Chapter 23: The Luna

"Yes," I said.

Lachlan blinked.

"I haven't asked."

"I know what you're about to ask." I shifted the baby on my arm. "I'm saying yes before you flood Pearl's floor."

The three pack women made a sound.

Pearl turned her face to the wall and wiped her eyes on her apron.

He slid the ring onto my finger with his raw hands, and it fit.

Mirabel, flat on the couch, said weakly, "Is this really happening while I'm still bleeding?"

"Your timing's better than mine," I told her.

The harvest came round again in October.

I woke before dawn on the day of the Harvest supper, and the bed was empty.

I found Lachlan up on the ridge, in the cold blue light, standing in front of a row of white hive boxes with his smoker lit.

He turned when he heard me and held out his hand.

"Come see where it comes from."

I stood at his shoulder while he lifted a lid and breathed smoke over the frames.

The bees hummed, slow and drowsy in the cold.

He drew out a heavy frame, gold and dripping, and held it so the first sun came through it.

"This is the one I cut for you the first year," he said. "From this box."

I reached out and touched the comb.

It was warm.

I put my finger in my mouth, and the taste was dark and wild and sweet.

"You wrote that label four times," I said.

"Five. The fifth was crossed out."

I laughed, and he set the frame down and looked at me.

I looked at his mouth.

"Not here," he said. "The bees."

"They're asleep."

"June."

"Alpha," I said. "Smoke them again."

He smoked them again.

Then he pulled me behind the last hive box and backed me against an old fence post.

The sun was just coming over the ridge, and the frost steamed off the grass.

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