Hunter and Tyler popped up, giggling.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re singing and dancing!” they said.

“Go ask your daddy to play the Supremes for you.”

Chapter Ten

Holly Grabs the Mike Back

I couldn’t believe what Leslie told me about last night. She grilled the hell out of him and laid the guilt on as thick as Momma likes her pimento cheese on a Ritz. Worse, Leslie couldn’t believe Archie was immune to her charms, however genuine they may or may not have been. The situation was a lot worse than I thought. No man, as far back as I could remember, had ever passed on ooh-la-la with Leslie. And, in my mind, I could see Archie heading to the chapel. I just knew it.

I was in the yard, working my flowerbeds, and had already pulled enough weeds to fill a large paper grocery bag. That amount of volume was usually a whole morning’s work, but I’d done it in under an hour. I was in overdrive, and if I didn’t get a grip on myself, I’d be so sore tomorrow I wouldn’t be able to do a thing. I decided to stop. I made a note to buy Epsom salts at Publix when I went in to work, just in case I needed them later. God, I was turning into such an old woman.

The water pans in my apiary were empty. I turned on the spigot and filled a watering can. Then I put it on the ground and went to my shed to put on my beekeeper suit. As much as I loved my bees, I wasn’t taking any chances. If they got a whiff of my pheromones that morning, they might panic and swarm.

Archie was a lost cause as the object of my affection, but the boys weren’t. Still, if and when he did marry Sharon, it might be awkward to try and maintain the frequency of my encounters with them. Besides, the decent thing to do was to give her the chance to endear herself to them. She wouldn’t be able to do that if I was around all the time. I owed them all some space and time.

I told my bees the whole story of Leslie and Archie and Sharon, and waggle dancing ensued once again. They were telling each other something, but it seemed different than usual.