Raylan Hargrove, 62, retired Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge manager, perched on the scuffed vinyl bar stool at Moe’s Tap House off Highway 84, nursing his third Pabst Blue Ribbon and waiting for his takeout fried catfish order. He’d made the 12-mile drive into town that Tuesday specifically to avoid post-county-fair crowds, but the place was packed anyway, humid with the smell of spilled beer, fried dough, and sweat off 4H kids who’d lingered after the livestock awards. His flannel shirt stuck to his back where the faulty AC didn’t reach, and he was 10 minutes from bailing and driving home to a frozen burrito when she sat down two stools over.
He recognized her instantly: Clara Voss, 58, wife of the county commissioner who’d spent the last six months grandstanding about “family values” on local radio while pushing to drill an exploratory gas well on the edge of the refuge. Raylan had only spoken to her twice before: once when she brought a troop of 4H kids out for a gator nesting tour, and once when she testified at a commission meeting against the drilling, calling her husband’s proposal “a slap in the face to every person who grew up hunting and fishing these wetlands.” He noticed her left hand first, bare where her diamond wedding ring had sat during both of those meetings, and he tensed up, half expecting her husband’s campaign goons, who were playing darts in the corner, to notice her too.
The bartender set a bourbon on the rocks down in front of her, and she nodded, her dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid that slipped over one shoulder. A group of drunk teens jostled her shoulder as they squeezed past to get to the jukebox, and she slid closer to his stool, her denim-clad knee brushing his under the Formica bar. He froze, already mentally mapping the quickest exit to avoid being seen by anyone who’d run their mouth. “Raylan, right?” she said, leaning in so he could hear her over the Johnny Cash track blaring from the speakers, her voice warm, a little rough around the edges like she spent a lot of time laughing. She smelled like jasmine perfume and fresh-cut pine, a sharp, nice contrast to the sour beer stench hanging over the bar.
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and she reached for the bowl of salted peanuts between their stools, her knuckle brushing his as she grabbed a handful. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for that 4H tour last spring. My niece still talks about the baby gator you let her hold. Said it’s the only good thing that’s ever happened to her in this boring town.” He huffed a laugh, surprised. He’d spent 32 years herding school groups through the swamp, and no one had ever followed up to thank him. He was used to people seeing him as the weird swamp hermit who lived alone in a cabin with no cell service, not someone worth talking to.
She told him she’d left her husband three months prior, caught him cheating on her with his 28-year-old campaign manager, hadn’t announced it yet because he’d begged her to wait until after the election, threatened to take the family farm if she spoke up. Raylan felt the familiar twist of disgust in his gut—he’d hated the commissioner for years, hated how he used small-town piety to line his own pockets, and the thought of being caught talking to his estranged wife would mean endless gossip, maybe even retaliation that would put the refuge at risk. But he couldn’t make himself move away. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman looked at him like that, like she actually cared what he thought, not just what he knew about alligator mating habits.
The power flickered once, twice, and someone yelled that a thunderstorm was rolling through, rain lashing so hard against the front windows it blurred the view of the parking lot. She leaned in even closer, her breath warm against the shell of his ear, and he could feel the heat of her shoulder pressed against his. “I parked out back. My truck has a camper shell, I brought the peach pie I baked for the fair that got snubbed for first place by the judge who owes my husband a favor. You wanna split it before the roads flood?”
He hesitated for half a second, thinking about the catfish order sitting behind the bar, about the gossip that would spread faster than wildfire if anyone saw them leave together, about the last 8 years he’d spent alone after his wife passed, eating frozen dinners on his porch while listening to the frogs croak. He left a $20 bill on the bar to cover his beers and the catfish he could pick up tomorrow, nodded, and followed her out the back exit. The rain soaked through his flannel in 10 seconds flat, and he tripped over a cinder block half buried in the gravel, laughing when she grabbed his bicep to steady him, her hand warm even through the wet fabric.
They climbed into the back of the truck, the camper shell blocking most of the rain, and she pulled a foil-wrapped pie out of an insulated cooler, handing him a chipped plastic fork. Rain tapped soft and steady against the metal roof, and he could hear crickets chirping through the cracked back window, the faint sound of the bar’s jukebox drifting across the lot. She took a bite of pie, a smudge of peach filling sticking to her lower lip, and he reached over without thinking, wiping it off with his thumb, her skin soft under the pad of his finger. She tilted her chin up, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiled, and leaned into his touch.
