Like Bees to Honey | gxg

12. Every Team Needs a Boss

The good news was that during Sabina's second week in charge of the market stall, nobody ended up drunk and nothing got broken. On Saturday, she picked up a fresh, warm loaf of Ambrosia Bakery's famous fluffy whole wheat bread and put out chunks of it in small paper sample cups, each one spread with a bite of raw honeycomb that oozed golden in the sunlight. Those disappeared so fast that she ended up going back for a second loaf. Even better, she sold out of honeycomb. Counting inventory at the end of the week, she was glad to find her total sales had improved over the first week.

The bad news was, the new aesthetic was not the influencer magnet she hoped, not even when she added some salvaged wooden crates as display shelves, stringing them with twinkly white lights her mom had dug up in her attic purge. Her own social media game wasn't getting any better, either. Despite her efforts to seek out and connect with people who were posting about local businesses, as Helena had suggested, Riley's grandma was still her biggest fan.

But time didn't care about her ambitions and before she knew it, it was Sunday. After church that morning, she changed into her light cotton work pants and steeled herself to drive up the one road in High Valley that she couldn't remember ever taking in her life: the road to Verger Orchards.

Not far past her very own High Valley Honey, the road forked. Sabina took the right turn onto a narrow road that curved patiently across the dry plateau. At one time this had all been Engberg land. Her great-grandpa had expanded his father's small homestead, buying up neighbouring farms to create a sprawling orchard here at the height of High Valley's fruit-growing past. Now, most of the fruit trees were gone; instead, manicured vineyards marched out on both sides of the road.

The road narrowed further into a one-lane bridge, and Sabina stepped on the brake. A coach bus with Through the Grapevine Wine Tours printed on the side rumbled by in the opposite direction. When they had passed, she took her turn over the narrow bridge. A small sign on the guardrail read Swedish Creek, and as she crossed she glanced down at the rocky stream below. This creek had once marked out the property line between the Engberg orchards and the Verger, and a fight over ownership of this skinny strip of silver water had been the first battle in what would ultimately become an everlasting war between the two families.

Soon a weathered sign appeared at the side of the road: Verger Orchards. Family-owned for over 100 years. The dirt road beyond had been freshly wet to keep the dust down. Sabina turned onto it carefully, as though expecting someone to jump out and tell her she didn't belong here. In the nearest apple tree, a bird warbled.

Driving slowly up the lane, she was almost surprised to find that the orchard belonging to her enemies looked exactly the same as every other orchard she had ever seen. Rows of hard green apples weighed the tree branches on one side, while on the other, peaches just starting to pink peeked from between rustling green leaves.

The trees opened out into a gravelled parking lot with a little store and a bunkhouse for seasonal staff at one end and a big white house with a wraparound porch at the other. It was a bright and sunny home, nothing like the haunted mansion Sabina had imagined the Vergers lived in.

On the steps sat Mel, leaning back on her palms, her head thrown back and eyes shut, like a model posing for a tourism ad. It didn't mean anything that Sabina noticed how good she looked in her denim shorts and big white sneakers that were going to get covered in dust the moment she stepped off that porch.

When Sabina's brakes squeaked, Mel looked around, squinting.

"It doesn't surprise me that you're the kind of person who arrives exactly on time," she said, as she folded herself into the passenger seat.

"How terrible of me to not make you wait."

"You must be pretty excited about this date, huh."

"You're the one who was out here waiting for me," Sabina pointed out.