Elias Voss, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, hauled the last of six custom picnic tables across the farmers market asphalt at 7 a.m., the sun just peeking over the oak trees lining the lot. His Carhartt jacket sleeves were rolled to the elbows, exposing the pale silvery scar snaking up his left forearm from a table saw slip eight years prior, and his work boots were caked with enough pine sawdust to seed a small garden. He’d spent three weeks building the tables, adding extra cross braces at the market coordinator’s last-minute request, and his lower back ached so bad he’d popped two ibuprofen before leaving his cabin 20 minutes outside town. For 12 years, since his ex-wife Karen had left him for his childhood best friend, he’d filled every spare minute with woodworking, yard work, odd jobs for neighbors, anything to keep his mind off the fact that he’d eaten most dinners alone, spent most holidays watching old Westerns on his couch, and refused to so much as have a cup of coffee with any woman who even remotely reminded him of Karen.
He turned too fast to set the last table top down, and his boot caught the edge of a stack of burlap sacks stacked by the new apothecary booth at the end of the row. Dried lavender, chamomile, and lemon balm spilled across the blacktop, purple petals sticking to the laces of his boots. A woman stepped out from behind the booth, dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a messy braid, wearing paint-splattered overalls and a faded 1977 Fleetwood Mac tour t-shirt, her bare arms dotted with freckles and a few small bee stings still pink at the edges. She didn’t yell, just laughed, low and warm, the sound cutting through the quiet hum of vendors setting up their stalls. “Whoa, easy there. I was gonna sell that lavender to every stressed-out soccer mom in town by 10 a.m. Now I’m gonna have to pick petals out of the cracks for 20 minutes.”
Elias flushed, already bending down to scoop up the handfuls of herb sprigs. “My bad. I’ll cover the cost of whatever’s ruined.” He glanced up at her name tag, pinned to the strap of her overalls, and his jaw went tight. Mara Hale. Hale was Karen’s maiden name. He’d sworn 12 years prior he’d never speak to anyone from that family again, that every last one of them had taken Karen’s side and called him difficult, unfeeling, too stuck in his ways to be worth staying for. He started to stand, ready to drop the armful of lavender and walk back to his truck, no apology, no explanation, when she sat back on her heels and tilted her head, holding his gaze two beats longer than casual politeness dictated. “You’re Elias, right? Karen mentioned you once or twice at family reunions. Said you could build a house out of scrap lumber if you wanted, but you held a grudge longer than a white oak takes to grow.”
He froze, the lavender sprigs soft against his calloused palms. She didn’t sound angry, or defensive, just amused. “I know what happened, by the way. She cheated on you with your best friend, lied about it for six months, then took the truck and the dog and left you with the cabin. That was garbage. I’m not her.” Elias stared at her, shocked. He’d never told anyone the full story, not even his younger brother. He’d let everyone assume the split was mutual, that they’d just grown apart. He didn’t realize his jaw was hanging open until she grinned, and the faint crinkles at the corners of her eyes deepened.
They finished picking up the herbs in silence, their shoulders pressed together for 10 slow seconds when they both reached for the same bundle of chamomile, and Elias could smell cedar and beeswax and lavender on her skin, hear the faint jingle of a tiny silver bee charm on the bracelet around her wrist. When they were done, she reached into the cooler behind her booth and handed him a cold root beer, their fingers brushing when he took it, the cold of the can seeping into his skin. She leaned against the leg of the new picnic table he’d just built, rolled up the cuff of her overall leg to show him a thin silvery scar snaking up her calf, identical in shape to the one on his forearm. “Tried to cut a bee hive stand last summer without wearing my safety glasses. Slipped. Figured you’d know what that kind of stupid feels like.”
Before he could think better of it, he reached out, his fingers hovering an inch above the scar, and she took his wrist, pressed his palm lightly to the warm skin of her calf. The callus on her thumb rubbed the edge of his scar for half a second, and he didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, didn’t even think about Karen for the first time in 12 years. The first customers started trickling into the market, a group of kids chasing a golden retriever darted past, and the smell of fresh strawberry jam from the next booth drifted over them, but Elias could only hear the slow, even sound of her breathing, feel the heat of her skin under his hand.
He stayed for an hour after the market opened, helped her carry three heavy crates of honey jars from her car to the booth, and she handed him a small glass jar of lip balm scented with cedar and beeswax when he turned to leave. “For when you’re out working in the wind this summer. Your lips look chapped.” He tucked it into the breast pocket of his Carhartt jacket, told her he had a slab of hard maple in his workshop he’d been saving for something special, that he’d bring her a custom honey dipper he’d carve just for her next Saturday. She nodded, leaning against the booth, and held his gaze again, that same small grin on her face.
He walked to his beat-up Ford F-150, pulled the jar of lip balm out of his pocket halfway there, twisted off the cap, and breathed in the scent of cedar and honey and her. He got in the truck, turned the key, and the old radio flickered to life, playing a Fleetwood Mac song he hadn’t heard since he was 22. He backed out of the parking spot, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt, and turned toward the cabin, already mapping the grain of the hard maple he’d use for her honey dipper.
