Awakened By His Touch. Nikki Logan

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      Idiot, she chided herself. He could probably see it from here. There was nothing between them and the Morgan’s car park but open paddock. What was wrong with her? Maybe her brain cells were drunk on whatever that was coming off him.

      ‘Yep. I’m good. Do I need to be somewhere at a particular time?’

      ‘Are you allergic to bees?’

      ‘Only one way to find out.’

      The man faced life head-on. Her favourite direction. ‘Well, if you feel like living dangerously, come on up the hill in twenty minutes. I’ll be checking the bees.’

      Soonest started, soonest done. She turned and thrust the chalet key at him and warm fingers brushed hers as he took it.

      ‘Do I need protective gear?’ he murmured.

      ‘Not unless you plan on plunging your hands into the hives. This first community is pretty chill.’ Which wasn’t true of all their bees, but definitely true of her favourites. ‘But maybe wear sunglasses.’

      ‘Okay. Thanks, Laney.’

      His voice lifted with him as he stepped up into the unlocked chalet but there was an unidentifiable something else in his tone. Sorrow? Why would he be sad? He was getting his way. She thought about protesting his presumption in using her nickname but then remembered what he’d probably seen down on the beach. Niceties, after that, seemed rather pointless. Although it did still have the rather useful value of contrasting with her own formality.

      ‘You’re welcome, Mr Garvey.’

      With a flick of her wrist Wilbur full-circled and walked her down the hill and back through the gate, leaving the subtle dismissal lingering in the air behind her. As soon as she turned him left, towards one of the closest bee yards, Wilbur realised where they were going and he lengthened his strides, excited. He loved the beach first and the bees second. Because when she was elbow-deep in bees he was free to romp around the yards as much as he wanted.

      Laney was always pleasantly breathless when she crested the hill to the A-series hives, and, as she always did, she stalled at the top and turned to survey the property. The landscape of her imagination. It was branded into her brain in a way that didn’t need the verification of sight—the layout, the view as it had been described to her over the years. Three generations of buildings where all their manufacturing and processing was done, the endless ocean beyond that.

      She had no way of knowing how like the real thing her mixed-sense impression of it was, but ultimately it didn’t matter what it really looked like. In her mind it was magnificent. And she had the smells and the sounds and the pristinely fresh air to back it up.

      So when Elliott Garvey complimented the Morgan property she knew it was genuine. They’d had enough approaches from city folk wanting to buy in to know that it was one of the better-looking properties in the district. But that was not why her family loved it. At least it wasn’t only why they loved it. They loved it because it was fertile and well-positioned, in a coastal agricultural district, and undulating and overflowing with wildflowers, and because it backed on two sides onto nature reserves packed with Marri and Jarrah trees which meant their bees had a massive foraging range and their honey had a distinctive geo-flavour that was popular with customers.

      And because it was home. The most important of all. Where she’d lived since her parents had first brought her home from the hospital, swaddled in a hand-loomed blanket.

      That was the potential they all believed in. Regardless of what else Call-Me-Elliott Garvey saw in Morgan’s.

      * * *

      What was the protocol in this kind of situation? Should he stomp his feet on the thick grassed turf so that she could hear him coming? Cough? Announce himself?

      In the end Wilbur took matters into his own paws and came bounding over, collar tags jangling, 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 СКАЧАТЬ