Read The Beekeeper's Ball: Bella Vista Chronicles Book 2 for Free Online Page B

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