Plan Bee Read Free Page B

crotchless, which never fails to amuse my boyfriend, Hunter, whenever she drags a pair out to share with him.
    I spent basically my whole life until now in total fear of dogs, ever since a nasty dog attack when I was a kid. But I did a 180 recently, and I have Hunter and his awesome K-9 partner Ben to thank for my conversion from a trembling mess to an avid admirer. Although Dinky works my nerves hard.
    Hunter Wallace, my main man, is a county cop and head of the K-9 unit. His hours are varied and long, but so are mine. The long absences and brief moments together work for us.
    Hunter and I have a history as long as I’ve had my nickname. We were friends before high school and had a serious relationship during. Then I got wanderlust and moved away to Milwaukee, where I married the wrong man. While I was gone, Hunter had made his own share of mistakes, too, including apparently going through just about every bottle of booze he stumbled across. But by the time I came back and got my divorce, he’d long since turned himself around, even sponsoring Carrie Ann to help her the same way his sponsor helped him.
    Hunter doesn’t mind wearing the label of recovering alcoholic, but I have a serious issue when someone labels me. Like a few minutes ago when my sister called me passive aggressive.
    Once I was settled in my office chair, I went online and looked up the definition of
passive aggressive
just in case the term had evolved into a hip, new, positive meaning. Holly was always ahead of me on the latest fads, fashions, and definitions.
    All I found was the same old bad stuff, some of which I already knew. My sister had not been paying me a compliment. No big surprise, since her tone hadn’t been exactly bursting with friendliness. According to the definition, a person with this condition has a deep-seated resistance to following through with another individual’s expectations. Now who would think that of me?
    But there was more. Symptoms included:
    • stubbornness
    • procrastination
    • intentionally failing at tasks
    Causes might involve:
    • repressed feelings
    • vindictive intent
    None of those things matched my personality. Not one thing. Although ignoring Mom’s no-bee-zone demand might be considered borderline by some people. But I never put off things until the last minute. With a successful store to run, how could I? And intentionally failing at tasks? Like what? I worked hard, and it showed in The Wild Clover.
    And stubborn? Well, okay, maybe a little.
    But wasn’t practically everybody?
    After shutting down the computer screen, last-minute festival details got in the way, and it wasn’t until a little later that I had time to focus on Holly and her annoying, outrageous statement. As if she knew I was thinking about her, the next time I went into the back room to get Dinky and take her for a walk, Holly trotted in and plopped down in a metal chair next to my desk.
    “How can I possibly be your problem?” I blurted out, a trait I’m trying to control, with limited success.
    “I’m in therapy because of your honeybees,” Holly said, starting the Fischer family blame game, which I liked to call “the lame game.” Somehow, some way, it was always somebody else’s fault. I worked hard to suppress that particular gene, but sometimes it raised its ugly head in spite of my efforts.
    Holly is scared silly every time she ventures near the Queen Bee Honey hives. I’ve been helping her (okay
helping
might not be the right word, since this isn’t mutually agreed on) overcome her completely unwarranted fear by trying to get her more involved. After all, she owns half of everything. “You have to stop making me go near them,” she announced.
    “Let me get this straight. Your therapist said that I should quit asking you to help in the beeyard?”
    Holly nodded. “She thinks the exposure and the anxiety it produces is the reason I text-speak.”
    “You did that text thing long before I started raising bees.”