Counting on Starlight Read Free Page B

and Dad were far away, and they had no idea that Maddie was actually lowering her potential. Color guard, on a pre-med student’s application? She might be accepted to the college because of her grades, but that didn’t mean she’d be accepted into the pre-med program.
    Of course, he’d just met the new color guard instructor in the parking lot today. He knew just where to find her, too. If Maddie started to crash and burn with this latest change of plans, he’d go straight to the new teacher and see if she could persuade Maddie to change her classes back to her old schedule.
    He wouldn’t mind seeing that teacher again. He liked her spunk, her drive. She needed a truckload of it to take on the faltering color guard team. He spent halftimes in the locker room, but even there, the dismal tales of the marching band’s color guard squad filtered back to him and the rest of the coaching staff. Her brave smile told him she was up to the challenge. He had a feeling she might be able to handle the changing whims of a teenager just fine.
     
    #             
     
    Liann felt like she was breathing through a collapsed straw. Heat prickled down her back and along both of her arms, covered in long sleeves and leather-palmed gloves that went up to her forearms. She thought she’d get her mind out of today’s doldrums by helping her aunt with the bees. She  tried to tamp down her fears. Her efforts weren’t working so well—the perspiration all over her body wasn’t only from the blistering sun. She cleared her throat to hide the tremor in her voice. “How—how many bees did you say were in this hive?”
    “Fifty thousand.” Aunt Chin Mae lifted the top box from the beehive. “Here. Smoke the bottom again.”
    Liann pressed the tiny bellows on the smoker, and puffs of smoke came from the spout, swirling down to the box. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
    “We move slow and take our time. Today, I clean the brood boxes and you fill the feeders.” She removed the next hive. “So, you have a bad day?”
    “Oh, Aunt Chin Mae...” Liann squeezed the bellows again. “I’m so happy you and Uncle Bert are letting me stay here, but...it’s been a hard day.”
    “God has a plan, Li.”
    “It’s not that simple.”
    “So when things are going your way, you can see His plan? Does His plan mean we always get our way, like a two year old?” Aunt Chin Mae straightened, propping one hand on her hip.
    “No.  But I’m not acting like a two year old.”
    “You made a big decision to leave California, all because you do not know your own mind.”
    Liann hung her head. “I couldn’t marry Matt. I couldn’t. I should have—”
    “I know. You should have called it off before you sent out the invitations.” Her aunt hissed, shaking her head. “All that money you spent...and you did not know you didn’t love him?”
    “I did care for him, loved him. The wedding got so...big. I don’t know.” She watched Aunt Chin Mae lift the top from the box. “I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe....” Like now. Thousands of honeybees swirled and pulsed on the frames inside the hive, turning themselves into a mass that thought and moved as one.
    “You ran away.” Her aunt waved her closer. “Empty the feeder and refill it.”
    Liann turned away and lugged the five-gallon bucket full of honeybee food closer to the hive. “I didn’t run away. I called off the wedding and figured I needed a fresh start.” She pulled out the plastic feeder and dumped the leftover liquid along with a few dead bees at the foot of the nearest oak tree. When she returned, she filled the feeder with fresh food and returned it to the hive.
    “You are a runaway bride.” Aunt Chin Mae shrugged. “It happens. You take a timeout and see what God wants for you.”
    They restacked the hive and moved on to the next hive under a nearby tree. This was crazy. She was inches away from groups of bees who could swarm around her, crawl