Page 30 of Honey Bee Hearts

“Oh! I knew about the bees, but not about the dogs being such a major part. The website didn’t really cover it extensively,” she gushes, waiting for me to lead her where she needs to go. When I step around her, she follows, and Dolly happily accompanies us. “How many dogs do you have at one time?”

She’s fully invested and listens intently. And her voice is like really good moonshine, not that shit that comes from Naomi over at Steele Mountain. Fable Everhart seems genuine and sweet, corruptible.

“Depends. We have our main breeders, which change off and on depending on how many litters they’ve had, but mostly it remains around twelve of them. We don’t breed our dogs to death here. They get top notch care, and then they get to retire after they’ve had a few litters and enjoy their lives. Then if we have litters, those puppies add to our number until they go to a new home. We train the dogs before they go on to greener pastures, so we also have trainees. All that’s to say, I have no idea,” I answer honestly. “The number changes pretty regularly.”

She laughs and claps her hands together. “It sounds like there are plenty fur babies to pet either way. Is this one a trainee or a breeder?” she asks, pointing to Dolly.

“Dolly here?” I ask, and Dolly boofs in answer. “Neither. Dolly is a retired police dog and lives out her days however shepleases. She comes from a pedigree line, though. Her daddy, in fact, lives over at Steele Mountain Ranch, Ole Red.”

“She doesn’t look that old to be retired,” she comments.

“She’s not. But when I left the police force, she wouldn’t work with anyone else, so she came with me.”

She glances at me in surprise. “You were a cop?”

I laugh. “You seem surprised.”

“You just don’t. . . seem the type is all,” she replies carefully.

I quirk my brow at her. “Cops don’t look like me out in Florida?”

She shrugs. “Maybe Wyoming is different, but every cop I’ve ever met was either an asshole, like the bullies from high school who want power, or was full dad persona. You don’t seem like either.”

I lean closer and she glances up at me with wide eyes. “What makes you think I’m not one of the bullies?”

She snorts. “You work with dogs, silly. I can clearly see the way you care about Dolly when you talked about her. Plus, she loves you. I’ll always trust a dog’s opinion over a person’s.”

My brows furrow. “Dogs can be bribed.”

“So can people,” she shrugs. “Hell, you can bribe me with a good cake. That don’t mean nothing.”

Fuck. She says the word cake and now I’m thinking about eating cake off her ass cheeks. “You like cake?” I ask.

“Of course, I like cake,” she laughs, gesturing to herself. “Don’t I look it?”

“Yeah,” I grunt, my voice huskier than I’d like. “What else do you like?”

The need to know everything about her slams into me. Fuck, I want to strip her bare and study her under a microscope, even if she’s wrong about me. There’s this tortured sweetness about her, so painful, so sweet she could make my teeth ache if I taste her. She’s so bright, and yet there’s this darkness over her, likeshe’s a flower field overcast with thunderclouds. Brilliant but muted. Why? What happened to her to cast such shadows?

“Far too many things to list,” she admits, looking around. “So where are these puppies I get to pet?” Her eyes are bright with excitement, eagerness, and I really want her to be lookin’ at me like that.

I pop open a door instead of answering and release the newest litter like I’m releasing a stampede. She immediately drops to her knees and lets them swarm her, laughter pouring from her lips, but her head twitches to the right, as if she’s hearing someone else talk beside her. I follow the direction and see nothing there, but it only adds to the intrigue.

She looks up at me, her smile wide, her silly outfit making me want to lift that skirt and see if she tastes like cake. “This must be the best job in the world,” she declares.

I blink and tilt my head. It’s certainly paying off right now. “Yeah. It ain’t too bad,” I answer before I kneel down and take a seat beside her, letting the puppies attack me, too. It’s been so long since I’ve just let myself enjoy it, but right now, sitting beside her, it feels. . . nice. “Not bad at all.”

Dolly comes over and lays across my lap and something roars inside me that hasn’t roared in years. Hunger. Excitement. The thrill of the chase.

I’d trust a dog’s opinion over a person’s.

Yeah, but sometimes even dogs love the monsters that raise them.

Chapter 18

Fable

Istudy Colt King closely. He’s an interesting person, very stoic and reserved, but I get the feeling he’s not always like this. He feels very much like marble floors, like a roman temple, but also like black ink on old parchment. He feels like the smell of the earth after a good rain, before it gets too waterlogged and smells like mud, and also a perfectly designed garden. There’s something very old about Colt, but he can’t be much older than I am, a few years at most. Every facet of him feels like an oxymoron, but he doesn’t scream that. It’s more like a subtle feeling I get every time I’m around him.

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