The Beekeeper's Ball: Bella Vista Chronicles Book 2 by Susan Wiggs

she said. “It doesn’t really make me sad anymore. I don’t associate this spot with the people I’ve lost.”
    “Still...Isabel, I’m sorry. Real sorry.”
    “Thank you. I never knew either of my parents, but my grandmother, Bubbie...” Even now she couldn’t find the words to express how much she missed her. Sometimes when she closed her eyes, she could still feel Bubbie’s hand expertly brushing and braiding her hair while singing a soft song in Yiddish about a cherry tree.
    “You want to talk about it?”
    “I don’t know. When Tess first told me about this project, just yesterday, in fact, I didn’t want to talk about anything.”
    “But now...?”
    “It seems like something my grandfather wants. But his story is entwined with my own...” She bent and picked a sprig of sage, inhaling the savory scent of it.
    “Then how about you tell me. Make me understand why you don’t want me here, asking personal questions about your grandfather, your family.”
    His frank request startled her, yet oddly enough, she didn’t feel defensive. She chewed her lip, wondering if she could possibly trust him.
    He regarded her thoughtfully, then lifted a hand, palm out. “Go ahead. I’m not here to pass judgment. Swear.”
    She couldn’t tell if his reassuring manner was genuine, or a journalist’s trick. Please be genuine, she thought. “As I said, it’s a bit complicated. Tess and I are half sisters. We were born on the same day.”
    “That’s cool. But how is sharing a birthday a complication for the two of you?”
    “Not just the same day.” She took a breath, cut her gaze away from him. “The same year. To different mothers who had no idea the other one existed. That’s why we grew up apart. My grandparents raised me here at Bella Vista, and Tess and her mother lived all over the place, in big cities, mostly.”
    He folded his arms across his chest, and she watched him process the information. “Oh. Well. Unusual circumstances make for a good story, anyway.”
    “We’re not just a ‘story,’” she said, bridling.
    “I get that,” he said. “But I still don’t see why it’s a problem for you. Nothing you’ve told me is going to reflect badly on you. Or your grandfather. Your dad...maybe.”
    The tension she’d been holding inside unspooled just a little. Sometimes, when people heard about the unorthodox situation, they acted as if Tess and Isabel were somehow defective, having a rogue of a father who’d been careless enough to get two women pregnant, and then get himself killed in a mysterious car wreck.
    Mac studied Erik’s name, carved on the headstone, with a phrase:
    Erik Karl Johansen, beloved son. Measure his life not by its length but by the depth of the joy he brought us. He jumped into life and never touched bottom. We will never laugh the same again.
    “Our father was a bit of a rogue,” Isabel said. “More than a bit. Sometimes I wonder what he might say in his defense. ‘He jumped into life and never touched bottom,’” she read from the headstone. “I once asked Grandfather what he meant by that, but all he ever said was that Erik had a huge appetite for life.”
    “He gave the world two daughters. I can’t imagine your grandfather would have any regrets about you and Tess. And after all this time, the fact that your dad was banging two women doesn’t seem like much of an issue.”
    Had he really said banging? How very refined of him. “Has Tess told you anything else about Erik?”
    “Nope. Something tells me your sister is preoccupied with other things these days.”
    “The wedding. I love that she’s having so much fun with it.”
    “I never took her for the marrying type.”
    “Really?”
    “She was such a go-getter. Always seemed married to her career.”
    “That was what she was like when I first met her, too,” Isabel agreed. “Now she’s going to be a wife and a stepmother, and probably a mother one day. I suppose it just goes to show you—love can