Like a Bee to Honey by Jennifer Beckstrand Read Free Book Online

eyebrow. Looking a little dazed, he attempted a grin. “Bitsy, your clog is fixed.”
    Aunt Bitsy’s nostrils flared as if she were barely keeping her patience. “What were you planning on using the bucket for?”
    He squinted in Aunt Bitsy’s direction and scratched his temple, leaving more sink scum. “I didn’t think any water would come out.”
    Aunt Bitsy smirked. “It wonders me what you thought would come out.”
    Leonard Nimoy splashed her paws in the puddle on the floor as if she were playing in the rain. “Stop that!” Aunt Bitsy scolded as the kitten started lapping up scummy sink water with her tongue.
    Josiah lifted Leonard Nimoy by the scruff of the neck and deposited her a few feet away from the puddle. “Do you have a towel?”
    Rose raced into the storage room once again and collected four old towels they used for rags. She came back and handed them to Josiah. Instead of drying himself off, he knelt down, wiped out the cupboard, and then sopped up the water from the floor. Bitsy took one of Rose’s towels to wipe the water from the back of Josiah’s neck. The minute she touched him, he reared his head in surprise and smacked the back of it against the inside edge of the cupboard.
    â€œ Oy , anyhow,” he said. He pulled his head from inside the cupboard and scrubbed his hand along the back of it.
    Aunt Bitsy snorted, which was as close to laughter as she ever got. “You’re jumpy for someone so tall.”
    With his hand wrapped around the back of his head, Josiah looked at Aunt Bitsy out of the corner of his eye and chuckled. “I thought you were a spider.”
    â€œI didn’t want you to drip.”
    â€œIs your head bleeding?” Rose said.
    Josiah looked up at Rose, and his blue-eyed grin made her heart gallop. “Thanks to your aunt Bitsy, I have a bump on both the front and back of my head.”
    Aunt Bitsy grunted her disapproval. “Don’t blame me that you’re so thick.”
    Watching Aunt Bitsy warily out of the corner of his eye, Josiah tightened the washer back onto the pipe and finished wiping out the cupboard. It looked cleaner than when he’d started.
    Though he tried to refuse her help, Rose grabbed another towel and helped him wipe the disgusting water from the floor. He crawled around on his hands and knees, trying to get every drop he’d spilled. His trousers as well as his shirt were soaked by the time they were done.
    Josiah gathered up the wet towels. “Washroom?”
    â€œI can take them,” Rose said.
    â€œI’m already wet and dirty, and I sort of stink,” Josiah said. “And you smell like lavender. You’d better let me take them.”
    She twisted her lips into a lopsided grin and led Josiah to the washroom. He dumped the soaked towels into the sink and wiped his dirty hands on his equally dirty trousers. “I’d better go home. I need to take a shower. Or three showers. I don’t know that this smell will ever wash off. Your aunt might not let me back in your house again.”
    â€œShe might if our sink clogs.”
    He laughed. “She won’t let me near that sink.”
    â€œ Cum ,” Rose said, taking the small hand towel from the hook over the sink and running some water over it. She reached up and wiped the black scum from Josiah’s forehead, being careful not to press too hard on that goose egg. He turned to stone, not taking his eyes from her face as she carefully dabbed at first his forehead, then the side of his face. A shower would be best, but at least he could ride home without looking like he’d been swimming in the sewer. “That’s better,” she said, rinsing out her towel and hanging it on the hook to dry.
    With his unnerving gaze still glued to her face, he cleared his throat and gave her a doubtful smile. “ Denki . I made a mess of myself.” He stretched out his arm where