#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs returns to sun-drenched Bella Vista, where the land’s bounty yields a rich harvest…and family secrets that have long been buried.

Isabel Johansen, a celebrated chef who grew up in the sleepy Sonoma town of Archangel, is transforming her childhood home into a destination cooking school—a unique place for other dreamers to come and learn the culinary arts. Bella Vista’s rambling mission-style hacienda, with its working apple orchards, bountiful gardens and beehives, is the idyllic venue for Isabel’s project…and the perfect place for her to forget the past.

But Isabel’s carefully ordered plans begin to go awry when swaggering, war-torn journalist Cormac O’Neill arrives to dig up old history. He’s always been better at exposing the lives of others than showing his own closely guarded heart, but the pleasures of small-town life and the searing sensuality of Isabel’s kitchen coax him into revealing a few truths of his own.

The dreamy sweetness of summer is the perfect time of year for a grand family wedding and the enchanting Beekeeper’s Ball, bringing emotions to a head in a story where the past and present collide to create an unexpected new future.

From “one of the best observers of stories of the heart” (Salem Statesman-Journal), The Beekeeper’s Ball is an exquisite and richly imagined novel of the secrets that keep us from finding our way, the ties binding us to family and home, and the indelible imprint love can make on the human heart.

The Beekeeper’s Ball

Susan Wiggs

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For two beautiful ladies named Clara Louise—my mother and my granddaughter.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Part One

Bee Sting Cake

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Part Two

Summer Fruit with Honey Dressing

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Part Three

Honey Lavender Lemonade

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Part Four

Piernik

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Part Five

Honey Butter Fried Chicken

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Part Six

Hummingbird Cake

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Part Seven

Vincotto

Chapter Seventeen

Part Eight

The Bella Vista Signature Cocktail

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Extract

Copyright

PART ONE

A honeybee that is engaged in foraging for nectar will rarely sting, except when startled or stepped on. If a bee senses a threat or is alerted by attack pheromones, it will aggressively seek out and sting. The worker bee’s stinger is barbed, and when it lodges in the victim’s skin, it tears loose from the bee’s abdomen, causing its death within moments.

However, the queen’s stinger is not barbed.

The queen can sting repeatedly without dying.

Bee Sting Cake

The traditional Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake) is a complicated production of brioche dough and pastry cream, topped with a crunchy caramel made of almonds, honey and butter. This simplified version is every bit as delicious, particularly with your morning coffee.

DOUGH

2¼ cups flour

4 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons honey

1½ teaspoons instant yeast

¾ teaspoon salt

2 eggs

¼ cup warm water or milk

Combine all of the dough ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir to create a sticky, elastic ball. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled board and knead for 5 to 7 minutes until smooth. If your mixer has a dough hook, use that for 4 to 7 minutes at medium speed. Place the dough in a bowl oiled with melted butter, turn to grease all sides, cover the bowl with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap and let it rise for about an hour, until it looks soft and puffy.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled board, fold it over (you might hear a sigh of escaping gas), then roll into a ball. Place the dough in a buttered 10-inch springform pan. You can also use a 13 by 9-inch cake pan. Don’t worry if the dough shrinks away from the edge of the pan. Allow it to rest so the gluten will relax, making the dough easier to work with. After about 30 minutes, gently stretch and pat the dough out to the edges of the pan.

While the dough is resting, make the topping.

HONEY-ALMOND-CARAMEL TOPPING

6 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons heavy cream

1½ cups sliced almonds

a pinch of salt

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the sugar, honey and cream. Bring the mixture to a boil, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes to achieve a golden syrup. Stir in the almonds, let the mixture cool slightly, then spread gently over the cake dough.

Bake the cake in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes, until the almond crust has a deep golden color and the cake tests done with a toothpick. Set on a rack to cool completely.

While the cake is cooling, prepare the pastry cream.

PASTRY CREAM

1 cup minus 2 tablespoons heavy cream,

whipped to soft peaks

2 cups vanilla custard or vanilla pudding.

Use homemade, store-bought, or pudding from a mix,

depending on your level of skill and commitment.

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon Bärenjäger or other honey liqueur

Serve the cake in wedges or squares, with a side of pastry cream and a dram of Medovina, coffee or tea. Medovina is mead, a sweet wine made from honey. It’s the oldest known alcoholic beverage.

[Source: Adapted from a traditional recipe]

Chapter One

The first rule of beekeeping, and the one Isabel swore she would never break, was to remain calm. As she regarded the massive swarm of honeybees clinging to a Ligustrum branch, she feared she might go back on her word.

She was new to beekeeping, but that was no excuse. She thought she was ready to capture her first swarm. She’d read all the beekeeping books in the Archangel town library. She’d watched a dozen online videos. But none of the books and videos had mentioned that the humming of ten thousand bees would be the creepiest sound she’d ever heard. It reminded her of the flying monkey music in The Wizard of Oz.

“Don’t think about flying monkeys,” she muttered under her breath. And that, of course, guaranteed she would think of nothing else.

It took every fiber of power and control in her body to keep from fleeing to the nearest irrigation ditch, screaming at the top of her lungs.

The morning had started out with such promise. She’d leaped out of bed at daybreak to greet yet another perfect Sonoma day. A few subtle threads of coastal mist slipped through the inland valleys and highlands, softening the green and gold hills like a bridal veil. Isabel had hurriedly donned shorts and a T-shirt, then taken Charlie for his morning walk past the apple and walnut trees, inhaling the air scented with lavender and sun-warmed grass. Paradise on earth.

Lately, she’d been waking up early every day, too excited to sleep. She was working on the biggest project she’d ever dared to undertake—transforming her family home into a destination cooking school. The work was nearing completion, and if everything went according to schedule, she would welcome the first guests of the Bella Vista Cooking School at harvest time.

The big rambling mission-style hacienda, with its working apple orchard and kitchen gardens, was the perfect venue for the project. The place had long been too much for just her and her grandfather, and Isabel’s dreams had always been too big for her budget. She was passionate about cooking and in love with the idea of creating a place for other dreamers to come and learn the culinary arts. At long last, she’d found a way to grow into the house that had always felt too large.

Isabel was determined to revive the house in every possible way, filling it with the vibrant energy of the living. These days, she felt grateful that she finally had the resources to restore the place to its former glory.

That meant opening the hacienda back up to the world. She wanted it to be more than just the place where she and her elderly grandfather spent their days. She’d been a hermit for far too long. This summer would bring a wedding filled with well-wishers. In the autumn, she would host guests of the cooking school.

Her head full of plans for the day, she’d gone to check the bees with Charlie, her rangy German shepherd mutt. When she’d reached the hives, located on a slope by a rutted track at the end of the main orchard, she’d heard the flying monkeys and realized what was happening—a swarm.

It was a natural occurrence. Like a dowager making way for her successor, the old queen left the hive in search of new digs, taking along more than half the workers. It was rare for a swarm to occur so early in the day, but the morning sun was already intense. Scout bees were out searching for the ideal spot for a new hive while the rest clung en masse to the branch and waited. Isabel had to capture the swarm and get them into an empty hive before the scouts returned and led the whole mass of them away, to parts unknown.

She had quickly sent a text message to Jamie Westfall, a local bee expert. Only last week, he had left a flyer in her mailbox—Will trade beekeeping services for honey harvest. She’d never met him, but kept his number in her phone contacts, just in case. Unfortunately, a swarm in this intermediate stage was ephemeral, and if the guy didn’t get here quickly, Isabel would be on her own. She’d thrown on her jumpsuit, hat and veil, grabbed a pair of loppers and a cardboard box with a lid, and approached the hanging swarm.

This should be simple, she thought. Except that the thing draped from the bush looked like a horrible, reddish, living beard. The humming sound filled her head and then flowed through her like the blood in her veins. She kept reminding herself that there was nothing to fear despite the fearsome appearance and furious sound of the swarm. They were looking for a home, that was all. Anyone in the world could understand that need. And if there was anything Isabel craved, it was to feel at home in the world.

“Okay, then,” she murmured, her gaze never leaving the dense cluster of honeybees, her heart pounding. Capturing a swarm was supposed to be exciting work. It was the ideal way to fill more hives, and it prevented the bees from nesting in places where they’d be a nuisance, like in Grandfather’s prize apple trees.

The bees were docile at this stage of swarming. They weren’t defensive because they were engorged with honey and had no home to defend.

Charlie reclined laconically in the high grass at the side of the hill, sunning himself.

“I’ve got this,” she said. “It’s the perfect swarm. Ha-ha, get it, Charlie?” She looked over at the skinny dog. “The perfect swarm. I crack myself up.”

Isabel didn’t feel strange, talking to a dog. She’d always done it, an only child growing up at Bella Vista, secluded by the surrounding orchards and vineyards and overprotected by doting grandparents. As a child, she had learned to be happy in her own company. As an adult, she guarded herself, because that was what life had taught her to do.

“Here goes, Charlie,” she said. “I’m going in. No loud noises, no sudden movements.”

She set her cardboard box on the ground under the branch, which was sagging now under the weight of the bees. Yikes, this was a big swarm. The sun beat down on her back, reminding her that time was running out.

Her hands trembled as she scissored the loppers. “Now,” she said, steeling herself. “I’d better not wait any longer.” She was tired of missed chances. It was time to seize the moment. Heart thumping, she opened the jaws of the loppers and chopped off the branch. The swarm landed in the waiting box—most of it, anyway.

The humming intensified, and individual bees broke away from the cluster. It took all her control not to flee. She was just inches from breaking the unbreakable rule by freaking out. So what if the swarm disappeared? It was hardly a matter of life or death.

But it was a matter of pride and will. She wanted to keep bees. Bella Vista had always been a working farm, its orchards and gardens sustaining the Johansen family since the end of World War II.

“All right, guys,” she said through gritted teeth. “Here we go.” She bent down and gently adjusted the branch so it would fit in the box. The bees that dropped free of the box crawled back again, joining the cluster. They would stay with the queen. It was the only way to survive.

Shaking from head to toe, Isabel lifted the box. It was heavy. Heavier than she had imagined. And the bees seemed agitated. They were moving faster, or maybe that was just her imagination. She wondered if that meant the scouts were returning.

A fiery pinching sensation on her shoulder nearly made her lose control. “Ow,” she said, “ow, ow, ow. You’re supposed to be docile. What’s wrong with you?” She had probably trapped the poor thing under her jumpsuit. To herself, she added, “Slow and careful. I’m supposed to be good at being slow and careful. Too good, if you ask Tess.”

Tess was by far the more impulsive sister. Sometimes she got exasperated by Isabel’s deliberation and caution.

The crucial moment was upon her. The next task was to get the swarm into the waiting hive.

Just then, Charlie gave a woof, stood up and trotted toward the road. Isabel heard the sound of a motor, its pitch different from the humming of the bees. An orchard worker?

She turned as a banana-yellow Jeep with a roll bar and its top down crested the hill, jolting over the rutted track and spitting gravel out the sides of the tires. A flurry of bees erupted from the box. Several landed ominously on the veil covering her face.

Slow down, she wanted to yell. You’re disturbing them.

The Jeep scrabbled to a halt in a cloud of dust, and a long-bodied stranger jumped out, levering himself with the roll bar. He had long hair and big shoulders, and he was wearing army-green cargo pants, a black T-shirt and aviator shades. There was a hinged brace on his knee, and he walked with a pronounced limp.

Jamie Westfall? Isabel wondered. She wouldn’t mind a little help at the moment.

“This the Johansen place?” asked the deep-voiced stranger.

Charlie made a chuffing sound and sat back in the grass.

“Oh, good, you got my text,” she said, keeping her eyes on the heavy, moving cluster in the box. “Great timing. You’re just in time to give me a hand.”

“What, are you high?” he demanded, peering suspiciously as though trying to see her through the veil. “That’s a swarm of frickin’ bees.”

“Yes, so if you don’t mind—”

“Shit, I got stung.” He slapped at the side of his neck. “What the hell—? Christ, there’s a dozen of the little f— Jesus Christ.” In the next few moments, he swore some more as he swatted violently at a few stragglers. He swore a lot. He used swearwords to modify his swear words. His swatting motions agitated the bees further. Isabel felt another fiery pinch, this one on her ankle, where the fabric of her suit ended in a cuff.

“Be still. You’re making them defensive.” Some beekeeper, she thought.

“Oh, you think? Lady, I’m out of here. I am—”

“I thought you came to help.” The humming crescendoed, and the swarm in the box moved faster, undulating like a living storm cloud. “Oh, no....” She set down the box and waved her hand at a flurry of bees. The scouts had returned. She felt another sting—her wrist this time—and set the box on the ground.

“Shit, look out!” The strange man grabbed her and threw her to the ground, covering her with his body. Charlie gave a sharp bark of warning.

Panic knifed through Isabel, and the fear had nothing to do with bees. It felt like a cold blade of steel, and suddenly she was lost, hurled back to the past somewhere, to a dark place she never thought she’d escape. “No,” she said in a harsh whisper. She bucked, arching her back like a bow, bringing up one knee and connecting with...something.

“Oof, holy shit, what the hell’s the matter with you?” The guy rolled to one side, drawing his knees up to his chest and holding his crotch. The shades flew from his face as a groan slipped from him.

Isabel crab walked away, not taking her eyes off him. He was big, he smelled of sweat and road dust, and his eyes reflected a fury of pain. But he hadn’t hurt her.

She was as startled as he by her overreaction. Easy, she told herself. Take it easy. Her pulse slowed down by degrees, dulled by mortification. Then she tore her gaze from the stranger in time to see the swarm lift up en masse, a thick, spreading veil of heavy silk, the entire colony sailing off into the wilderness. The dark cloud of insects grew smaller and smaller, drifting away like an untethered balloon.

“You’re too late. They’ve gone,” she said, rubbing her shoulder. Glowering, she stood up, kicking the cardboard box in defeat. A few dead bees tumbled from the now empty branch.

“You can thank me later,” the guy said. He was sitting now, too, regarding her with narrowed eyes.

“Thank you?” she demanded, incredulous.

“You’re welcome?” he returned.

“What kind of beekeeper are you?”

“Um, do I look like a beekeeper? You’re the one who looks like a beekeeper, unless that headgear is some new style of burka.”

She peeled off the hat and dropped it on the ground. Her hair was plastered to her head and neck by the sweat of her fruitless hard work. “You’re not Jamie Westfall?”

“I don’t know who the hell that is. Like I said, I came looking for the Johansen place.” He regarded her with probing eyes. She couldn’t help but notice the color, deep green, like leaves in the shade. He was ridiculously good-looking, even with his face pockmarked by beestings.

“Oh, my gosh,” she said, “you must be one of the workmen.” The tile guy was on the schedule today to finish the majolica tile in the teaching kitchen.

“If that’s how you treat a worker, remind me not to get on your bad side. But no, let’s start over.” With a groan of discomfort, he got up. “I’m Cormac O’Neill,” he said. “I’d shake hands, but you’re scary.”

The name meant nothing to her. O’Neill was not on the list of contractors she had been working with over the past year.

“And you’re here because...?”

“Because, oh, Christ...I think I’m dying.” He slapped at his beefy bare arms, his face and neck.

“What? Come on, I didn’t kick you that hard.” She turned just in time to see him hit the ground like a dropped sack of potatoes. “Really?” she asked him. “Really?”

“I got stung.”

“I can see that.” In addition to the bites on his face, welts had appeared all over his neck and arms and hands. “I’m sorry. But they’re honeybees,” she said. “It’s not as if their stings are lethal.”

“Only to people who are highly allergic,” he said, trying to sit up and speaking as though his tongue was suddenly thick. A whistling sound came from his throat.

She knelt down beside him. “You’re allergic? Highly allergic?”

“Anaphylaxis,” he said, yanking at the neckline of his T-shirt.

“If you’re so allergic, why did you come running?”

“You said I was just in time. You said you needed a hand.” His throat was bulging, his eyes glazing over. He looked as if he was just inches from dying.

I shouldn’t be surprised, thought Isabel. I’ve never had much luck with men.

Chapter Two

“What can I do?” Isabel unzipped her jumpsuit and started digging in her pocket for her phone. Then she remembered she hadn’t brought it with her.

He grabbed her wrist, the sudden touch startling her again. This time, she didn’t lash out but stiffened at the unaccustomed strength of his grip. “Hey,” he said, then coughed and wheezed some more. His face turned bright red as he struggled for breath. “Duffel bag,” he said. “There’s an EpiPen. Hurry.”

Shoot. This was turning into something very bad. His breathing was labored, the veins standing out in his neck. She dove for the back of the Jeep and yanked out a disreputable-looking army-green duffel. Massively heavy, it landed in the dust with a dull thud, kicking up a cloud. She unzipped it. A smell of dirty socks and sunscreen lotion hit her. She pawed through wadded up T-shirts and jeans, shorts and swim trunks.

“Are you sure it’s in here?” she demanded. With growing urgency, she began throwing things backward over her head. Pieces of mail. A tangle of cords. Books. Who traveled with so many books? Not just travel books, like Hidden Bali. But Selected Works of Ezra Pound. Infinite Jest. Seriously?

“Purple canvas bag,” he said.

“Aha.” She found the oblong bag and unzipped it. “What am I looking for?”

“EpiPen,” he said. “Clear tube with a yellow cap.”

The kit was crammed with a traveler’s flotsam and jetsam. She turned it upside down and shook out the contents. Everything rained down—toothbrush, toothpaste, Q-tips, jars and tubes, packets of airline snacks, disposable razors.

She found a plastic tube with a prescription label and scanned the instructions on the side.

“Inject it, quick,” he said. The welts were causing his hands and face to swell, and his lips were blue now. “Christ, just jab the sucker into me.” He gestured vaguely at his thigh.

She popped the top off the tube and slid the injector out. She had an imprecise knowledge of the procedure, having learned a little about it in culinary school, during a seminar on food allergies. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Not...rocket science.”

With a firm nod, she moved over next to him and pushed the injector at his thigh. She must have angled it wrong, because a short needle poked out and caught in the fabric of his pants, spraying a small amount of liquid.

“Oh, my gosh,” she said, “I broke it.”

“Grab the other one. Should be...one more.”

Trying not to panic, she fumbled around and located the second injection kit. She turned to him to try again, and was shocked to see that he’d yanked his pants down on one side to bear a very male, muscular thigh. And she couldn’t help but notice that he went commando.

“Hand it over,” he gasped, taking the tube in his fist. Then, with an aggressive stabbing motion, he jammed the injector at his bare thigh. An audible click sounded as the spring-loaded needle released.

Isabel sat back on her heels and stared at him while the panic subsided. She felt as if she’d been hit by a truck. He looked as if he’d been hit by a truck. He sat propped on one arm, his trousers around his knees, one leg caught on the knee brace. Rashy blotches 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 when?”

“Since I made the deal. So he’s your grandfather. And you are?”

“Isabel Johansen.” She had a million questions about this so-called biography. Glancing to the side, she saw that he was leaning back, eyes shut, face gray. “Hey, are you all right?”

He answered with a vague wave of his hand.

She kept sneaking looks at him. He had strong, chiseled features, his jaw softened by a day or two’s growth of beard. And those shoulders. She’d always been a sucker for a guy’s strong shoulders. Big square hands that looked as if they did harder work than writing biographies.

No wedding band. At thirty, Isabel couldn’t help noticing a detail like that.

She paused at the end of the lane where it intersected with the paved road. On the corner was a pretty whitewashed building with a wraparound porch and flowers blooming from window boxes. A sign hung from the eaves—Things Remembered.

“That’s Tess’s shop,” she pointed out. “How do you know my sister?”

He made a vague wheezing sound.

“Never mind,” she said, “we can talk later.”

An easel sign at the roadside invited passersby to browse the antiques, local gourmet products, vintage items and ephemera. Before long, there would be another sign, one directing guests to the Bella Vista Cooking School. Isabel didn’t mention it to the stranger, though. He didn’t seem very interested in anything as he leaned back against the headrest with beads of sweat forming on his upper lip.

She gripped the steering wheel harder and sped along the paved farm-to-market road. Over the top of a rise, the town of Archangel came into view, its stone and timber buildings, parks and gardens as familiar and pretty as a framed picture, surrounded by the blooming Sonoma landscape. Isabel had lived here all her life. It was home. Safety and security. But next to this wheezing, blotchy stranger, she didn’t feel so safe.

She pulled into a parking spot next to a shiny red BMW. The clinic was situated in a mission-style plaza that also housed the Archangel city hall and chamber of commerce.

“Can you walk?” she asked her passenger.

“Yeah. I think I left my cane in the back.”

“Sit tight. I’ll get it for you.” She went around to the back of the Jeep and nearly ran into a man on a mobile phone who was headed to the car parked next to her.

He stepped out of her way with a gruff, “Whoa, watch where you’re—” And then the hand holding the phone dropped to his side. “Isabel.”

Her heart lurched into panic mode. “What are you doing here?”

She hadn’t seen Calvin Sharpe in years, not since she’d fled from culinary school in a fog of shame and hurt. Seeing him now didn’t hurt anymore, but the shame was still there like a nightmare she couldn’t shake. She’d heard rumors that he was looking for a new restaurant venue, but she’d refused to believe he would have the nerve to come to Archangel. “Never mind,” she said, her voice tight. “I don’t care. Excuse me.”

He didn’t. He took a step closer, his gaze coasting down over her, then upward. “Archangel is everything you said it was.”

She couldn’t believe there had been a time when she’d imagined them together, here in her hometown. “I’m busy,” she said.

“You look good, Isabel.”

So did he, she noticed, his dark hair and chiseled features refined by the patina of success. His teeth were too white and too perfectly aligned, like a row of chewing gum tablets. She grabbed the cane from the back of the Jeep. “I don’t have time for this,” she stated quietly.

“We should catch up.”

Her stomach churned. She hated that, after all this time, he still wielded some kind of power over her. Why? Why did she let him?

A large shadow fell over Calvin. “Is there a problem here?” asked Cormac O’Neill. The red welts and swelling on his face made him look bigger and meaner than ever.

Calvin’s eyes narrowed, then he offered the signature smile that had endeared him to a huge TV audience. “Just catching up with an old...friend.” He made sure to say it in a way that implied they’d been more than friends, or so it sounded to Isabel.

“Uh-huh,” said Cormac, somehow managing to inject a world of meaning into two meaningless syllables. With his worn clothes, his hands and face swollen like a prizefighter’s, he looked like a guy no one in his right mind would want to tangle with. “The lady said she’s busy,” he added.

“Yes, we have to be going,” Isabel said with crisp decisiveness, hating the fact that her heart was still pounding crazily.

“Sure,” Calvin said smoothly, his delivery as polished as the TV chef that he was. “See you around.”

O’Neill stood unmoving while Calvin got into his cherry-red BMW and backed out with an angry stomp on the accelerator.

Cormac staggered and grabbed the Jeep. Under the red blotches, his face was ghostly pale. She quickly handed him the cane.

“Sorry about that,” she muttered. “Here, let me help you.”

“Sorry about what?” he asked. “That some douche bag was bothering you?”

“Was it that obvious?”

“That he’s a douche, or that he was bothering you? Yes, and yes. Who the hell is he?”

“He’s just some guy I used to know,” she said, trying to sound dismissive. “Come on. You need to get to the doctor.” She hurried to help him as he leaned on his cane, swaying slightly. Fearing he might topple over, she fitted herself against him. God, those shoulders. Dead weight against her. He smelled like a man. Uncomfortably aware of his muscular frame, she brought him into the clinic and waved to the guy at the reception desk.

“He’s allergic to beestings,” she said. “He got stung all over. We gave him an EpiPen shot but he needs to be seen.”

The receptionist hit a buzzer. A nurse in marigold-colored scrubs appeared. “Sign this form, and you can finish filling it out later. Let’s get you into an exam room,” she said, her gaze flicking expertly over the guy’s face. “Hey, Isabel.”

It was Kimmy Shriver, a friend from way back. They’d been in the 4-H club together in their school days. “I thought he was the beekeeper,” Isabel explained.

Kimmy grabbed a clipboard and motioned the guy through a doorway and into a curtained area. “Is he going to be okay?” Isabel asked.

“We’ll fix him right up.”

“Thank you. I’ll wait out here.”

“Sorry about your bees,” said Cormac O’Neill.

“Hey, just do me a favor and don’t die, okay?” After he’d gone to an exam room, she sat down and paged through a magazine, trying to forget the encounter with Calvin Sharpe. The magazine’s pages, nervously thumbed and dog-eared, displayed articles about couples breaking up, makeovers for mudrooms, recipes calling for canned mushroom soup, how to make a skirt out of four scarves, “What To Do When He Doesn’t Notice You.” She set the magazine aside and looked around, wondering how long it took to keep a giant stranger from dying.

She peeked at the “What To Do” article: Play up your air of mystery. Good one, she thought. There was nothing mysterious about her. She lived in the house where she’d grown up, she had a singular passion for culinary arts and teaching cookery with food from local sources, and she was following her dream. Some people claimed to be mystified by the reason she was single— “So pretty, at your age, I’ll bet the guys are flocking to you...” but there was no mystery about it. Isabel knew exactly why she was single and why she intended to stay that way.

On one side of the waiting room was a young mother and a toddler in a food-stained onesie. The harried-looking woman was wrestling with the kid to wipe the greenish sludge from his nose. In another corner was an older woman placidly reading a library book. Isabel had spent her share of time in the clinic. When she was little, she’d come for the usual immunizations. She’d also suffered the usual childhood ordeals of bumps and bruises. A dislocated shoulder from falling out of an apple tree. A gash on her arm, sustained while climbing a barbed wire fence. A raging fever in the night from an ear infection. And through it all, one of her grandparents had always been present, soothing her with calming words.

Later, when Bubbie fell ill, Isabel had been the one to worry and soothe, her heart breaking as she watched her grandmother getting sicker and sicker.

Restless, she gave the article another glance. Break out of your routine. Do something unexpected. Beekeeping. That wasn’t routine, was it?

Setting the article aside, she wandered over to a display of brochures on a variety of topics—immunization, food-borne illnesses, STDs, domestic abuse—Love isn’t supposed to hurt. She turned away, flinching at darker memories from nine years back, stirred up by the encounter with Calvin. She still remembered the night she’d driven at breakneck speed all the way from Napa, where she’d been attending cooking school. She had walked into the clinic, shaken beyond reason, unable to speak the words to explain what had happened to her.

There’d been nothing broken, only bruised, though she was bleeding. A miscarriage, the doctor concluded. It happens, he and the nurse told her. Many early pregnancies were not viable.

They asked her about the fear they must have seen in her eyes. They asked her if she was safe, if there was someone she could call.

I’m safe now, Isabel had told them.

They urged her to file a report. Isabel—to her eternal regret—had refused. She filed the incident away in the journal she’d always kept, closed the book on the past and went home. At Bella Vista, she’d buried the memory along with her dream of becoming a famous chef.

She’d spent the next several years trying to forget that dream and trying to ignore Calvin Sharpe’s rise in the culinary world, his smarmy television show, his chain of signature restaurants, making the most of his fame as a TV personality.

Why here? Sonoma was dotted with charming small towns frequented by tourists. Why Archangel, of all places? And why now, just as she was creating the life she’d always wanted?

She grabbed the magazine, determined to distract herself, and caught a glimpse of another tidbit of advice: Take down your walls. He can’t see you if you’re hiding something. Oh, boy. When it came to putting up walls, she was a master bricklayer. But how would a guy notice if she quit doing that?

Wear something sexy was next on the list. Clearly, this article was not meant for her. She brushed at a grass stain on her beekeeping coveralls and impatiently turned the page.

A piece called “Wedding Wonders” jumped out at her. Perfect. As Tess’s maid of honor, Isabel was knee-deep in wedding plans. The article admonished her to keep things simple. Right, she thought. With Tess and Dominic, nothing was ever simple. Dominic had two kids from his previous marriage, and multiple relatives, some of them coming all the way from Italy. Keeping track of everyone was a major juggling act. Yet Tess was blissful; that was clear to anyone seeing the light in her eyes.

As a girl, Isabel used to dream of her own wedding, but she’d put that aside at the same time she’d set aside her plans to study the culinary arts and earn her chef’s credentials. She had found other things to focus on—Bubbie, whose cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment had thrown darkness over everyone at Bella Vista as she became sicker and eventually passed away. Then the estate itself, sinking deeper and deeper into debt as they battled the insurance company that had rejected the claim for Bubbie’s treatment. On the heels of that, Grandfather had fallen from a ladder in the orchard and was in a coma for weeks. Tess, whom Isabel had not met until that incident, had appeared out of nowhere, a redheaded reminder of the fact that their mutual father, Erik, had been a scoundrel right up until the moment of his death in a fiery car crash.

But as Bubbie used to say—out of the worst winter will always come a brilliant springtime. Tess and Isabel had turned into the best of friends, and thanks to Tess’s relentless research, they’d recovered from the brink of disaster, and had turned the fortunes of Bella Vista around.

Life could be very distracting, thought Isabel. And that was a good thing. It kept her from focusing on things that couldn’t be changed, such as the fact that she’d never finished culinary school, or that she’d allowed one failed relationship to keep her closed up tight inside a hard, protective shell. Now she had a new project that consumed her every waking moment—the cooking school. It was true that she didn’t have the official certification from a prestigious institute, but she had something that couldn’t be taught—a God-given talent in the kitchen.

She clung to that gift, grateful to let the passion consume her and fill her days with a joyous pursuit. She believed living and feeling well came from eating well, appreciating the simple things in life and spending time in the company of family and friends, and that was the mission of the Bella Vista Cooking School. The last thing in the world she needed was something to divert her attention from creating the world she had always dreamed of.

Cormac O’Neill returned to the waiting room, wearing a cotton print hospital smock that was open in the front from neck to navel, revealing his chest and abs. His abs had ridges. Ridges.

He didn’t seem to notice the way she was staring. “The patient will live to fight the swarm another day,” he said. “I need to grab a clean shirt and my wallet from the car.” Leaning on his cane, he ducked out briefly, then returned. Now he wore a clean black T-shirt with an Illuminati logo, the fabric stretched taut across his chest, defining its muscled shape.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” said Isabel, pretending not to notice the muscles.

He gave a clipboard and insurance card to the receptionist. “I’m okay to drive,” he said to Isabel. “I’ll give you a lift back to your place.”

“All right.” She quit trying to be sneaky about checking him out. He was probably onto her, anyway. He had to be used to it, surely. A guy couldn’t just walk around looking like that—flamboyant hair, big shoulders, piercing green eyes—and attract no notice.

She tucked the magazine under her arm. It was an outdated issue, anyway. No one would care if she borrowed it to finish a couple of articles.

“...if you don’t mind,” he said.

“Uh...mind? Mind what?” She made herself focus on his words.

“I need to stop at the pharmacy. The doc phoned in a couple of prescriptions. She said it’s just a few doors down.”

“Vern’s, with the striped awning,” she said as they left the clinic. “I’ll wait for you.”

She watched him make his way to the drugstore. Even with a limp and a cane, he seemed to walk with a swagger.

Tara Wilson, a teller at the bank, walked past with a cardboard tray of steaming coffee cups from Brew Ha Ha, a busy local café. She spied Cormac and nearly dumped the tray as she did a double take.

So it’s not just me, thought Isabel, getting into the Jeep. For the first time in ages, she tried to recall the last time she’d gone out with a guy, or even stayed home and made out with one. Ah, she was so bad at dating. It simply had not been a priority of hers. She didn’t like that vulnerable feeling that took over when she was drawn to someone—and so she didn’t allow herself to be drawn to anyone. Sometimes, though, it couldn’t be helped.

While she waited, she paged through the purloined magazine and tried not to snoop around the Jeep, but it was hard to resist. The contents of a person’s car said so much about him. This one was cluttered, though not dirty. The dashboard was littered with receipts and a couple of maps with frayed edges. Who used a paper map anymore, in the age of smartphones and navigation devices? The stereo was old, too, the dial set to Pacifica Radio. There were CDs in the console—The Smiths, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin. Who played CDs anymore? She noticed some cards tucked in the visor—a parking pass of some sort, a driver’s license from out of state. She craned her neck and tilted her head to see. There were foreign characters on it, and from what she could see of the picture, he had a beard and mustache.

“Saudi Arabia,” he said, opening the door.

She cleared her throat. “I beg your pardon?”

“The license. It’s from Saudi Arabia.”

“Do you live there?”

He tossed the pharmacy bag in the back and started the engine. “I don’t live anywhere.”

Chapter Three

Isabel stood in the shower with the hot water pounding down on her. It was not yet noon, and her day had already been derailed. She tried to shake off the trouble—the lost swarm, the stranger showing up unexpectedly, the hasty trip to the clinic and then running into Calvin Sharpe, of all people.

She wanted to believe she’d moved on, that she was immune to him now, but she still remembered the naive trust she’d put in him, a chef instructor at the culinary institute, her mentor, her lover.

On the day all those illusions had been shattered, she had gone with him to one of the teaching kitchens to set up a laptop webcam so they could film a presentation. She had felt a special air of privilege at being his anointed favorite. It was then that she chose to confide in him that she’d missed her period; the home pregnancy test had registered positive.

She had not imagined he’d be pleased. But she never could have anticipated his reaction. Fury flashed like a lightning bolt. He’d slammed her against a stainless steel counter, pinning her there while he called her names that sliced her to ribbons and accused her of conniving to trap him. He’d slapped her across the face, and thrown her to the floor, her head striking the tiles with enough force to cause her to see stars. The attack was like being hit by a speeding car. It was that quick, that violent.

Long afterward, when she looked back on the incident that had broken her apart, she realized the signs had been there, if only she’d known how to read them. Calvin had been the classic and incredibly convincing charmer, drawing her into his exciting world.

What she’d failed to notice was his subtle exertion of power and control over her. He’d drawn her focus away from other instructors at culinary school. His way of playing the mentor had included subtle put-downs, eroding her confidence in ways she didn’t recognize until it was too late. He’d had answers for everything—what she should wear, how she should style her hair, the way she should angle the knife for julienne or brunoise. He expected her to be available every moment. Initially, she’d reveled in the attention, but as time went on, she came to realize he’d eclipsed everything else, even her long-held goals.

Her accidental pregnancy had taken the power and control away from him, and that was probably what had made him snap, his roiling anger erupting into pure violence.

Somehow she’d managed to drag herself up off the floor. With Calvin’s threats ringing in her ears, she had grabbed her things and left culinary school forever. He had overlooked one detail, however. The webcam on her laptop had recorded the incident. But she’d been too scared to take action by filing a complaint with the school, let alone the police. Instead, she’d buried her shame and kept herself hidden in the only safe place she knew—Bella Vista.

Today she was dealing with another unexpected arrival—a man with whom she had no past at all. Cormac O’Neill didn’t appear to have a cruel streak, but he was distracting in an entirely different way. He made her think about things like how lonely she sometimes felt, even when she was keeping herself busy with other things.

Wash away, she told herself. Let’s just wash the day away and hit the reset button. She used soap made from Bella Vista honey and lavender, inhaling the scent of the luxurious foam and wishing she could just stand here all day. Not possible. There was too much to do. She was not going to let a stranger named Cormac O’Neill rearrange the day’s plans for her, even though he’d already set back her schedule by two hours.

She dressed in a softly gathered skirt, sandals and a gauzy, loose-fitting blouse, light and comfortable in the warm weather. Her dark heavy curls—a legacy from the mother she’d never known—would dry in the sunshine today. Spring was in full bloom, and she had tons to do, starting with supervising the workers who were fixing a pergola over the new section of the patio, which had been expanded to make way for guests.

With its central fountain, wrought iron chairs and café tables with cobalt-blue majolica tile, the open-air space would be a gathering place—first for Tess and Dominic’s wedding guests, and later, starting in the fall, for people who came to attend the cooking school. Isabel wanted it to be as beautiful and inviting as a vintage California hacienda, and she’d planned the project down to the last golden limestone paver.

This had always been a private home, but this summer, it would be opened to the world. The estate had lain in slumber like an enchanted kingdom, and now it was finally waking up, opening its embrace to new energy. New life.

Yet despite all the details that needed attending to, her mind kept flitting to Cormac O’Neill. She reminded herself that his business was with her grandfather, not her. A biography. Why hadn’t Grandfather told her about this?

On her way down to the kitchen, she paused on the landing, which featured a wall-sized mirror. For some reason, she flashed on a bit from the article she’d seen in the waiting room—Wear something sexy. It just wasn’t her style. She favored clothes that were long, loose and drapey. Concealing. The most formfitting garment she owned was her chef’s apron. Sometimes she wished she had her sister’s natural eye for fashion, but when Isabel tried for that, she felt self-conscious, like a kid playing at dress up. She hadn’t even settled on her maid-of-honor dress.

Tess was at the kitchen counter, gazing out the window and eating a wedge of bee sting cake, cream filled and glossy with a crust of honeyed almonds. “If you don’t quit feeding me like this,” Tess scolded, “I’m never going to fit into my wedding dress.”

“That was for the workmen,” Isabel said. She’d quickly learned that construction guys needed baked goods to keep them at peak performance.

Tess shook back her glossy red hair. She had been growing it long in order to wear it up on her wedding day. “Couldn’t resist. Sorry. So where have you been all morning?”

“Dealing with your friend, Cormac O’Neill.”

Tess brightened. “Oh! He’s here?”

All glorious six-foot-something of him. “He got stung by bees and had an allergic reaction, so I took him to the clinic in town.”

“Oh, my gosh. Is he—”

“He’ll be fine. He says he’s here to work on Grandfather’s biography. Do you know anything about that?”

“Sure.” Tess paged through her wedding notebook, which was stuffed with lists and clippings of flowers, food and decor.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this project?” With a twinge of irritation, Isabel studied her sister. In one short year, they’d grown close, though at times there were moments of tension. Like now. In some areas, they were still finding their way.

“We just got word yesterday that Mac’s available.”

Mac. Like the truck.

“I would have told you, but it’s been a whirlwind around here, and you’ve had enough on your plate, helping me with the wedding and getting the place ready for the cooking school. The plan came together really fast. Mac wasn’t available, and suddenly he was, so I jumped at the chance. Magnus’s story begs to be written, and Cormac O’Neill is the perfect one to do it.”

“You should have checked with me.”

“You’re right. Look, if having him here is going to be a problem, we can find someplace else for him. He could stay at Dominic’s.”

“Your fiancé doesn’t need a houseguest. He’s already got half of Southern Italy coming for the wedding. It’s fine for this guy to stay for a while. Lord knows, we’ve got nothing but room.” She looked around the kitchen, a big bright space where she’d grown up learning to cook at her grandmother’s side. “That’s not what I’m worried about. Does Grandfather want his life story out there for all the world to know?”

“That’s the point, isn’t it? But he wants it done right, and that’s where Mac comes in.” Tess unceremoniously licked the crumbs from her plate. “Holy cow, that’s delicious. The workmen are never going to leave. You keep feeding them like this, and they’ll perform miracles. Can we have this for the wedding breakfast? God, I’m obsessed, aren’t I?”

“You’re the bride. You are supposed to be obsessed with your wedding.”

“Okay, but you get to tell me if I’m unbearable.”

Isabel was excited for Tess and Dominic and his kids, but sometimes, when she lay awake at night, she felt an unbidden curl of envy. Tess made love look easy, while Isabel hadn’t had a date in years. She knew she needed to take down her walls, but how did someone do that?

She batted away the thought. “Don’t try to change the subject. Cormac O’Neill.”

“You’re going to be glad he’s the one to document Magnus’s life. Our grandfather has a unique story. An important one. It’s not just family pride, Iz. He was a key player in the Danish Resistance. There were eight thousand Jews in Denmark during the German occupation, and Magnus’s group helped rescue seventy-five hundred of them. It’s a rare bright spot in the middle of the darkest of times. Most of all, it’s something Magnus wants.”

Isabel tucked a damp stray curl behind her ear and looked out the window. From one side of the kitchen, she could see the rows of trees, some of the stock decades old. The blossoms of springtime were flurrying down as the new fruit emerged, a tangible sign of renewal. She loved Bella Vista, loved the rhythm of the seasons. She was lucky to be a part of it.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Grandfather did say that.” Neither sister stated the obvious—that their grandfather wasn’t getting any younger. “So tell me about this guy.”

“He’s written award-winning nonfiction,” Tess said. “He’s won all kinds of literary prizes. He already has a publisher on board—assuming the project gets done. Anyway, the important thing is, he’s here with us now, and I think he’ll be perfect for Magnus.”

“Where is he going to stay?” Isabel asked.

“I thought we’d put him in Erik’s room.”

Erik—their father. He had died before either of them was born, leaving their separate mothers both pregnant and alone, unaware of each other. Over the past year, Isabel and Tess had spent hours speculating about the situation, but frustratingly, had never been able to figure out what had driven Erik to do the things he’d done.

“Why Erik’s room?” asked Isabel.

“Because it’s available, and he doesn’t need anything fancy. I thought Erik’s room would be a good choice. The history, you know? If he’s going to do a thorough job, Mac needs to be wrapped into the family.”

The idea made Isabel distinctly uncomfortable. “Suppose we don’t want to wrap him into the family?”

“Our grandfather wants it. I swear, it’ll be fine. Just fine.” Tess put her dishes in the sink, then poured herself a cup of coffee and took a sip. She never seemed to be completely still, physically or mentally. She was always thinking, planning, doing. She had the kind of energy that made caffeine jumpy. “I’m really sorry, Iz. Don’t be mad, okay?”

“I never get mad,” said Isabel.

“I know. It’s freaky. I’m about to become a stepmom to two school-age kids, so I need to take lessons from you on how to be mellow about things.”

Isabel flashed on Calvin Sharpe, and she felt anything but mellow. “Hey, off the subject, but did you attend the last Chamber of Commerce meeting?”

“Yep. I’m a card-carrying member. They’re going to feature Things Remembered on the Chamber website in December. Cool, huh?”

“Very cool. And, um, was there any talk of that new restaurant coming in? It was in the newsletter...”

“Yeah, I think it’s kind of a big deal. Some famous chef...Cleavon or Calvin...?”

“Calvin Sharpe. A TV chef.” Isabel kept her face neutral. You never get mad. Great, just great.

“Yeah, that’s the one. Super good-looking, and he had an entourage with him. I remember now—he’s calling the new place CalSharpe’s. So, you know this guy?”

“He was an instructor at the culinary institute when I went there, years ago.”

“And? What’s he like?”

“Like a guy who thinks the sun rises every morning just to hear him crow,” Isabel said. “But he can cook. And it appears he’s got a restaurant empire going.” She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She’d already given him too much space in her head. “Anyway. Back to the other guy—Cormac O’Neill. You call him Mac.”

Tess grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the lounge room. “Come here,” she said. “Let me show you something.”

She led the way to the big room, which had already been refurbished for the cooking school. It was light and airy with freshly whitewashed plaster walls and tall ceilings, filled with cookbooks and old furniture and Bubbie’s baby grand piano. When Isabel was growing up, the rolling ladder against the tall built-in bookcases had been her stairway to a different world. That was what books had offered her—all the voyages she wanted, to different realms. Even as a tiny girl, she’d been the consummate armchair traveler, seeing the world from the safety of her own home.

Now she was a steward of this place. For her, Bella Vista lived and breathed with the essence of life, representing security and permanence in a world that had not always been kind to her. Her mission was to revive the place, resuscitate it after the hard times. Her grandfather’s accident last year had shaken Isabel’s foundations. Magnus was a father figure and besides Tess, her only family.

Isabel still loved to pore over photographs of castles on the Rhein, Ayers Rock in Australia, Italy’s Amalfi coast. Sometimes, gazing at the pictures, she would feel a yearning deep in her stomach. Yet when it came to actually traveling to those places, something always made her balk. To her, adventure was always more appealing within the pages of a travelogue.

Tess pulled a stack of new-looking books from a shelf and set them on the lid of the piano. “I met Mac for the first time when I was working in Krakow. I was tracing the origin of some paintings that had been hidden by the Nazis, and he was doing an article on restoring Nazi plunder. I’m actually a footnote in one of his books.” She flipped open a thick volume called Behind the Iron Curtain. “He talks about the Krakow treasure here.”

Isabel felt a surge of admiration for her sister. They had grown up separately, in completely different circumstances, Isabel at Bella Vista, and Tess traveling the world with her mother, a museum acquisitions expert. Isabel could easily picture Tess examining old artifacts, ferreting out the truth about them. She’d had a high-level position finding lost treasures and researching their origins at an auction house in the Bay Area. In fact, her expertise had been instrumental in saving Bella Vista from bankruptcy.

But along with the estate’s reversal of fortune came a good deal of unwanted attention. She very much doubted Cormac O’Neill would have anything to do with her grandfather if not for the stories Tess had uncovered in her research. And then there was the lawsuit...brought by Archangel’s most wily lawyer, a woman named Lourdes Maldonado. She was a neighbor and friend—former friend—who was suddenly looking for some kind of settlement.

“You’ve had such an amazing career,” she said, pushing aside the troubling thought. “Do you miss it?”

“Every once in a while, yeah. I did have a good job in the city. It was great for a long time. But I found something better here.” Tess’s face softened, as it always did when she thought of her fiancé. “I know, I’m ridiculous. Honestly, Iz, I never knew love could feel this way. You’ll see, one of these days. When the right guy comes along.”

“Not holding my breath,” Isabel said.

“Not even for this guy?” Tess handed her the Iron Curtain book.

Isabel took it from her and turned it over in her hands. She studied the author photo on the back. It was an extremely cleaned up version of the grubby, swearing traveler covered in beestings. “Oh, my.”

“You’re welcome,” said Tess, her eyes gleaming. “I mean, obviously we didn’t pick him for his looks but it can’t hurt, right? If we’re going to have someone running around researching the family history, it’s nice that he’s eye candy. He’s single.”

“That means there’s something wrong with him. Or he’s a commitment-phobe.”

“Neither,” said Tess, her smile disappearing. “He’s a widower.”

Chapter Four

“I’ll show you to your room,” Isabel said, approaching Cormac, who was taking his luggage from his Jeep.

He turned and shot her a grin. “I bet you’ve always wanted to say that, right? ‘I’ll show you to your room.’” He spoke with crisp formality.

“Right,” she said. “I mean, right this way.” She mimicked his formal tone.

“Thanks. And thanks for helping me this morning. I’m guessing a trip to the urgent care place wasn’t on your agenda today.”

“It never is. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Nothing like a shot of artificial Adrenalin to get the day started. I took a hike around the place and made a few calls. Your grandfather around?”

“Always. He likes tinkering in the machine shop, or being out in the orchard with the workers. I’m sure he’s eager to meet you.” She led the way to the entry. It was looking grand these days, a lovely archway framing a view of the big sunny central patio. The wings of the hacienda curved generously around the brow of the hill upon which the house sat, the whitewashed walls expansive and cleanly cut against the blue sky. In the center of the broad, open space, a fountain burbled, the water flashing in the sunlight. Flowers bloomed in pots and espaliers along the walls. Two cats—Lilac and Chips—prowled around, Lilac shadowing the dark gray tabby as if to keep him away from the fountain. The workers were finishing up the pergola, creating a shaded area for café tables.

“This is fantastic,” said Cormac. He glanced down as Chips, the older cat, rubbed up against his ankle. “Hey, buddy.”

“That’s Chips. The white Siamese is Lilac, our latest rescue. We call him Lilac because it was springtime, and the lilacs were in bloom, and he has that unusual color. He takes a bit longer to warm up to people.”

Cormac leaned down to stroke Chips, who turned his head this way and that, his eyes shut in pure indulgence. Then, with slow dignity, he padded away. “Is that guy okay? He seems a bit unsteady.”

“Chips has a kind of feline Parkinson’s, so he has trouble getting around,” said Isabel.

“The white one seems to look after him,” said Cormac, watching Lilac swirl carefully around the older cat.

“He does,” said Isabel. “Chips rescued Lilac, and now Lilac takes care of Chips.”

“He rescued him?” Leaning on his cane, Cormac bent and stretched his hand out toward the white cat. Lilac perked up and sidled closer.

“Well, he brought him home one day and we started feeding him. At first I thought Lilac might be feral. He was so skittish, wouldn’t let anyone but Chips near him. The two were inseparable. Then I noticed that Lilac knew what to do with toys, and seemed to understand what a bowl of kibbles is, so I figured he wasn’t wild after all. He must have been dumped.”

To Isabel’s surprise, Lilac rubbed his head against the guy’s hand. Cormac scratched his finger between Lilac’s tipped ears. “We’ve all been there, buddy. Who dumped you?”

“It happens, unfortunately,” Isabel said. “An owner moves or passes away, and a cat gets turned out into the wild. Lilac just got lucky that Chips brought him home one day. And now Chips is the lucky one. Lilac once saved him from drowning.”

“Seriously?” He straightened up, steadying himself with the cane.

She nodded, shuddering a little at the memory. “We heard Lilac yowling on the patio one day, and came out to find that Chips had fallen into the fountain. He would have drowned, but Lilac got our attention.”

“They both got lucky,” Mac said. “Whaddya think, guys? Am I going to get lucky, too?”

Isabel assumed it was a rhetorical question, so she said nothing.

“Tess told me I was going to like it here,” he told her as the cats wandered away, making the rounds of the patio. “She says it’s like living in a dream.”

“Tess said that?” Isabel couldn’t conceal a smile.

“Yep.”

“Well, she wants you in Erik’s room. It hasn’t been updated yet, but Tess thinks you’ll like it.”

“Who’s Erik?”

“Our father. He passed away before either of us was born. I’m sure you’ll get the whole story out of Grandfather.” She led the way into the vestibule and up the winding staircase, which split into two at the landing like great wrought-iron wings, echoing the outer curves of the house. Bella Vista had originally been built for a large extended family and a staff, as well. Its three stories were filled with room after room, which Isabel was transforming one by one into guest quarters.

They went down a wide hallway to a room on the end. She could tell Ernestina had freshened it up. The linens looked crisp and smelled faintly of lavender, and the dormer windows were open to let in a breeze. A bowl of fresh fruit sat on an antique washstand, and the fixtures in the adjoining bathroom gleamed.

“After my father died, my grandparents never changed anything in here, just closed it off,” she said, turning to Cormac. He was so close behind her that she nearly ran into him—into that broad chest. He smelled even more manly than he had this morning.

As Isabel grew older, she had begun to understand why her grandparents had simply closed the door to Erik’s room. Even though Ernestina, the housekeeper, kept it aired out and dusted, the tragedy of his death seemed to hang in the atmosphere. There was a poignant sense of unfinished business, an unfinished life. Everything was frozen in time, as if he had just stepped out, never to return. She wondered if Cormac O’Neill noticed that, or if it was just her, imagining a connection with a man she’d never known.

Cormac set his large bag on a cedar chest at the end of the pine post bed. Erik’s boyhood room was still festooned with AC/DC posters, sports equipment, college pennants, old yearbooks, French and Spanish textbooks. Cormac went over to the built-in bookcase and ran his finger along the spines of the books there, some of them bleached by the light.

“Your dad liked books,” he commented.

“That’s what my grandparents said. When I was young, I made it my mission to read every single volume in this bookcase.”

“Why? To get inside his head?”

“As much as you can get into the head of a person you’ve never met. I made a valiant attempt. My favorites were Kon Tiki and Treasure Island.”

“Good choices. I loved those books.” He pulled out a copy of White Fang and opened to the inside cover. There was a bookplate on which Erik had written his name, the letters slanted in a careless or perhaps hurried scrawl. Cormac replaced the book and moved on to a row of travel books about Zanzibar, Mongolia, Tangier, Patagonia. “He was a fan of traveling. Or travel books.”

Isabel nodded. “He went to the University of Salerno in Italy, as part of the exchange program with UC Davis. That’s where he met my mom.”

“Are the French and Spanish books his, too?”

Isabel nodded. “According to Grandfather, Erik was a gifted student of languages. He grew up speaking Danish with his parents, Spanish with the workers and French because he loved it. And Italian, because he loved my mother.”

“Your mom’s Italian?”

“She, um, she died in childbirth. Giving birth to me.” Isabel’s own mother was yet another ghost in the house.

She caught Cormac’s flash of stark sympathy, which made her feel slightly apologetic, given what Tess had just told her—that Cormac O’Neill was a widower. “I know, this makes me Little Orphan Annie, but honestly, my grandparents were wonderful parents to me. If you lose someone before you know them, does it count as a loss?”

He hooked his thumbs into his back pockets and looked out the window. “Every death is a loss,” he said quietly.

“Of course. I’m just saying, it didn’t hit me the way it did Erik’s parents. Or Francesca’s. That was my mother’s name—Francesca.”

Cormac went over to a faded round dartboard and examined some papers stuck in place with a dart. “Looks as if Erik knew how to get in trouble, too. Aren’t these unpaid speeding tickets?”

“Yes. He drove a Mustang convertible.”

Cormac moved on to a display of ribbons. “What are all these for?” he asked.

“Okay, so he was a typical boy in every way—but he had this quirk,” she said. “He was a master baker. He won the Sonoma County Fair Blue Ribbon for the youth division from 1978 to 1982 in several categories.” She touched one of the fading ribbons. “Going through this stuff is like putting together a puzzle—but an imperfect one. I have all these artifacts—the things he left behind, photographs, stories from my grandparents and people who knew him. But I never got to know him, so that picture will never be accurate.” She opened a drawer of an old wooden desk. “My favorite artifact—his recipe collection.” Though she didn’t say so, this was when she felt closest to Erik—when she was following a recipe he’d put a little star by or annotated in his messy handwriting.

Cormac plucked a photograph from the drawer. “He’s a grown man in this picture.”

It was her favorite shot of Erik, one she used to take out and study when she was growing up. The photo showed him standing on Shell Beach, out on the Sonoma coast, with the cliffs sweeping up behind him and the ocean crashing around his bare feet. He was smiling broadly, maybe laughing, in the picture. He wore a red baseball cap turned backward, board shorts and no shirt. The camera had frozen him in a moment of freedom and joy.

“He’s younger in this picture than I am now.” She shook off a wave of regret, then shut the drawer with a decisive shove. “So, do you want a quick tour, or...?”

“Sure.” He turned and grabbed his cane.

“What happened to your leg?” she asked.

“I wish I could say I trashed my knee while doing something awesome, but it happened at JFK airport when I was running for a flight.” He shrugged. “It’ll be okay.”

In the middle of the second floor were the two biggest suites, one facing north, the other south. “We just finished remodeling them,” Isabel said. “Careful, I think the paint might still be wet on the doorframes.”

He scanned the new furnishings, the bright walls and window seats. “It’s great, Isabel.”

“Thank you. This has been a labor of love, for sure.”

“What’s up those stairs?”

“Third floor. My room, a few more guest rooms....”

Leaning on the hand rail, he went up the stairs. Isabel told herself to get used to this. Grandfather had invited the guy to explore their lives, and she supposed that meant he would be poking around every room of the house.

She showed him the guest rooms on the third floor, including the suite where Erik and Francesca had lived after they married. Though currently unfinished, this was going to become the honeymoon suite, romantic and private, appointed with luxurious fabrics and a special dressing room for the bride.

“And this,” she said, opening a door to a small sunroom, “was my grandmother’s domain. It hasn’t been refurbished yet, either. I’m not sure what to do with it.” Although Bubbie had been gone for ten years, her presence could still be felt in the closed-off room. Her sewing machine stood in the corner, still threaded, the needle raised as if awaiting orders. Under the long bank of windows was a faded daybed where Bubbie had lived the final days of her illness. She had spent time doing the things that mattered to her—simple things—visiting with family and friends, writing letters, gazing out at the beautiful view, enjoying a cup of tea with a buttery cookie, reassuring Isabel and Magnus of her love.

But Bubbie had never divulged the biggest secret of her life.

Regarding the sunroom, Isabel felt a surge of inspiration. “I’d love to turn this space into something Bubbie would appreciate,” she said.

“Need any suggestions?”

Not from you, she thought. “I’d love it to be a place of dreams, somewhere to sit and think.”

“Thinking gives me a headache.”

She gestured at the row of windows. “You’d probably like a universal gym and giant speakers blaring heavy metal music.”

“Hey, thanks for reducing me to a cliché. Actually, I was going to suggest yoga mats and gong music.”

The suggestion surprised Isabel. She could instantly picture a yoga retreat here. Maybe having Cormac O’Neill poking around and commenting on everything might turn out to be the start of something good.

Yet the thought of a stranger covered in beestings, staying in the house, swearing like a reject from a busy restaurant kitchen, was unsettling.

“Shit, oh, man.” As if he’d read her thoughts, he staggered and grabbed the doorknob.

“What’s the matter?” She clutched at his arm. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, sorry, I’ll be okay. Post Adrenalin letdown,” he said. “Feels like vertigo.”

“What can I do?”

“Maybe a rest and a shower.”

She escorted him back to Erik’s room. “All right,” she said, feeling flustered again, “you should find everything you need here.”

He paused, studying her. “I already have.”

* * *

Cormac O’Neill had been to a lot of places in his life, too many to count. But as he stood at the window of his room at Bella Vista, he couldn’t recall a place that rivaled the beauty of the Sonoma hacienda. Looking out at the orchards and fields, he felt a million miles away from the war-torn places of the world, the airports and grimy cities, the long barren stretches of scorched earth in the foreign lands he’d visited. During his career, he had lived in mud huts and tents, in hovels and out in the open, being eaten alive by bugs or shivering in an unheated room. He could do worse than a luxurious villa in Archangel, that was for sure.

Staggering off an overseas flight at SFO this morning, he’d borrowed a buddy’s Jeep, gulped a double shot of espresso and had driven straight from San Francisco to Archangel, hoping to relax and sleep off the jet lag. Instead, he’d encountered the skittish and suspicious Isabel, who had kneed him in the groin. Next came the swarm of bees and the trip to the urgent care place. He wondered what the next disaster would be.

When Tess had told him about the book project, she hadn’t mentioned hostile women and swarms of bees. In fact, she’d characterized it as a working vacation of sorts, a way for him to recover from his bum knee by soaking up the charms of Sonoma County.

In contrast, Bella Vista was lush and seductive, the landscape filled with colors from deep green to sunburned-gold. Gardeners, construction workers and farm workers swarmed the property. Isabel Johansen was in charge; that had been clear from the start. Yet when she’d shown him to Erik’s room, she’d seemed vulnerable, uncertain. Some might regard the room as a mausoleum, filled with the depressing weight of things left behind by the departed. To Mac, it was a treasure trove. He was here to learn the story of this place, this family, and every detail, from the baseball card collection to the dog-eared books about far-off places, would turn into clues for him.

And holy crap, had Isabel looked different when she’d given him the nickel tour. Unlike the virago in the beekeeper’s getup, the cleaned-up Isabel was a Roman goddess in a flowy outfit, sandals and curly dark hair.

Mac reminded himself that meeting Magnus Johansen was the whole point of this trip. At the moment, he didn’t feel like meeting anyone. The meds he’d been given, combined with the letdown after the shot of epinephrine, made his brain feel like cotton candy.

Rummaging through his duffel bag, he broke out the cream from the pharmacy and dabbed some on the itchy welts covering his arms, legs and hands. There were bites on his back he couldn’t reach, so he scratched himself on the bedpost, seeking relief.

He hoped the bees were not an omen of mishaps to come. He could always hope this morning’s disasters were an anomaly. His plan was simple. He would gather information about Magnus Johansen, a war hero turned orchardist, then settle in and write the story. It was what he did, what he was good at—telling other people’s stories.

The PR people who worked for his publisher liked to make much of his background. He’d been raised with five brothers by parents who worked in the diplomatic corps, traveling to the far corners of the world, their mission to spread peace and understanding. It all sounded exotic and glamorous, although for a kid, the reality had been far different—an endless succession of airports and foreign hotels, stifling tropical heat and painful immunizations and a new school every other year. The upbringing had taught him much about the world; he’d learned a few languages and had figured out how to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. But his way of life had never taught him how to stay in one place. The concept of home was foreign to him.

He went into the immaculate bathroom and took a quick shower in the old-fashioned claw-foot tub. There were perfumed soaps and fancy shampoo and lotions. Damn, it felt good to shower off the travel and the jet lag. He wanted to stand there all day, but he was here for a job. He put on clean shorts and a shirt, then put the knee brace back in place. The zipperlike surgical scar wasn’t pretty, but at least his knee didn’t feel as though it was on fire anymore.

He was supposed to be taking care of himself after his injury. The doc said his knee would never heal if he didn’t follow a program of physical therapy and exercise.

There was a knock at the door. “Hey, Mac,” said a voice. “It’s me, Tess.”

Leaning on his cane, he hobbled over and let her in.

She was as pretty as ever, red hair, tall and willowy. Actually, she was even prettier than he remembered. He didn’t recall the brightness of that smile. “Tess Delaney. Fancy meeting you here.”

“It’s great to see you,” she said. “We didn’t know when you’d get here.”

“I caught a flight from Taipei on standby. Borrowed a set of wheels in San Francisco and here I am.”

“Wow, that was quick. Oh, my gosh, it’s been too long.” With that, she gave him a brief hug. “I’m really glad we stayed in touch, Mac. Thanks for coming.” Her eyes sparkled as she grinned at him. “What?” she asked. “You’re looking at me funny.”

“You look really good, Tess. Glowing. Hey, are you—”

“About to marry the love of my life, yes. And no, I’m not pregnant. Just...in a different place than I was last time I saw you. A much better place, literally and figuratively.”

He sensed a mellowness about her he didn’t recall from before, as if her sharp edges had been softened. Maybe it was this place—Bella Vista. Maybe it would soften him, too. Except he didn’t need softening.

She stepped back and regarded him from head to toe. “You don’t look so hot. Isabel said you got stung.”

“Stung’s the word for it,” he murmured. “I’ll be okay. She was nice enough to take me to a clinic.”

“Good. My sister’s super nice.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

She set her hands on her hips. Tess had put on a little weight, and the curves looked good on her. She’d been really skinny in Krakow, skinny and stressed out. “She said you got off on the wrong foot this morning.”

“Ha-ha.”

She checked out his knee brace. “What happened?”

“Torn ligaments. I’ll heal.”

“Are you hungry?”

“You know me. I can always eat.”

“You came to the right place. Let’s grab something for you from the kitchen, and then we’ll go find Magnus.”

The “something” turned out to be a wedge of the most amazing cake he’d ever tasted. It had cream in the middle, a crust of honey and almonds on top. He crammed half a wedge into his mouth and moaned aloud. “Damn, that’s good,” he said around the mouthful. “Damn.”

“I already ordered it for my wedding breakfast,” said Tess.

“It’s called Bienenstich—bee sting cake,” said Isabel, coming into the kitchen. “Appropriate, under the circumstances.”

He turned to face her, his cheeks stuffed with food like a chipmunk’s. Then he swallowed the bite of food. “It’s delicious. Did you make it?” he asked, not taking his eyes off her. She didn’t look much like her sister. While Tess had red hair and freckles, Isabel had olive-toned skin, dark eyes and full lips, like a flamenco dancer or maybe an Italian film star swathed in veils.

“I did,” she said. “It’s a German tradition. You should have coffee with it.” She went over to an espresso machine that resembled the chrome front of a Maserati, and got to work.

Coffee. Oh, God.

He took out his phone, which was also his work computer, voice recorder and general organizer of his life. “I’m not getting a good signal here. Is there a wi-fi password?”

“I should remember that,” said Tess, “because we just upgraded. When I first got here, you couldn’t even get a signal. Isabel, do you remember the password?”

“‘CATSEX!!’ all in caps, with two exclamation points.” She shrugged. “I didn’t pick it.”

“Isabel’s the best cook in the world,” said Tess, raising her voice over the grind and hiss of the espresso maker. “We eat like this all the time at Bella Vista.”

He connected with his phone and scrolled through a depressingly long queue of unanswered emails. A freelancer’s dilemma—you were never really free. You just moved from one assignment to the next. He deleted a few nonessential notes, then pocketed the phone and helped himself to another piece of coffee cake, feeling charitable now toward the bees that had produced the deep, rich honey that flavored the topping. Seriously, he couldn’t remember the last time food had tasted so good to him.

After the espresso machine spewed forth a cacophony of grinding, whistling and a deep-throated gurgling, Isabel set a frothy cappuccino in front of him. The rich aroma rose on a wisp of steam.

“Okay, that settles it.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I’m never leaving.”

“Ha,” said Tess. “You never stay.”

She knew him better than he thought. The longest 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 silhouetted against the hillside, a ladder on one shoulder and a cane in his other hand. Tall and slender, in overalls and a work shirt, white hair sticking out from under a flat cap, Magnus Johansen moved with the ease of a much younger man.

Isabel called out to get his attention and he stopped, setting the ladder on the ground. He took off his cap and waved it at them.

Mac paused to take a candid picture while Isabel and Tess walked ahead, framed by the rows of arching trees in bloom. A timely breeze created a flurry of petals that filled the air like an unseasonable snowstorm. The camera lens captured the tableau of the old man and his two beautiful granddaughters, the moment gilded by sunshine filtering through the leaves. Nice.

Mac put the cap back on the lens and approached him. “Cormac O’Neill,” he said, shaking hands. “Good to meet you in person.”

Magnus’s grip was firm but brief. “I’m very glad you’re here, and on such short notice,” he said with a subtle lilt in his speech hinting at his Danish heritage. “Welcome to Bella Vista. I see you’ve met my granddaughters.” Though his face was pale, there was a glow of pride in him when he looked at Tess and Isabel. “I hope they gave you a proper welcome.”

Cutting a glance at Isabel, Mac thought about the knee to the groin and the attack of the killer bees. “Yep, she made me feel right at home.”

“You’ve come at a busy time. But the springtime is my favorite.”

“The scenery here is amazing,” Cormac said. He surveyed the area. The weather was almost unbearably perfect today, a stark contrast to the scorching deserts, barren tundras and steamy jungles he often had to visit on assignment. In addition to the construction crew at the house, there were people in every section of the orchard, some working alone, some in teams. Farming was as foreign to Mac as picking out draperies. “And your home is beautiful.”

“Yes. I have enjoyed much good fortune in my life.”

It was a startling statement, given what little Mac knew of the man. Magnus Johansen had lost his family in the war, and had outlived his only son and his wife. He had survived a head injury not so long ago. And yet here he stood, elderly but still proud, beaming at his granddaughters. Mac was suddenly more interested in Magnus, anxious to find out how the man had endured all that, yet could still call himself lucky.

“So,” said Magnus. “We must get to know one another.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“I’ve read some of your books. I’m honored that you’re going to be writing about me. I warn you, though. I have a very long story to tell.”

Mac’s gaze kept straying to Isabel. She clearly didn’t like him, and despite what his libido was telling him, he didn’t like her, either. Still, there was something about her, not just the slender ankles and the pretty dark hair, but some vibe that drew him, even as he told himself she was a complication he didn’t need in his life.

“I’ve got time,” he said.

Chapter Five

“So how do you prepare for your first interview with your subject?” asked Isabel the next morning.

After dragging himself out of bed, Mac needed coffee, not questions. He noticed a soft hissing sound coming from the espresso machine. “So that magic cappuccino you made me yesterday—was that a one-time event or can I get another?”

“Depends on how you ask.”

“Please. Begging here. Charge me anything you like. Put it on my tab.”

“I might just do that.” She didn’t smile, but her eyes were light as she ground some coffee beans into a one-shot filter.

Mac inhaled the aroma and watched her expertly pull the shot and then steam the milk with a wand. He liked watching her work, each movement economical, efficient. He liked watching her, period. What the hell? If he was going to be stuck in paradise for a while, he might as well enjoy the view.

“You and Grandfather can have coffee on the patio, and then get to work on your project. It’s quiet out there until the workmen arrive. After that, he can show you more of Bella Vista.”

“Thanks. Will you and Tess be joining us?”

She hesitated, glanced back over her shoulder at him. “It’s Grandfather’s story.”

“You’re part of it. Just figured you might want to hear what he has to say.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose....”

“Sure we do,” said Tess, coming into the kitchen. She was wearing some crazy headpiece, a white net thing with a big fake flower made of feathers. Noticing his stare, she said, “Do you like my fascinator?”

It looked weirdly similar to Isabel’s beekeeping veil. “Your what?”

“My fascinator. I’m trying out different looks for the wedding.” She turned her head this way and that. Tess was a pretty woman—and who didn’t like a redhead—but the lopsided headgear didn’t do much for her.

“I never give fashion advice before I’ve had my morning coffee,” he said.

Isabel set a perfect bowl-shaped cup of cappuccino in front of him. “Good answer.”

“Bless you,” he said, savoring the first creamy sip.

Tess picked up a painted serving tray. “Let me help you carry.”

“Thanks.” Isabel held the door leading out to the patio. Mac followed with his coffee and his cane, and a satchel of files and photographs he’d stayed up late studying last night. Magnus sat at a wrought iron and tile table with his coffee, the two cats swirling around his ankles. “Grandfather, is it all right if we join you for a bit?”

“Of course. Particularly since you’ve brought sustenance.” He eyed the tray of food.

It looked like a food magazine layout, featuring a variety of cheeses with fresh berries on brightly painted Italian pottery, and a tiny glass container of honey with the smallest spoon he’d ever seen.

Isabel laced a thread of honey across the cheeses. “These are my favorite honey and cheese pairings. Comté, Appenzeller and ricotta. I had my first honey harvest last summer—a small one. That’s when I realized I needed expert help with my beekeeping.”

“Sorry I wasn’t your guy,” said Mac.

“Please, sit down and let’s enjoy the morning.” Magnus gestured at the chairs.

It was all Mac could do not to wolf down the whole snack tray. But he’d been trained by the best, his redoubtable mother, who had taught her six sons diplomatic protocol and etiquette as if it were her job. He made himself a small plate, sipped his coffee and settled in, curious to find out more about Magnus, his beauteous granddaughters and the place they called home.

Magnus smoothed his weather-beaten hands over the legs of his trousers. “So. Here we all are. It is hard to conceive of, my life in a book. I don’t know where to begin.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mac said. “Whatever crosses your mind.”

“Bella Vista,” Magnus said without hesitation. “This place is always on my mind. Perhaps I even imagined it before I realized it was quite real.” He flexed his fingers, resting them on his knees, and said, “When I was a boy in Denmark, we would go to the cinema on Saturday afternoons, and naturally my favorites were the films about cowboys and Indians in the Wild West. I always envisioned America as this vast, unsettled land, a place of endless opportunity. It never looked like this in the picture show. My schoolmates and I yearned to come here, but I never thought I would. It was more like a place of dreams.”

In an odd way, Mac could relate. He, too, had grown up far from the States, and he, too, had been drawn to its larger-than-life, practically mythic aspect. His impressions had been formed by watching old VHS tapes of Nickelodeon series. Instead of the Wild West of Magnus’s imagination, he had been filled with mental pictures of schools populated by perky girls with ponytails, a row of candy-colored lockers and stern but good-hearted teachers capable of solving a spunky kid’s problems before each thirty-minute segment was up.

“Do you recall when you made the decision to come here?” Isabel asked.

The old man rested his hands atop his cane. “There was no decision. It was an act of desperation. And survival.”

Mac put his phone on the table. “I’ve got a digital recorder app. Do you mind?”

“No, of course not. That is why you’re here.”

From the corner of his eye, Mac could see Isabel stiffen, but then she settled back and waited quietly.

“It was not something my family aspired to or wanted for me. We would have been content to live out our lives in Denmark. We—my parents, my grandfather and myself—were comfortable in Copenhagen,” said Magnus. “We had all that we needed. We weren’t wealthy, though we were certainly comfortable. My father worked as a civil servant. My mother kept house, and her passion was for growing things. She prized her apple trees, and the whole neighborhood loved the Gravensteins she cultivated. Not the most beautiful fruit ever to grace the table, but surely the tastiest.”

He leaned back in the chair, his pale eyes looking into a past Mac could only imagine. “I was but a boy when the Nazis arrested them and took them away. A youngster still in his school years doesn’t get to decide anything, least of all whether or not to emigrate to America. It was all I could do to avoid getting caught myself.”

“Do you know why they were arrested?”

“For harboring a Jewish man and his daughter. My uncle Sweet and little cousin Eva. We weren’t really related, of course, but that is the story we gave out.”

“Eva...the woman you eventually married.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling at Isabel. “My Eva. Although in 1940, when she first came to live with us at the house in Copenhagen, I considered her a pest. Sweet was born a Dane, same as my father, but his wife was a member of the chalutzim—that is the Hebrew term for pioneers. Thousands of them came to Denmark from eastern Europe or Germany, and they were welcomed by the Danish and by King Christian. They had come for agricultural training, the goal being to eventually move to Palestine. But Sweet’s wife had no interest in farming.” Magnus’s mouth turned briefly into a curl of disgust. “She wanted only to be rich and comfortable, and she believed Sweet would give her that. He didn’t seem to care for money, though. He was a photographer, and a good one at that. He turned the basement of our house into a darkroom.”

“So he took these pictures?” Mac opened a file folder to four fading snapshots, turning them so Magnus and the two sisters could see.

Magnus nodded. “Yes, I brought one large case along when I came to America after the war, and those photographs were tucked into the lining.”

“Talk about life in Copenhagen at the start of the occupoation. What was it like, having another family living with you?”

“At first, life still seemed...normal. Routine. From my perspective as an only child, it was good fun having a playmate. Yes, it was routine, until Sweet and Eva disappeared into the night.”

“Were they warned that there was going to be a roundup of the Jews?” asked Mac.

“You’ve done some reading, then,” said Magnus. “But in fact, some years later, in the autumn of 1943. No, the reason Eva and her father had to leave was that the Germans found out my father’s greatest secret.”

Secrets seemed to run in this family, Mac thought, looking from one sister to the other, two beautiful but very different women who hadn’t known each other while growing up.

“What precipitated their leaving, then?” Mac asked Magnus.

“An agent affiliated with the Danish underground was caught and tortured. We had to assume the operation was compromised. Eva and her father had to leave in secret well in advance of the official action. They were sent up to a small coastal town called Helsingør—you would know it as Elsinore, from the Shakespeare play. Shortly after that, the soldiers came to search the house, but by that time, there was nothing to find. The Nazis were furious that the tip-off failed to yield any results, and they took my parents in for questioning.”

Now Magnus closed his eyes and held himself very still, so still that Mac thought he might’ve drifted off to sleep. He exchanged a glance with Isabel. She sat unmoving, her fingers braided together, tense.

Then Magnus opened his eyes. “I never saw them again. From that night onward, I was on my own. Which is my long-winded way of explaining what I meant when I said I didn’t make a decision of any sort about my own future. I simply reacted, determined to survive, as any wild animal might do. I lived by my wits—or lack thereof—from day to day. So in that sense, it wasn’t a decision that brought me to America. It was happenstance—and sheer blind luck, although I do not recall feeling at all lucky that day.”

He shook his head, paused to sample the honeyed cheese with some bread. “From today’s perspective, it is easy to look back and deride ourselves for not seeing the storm coming. But you understand, we were simply Danes, living our lives and going about our business. It was quite some time before I even grasped that there was a division between Jews and Gentiles. We were all Danes first. Denmark did not force Jews to register their property, or to identify themselves, and God knows, they were never made to give up their homes and businesses.”

“That came later, didn’t it?” said Tess, regarding him with soft-eyed sympathy. She reached up and took the feather thing out of her hair and set it aside.

“It all came about gradually as the Germans tightened their control. They broke their promises one by one, replacing each edict with another. The Germans even claimed the Jews of Scandinavia would not be included in their Final Solution. But by that time, everyone knew that was a lie.”

PART TWO

“For the bee, honey is the ultimate reality. It represents the fulfillment of her life mission, the triumph over her enemies, the continuity of the hive, the justification for working herself to death. Honey is to bees what money in the bank is to people—a measure of prosperity and well-being. But there is nothing abstract or symbolic about honey, as there is about money, which has no intrinsic value. There is more real wealth in a pound of honey, or a load of manure for that matter, than all the currency in the world. We often destroy the world’s real wealth to create an illusion of wealth, confusing symbol and substance.”

—William Longgood, The Queen Must Die

Summer Fruit with Honey Dressing

If possible, get the ingredients at your local farmer’s market. Food tastes better when you know where it comes from.

⅓ cup honey

⅓ cup lemon or lime juice

6 fresh mint leaves, finely snipped

2 cups melon cubes

2 cups green seedless grapes

1 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup fresh pineapple chunks

Use a whisk or hand mixer to whip the honey until it turns thick and opaque. Add the lemon or lime, then stir in the mint leaves. Combine the fruit in a large glass or pottery bowl. Pour the honey mixture over and stir gently to coat. Serve immediately with a clear flute of sparkling water or Prosecco.

[Source: Original]

Chapter Six

Copenhagen, 1940

“Here, let me fix your hair again.” Magnus’s mother licked the palm of her hand and smoothed it over his head. “This cowlick will not be tamed.”

He gritted his teeth, enduring the grooming in order to get the picture taking over with quicker.

“Goodness,” Mama said, “you’re taller than me all of a sudden. When did that happen?”

“He’s going to be taller than all of us,” said Farfar, his grandfather, reaching out to straighten Magnus’s tie. Even though it wasn’t a Sunday, they were all wearing their Sunday best. The starched and creased collar cut into his neck.

Uncle Sweet had set up a big cube-shaped black camera on a tripod, its accordion-fold lens aimed at the apple tree in the backyard, where they were gathering for the family portrait. Sweet wasn’t really Magnus’s uncle, and Sweet’s daughter, Eva, wasn’t really Magnus’s cousin. Yet Magnus had long known him as Uncle Sweet. His real name was Sigur, but everyone called him Sweet. Papa said they’d come up through school together as boyhood friends, the way Magnus was with Kiki Rasmussen, his best mate.

Sweet was a photographer, making his living by taking pictures of people and buildings. He used to have a studio and picture laboratory in Strøget, but he closed up shop soon after the Germans invaded Denmark and overran the city. Papa said this was because Uncle Sweet was Jewish.

“All together, now,” he said, motioning Magnus and his parents and Farfar to their places under the tree. “You, too, Eva. How pretty you look, with those ribbons in your hair.”

Unlike Magnus, Eva seemed to like getting all dressed up. She preened as she stood next to him. Then Uncle Sweet got into the picture, and fired the shutter with a button on a cable attached to the camera. He repeated this several times until he was satisfied.

“Good work, everyone,” he declared, clapping his hands. He had a funny grin and dark hair that stuck out over his ears. Magnus had always thought he looked like a tall, skinny clown. “I’ll go to the basement and process the plates. Eva, hang up your good clothes and finish putting your things away in your new room.”

“Yes, Poppy.” Flipping back her fat, dark pigtails, she followed him into the house.

Papa had explained to Magnus that Uncle Sweet and Eva had been put out of their house, and were coming to live with them. For safety’s sake, they had to pretend they truly were family. The photograph was meant to promote the illusion. It would be displayed on Mama’s pianoforte, along with the other family pictures.

“How long will they stay with us?” Magnus asked his mother.

“For as long as they need to, I would imagine.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “That poor little girl. I don’t know what her mother can be thinking, abandoning her family.”

Sweet had a beautiful wife named Katya, but Magnus had always thought her a bit strange. She rarely joined in the picnics and parties with Magnus’s family, and she was always complaining that Sweet didn’t make enough money. She loved pretty things and said he never bought her enough of them.

“Does that mean Eva’s mother won’t be coming to live with us?”

Mama looked as if she’d tasted something sour. “No, she will not. She ran off with a German officer.”

“Why do you say she ran off?” he asked his mother. “Last week, Kiki and I saw her through the window of the Crown Prince tea room, and she wasn’t running.”

“It’s just an expression,” Mama said. “It means she no longer chooses to be with her family.” Her mouth turned even harder and more disapproving.

“Because the German officer can give her fancy things so she would rather be with him,” Magnus concluded, repeating a snippet of gossip he’d heard.

“As I said, I don’t know what she must be thinking. Just don’t speak of it in front of Uncle Sweet and Eva. It makes Eva very sad.”

“I would never say anything,” Magnus promised. He tried to imagine what it would be like, seeing his mother with some stranger, and a German at that. The very idea made his skin crawl.

* * *

Uncle Sweet had turned the basement into his workshop and laboratory. Magnus was fascinated by his collection of cameras, big and small, and by the workings of the darkroom. Sometimes Sweet would let him watch as he created a print, the image appearing onto the paper in the chemical bath, like a ghost emerging from another world. Most of the pictures commemorated life’s events—marriages and birthdays, new babies and commencements. Some of his clients had their pictures made with horses or dogs, or surrounded by gardens.

As far as Magnus knew, that was the extent of his work.

He found out Sweet’s secret one day not long before Christmas. The first good freeze had arrived in Golden Prince Park, and Magnus wanted to go skating with his schoolmates. His skates still fit, but the blades were dull. He clumped down to the basement to find the whetstone, bringing a lighted candle with him. They had an electric torch, but thanks to the war, batteries were hard to come by.

He shut the door behind him so his mother wouldn’t complain about the draft. The smell of damp stone mingled with the sharp reek of Uncle Sweet’s chemicals. Magnus set the candle on a shelf and looked around for the stone to sharpen his skate blades.

There were tools stored in a wooden chest under the stairs. He dropped to his knees to begin the search. At the same moment, the basement door swished open and then quickly shut, the movement blowing out Magnus’s candle.

Three shadowy figures came down the stairs, lighting their way with an oil lantern. Magnus froze. He didn’t dare breathe.

“Were you seen?” asked Magnus’s father. Speaking English.

“Doubtful,” said an unfamiliar voice. “And would it matter, when I’m dressed like your dotty old grandmother?”

“Can’t be too careful,” said Sweet, also speaking English. “The Germans are like watchdogs. They never sleep.”

Magnus had been studying English in school since he’d been begun losing his milk teeth, and he understood it perfectly. Each night, they listened to broadcasts in English on Farfar’s shortwave radio. But what was an Englishman doing in the basement?

Magnus should have made his presence known. But it all happened so fast, and he was so startled that he simply froze, riveted to the spot under the stairs.

“If they never sleep,” the stranger said, “then won’t they catch on?”

“Not with the travel permit we’re going to create for you,” said Uncle Sweet. “You’ll be able to go anywhere without being questioned.”

Magnus poked his head up between the risers of the stairs in time to see the stranger take off his head scarf and shawl. He was a dark-haired man, his features in shadow. “How long have you gentlemen been with the Princes?”

Magnus pressed his lips together to stifle a gasp. The Princes were a shadowy organization of intelligence officers from the Danish army. Although nothing could be proven, rumor had it that the Princes regularly channeled reports to London, at great risk to themselves. The idea that his father and Sweet secretly worked for the group gave Magnus a thrill of fear.

“We have no knowledge of this group,” his father murmured. “If we don’t know the answer, then it can’t be tortured out of us.”

Magnus pressed his lips together even harder.

“Please, take a seat on this crate for the portrait.” Uncle Sweet got his camera ready on a tripod and held the flash bar high up in the air.

“Hold still. Neutral face. Don’t smile,” said Magnus’s father.

The flash fired, its glare shining on the man’s face. He needed a shave. He wore a plain broadcloth shirt and dark colored pants. Sweet closed the black curtains around the darkroom and quickly went to work.

The stranger set a long flat wooden box on a pair of sawhorses and lifted out what appeared to be a firearm made of pipes. Magnus clamped his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.

“Here it is,” the Englishman said. “The STEN gun, as promised. British made, very simple and powerful. It will fire ten rounds per second. I’m told you can take it apart and make a draft of each individual piece.”

Magnus’s father nodded. He picked up a piece of the disassembled gun. “You see how this looks? It could be anything. A part for a clock. A mechanism for a tire pump. Taken bit by bit, a gun is unrecognizable. Even a trained eye would not know this is the trigger of a lethal weapon. On the sketches, each element will be measured and labeled as a sewing machine part.”

“Sewing machine?”

Papa shrugged. “As I explained, piece by piece, the production drawings will look innocent enough.”

“And you have a manufactory in place?”

Another nod. “Assuming the materials have been rounded up, we will have the resources to manufacture thousands of these.”

“Good, then—”

“I would not call it good. But necessary in these times.”

“Yes, of course. We’re all aware of that.”

Sweet drew back the curtain of the darkroom area. “The papers are ready,” he said.

“Your identity papers will designate you an apple farmer,” said Papa.

The man smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and he looked pleasant, but nervous. “Back home in Shropshire, my family has an orchard,” he said.

“Appropriate, then,” said Uncle Sweet.

“You see, I’m not simply a courier of submachine guns, but a farmer,” the Englishman said. He seemed a bit defensive after Papa snapped at him.

“We all do what we must,” Sweet said.

“And you’ve done this before,” the man said. “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful, but—”

“We understand,” said Papa. “I promise, the document will be undetectable, even under scrutiny.”

“How can you make such a promise?”

“I’m a civil servant,” said Magnus’s father. “I have access to all the tools.” He brandished something that looked like an official stamp or seal. “Just use your common sense. It’s a dangerous business we’re in these days.”

“No more dangerous than letting the Nazis take over all of Europe. The Germans are bringing in munitions for storage, knowing the Allies won’t bomb Copenhagen. We can’t allow the Nazis to turn your city into a satellite of their base of operations.”

“Good man,” said Uncle Sweet. He smiled briefly, but there was always a sadness in him. Magnus supposed it was because of everything he’d lost—not just his business and his home, but his wife. Even though she had done a terrible thing, Magnus knew Sweet missed her. Sometimes at night, Uncle Sweet would get into the aquavit from Farfar’s cut crystal bottle, and he would lament that he should have taken better care of his Katya. Mama got short with him, and said Katya should have taken better care of her family.

“All right, then,” said Papa, inspecting the document they had created. “You are officially an undercover agent. Not, of course, that there is anything official about it.”

“Pray we stay that way,” said the stranger.

“It will take more than prayers,” said Papa.

The Englishman stepped into the light, and Magnus noticed that he had a deep scar angling from his jaw down the side of his neck. “Your help is appreciated,” he said quietly. “I know what you’re risking.”

“No more than you are,” Papa said, and Magnus felt a welling of pride in his chest.

“All right, then,” said Sweet. “You can leave by the back door. There’s a work barrow for you to use in tonight’s operation. Good luck.”

The three of them left the basement, their shoes kicking dust through the stairs. Magnus’s nose tickled, and he held his breath, suppressing a desperate sneeze. They seemed to take forever to leave. Just as the door shut, he burst out with the sneeze.

The footsteps outside the door stopped. “Did you hear something?” asked Uncle Sweet.

There was a long pause. “It was nothing,” Papa said.

Chapter Seven

“And that,” Magnus told his rapt listeners, “is how I learned my father and his friend Sigur—my Uncle Sweet—were involved in the resistance effort. It was quite a moment for me, finding out my mild-mannered father had a secret persona. Discovering his secret was like revealing Clark Kent’s hidden identity as Superman. Very exciting. In my mind, my father went from being an ordinary civil engineer to a war hero.”

“Your father claimed he wasn’t risking anything more than the British guy was risking,” said Tess. “That’s not true, though. He put the whole family at risk.”

Magnus’s smile of memory disappeared. “Times were different then. Early in the occupation, life continued to seem normal for a time, so perhaps we didn’t understand the risk. It wasn’t until later that we grasped the danger and seriousness of the underground activities. In all, the Danes manufactured about ten thousand submachine guns, and many of those originated with my father’s production drawings. He drew everything down to the last detail, and then mislabeled the parts in code so they would appear to be anything but weapons. For all the Jerries knew, the drawings were entirely mundane—parts for bicycles or sewing machines. The guns were then assembled in various places throughout the city—bicycle shops, small machine shops, pump repair facilities—under the pretext of being something else altogether.”

Mac scrolled to a website on his laptop. “So these production drawings that were preserved by the Danish Historical Society were made by your father?”

“The ones labeled Bruder Petersen—Petersen Brothers—likely came from him. The Petersen brothers were two boy detectives in a series of novels we used to read as youngsters, so it was actually a nonexistent company.” He studied an enlarged drawing on the screen. “This one is labeled ‘rocker arm for pump relay.’ In actuality, it is a STEN gun trigger. I assume that after my father drew, measured and labeled each individual part, someone else was in charge of the assembly.”

Isabel exhaled a shaky breath, not even realizing she’d been holding it as she’d listened to the story. The tension her grandfather had described while hiding beneath the cellar stairs had been palpable.

On the table lay a few pictures of Magnus as a boy; she’d seen them before. He was tall and good-looking, neatly dressed and solemn, his eyes large and darkly fringed, making him appear almost too pretty for a boy. Yet as often as she’d seen the photographs, she had never quite been able to connect the teenage boy with her grandfather. Now the youngster came to life in her mind, a kid avidly reading a comic book, or looking forward to ice-skating with his friends, or crouched beneath the basement stairs, too frightened to speak up.

“That’s such an extraordinary story. Why have you never told me this before?” she asked him.

He reached across the space between them, patted her hand. “Life is long,” he said. “I have so many moments to remember, large and small, and I haven’t thought about that incident in decades. I suppose, considering what came after my discovery in the basement, it never occurred to me that this would be of interest to you. Or to anyone.”

“Of course it is,” Tess assured him. “Your father and his friend must have been incredible.”

“I’m sure they regarded themselves as ordinary men, simply doing what was right in order to live with themselves. But yes, they were heroes in my eyes.”

“In anyone’s eyes,” said Isabel. “I like to think I’d be that kind of person, the one who would dare to put myself at risk.”

“Let us hope you never have to find out,” said her grandfather. “I was very proud of my father, and I miss him to this day.” Magnus’s eyes looked into something distant and unseeable. “However, sometimes I can’t help imagining how our lives would have unfolded if he had not embraced the cause. You see, many of our friends and neighbors simply kept their heads down and endured the occupation, then returned to normal routine after the war. Of course a big part of me, the part that desperately needed my parents and grandfather, wishes Papa would have chosen that path rather than risking himself. Risking the whole family, when it comes down to it.”

“You’re only human,” said Tess. “Of course you wished that.”

“Did you know what resistance group your father was affiliated with?” asked Mac.

“He wasn’t with the Princes, since he was a civilian, although I believe he did identity work for them. There was a faction of the resistance known as the Holger Danske. It wasn’t terribly well organized, but they got things done—underground activities, rescues, acts of sabotage. I believe that was his main connection.”

Isabel studied the “family” picture taken by Uncle Sweet so long ago, angling it toward the fading light. Grandfather was just a gangly boy on the verge of becoming a man, yet he had a face she recognized. He was standing next to his own grandfather—the beloved Farfar, a distinguished physician and a widower. His mother sat in an old-fashioned tufted armchair, which looked incongruous in the outdoor setting. With a faint smile on her face, she was flanked by his pretend uncle and cousin, a slender girl with her hair in pigtails. She looked directly into the camera, her guileless expression heartbreaking to Isabel, because the girl in the photograph had no idea what would soon happen to her. Finally her gaze went to Magnus’s father, Karl Johansen, who stood with one hand on his wife Ilsa’s shoulder, comb furrows in his hair, his tie perfectly straight.

The idea that the Johansens had sheltered a Jewish man and his daughter made Isabel proud, too. Yet she could relate to her grandfather’s wish. Suppose his father had done nothing to resist the Nazis. The family’s entire future would have unfolded in a different direction.

Mac stood and checked out the photograph over her shoulder. “They were hiding in plain sight,” he said.

Magnus nodded. “At first, I’m certain we—everyone—underestimated the danger. Reports of atrocities were just that—reports. Everyone found out about Kristallnacht when it occurred in 1938, but the world shrugged its shoulders. Most people believed the Night of Broken Glass was a disgusting spectacle, but an isolated event. The extent of the Nazis’ activities was still not fully known. Look at us in that picture. None of us knew what was around the next corner.”

“You look so much like your father,” she said. “I’m sorry you lost him.”

“I lost everything,” Grandfather said, bracing his hands on the chair arms and levering himself up. “I’m tired. I believe I’ll go inside and read my paper.”

Isabel exchanged a glance with Mac, who pocketed his phone and stepped back.

“Are you all right, Grandfather?” asked Isabel, going to his side. “Do you want me to help you?”

He gently touched her cheek. “I am fine,” he said. “Fine. It’s curious, the way reliving the past can be so draining. It will be good to be alone with my memories for a bit, and to get some rest.”

“Are you sure? I can get you a glass of chamomile tea on ice, maybe a honig kik—your favorite cookies—”

“Such a worrier,” he said with a chuckle. “How did I manage to raise such a worrier? I forbid you to hover. You stay here and entertain Mr. O’Neill. Theresa, you can help me inside. We will talk some more tomorrow, perhaps.”

She stood and watched him go, with Tess walking slowly by his side. Though shrinking with age, he still had a proud bearing as he moved. Her heart was filled with love for her grandfather, yet there were questions, too. She knew the conversation was only one of many he would be sharing in the weeks to come.

Turning back to Mac, she said, “Just so you know, I’m not going to entertain you.”

He grinned and pocketed his phone. “And I was so looking forward to that.” He gathered up the photos and papers, tucking them into a clear green envelope with a string closure. “Your grandfather has quite a story to tell.”

“I always knew it, but he never spoke of it in such detail, like the story he told about the basement. I worry, though. He’s going to relive the loss of his family and lord knows what else.”

“He’ll let me know if it’s too much for him.”

Mac sounded very sure of himself. Isabel studied him in the rich golden sunshine, watching the play of light on his face, the breeze in his hair, his big hands as he gathered up his notes and gear. His dog-eared spiral-bound notebook was already filled with several pages of notes in his squarish, precise handwriting. She’d watched him writing as Grandfather talked; he seemed to have the ability to listen and compose simultaneously.

“Everyone knows people suffered during the war, but hearing him talk about things as he lived them really drove that home.”

“He’ll be okay. People process trauma in their own ways.”

She thought about the few things Tess had told her about Mac’s past, and wondered how he’d dealt with his own trauma. He was a widower. It was shocking to contemplate the idea that he’d been married, that his wife had died. In her mind, she’d always pictured a widower as someone like her grandfather, not a young, vital man who exuded sex appeal. Mac looked older than Isabel, but not much older. Maybe thirty-five to her thirty.

She wondered what had happened to his wife. Tess hadn’t been able to answer that question, saying she’d never met the woman, but judging by her name—Yasmin—assumed she was foreign, perhaps Middle Eastern.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

She realized she’d been staring at him. Though tempted to ask him about his past, she felt the need to keep her distance. She barely knew the guy. “I’m... You seem pretty sure of yourself. Pretty sure he’s going to be able to talk about these things.”

He flashed a half grin. “Trust me, I’m a professional.”

“That’s what Tess says.”

“Then trust her. She’s your sister.”

Isabel nodded. “Yes, but we haven’t grown up as sisters. It’s...complicated.”

“I don’t have a sister myself, but I’ve heard it’s always complicated.”

“Tess and I met only recently. Did she explain that to you?”

“She said neither of you knew about the other when you were growing up.”

“We connected with each other when she came here a year ago, and she changed everyone’s lives.”

“Seems like Bella Vista—and you and your granddad—changed her life.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “What a nice thing to say.”

“Sometimes the truth is nice. A lot of the time, actually.” He moved the wooden chairs out of the pathway. “Does this mean I’m forgiven for losing your colony of bees?”

“Never,” she said.

“That’s harsh.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s me. A harsh woman.”

“My favorite kind.”

“Really?”

He gave her a long, considering look. Then he said, “We’ll see.”

“How’s your knee?” she asked suddenly. “Are you up for a short walk?”

“With you? Hell, yes.”

She turned away quickly, pretending not to be flattered by his enthusiasm. “We can go to the top of that hill with the big oak tree. There’s something up there that might give you some insights about my grandfather...and me. You might find it kind of grim, but it’s part of the story.”

“I can handle grim,” he said simply.

Though tempted to ask him about the grim things he could handle, she’d save those questions for another day. She led the way up the slope, stepping over the ankle-high grass in the meadow, covered in budding lupine.

“It’s the family plot,” she said when they arrived. The rectangular area was west-facing, bathed in afternoon light and surrounded by a wrought iron fence. There were three simple headstones of weathered rock. Oscar Navarro, the caretaker, kept the grass mowed, though wildflowers were left to bloom around the stones—egg-yolk-yellow California poppy, purple sage and tiny delicate wild iris. Not far away was a spreading California oak, its long branches creating a broad shaded area. “See what I mean?” she asked. “Grim.”

“It feels peaceful here,” he said. “A resting place. And it’s sad, yeah.” He regarded the carved stones. “Your grandmother Eva, your mother, Francesca, and your father, Erik.”

“The family plot,” she said. “It doesn’t really make me sad anymore. I don’t associate this spot with the people I’ve lost.”

“Still...Isabel, I’m sorry. Real sorry.”

“Thank you. I never knew either of my parents, but my grandmother, Bubbie...” Even now she couldn’t find the words to express how much she missed her. Sometimes when she closed her eyes, she could still feel Bubbie’s hand expertly brushing and braiding her hair while singing a soft song in Yiddish about a cherry tree.

“You want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know. When Tess first told me about this project, just yesterday, in fact, I didn’t want to talk about anything.”

“But now...?”

“It seems like something my grandfather wants. But his story is entwined with my own...” She bent and picked a sprig of sage, inhaling the savory scent of it.

“Then how about you tell me. Make me understand why you don’t want me here, asking personal questions about your grandfather, your family.”

His frank request startled her, yet oddly enough, she didn’t feel defensive. She chewed her lip, wondering if she could possibly trust him.

He regarded her thoughtfully, then lifted a hand, palm out. “Go ahead. I’m not here to pass judgment. Swear.”

She couldn’t tell if his reassuring manner was genuine, or a journalist’s trick. Please be genuine, she thought. “As I said, it’s a bit complicated. Tess and I are half sisters. We were born on the same day.”

“That’s cool. But how is sharing a birthday a complication for the two of you?”

“Not just the same day.” She took a breath, cut her gaze away from him. “The same year. To different mothers who had no idea the other one existed. That’s why we grew up apart. My grandparents raised me here at Bella Vista, and Tess and her mother lived all over the place, in big cities, mostly.”

He folded his arms across his chest, and she watched him process the information. “Oh. Well. Unusual circumstances make for a good story, anyway.”

“We’re not just a ‘story,’” she said, bridling.

“I get that,” he said. “But I still don’t see why it’s a problem for you. Nothing you’ve told me is going to reflect badly on you. Or your grandfather. Your dad...maybe.”

The tension she’d been holding inside unspooled just a little. Sometimes, when people heard about the unorthodox situation, they acted as if Tess and Isabel were somehow defective, having a rogue of a father who’d been careless enough to get two women pregnant, and then get himself killed in a mysterious car wreck.

Mac studied Erik’s name, carved on the headstone, with a phrase:

Erik Karl Johansen, beloved son. Measure his life not by its length but by the depth of the joy he brought us. He jumped into life and never touched bottom. We will never laugh the same again.

“Our father was a bit of a rogue,” Isabel said. “More than a bit. Sometimes I wonder what he might say in his defense. ‘He jumped into life and never touched bottom,’” she read from the headstone. “I once asked Grandfather what he meant by that, but all he ever said was that Erik had a huge appetite for life.”

“He gave the world two daughters. I can’t imagine your grandfather would have any regrets about you and Tess. And after all this time, the fact that your dad was banging two women doesn’t seem like much of an issue.”

Had he really said banging? How very refined of him. “Has Tess told you anything else about Erik?”

“Nope. Something tells me your sister is preoccupied with other things these days.”

“The wedding. I love that she’s having so much fun with it.”

“I never took her for the marrying type.”

“Really?”

“She was such a go-getter. Always seemed married to her career.”

“That was what she was like when I first met her, too,” Isabel agreed. “Now she’s going to be a wife and a stepmother, and probably a mother one day. I suppose it just goes to show you—love can change everything.”

“Very nice,” he said. “You’re a hopeless romantic.”

“No, just a keen observer.” She suddenly felt uncomfortable under his gaze. “So about Erik—our father. One thing you’re bound to find out from Magnus is that my grandmother, Eva—Bubbie—was not Erik’s birth mother.”

“He was adopted?”

“Yes. Grandfather is very open about it—lately. But for the longest time, no one knew.” Isabel took a breath, then said in a rush, “Grandfather was his birth father.”

“Oh. So he was—”

“Please don’t say ‘banging’ again,” she said. “He will have to be the one to explain, and you’ll have to figure out how it fits into the story you’re writing. Erik’s birth mother was a woman named Annelise Winther.”

Mac said nothing, just stood there, his arms still crossed. She couldn’t help but notice how good he looked in a white T-shirt and jeans, his coloring deepened by the sunset. Finally, he asked, “Is she still living?”

“Yes. She lives in San Francisco.”

“Do you know her?”

“Thanks to Tess, I do now. Annelise is another survivor from the war years in Denmark,” Isabel explained. “She and my grandfather knew each other during the war. She’s actually...kind of wonderful. I’m hoping to get to know her better.”

“So you’re saying this woman had a baby, and Magnus and Eva raised him.”

“They did. We figured it out last year as we were going through old records and learned Bubbie could never have children. It was all a huge secret at the time.”

“That sort of thing was a bigger deal back then.”

“True. Now Grandfather wants it all out on the table, for my sake, and for Tess. You’re going to have to ask him what sort of arrangements they made in order to pull it off, because it seems they were very careful. Even the Navarros—they’ve lived and worked at Bella Vista for decades—claim they never knew.”

“And let me guess. Tess had a hand in figuring all this out.”

She nodded, feeling a flicker of surprise—at herself. She was giving up information like a singing canary. There was something about the intent way he listened that made her want to talk. Another reporter’s trick? Or was he actually a good listener? A rare trait in a guy.

“Tess is very good at research,” she continued. “In all the mountains of old family papers and records, she came across a medical file from the 1960s. From that, we figured out that Eva could never have children.” Isabel’s heart filled with sympathy for her lost grandmother. She could too-easily picture Bubbie as a hopeful young wife, getting the news that she had uterine cancer and needed a hysterectomy. In one cruel moment, the news would have taken away any dreams she’d had of having babies of her own.

“How much is it going to bug your grandfather when the subject comes up?” asked Mac.

She thought about it for a moment. “Ever since his accident last year, he’s been adamant about telling us everything. He seemed almost relieved when Tess and I asked about Erik’s birth mother.”

“Ah. Then you’re thinking it’s going to bug you.”

Ouch. “Bubbie was the only mother I ever knew. To find out, after all this time...I’m still getting used to the idea. And now it feels very strange that you plan to publish this whole story about my family. I keep trying to convince myself it’s not disrespectful.” She stared down at Bubbie’s headstone, wishing she could feel her presence once again, hear her voice, listen to her sing the cherry song one more time.

“In my experience, people are more comfortable with the truth than any lie,” said Mac. “Eventually.”

She leaned down and plucked a dockweed from the base of one of the stones, and then started down the hill toward the house. “I realize that. The fact that my grandfather had a baby out of wedlock is a key part of his story. I don’t understand why he did what he did.”

“Have you ever asked him?”

“No.”

“You should. It’s remarkable how much you can learn simply by asking.”

“Good point, but try asking your grandfather to explain something like that.”

“No, thanks. My granddad was a Freudian analyst. He probably would have liked the topic way too much. I never really knew my other grandfather. He owned a pub in Ireland, died when I was a little kid.”

“And the Freudian grandfather?”

“Total nut job, but he was a good listener.”

So are you. The thought crossed Isabel’s mind, taking her by surprise. “My grandfather has always been big on loyalty,” she said. “You’ll see that as you get to know him. When I found out about him and Annelise, it totally threw me off. It was hard to imagine Grandfather betraying his wife. He was—he’s always been—my moral compass.”

“Whoa. That’s a lot to ask of someone.”

“True. I’d hate to be someone’s moral compass,” she admitted.

He held open the wrought iron gate leading to the courtyard. A visceral hip-hop tune was playing on the workers’ radio. “I bet you’d be pretty good at it, Isabel.”

Her head snapped up as she passed through the gate in front of him. “You don’t know me.”

“No,” he said, his voice like the breeze, a soft caress. “But I want to.”

PART THREE

One week after she emerges from her cell, the queen bee leaves the hive to mate with several drones in flight. To avoid inbreeding, she must fly a certain distance away from her home colony. Therefore, she makes several circles around the hive for orientation, so she can find her way back.

She leaves by herself and stays away for thirteen minutes. In the afternoon, hovering twenty feet above the earth, she will mate with anywhere from seven to fifteen drones. If foul weather delays this crucial mating flight for more than three weeks, her ability to mate will be destroyed. Her unfertilized eggs then result in drones.

Honey Lavender Lemonade

The best honey comes from a source you know, and is processed without heat. Raw, unfiltered honey retains its royal jelly, bee pollen and propolis—three major sources of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.

1 cup of locally produced, raw organic honey

2½ cups water

1 tablespoon dried culinary lavender

1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

Additional water, about 2 cups

Ice cubes or crushed ice

Combine honey and 2-½ cups of water in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the honey. When the mixture reaches a boil, stir in the lavender and remove from heat. Let the mixture steep for 20 minutes.

Strain the lavender from the liquid, then add the fresh lemon juice and an additional 2 cups of water. Use sparkling water if you wish. Pour into glasses full of ice and serve, garnished with a sprig of lavender or mint.

[Source: Original]

Chapter Eight

“Isabel? Someone’s here to see you.” Ernestina Navarro stepped into Isabel’s study, a small space tucked into an alcove near the main kitchen. One wall was lined from floor to ceiling with bookcases crammed with cookbooks, which she’d been collecting ever since she was a little girl. The other walls were pinned with pictures she’d collected as inspiration for the renovation, and with lists and ideas for the upcoming wedding. There was a needlepoint sampler from an old family friend with the phrase “Live This Day” embroidered in the middle.

Isabel looked up from the mood board she’d been studying for far too long. The day after her uncomfortable conversation with Cormac O’Neill, she had escaped into work. But she couldn’t escape her own thoughts. He had a way of saying things that stuck with her, turned over and over in her mind as she speculated on the meaning.

You don’t know me.

No, but I want to.

Focus, she commanded herself. There was plenty to be done, anyway. The task in front of her was to study the mood board in order to pick colors and finishes for the two guest suites at the end of the second-floor hallway. Only a year ago, she’d had no idea what a mood board was. Now she was intimately familiar with the device, used by designers to present options for colors, textures and patterns. Isabel discovered that she could look at mood boards all day, and still not make a decision.

The designer in charge of the guest rooms at Bella Vista offered far too many choices. Should the upholstery be navy graphic or ecru abstract? Sandy-brown or celery-green on the walls? Wrought iron or glass sconces? And that was just for one of the suites. Isabel found it all bewildering, though she knew the details were important.

“Thanks,” she said to Ernestina, and swiveled to face her computer screen. She typed a quick note to the designer, telling him to go with the navy, the sandy-brown and the wrought iron. There, she thought, pushing back from the desk. Done. “Who is it?”

“Jamie Westfall.”

“Oh, good. The beekeeper.” Sliding her feet into sandals, she made her way down the hall to the main entryway. It was too bad he hadn’t shown up in time for the whole swarm drama. But it was springtime and there was still plenty of work to be done.

She stopped in the foyer, startled by the sight of her visitor.

Jamie Westfall was a woman. A very young woman. With tattoos, short, razor-cut, purple streaked hair...and what was almost assuredly a baby bump. The girl was long-legged and thin, wearing tight shorts and a Queensrÿche T-shirt stretched over her protruding tummy.

“Hi, I’m Isabel,” she said, mentally regrouping. “I sent you a message the other morning.”

“Yes.” The girl offered a fleeting smile and ducked her head. “Sorry, I didn’t see it in time to help you out.”

“That’s all right. The swarm got away. But I’ve still got some overcrowded hives that need to be divided, and I’m quickly finding out that I’m in over my head. I’d love to get your advice about my hives.”

“Sure, I can try to help you out.” She seemed soft-spoken, almost bashful in contrast to her hair and tattoos.

“Let me get you something to drink, and then we’ll head out to the hives. I’ve got a pitcher of lavender lemonade made with Bella Vista honey.”

“Sounds great. Thanks.” The girl looked around, wide-eyed, her gaze skimming over the surroundings of the foyer—a rustic table set against the wall, where eventually a guest book would go. Above that hung a large mirror Tess had found at a flea market, and on the opposite wall hung the main focus of the space—a stunning, mission-era scene painted by Arthur Frank Mathews. It was an original. Isabel didn’t even dare ask Tess about its value. She was certain the number would stress her out.

“Um, could I use the restroom?” asked Jamie.

“Yes, of course. It’s just there, down that hallway.” Isabel pointed. “Take your time. I’ll go get the lemonade.”

As she went to the kitchen and poured the drinks, Isabel readjusted her mind around the beekeeper. She’d been expecting a guy with a battered pickup truck plastered with Ag Extension stickers. Not a teenage pregnant girl.

Setting out some honey shortbread cookies to go with the lemonade, she flashed on memories of her grandmother, offering refreshments to anyone who was lucky enough to come through the kitchen door. As a working farm, Bella Vista was always busy with workers, some seasonal and others permanent. In my kitchen, everyone is family, Bubbie used to say, beaming as the orchard workers, mechanics or gardeners gladly wolfed down her baked goods.

Knowing now what she did about her grandmother, Isabel wondered if there was a broader meaning to Bubbie’s pronouncement.

Jamie came into the kitchen and set down her frayed army-surplus messenger bag. She looked scrubbed now, the hair framing her face damp. “It’s really beautiful here,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “What a nice place.”

“Thanks. I’ve lived at Bella Vista all my life. I went away briefly for school, but...I had to cut it short, and ended up right back here.” Isabel often felt awkward, explaining that she’d never been anywhere. It made her feel incomplete, somehow. She handed Jamie a glass of lemonade. “Should we go take a look at the hives?”

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