Moe Rinaldi, 62, has run a custom leather shop out of a converted hay barn outside Burns, Oregon, for 12 years, after three decades working as a range hand for the biggest cattle outfit in Harney County. His knuckles are crisscrossed with thin scars from skiving knives and rogue barbed wire, his Stetson is faded to the color of old sand, and he’s spent the last 8 years turning down every invitation that didn’t involve his 16-year-old granddaughter’s 4H events or a rush order for a hunting holster. His wife Carol died in 2015, and he’d decided early on that dating at his age was for fools, that even looking twice at another woman felt like crossing a line he’d drawn in wet concrete the day they lowered her casket.
His granddaughter all but shoves him out of her jam booth at the annual Harney County Harvest Festival that Saturday, annoyed that he’s scaring off customers with his perpetual scowl. He grumbles, shoves his hands in the pockets of his oil-stained Carhartts, and heads for the cider stand, deliberately avoiding the weathered wooden dance pavilion where he and Carol won the two-step contest three years running. The air smells like crushed sage, fried dough, and the sharp, sweet tang of ripe huckleberries, and he’s halfway to the cider line when a whiff of wild clover and ground cinnamon stops him cold.
The booth at the end of the row is stacked with glass jars of honey, hand-labeled in loopy cursive. The woman behind it is 58 if he had to guess, auburn hair streaked with silver pulled back in a frayed bandana, flannel shirt tied around her waist, mud caked on the toes of her scuffed work boots. She’s laughing at a toddler who’s got honey smeared across his cheek, and the corners of her eyes crinkle so deep he can see the faint sunspots across her cheekbones even from 10 feet away. He’s never seen her before, figures she’s one of the new transplants who’ve been moving up from California and Tennessee the last few years, drawn by the cheap land and wide, quiet skies.
He steps up to the booth, mumbles a request for a jar of the blackberry-infused honey Carol used to slather on her sourdough toast every morning. She nods, reaches for a jar on the top shelf, and when she passes it to him, their hands brush. His rough calluses catch on a thin, raised scar across her left knuckle, and she freezes for half a second, holding eye contact longer than casual interaction calls for, no flicker of awkwardness, just a slow, warm smile that makes the back of his neck feel hot. He fumbles for his wallet, drops a $20 on the counter, and hurries off before he can say anything stupid, the jar heavy in his jacket pocket.
He makes it all the way back to his granddaughter’s booth before he realizes he forgot to get change. He debates ignoring it, going back to leaning against the wooden post and glowering at teen boys who linger too long by his granddaughter’s jam display, but he can’t stop replaying the way her hand felt against his, the faint scent of lavender and beeswax that clung to her shirt. He sighs, tells his granddaughter he’ll be right back, and trundles off to the honey booth again.
She’s wiping down the counter when he gets there, and she grins when she sees him, holding up the $12 in change she’d set aside. “Figured you’d be back,” she says, and her voice has a soft Southern lilt, Memphis, he guesses. “Most folks round here don’t walk off without their change unless they’re flustered or half drunk, and you don’t smell like cheap beer.” He snorts, takes the change, and nods at the jar of bright red honey on the counter marked “chili infused, for folks who don’t hate fun.” “You gonna tell me I can’t handle that?” he says, half teasing. She laughs, grabs a popsicle stick, dips it in the jar, and holds it out to him. Their fingers brush again when he takes it, and this time he doesn’t flinch.
He tastes the honey, sharp with cayenne and sweet with clover, doesn’t make a face, and she nods, impressed. They talk for 20 minutes, her leaning against the counter, him propped against the wooden post next to the booth, close enough he can smell the honey on her breath when she talks. She says her name is Lila, she moved up from Memphis two years prior, runs a 40-hive apiary out of a small plot south of town, fixes up old bee boxes in her spare time. He mentions he makes custom leather straps, says they hold up way better than the frayed nylon ones she’s been using to secure her box lids, that he can tool them to fit the odd sizes of the vintage boxes she restores. He mentions Carol, offhand, says she used to buy blackberry honey from a local beekeeper every fall, and Lila doesn’t push for details, just nods, says her ex husband left her for a 28-year-old dental hygienist 10 years prior, that she moved up here to get away from the small-town gossip that followed the split.
The band on the pavilion starts playing “Folsom Prison Blues” then, the same song Carol always requested when they danced. He hesitates, then wipes his palms on his jeans, holds out his hand. Lila blinks, surprised, then wipes her own hands on her worn denim, takes his hand, and steps out from behind the booth. They dance slow, not the fast two-step he used to do with Carol, just a gentle sway, close enough he can feel the heat off her shoulder, her hand light on his bicep, their laced hands brushing his hip every time they shift. The sharp, heavy guilt he’d been bracing for never hits. All he feels is warm, the kind of soft, settled warmth he hasn’t felt since the last time Carol sat next to him on the porch, drinking iced tea and watching the sun set over the sagebrush.
The song ends, and they don’t let go of each other’s hands for three full beats, the noise of the festival fading out for half a second. Lila tilts her head up, grins, and asks him if he wants to come out to her apiary next Saturday, try fresh honeycomb straight from the hive, if he brings that prototype leather strap he mentioned. He nods, doesn’t even hesitate, and tucks the slip of paper she scribbles her address on into the inner pocket of his jacket, right next to the folded polaroid of Carol he’s carried since their first date.
He walks back to his granddaughter’s booth, the jar of blackberry honey still heavy in his outer pocket, and ignores her playful raised eyebrow when she spots the faint, uncharacteristic smile on his face. He leans against the post next to her booth, crosses his ankles, and watches a group of kids chase each other with cotton candy, already mentally mapping out the leather scraps he’ll use for the bee box straps when he gets back to his shop that night.
