The Beekeeper's Ball: Bella Vista Chronicles Book 2 by Susan Wiggs Page A

he’d ever lived in one place was during college. After that, his permanent address was his literary agent’s Manhattan office.
    Here, he felt like a stranger in a strange—and extremely seductive—land. In contrast to the places of his past, Bella Vista seemed weighted by a sense of permanence—the old country house with its courtyard and patios, the rustic stone barn and machine shop, outbuildings and weathered work sheds, the acres of age-gnarled apple trees, now covered in springtime blooms. He wondered what it would be like to watch the seasons change all in one place, year after year.
    “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he told Tess.
    She gave a dismissive sniff, then turned to her beauteous sister. “He never stays. Mac is a rolling stone.”
    Isabel offered a bowl full of raw sugar crystals. “Good to know,” she said.
    “I’m wounded,” he said, adding sugar to his coffee. “Why is it good?”
    “I like to understand who I’m dealing with. So do you prefer Mac or Cormac?”
    “Either.” The piercing mechanical whine of a saw came from somewhere outside. “You’ve got a lot of work going on around here,” he said. “If this is a bad time—”
    “It’s a perfect time,” Tess interrupted.
    He sensed what she wasn’t saying. Magnus Johansen wasn’t getting any younger.
    When the shrieking of the power saw stopped, Tess asked, “So what do you think about Isabel’s project?”
    What the hell did he care? The whole idea of running a vast estate, regardless of how historic it was, felt like way too much of a commitment to him.
    “She’s turning the place into a destination cooking school. Did she tell you?” Tess beamed with pride.
    “She’s standing right here,” Isabel reminded them.
    “Cool idea, huh?” Tess asked, ignoring her sister.
    “If you’re into cooking,” said Mac. “And school.”
    “I take it you’re not,” Isabel said.
    “I’m here for Magnus,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll try to stay out of your way.”
    “Ernestina told me he’s out with the workers in the new section of the orchard.” She looked him up and down, her gaze hard to read. “It’s a few hundred yards away. Can you walk that far?”
    He nodded, gripping his cane as he studiously ignored the twinge in his bad knee. “Sure, let me grab my camera.”
    “You’re a photographer, too?” asked Isabel when he returned with his gear. “It looks like a bazooka gun.”
    “I take a lot of my own pictures,” he said. He’d found, in his work, that putting the camera between himself and a subject sometimes created a necessary boundary. Or if that wasn’t needed, it was a way to capture a moment, a mood or nuance when words weren’t enough.
    The three of them stepped through a set of French doors leading to the central patio, which was swarming with even more workmen. Isabel led the way, descending a set of yellow limestone steps. He couldn’t stop himself from checking her out from behind. He kind of wished she wasn’t wearing all that flowy stuff because he suspected there was something much more interesting underneath.
    Pretty women were one of his several weaknesses. There was something about long hair, shapely legs, tanned skin, smooth and soft... He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a woman, inhaled the scent of her hair, pressed his lips to the pulse in her neck. He nearly stumbled over a tree root as he imagined what Isabel Johansen smelled and tasted like.
    She turned back, scowling at him. “Are you all right?”
    “Fine,” he said, clearing his throat. “Just taking in the atmosphere.”
    They came upon a crew of workers with long-handled pruners. Speaking in Spanish that sounded smooth and natural, Isabel asked one of them where Magnus was.
    One of the guys gestured at the end of a row of trees and waved. “He’s over by the new trees from the nursery beds.”
    They headed down another row of trees. At the end of the row, Mac could see an old man