Elias Voss, 52, makes his living restoring vintage camper vans out of a weathered barn 12 miles outside Boise, Idaho. He’s lived alone since his wife left him for a commercial airline pilot eight years prior, and his only consistent social interaction is trading insults with the guys at the local NAPA Auto Parts and arguing with his 16-year-old border collie about who gets the last bite of bacon at breakfast. His biggest flaw is that he’d rather sleep in the back of a half-restored 1987 Winnebago in 30-degree weather than admit he’s lonely, even to himself.
That’s when Mara walked up. He knew who she was, everyone did. She was the new county librarian, 38, fresh off a messy divorce from the town’s high school football coach who’d won three state titles in 10 years. The rumor mill had spent the last three months churning out every salacious story imaginable about why she left him, none of them true, none of them kind. She was wearing cut-off denim shorts, a faded Tom Petty tank top, and scuffed cowboy boots, a smudge of blue ink on the side of her left wrist where she’d jotted down a book title earlier that day. She smelled like lavender hand cream and lemon seltzer, and when she leaned in to get a better look at the custom cedar paneling inside the van, her upper arm brushed his bicep, light as a grasshopper landing on skin.
He froze. He’d spent so long avoiding any kind of physical contact with anyone that wasn’t his dog, the jolt ran all the way from his arm down to the soles of his work boots. She didn’t pull away, just tilted her head up to look at him, her dark eyes holding his longer than polite small talk required. She asked him how long the restoration took, and when he made a dumb joke about the previous owner who’d used the van to smuggle feral cats across state lines, she laughed loud enough that a few people at the nearest picnic table turned to stare.
He knew he should step back. Knew that if anyone saw them talking for more than 10 seconds, the gossip mill would have them engaged by the end of the week, his ex-wife would be leaving passive aggressive notes on his shop door, and he’d have to listen to snide comments from the coach’s buddies at the hardware store for months. The sensible part of his brain screamed at him to make an excuse, pack up, and drive home to his empty barn and his dog and his quiet, drama-free life. But when she reached for his beer can, her fingers brushing his as she took a casual sip, that sensible part of his brain shut right off.
The golden hour sun was dipping low over the foothills when he asked her if she wanted to take the van for a quick test drive up to the overlook above town, just to get away from the noise. He fully expected her to laugh and turn him down. She nodded before he even finished the sentence, hoisting her canvas tote bag over her shoulder and climbing into the passenger seat before he could second guess the offer. The dirt road up to the overlook was bumpy, the van’s old engine rattling softly, and she rolled the window all the way down, letting the warm pine-scented wind blow her wavy brown hair into his face. He didn’t brush it away.
He pulled over at the top, the valley spread out below them, streaks of orange and pink bleeding across the sky. They sat on the van’s fold-out bench seat by the open back door, not talking, just watching the sun sink lower. She leaned her shoulder against his, the thin fabric of her tank top warm against his skin, and he didn’t pull away. For the first time in eight years, he didn’t care what anyone thought. He didn’t care about the gossip, or the snide comments, or the quiet routine he’d built for himself that he’d thought was enough.
He drove her back to her tiny blue cottage on the edge of town as fireflies started blinking in the ditches along the road. She asked him if he wanted to come in for coffee, and he didn’t even hesitate, even though he’d seen three separate neighbors wave at him as they pulled out of the fair parking lot, even though he knew the entire town would be talking about them by breakfast the next morning. He turns off the van’s engine, reaches across the seat to brush a stray pine needle from her hair, and pushes the driver’s side door open.
