Queen Bee (Lowcountry Tales #12)(5)

Momma moved her arms. “I imagine I’m still alive.”

“That’s good,” he said. “Now, can you point your toes?”

She did as she was told, but when he asked her to bring her knee up to her chest, she grimaced in pain.

“I don’t like the looks of that,” Anthony said. “Now, Miss Katherine, I know you don’t like going to the hospital and all . . .”

“Oh, no!” she said, with the smallest objection on record. “Not the hospital!”

He was joking. My mother loved the hospital! She thought it was like going to a spa. In fact, she kept an overnight bag packed, just in case.

The fellows from EMS moved in, lowered the gurney to the floor, and between them managed to lift my mother’s considerable bulk onto it.

“Get my bag from the closet, Holly! And my medicine. And call Leslie! She’ll want to know.”

“Yes, Momma. I will.”

My sister, Leslie, would not care. The only thing Leslie had ever cared about was getting out of here. And she was reasonably nice to me because I took care of the beast of a mother we shared. I always wondered if Leslie thought I was going to be Momma’s nursemaid forever. It wasn’t that I wanted such a fancy life. But I did want more than this.

“How is Leslie?” Anthony asked. “She was always such a pretty girl.”

Everybody on this island knew Anthony had a sweet spot for Leslie. She was his first sort of serious girlfriend, but she dumped him for Charlie Stevens when his family moved to Charleston in her junior year of high school. Charlie Stevens’s family had big money from a string of car dealerships they owned all through the South and the Midwest.

“Leslie’s the same,” I said. “I’ll tell her you asked about her.”

God, Leslie was such a dog. If I caught her going wild with Charlie in the back seat of his daddy’s car once, I caught her a thousand times. Yeah, Leslie sure did like all that sweaty stuff. Not me. Until recently I was pretty sure it was only for the purpose of procreation. At least that’s what the clergy drilled into my head. At school I was so na?ve that I believed it. Anyway, as we all know, it wasn’t as if I had anyone interested in sharing that sort of experience with me, so there was no point in getting excited about it. At least, not so far. Although I had been entertaining more than a few thoughts about the widower next door. Life could be so easy if he fell in love with me. I could have children without having to give birth. And I would be next door to Momma, who was sure to leave me the house when she went. Wouldn’t she? And then I wouldn’t have to move my hives.

I grabbed Momma’s bag from her closet and her medicine from the bathroom and followed them all outside. They were headed to the emergency room at East Cooper Hospital because that was where you went when EMS picked you up for a ride on this island.

“Now, don’t you worry,” Anthony said, “we’re gonna take good care of your momma.”

“I wasn’t worried for a moment,” I said. “Thanks!”

I got into my car and, as I followed the ambulance over the causeway, thought about the way the water sparkled and how at this time of year it was almost sapphire blue. The sky was strewn with wisps of clouds and the sun was so bright it hurt your eyes to look up. The spartina was still brown. I knew the edges of it were razor sharp, but from a distance it was so beautiful you would love to run your hand across its top as you would a fur coat. The landscape alone would make a poor person feel as rich as cream.

As I passed through Mount Pleasant, whose fast-growing population was being watched by urban developers across the country, I began to wonder about myself and my life in general. Seemed like I was doing that sort of wondering more and more often. It wasn’t that I was so miserable or so ungrateful or even jealous of Leslie. It was just that I wondered how a girl like me could ever make her life mean anything.





“Hunter? Did you know honey bees have pockets on their legs to store pollen? It makes them weigh fifty percent more by the end of their day.”

“What? They need to go to Weight Watchers!”

“Oh, Hunter.”


Chapter Two



Bee Calm

Somewhere between leaving the hospital and arriving at Publix to buy groceries, I made a decision. I was going to invite Archie MacLean and the boys over for dinner. Why not? Carin had been in heaven for long enough for him to enjoy some female company without feeling guilty. And with Momma in the hospital—they were keeping her overnight for observation and to run some tests—the timing was perfect. I was excited about the possibilities of company, daydreaming that the boys were mine and wondering what it would be like to be married to a man ten years older than I was. I didn’t even unload my car or take the groceries inside. I was so excited, I’d even coughed up the money for store-bought flowers, a rare indulgence. And, the weather felt a lot cooler than it had been in the morning, which I took as a good omen. In fact, everything seemed like a good omen.

I marched right up their front steps, crossed the porch, knocked on the door, and waited.

Archie answered and, of course, Tyler and Hunter were right behind him, nearly colliding with each other as they sock-skated toward the door across their gleaming heart pine floors. Archie, whose longish hair was sexy as hell, was wearing corduroy pants, a plaid shirt, and a thin cardigan, looking every inch the kindly and distinguished professor that he was. He reminded me of Alexander Skarsg?rd. I mean, break a sweat.