Rafe Holloway, 61, retired Pisgah National Forest ranger, wiped pine sap off his calloused palms with a frayed bandana and squinted at the line of storm clouds rolling over the Blue Ridge Mountains. The August air hung thick enough to chew, sharp with the scent of ripe peaches from the fruit stand down the row and fried green tomatoes from the food truck parked at the market entrance. He’d set up his booth of hand-carved walking sticks at 6 that morning, same as every Saturday, and had pointedly avoided making eye contact with Elara Voss for the full four hours since.
He’d carried a petty grudge against Elara for 43 years, ever since she was 15 and ratted him out for sneaking into the town community pool after hours senior year, costing him his starting linebacker spot for the all-state playoff game. He’d seen her for the first time in decades when she moved back to town last year, set up her herbal apothecary booth two spots down from his, and had made a point to nod at every other vendor and regular except her. The grudge was stupid, he knew that somewhere, but it was easier to hold onto than the quiet, unacknowledged crush he’d had on her even back then, when he was dating her older sister and she was just the annoying kid who followed them around on camping trips.
The first gust of wind hit without warning, sending a stack of Elara’s dried lavender bundles flying straight into his booth, knocking over the half-full jar of beeswax finish he used to seal his walking sticks. He cursed under his breath and lunged to catch the jar, his hand colliding with hers mid-reach. She was shorter than he remembered, five foot four to his six two, so when they both bent down to grab the scattered lavender stems, her shoulder pressed firm into his ribs, the scent of jasmine lotion and dried lemon balm wrapping around him before he could step back. Her hair was streaked with silver at the roots now, the same chestnut brown he remembered falling in her face when she’d crashed her bike into a ditch when she was 12, and the tiny scar above her left eyebrow was still there, faint but unmistakable.
He pulled his hand back like he’d been burned, jaw tight. “Watch where you’re throwing your stuff, Voss.”
She winced, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and didn’t move away. The rain hit right then, fat cold drops that started pounding the tin roof of the booth next to them so loud they had to lean in close to hear each other. She grabbed the edge of the heavy vinyl tarp he kept strung above his stock and helped him pull it tight over the walking sticks, her knuckle brushing his wrist when they secured the corner. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for months,” she said, raising her voice over the rain. “I never got to apologize for the pool thing. My dad caught me sneaking back in the house that night, said he’d send me to boarding school in Tennessee if I didn’t tell him who I was with. I panicked. I felt terrible about it for years.”
Rafe froze, the grudge he’d carried for four decades suddenly feeling lighter than a dandelion seed. He’d never asked for her side of the story, had just assumed she’d ratted him out for fun, to get back at him for teasing her about her braces. He looked down at her, her cheeks pink from the wind, her eyes crinkling at the corners when she smiled, and realized he wasn’t mad at all. He’d just been embarrassed, too proud to admit he’d been the one who’d invited her to the pool that night, had snuck her in because she’d said she’d never gotten to swim after dark when the water glowed under the moon.
The rain hammered the tarp above them, muffling the noise of the rest of the market, and they were pressed close enough that he could feel the heat coming off her arm through her thin cotton flannel shirt. She nodded at the faint scar on his left kneecap, peeking out from the rip in his work jeans. “You got that carrying me home after I crashed my bike, right?” she said, soft enough that only he could hear. “I remember you complaining the whole way that I was too heavy. I had a crush on you for, like, three years after that.”
Rafe laughed, a rough, rusty sound he hadn’t pulled out in months, not since his wife passed three years prior. He reached out, before he could think better of it, and brushed his thumb over the scar above her eyebrow. “I still have the scraped palm from catching you when you fell,” he said. “Never told anyone I thought you were the coolest kid in town back then, even when you were following me and your sister around blowing dandelion fluff in our hair.”
She leaned into his touch for half a second, her hand coming to rest on his forearm, warm and calloused from digging in her herb garden, and he felt that same jolt he’d felt when they touched hands earlier, sharp and bright and totally unexpected. He’d spent three years telling himself he was done with anything that even resembled romance, that he was fine living alone in his cabin up the mountain, carving sticks and drinking beer on his porch at sunset. But standing there under the tarp, surrounded by lavender and the smell of rain on pine, he realized he’d been lying to himself.
The rain let up 20 minutes later, the sun breaking through the clouds and painting a faint rainbow over the mountain ridge at the edge of town. She picked up the last of the lavender bundles, tucking one into the breast pocket of his worn work shirt before she stepped back toward her booth. “I make peach cobbler with the peaches from the tree in my backyard,” she said, grinning. “If you bring that beeswax polish over to my place later, I’ll let you have a whole bowl. No strings attached. Unless you want strings.”
Rafe smirked, tapping the lavender in his pocket with one finger. “Only if you dig that old bike of yours out of the garage,” he said. “I want to see if it’s still as rusty as it was in 1980.”
She laughed, waving over her shoulder as she walked away, and Rafe turned back to his booth, picking up the spilled beeswax jar and wiping the sticky liquid off the leg of his jeans, already counting down the two hours until the market closed for the day.
