homestead. He drank a lot and pointed the air conditioning vents right on himself, the same way Jill did for herself.
As she approached the homestead, he glanced at her. “What’s your weekend like?” he asked.
“I’m sticking around here tomorrow,” Jill said. “I’ve been taking too much time off, and I have a ton of email to go through for our summer programs. Then I’m going to see my parents on Sunday.”
He nodded and looked away as she focused on him. “Do you, uh, go to church if you’re in town?”
“Sometimes,” she hedged. “I can tell you where the chapel is, and Hannah almost always goes. Ted and Emma have been too. Sometimes Ginger or Nate will, but they still work a lot on Sundays.”
“I think I’d like to try going.” Slate shifted in his seat. “I’ve—” He cleared his throat. “Never really been to church, at least on the outside. There were services in River Bay, and I went to those pretty regularly.”
He could feel the weight of Jill’s gaze on his face, but he couldn’t get himself to turn toward her. She came to a stop in the gravel lot in front of the homestead, and Slate’s heartbeat raced the same way it had on the first day he’d been admitted to the prison.
“Sounds like lunch might have to be during the week?” he asked.
