The Beekeeper's Ball

“Your mom’s Italian?”

“She, um, she died in childbirth. Giving birth to me.” Isabel’s own mother was yet another ghost in the house.

She caught Cormac’s flash of stark sympathy, which made her feel slightly apologetic, given what Tess had just told her—that Cormac O’Neill was a widower. “I know, this makes me Little Orphan Annie, but honestly, my grandparents were wonderful parents to me. If you lose someone before you know them, does it count as a loss?”

He hooked his thumbs into his back pockets and looked out the window. “Every death is a loss,” he said quietly.

“Of course. I’m just saying, it didn’t hit me the way it did Erik’s parents. Or Francesca’s. That was my mother’s name—Francesca.”

Cormac went over to a faded round dartboard and examined some papers stuck in place with a dart. “Looks as if Erik knew how to get in trouble, too. Aren’t these unpaid speeding tickets?”

“Yes. He drove a Mustang convertible.”

Cormac moved on to a display of ribbons. “What are all these for?” he asked.

“Okay, so he was a typical boy in every way—but he had this quirk,” she said. “He was a master baker. He won the Sonoma County Fair Blue Ribbon for the youth division from 1978 to 1982 in several categories.” She touched one of the fading ribbons. “Going through this stuff is like putting together a puzzle—but an imperfect one. I have all these artifacts—the things he left behind, photographs, stories from my grandparents and people who knew him. But I never got to know him, so that picture will never be accurate.” She opened a drawer of an old wooden desk. “My favorite artifact—his recipe collection.” Though she didn’t say so, this was when she felt closest to Erik—when she was following a recipe he’d put a little star by or annotated in his messy handwriting.

Cormac plucked a photograph from the drawer. “He’s a grown man in this picture.”

It was her favorite shot of Erik, one she used to take out and study when she was growing up. The photo showed him standing on Shell Beach, out on the Sonoma coast, with the cliffs sweeping up behind him and the ocean crashing around his bare feet. He was smiling broadly, maybe laughing, in the picture. He wore a red baseball cap turned backward, board shorts and no shirt. The camera had frozen him in a moment of freedom and joy.

“He’s younger in this picture than I am now.” She shook off a wave of regret, then shut the drawer with a decisive shove. “So, do you want a quick tour, or...?”

“Sure.” He turned and grabbed his cane.

“What happened to your leg?” she asked.

“I wish I could say I trashed my knee while doing something awesome, but it happened at JFK airport when I was running for a flight.” He shrugged. “It’ll be okay.”

In the middle of the second floor were the two biggest suites, one facing north, the other south. “We just finished remodeling them,” Isabel said. “Careful, I think the paint might still be wet on the doorframes.”

He scanned the new furnishings, the bright walls and window seats. “It’s great, Isabel.”

“Thank you. This has been a labor of love, for sure.”

“What’s up those stairs?”

“Third floor. My room, a few more guest rooms....”

Leaning on the hand rail, he went up the stairs. Isabel told herself to get used to this. Grandfather had invited the guy to explore their lives, and she supposed that meant he would be poking around every room of the house.

She showed him the guest rooms on the third floor, including the suite where Erik and Francesca had lived after they married. Though currently unfinished, this was going to become the honeymoon suite, romantic and private, appointed with luxurious fabrics and a special dressing room for the bride.

“And this,” she said, opening a door to a small sunroom, “was my grandmother’s domain. It hasn’t been refurbished yet, either. I’m not sure what to do with it.” Although Bubbie had been gone for ten years, her presence could still be felt in the closed-off room. Her sewing machine stood in the corner, still threaded, the needle raised as if awaiting orders. Under the long bank of windows was a faded daybed where Bubbie had lived the final days of her illness. She had spent time doing the things that mattered to her—simple things—visiting with family and friends, writing letters, gazing out at the beautiful view, enjoying a cup of tea with a buttery cookie, reassuring Isabel and Magnus of her love.

But Bubbie had never divulged the biggest secret of her life.

Regarding the sunroom, Isabel felt a surge of inspiration. “I’d love to turn this space into something Bubbie would appreciate,” she said.

“Need any suggestions?”

Not from you, she thought. “I’d love it to be a place of dreams, somewhere to sit and think.”

“Thinking gives me a headache.”

She gestured at the row of windows. “You’d probably like a universal gym and giant speakers blaring heavy metal music.”

“Hey, thanks for reducing me to a cliché. Actually, I was going to suggest yoga mats and gong music.”

The suggestion surprised Isabel. She could instantly picture a yoga retreat here. Maybe having Cormac O’Neill poking around and commenting on everything might turn out to be the start of something good.

Yet the thought of a stranger covered in beestings, staying in the house, swearing like a reject from a busy restaurant kitchen, was unsettling.

“Shit, oh, man.” As if he’d read her thoughts, he staggered and grabbed the doorknob.

“What’s the matter?” She clutched at his arm. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, sorry, I’ll be okay. Post Adrenalin letdown,” he said. “Feels like vertigo.”

“What can I do?”

“Maybe a rest and a shower.”

She escorted him back to Erik’s room. “All right,” she said, feeling flustered again, “you should find everything you need here.”

He paused, studying her. “I already have.”

* * *

Cormac O’Neill had been to a lot of places in his life, too many to count. But as he stood at the window of his room at Bella Vista, he couldn’t recall a place that rivaled the beauty of the Sonoma hacienda. Looking out at the orchards and fields, he felt a million miles away from the war-torn places of the world, the airports and grimy cities, the long barren stretches of scorched earth in the foreign lands he’d visited. During his career, he had lived in mud huts and tents, in hovels and out in the open, being eaten alive by bugs or shivering in an unheated room. He could do worse than a luxurious villa in Archangel, that was for sure.

Staggering off an overseas flight at SFO this morning, he’d borrowed a buddy’s Jeep, gulped a double shot of espresso and had driven straight from San Francisco to Archangel, hoping to relax and sleep off the jet lag. Instead, he’d encountered the skittish and suspicious Isabel, who had kneed him in the groin. Next came the swarm of bees and the trip to the urgent care place. He wondered what the next disaster would be.

When Tess had told him about the book project, she hadn’t mentioned hostile women and swarms of bees. In fact, she’d characterized it as a working vacation of sorts, a way for him to recover from his bum knee by soaking up the charms of Sonoma County.

In contrast, Bella Vista was lush and seductive, the landscape filled with colors from deep green to sunburned-gold. Gardeners, construction workers and farm workers swarmed the property. Isabel Johansen was in charge; that had been clear from the start. Yet when she’d shown him to Erik’s room, she’d seemed vulnerable, uncertain. Some might regard the room as a mausoleum, filled with the depressing weight of things left behind by the departed. To Mac, it was a treasure trove. He was here to learn the story of this place, this family, and every detail, from the baseball card collection to the dog-eared books about far-off places, would turn into clues for him.

And holy crap, had Isabel looked different when she’d given him the nickel tour. Unlike the virago in the beekeeper’s getup, the cleaned-up Isabel was a Roman goddess in a flowy outfit, sandals and curly dark hair.

Mac reminded himself that meeting Magnus Johansen was the whole point of this trip. At the moment, he didn’t feel like meeting anyone. The meds he’d been given, combined with the letdown after the shot of epinephrine, made his brain feel like cotton candy.

Rummaging through his duffel bag, he broke out the cream from the pharmacy and dabbed some on the itchy welts covering his arms, legs and hands. There were bites on his back he couldn’t reach, so he scratched himself on the bedpost, seeking relief.

He hoped the bees were not an omen of mishaps to come. He could always hope this morning’s disasters were an anomaly. His plan was simple. He would gather information about Magnus Johansen, a war hero turned orchardist, then settle in and write the story. It was what he did, what he was good at—telling other people’s stories.

The PR people who worked for his publisher liked to make much of his background. He’d been raised with five brothers by parents who worked in the diplomatic corps, traveling to the far corners of the world, their mission to spread peace and understanding. It all sounded exotic and glamorous, although for a kid, the reality had been far different—an endless succession of airports and foreign hotels, stifling tropical heat and painful immunizations and a new school every other year. The upbringing had taught him much about the world; he’d learned a few languages and had figured out how to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. But his way of life had never taught him how to stay in one place. The concept of home was foreign to him.

He went into the immaculate bathroom and took a quick shower in the old-fashioned claw-foot tub. There were perfumed soaps and fancy shampoo and lotions. Damn, it felt good to shower off the travel and the jet lag. He wanted to stand there all day, but he was here for a job. He put on clean shorts and a shirt, then put the knee brace back in place. The zipperlike surgical scar wasn’t pretty, but at least his knee didn’t feel as though it was on fire anymore.