The Beekeeper's Ball: Bella Vista Chronicles Book 2 Read Free Page A

bloomed on his cheeks, the backs of his hands, his bare ass. “Are you going to be all right?” she dared to ask. “What do we do next?”
    He didn’t say anything. He was wheezing, staring at the dusty ground. Yet very slowly, color crept back into his face. His breathing began to even out.
    She stared at him, unable to move. He had a small gold hoop earring in one ear. Longish dirty blond hair. The black T-shirt sleeves taut around his biceps.
    How had this day gone so wrong? Only a short time ago, she had jumped out of bed in excitement, filled with plans for the transformation of the hacienda into the Bella Vista Cooking School. Now she was seated in the middle of a field with a half-naked man who looked like a reject from a Marvel Comics movie.
    He grabbed his cane and pulled himself to a standing position, then very casually hiked his pants back up. “I don’t feel so hot,” he said, just as she was thinking how hot he was.
    She noticed three stingers in the back of his hand, which was now so swollen the knuckles had disappeared. “Do you have some tweezers? I could pull out the stingers.”
    “No tweezers,” he muttered. “That causes more venom to be released.”
    “Get in the Jeep,” she said. “I’ll drive.” She spent a few minutes throwing his things back into the duffel bag. There were a couple of hard-shell cases, probably containing a camera and laptop. More books. Shaving soap and toothpaste in a tube with Middle Eastern characters on the label. Condoms—lots of condoms. A travel alarm with a photo frame on one side, displaying a photo of a dark-haired woman, unsmiling, with large haunted eyes.
    His personal stuff is none of your business, she told herself, hoisting the bag into the back of the Jeep. Then she retrieved his sunglasses and tossed the now-empty cardboard box into the backseat. “Go on, Charlie,” she said, shooing the dog. “Go back to the house.” Charlie trotted down the hill. She turned to the stranger. Cormac, he’d said his name was. Cormac Something. “There’s a clinic in town, about ten minutes away.”
    “I don’t need a doctor.” He already looked better, his breathing and coloring normal.
    “The instructions on the EpiPen say to seek medical help as soon as possible.” The last thing she needed at this point was for him to relapse. She adjusted the seat and took off. The Jeep was an older-model Wrangler with a gearbox. She’d grown up driving tractors and work trucks, so the clutch was not a problem for her. “I thought you were Jamie,” she said as the Jeep rattled over the gravel track. “The beekeeper.”
    “Cormac O’Neill, like I said,” he said. “And hell, no, I’m not a damn beekeeper.”
    “O’Neill,” she said. “You’re not on the list of workmen.”
    “There’s a list? Who knew?” He braced his hands on the sides of the seat, looking queasy and pale now. “Did I take a wrong turn somewhere?”
    “This is the Johansen place.” The Jeep jolted over the rutted track as she headed down toward the main road into town. “I thought you might be a workman because we’re remodeling.”
    “Oh, yeah, Tess mentioned something about that.”
    “You’re a friend of Tess?” Isabel whipped a sideways glance at him. He was pale and sweating now, probably from the rush of Adrenalin delivered by the shot. “My sister invited you? Oh, my gosh, are you the wedding expert?”
    He gave a wheezing laugh that ended in a cough. “That’s the last thing I’d be an expert at. I’m here for Magnus Johansen. You know him?”
    “What do you want with my grandfather?” she asked, instantly suspicious. In recent months, Tess, an antiquities expert, had unearthed a family treasure worth a fortune. Ever since, their grandfather had been hounded by everyone from insurance actuaries to tabloid journalists.
    “I’m working on his biography.”
    She glared at the road ahead. Lately, the whole world wanted to know about Magnus Johansen. “Since