Free Like Honey by Liz Everly Page A

what’s with that guy you hired, Gray?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI mean, hubba hubba,” she said.
    â€œYes,” Jennifer said, and sighed. “He’s hot. But he works for me.”
    â€œSell the place and jump his bones.”
    Jennifer had to laugh. If only it were that easy. She hadn’t seen him since she left in an ambulance two days ago. She knew he was busy with the bees. She’d gotten his e-mail about the harvest coming in. It was decidedly professional and cool, which after all is what it should be. He did save her and she wanted to thank him in person, but he was just never around. He saved her life, and if she let it, that thought could swirl around her heart and give it a romantic tinge it probably shouldn’t have.
    Perhaps she’d read too much into his being so helpful that night. And in him bringing the honey over to share. And in the way he sometimes looked at her. God knows, she didn’t know much about relationships or men. She wondered—and not for the first time—if she should just give up on men and try to become a lesbian.
    â€œMaybe I’m gay,” Jennifer said. “I think I could give up men.”
    Maeve howled in laughter. “You might be a lot of things. But trust me on this, you are not gay. And female lovers are not any easier than male. Believe me. Okay, so you’ve had a number of failed relationships with men.”
    â€œBig-time fails. There was the engagement with Sanj and the marriage with Ren. But those two events were like just the tip of the iceberg, really.” Her voice was fading.
    Really just one bad relationship after the other.
    â€œBut wait,” Maeve said. “Your relationship with Ren was incredible. The fact that he died sucks, but that was not your fault.”
    Something caught in Jennifer’s throat. There it was. Had she been feeling guilty about his death? Maybe. Not as if she felt she had anything to do with it. But that she was here, the only person alive that cared about this place and this business. It was unfair.
    But she was tired of feeling like this.
    â€œYou’re right,” Jen said, her voice wavering. “That was fate. It had nothing to do with me. Yet, here I am alive. And he’s not.”
    â€œI know how you feel,” Maeve said. She’d lost both of her parents early in her life. “But believe me, making yourself miserable isn’t going to help anybody.”
    Maeve had been saying the same thing to her for months. But this was the first time Jennifer was really able to hear it. To feel it. She needed to take control of her situation. She had been numb and foggy minded—and that was really the only way she could get through it.
    But enough was enough.
    She closed her eyes and thought about Ren. His mouth. His hands. His arms. She remembered him in Saint Lucia, the way he reached out to her, the way it had been difficult to untangle her emotions.
    Sanj had been there with his new woman, and she told herself she didn’t care, but she wasn’t so sure. Maeve had been kidnapped—and Jen was raw with worry. Yet when Ren visited her room to ask her a few questions, all she could think about was sex. She twisted a strand of hair around her finger as she thought about that first time with Ren.
    â€œAre you off duty?” she had asked, breathless, leaning back on the couch in her condo.
    â€œUm, no,” he said. A spark lit in his eyes. “But I will be in about two minutes.”
    A sudden raw hunger came over her as she leaned into him—so unlike her—leading a man on, but she was so empty, so hurt, that the need in her took over.
    When they kissed, a swirl of passion erupted in both of them. It was so tender and yet full of need and promise. When she pulled away from him after that first kissed and looked into his eyes, she was lost. She’d never slept with anyone she was not in a relationship with—but from