Elio Marquez, 54, third-generation beekeeper with a scar snaking up his left forearm from a 2021 yellow jacket swarm and a grudge he’d nursed for 12 straight years, had agreed to set up a booth at the Ashe County Harvest Fair only after his best friend threatened to dump a five-gallon bucket of buckwheat honey on his pickup’s custom leather seats. He’d avoided the fair for a full decade and a half for one very specific reason: his ex-wife’s second husband, the slimy real estate developer who’d tried to bulldoze his 80-acre apiary to put in a luxury RV park. It had taken two years of court battles to keep his land, and Elio had spent every year since holed up with his hives, turning down every social invite that didn’t directly involve selling honey to farmers market regulars he’d known since he was a kid.
The sun had dipped below the Blue Ridge ridgeline by 7 p.m., the fair’s string lights glowing honey-gold against the darkening pines, and Elio was stacking half-empty jars of wildflower and sourwood honey into his plastic storage bins when a shadow fell across his table. He looked up. The woman leaning against the edge of the folding table was trouble in faded Carhartt overalls and scuffed work boots, a silver wolf pendant around her neck, her dark hair streaked with gray pulled back in a messy braid. He recognized her immediately: Clara Voss, his ex’s second husband’s younger sister. The first thought that popped into his head was get the hell away from my booth. The second was that she smelled like cedar smoke and spiced pear cider, and he hadn’t been this close to a woman who didn’t want to yell at him about a delayed honey order in longer than he cared to admit.
She reached across the table for a jar of tupelo honey, her forearm brushing his, the callus on her wrist rough against his skin, and he flinched like he’d been stung. “Relax,” she said, her voice low, rough around the edges, like she spent half her days yelling over wind through pine trees. “I’m not here to defend my brother. I testified against him in that zoning hearing, if you didn’t know. Sent you that anonymous tip about the protected bumblebee habitat on your south ridge, too. Knew he was cutting corners to push that RV park through, and I didn’t want to see him ruin land that’s been in your family longer than mine’s been in the state.” Elio froze. He’d wondered for years who’d sent that manila envelope full of habitat surveys, the evidence that had won him the case outright. He’d never guessed it came from the Voss family.
He watched her pull a crumpled 20 out of her overalls pocket, and when their fingers brushed as he handed her change, he felt a jolt go up his arm, warm, unexpected, the kind of spark he’d written off as something only stupid kids felt at county fairs. The distant creak of the ferris wheel mixed with the last of the kids’ laughter from the cotton candy stand, and she leaned in a little closer, her elbow resting on the table, eye contact steady, no apology in her face, no awkwardness, like she’d been thinking about this conversation as long as he’d been avoiding the fair. “You got any of that sourwood honey you only sell to people you like?” she asked, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and Elio found himself laughing, a rough, rusty sound he didn’t recognize coming out of his own chest.
He hesitated for two full seconds, his brain warring between the anger he’d carried for 12 years, the urge to tell her to go to hell just for sharing a last name with the man who’d almost ruined his life, and the quiet, hungry part of him that was tired of eating dinner alone on his porch every night, tired of talking only to his bees and his border collie. He grabbed the small, unlabeled jar of sourwood he kept stashed under the table for his favorite regulars, slid it across the table to her, no charge. “You got time to walk around after I’m done packing?” he asked, before he could talk himself out of it. She nodded, popping the lid off the tupelo jar and dipping a finger in, licking the honey off slow, and Elio had to look away for a second to catch his breath.
They walked the emptying fairgrounds side by side, their shoulders brushing every few steps, stopping to split a fried apple pie dusted with cinnamon, the crust crumbing onto Elio’s flannel shirt. She told him she worked as a forest ranger for the National Park Service, spent half her year patrolling the Appalachian Trail, had been coming to the fair every year just to see if he’d finally show up. He told her about the new hive he’d set up that spring, about the time his border collie had gotten stung 17 times and still tried to chase a bear off the property. When they stopped at the edge of the ferris wheel line, she leaned in to point out a red fox trotting across the far edge of the fairgrounds, her hair brushing his cheek, and he could smell the honey on her breath, sweet, warm, when she turned to look at him, her face so close their noses almost touched.
They sat down on a splintered wooden bench by the petting zoo, the goats bleating softly behind them, and she tucked the small jar of sourwood honey into the inside pocket of her overalls, right over her heart. Then she slid her hand into his, her palm rough from years of hauling trail gear, her fingers fitting between his like they were made to be there. He didn’t overthink it. Didn’t run through the list of reasons this was a bad idea, didn’t linger on the grudge he’d carried for so long it had started to feel like a part of him. He just laced his fingers through hers, squeezed tight, and watched the fox disappear into the trees. He doesn’t think about his ex, or her brother, or the years he spent locked up tight in his apiary, not even when the ferris wheel’s lights cut out for the night and the only glow left is the string of fairy lights wrapped around the nearby goat pen.
