He’d just tossed his empty cup in a trash can and wandered over to the snack table when he reached for the last dill pickle in the glass jar at the exact same time as a woman in a loose linen button-down, sun freckles spattered across her forearms, silver streaks threading through the dark braid slung over her shoulder. Their knuckles brushed. The sharp tang of vinegar hit his nose right as he looked up and recognized her.
Ronan pulled his hand back like he’d touched a live wire. Elara’s lips twitched into a smirk, and she plucked the pickle out of the jar, holding it out to him. “Still as quick to run as you were back then, O’Malley?”
He stared. He’d heard she moved to Oregon 12 years ago, married a forest ranger. He grunted, taking the pickle. “Thought you were on the west coast.”
“Came back last fall. My husband passed in a logging accident last spring, and my mom left me her cottage up the shore.” She wiped a splash of pickle brine off her wrist with the hem of her shirt, and he found himself tracking the movement, noticing the faint scar on her wrist from the time she’d fallen off his boat at a lake party back in 2001. “For the record? I never told Karen you skipped the baby shower. She found the gas station receipt from the border crossing in the pocket of your fishing jacket when she was doing laundry. I lied and said I’d talked you into going, because she was already screaming about how you never let yourself have any fun, and I thought it’d make her less mad at you. You never let me explain.”
They talked for the next two hours, leaning against the edge of the picnic table, while the sun dipped lower in the sky, painting the lake pink and tangerine. He told her about his typewriter repair business, the 1956 Underwood he’d just finished fixing for a college student who wrote poetry exclusively on manual machines. She told him about her work as a botanical illustrator, the watercolor series she was doing of native Michigan wildflowers, how she’d spent three days last week crouched in a marsh to paint a rare lady’s slipper orchid. Her shoulder kept brushing his when she laughed, the soft linen warm against his bare arm, and every time she looked up at him, her dark eyes crinkled at the corners, he felt that old grudge melting faster than popsicles in the July heat.
When the band packed up their gear and most of the crowd had wandered home, they took off their shoes and walked along the shoreline, the cool lake water lapping at their ankles, small waves shifting the sand under their feet. Elara tripped over a half-buried piece of driftwood, and he reached out automatically to catch her, his hand curling around her waist, her palm pressing flat against his chest to steady herself. He could feel the fast thud of her heartbeat through his thin cotton t-shirt, and she didn’t step back, just looked up at him, her breath smelling like cherry seltzer and the spearmint gum she’d been chewing all evening. “I always thought you were the sweetest guy on this lake, even when you were being a stubborn jackass who wouldn’t listen to anyone,” she said, quiet enough that only the waves could hear.
He walked her to her cottage 10 minutes later, the screen door creaking when she pushed it open a crack. She tilted her head, gesturing inside. “I’ve got cold brew in the fridge. The good stuff, from that little roaster in town.”
Ronan hesitated for half a second, thinking about the half-finished typewriter sitting on his workbench back home, the stack of repair requests he’d planned to get through that night. He nodded, wiping the last of the lake water off his boots on her welcome mat, already mentally rearranging his schedule for the next day to leave room for whatever came next.
