Moe Peralta, 61, owns a custom cowboy boot repair shop off Main Street in Burnet, Texas, has not asked a woman out in eight years, four months, and 11 days. He counts when he’s bored patching cracked leather soles. His flaw is a stubborn, self-imposed cynicism he picked up the day his ex-wife packed her bags for a cruise ship blackjack dealer she’d known 72 hours, and he’s spent every year since convincing himself romantic connection is just a fancy word for inevitable disappointment. The only time he leaves his shop for fun is the monthly Hill Country chili cookoff, where he’s placed third two years running, and has spent three months perfecting a brisket chili with smoked paprika and a splash of Shiner Bock he swears will take first this round.
The late October air smells like mesquite smoke and roasted peppers when he sets up his booth at 4 p.m., next to the Master Gardeners’ table stacked with seed packets and jarred pickled okra. He’s wiping down his serving spoon when the woman manning the garden booth leans across the gap between their tables to grab a stray napkin blown off his stack, her hip brushing his elbow soft enough he almost misses it, until he catches the scent of lavender lotion mixed with the sharp, warm smell of her apple cider seltzer. She looks up, holds eye contact for two beats longer than polite, a crinkle at the corner of her hazel eyes and a tiny gap between her two front teeth when she smiles, and he freezes mid-wipe, the kind of jolt in his chest he hasn’t felt since he was 17 and his high school sweetheart snuck into the back of his pickup at the drive-in.
He doesn’t say anything first, just nods and goes back to stirring his chili, but he keeps catching her looking over out of the corner of his eye, every time he hands out a sample, every time he laughs at a joke from the sheriff manning the booth next to him. An hour later she wanders over, holding a paper sample cup out, wearing a faded Willie Nelson flannel and work boots caked in mud from the community garden she tends three days a week. He hands her the cup, their fingers brushing for half a second, and he feels that tingle run up his forearm straight to the base of his skull, like he’s touched a live wire he didn’t see coming. She takes a sip, hums, teases him that he put a hair too much cumin in the batch, and he fires back that her pickled okra is so vinegary it could strip paint off a fence, and she laughs so hard she snorts, covering her mouth like she’s embarrassed by it.
He finds out her name is Clara, 57, the new county extension agent, moved to town three months prior after a 22 year marriage ended when her ex left her for his 28 year old dental hygienist. She hates small town gossip, loves hiking Inks Lake trails, and has been trying to track down someone to repair her late father’s old cowboy boots, cracked toe cap and all, which she’s been too nervous to hand off to a stranger. He almost offers to fix it for free, but bites his tongue, still fighting that voice in his head saying he’s setting himself up to get burned, that any minute she’ll laugh and walk away and he’ll feel stupid for even caring.
The downpour hits without warning, fat cold Texas raindrops slamming into the pavement so hard they kick up dust that smells like wet dirt and asphalt. Everyone scrambles to pack up, people yelling, kids screaming as they run for cover. Clara grabs armfuls of seed packets, the rain soaking through the back of her flannel before she can stow them in a plastic bin, and Moe doesn’t think before he reaches out, wraps his calloused hand around her wrist, tugs her under his pop-up canopy. They’re standing so close their chests almost brush, the rain hammering the canopy so loud they have to lean in to hear each other, and he can feel heat radiating off her even through their wet shirts, her hair stuck to the side of her neck in a way that makes his throat go dry.
She leans in so her mouth is almost touching his ear, says she’d been working up the nerve to ask him out all night, but she thought he was avoiding her on purpose. He snorts, surprised, admits he was, that he’s spent the better part of a decade convinced he’s too old for that kind of foolishness, that he didn’t want to get his heart broken again. She pulls back, looks him dead in the eye, grins, says foolishness tastes a hell of a lot better than sitting alone eating microwave dinners every night, even if it comes with a little extra cumin.
The rain slows to a drizzle 10 minutes later, and they pack up his booth together, her handing him bungee cords while he ties the tarp over his chili pot. She mentions her truck is parked two blocks over by the hardware store, and he offers to drive her, his voice coming out rougher than he means it to. She links her arm through his when they walk through the puddles, her shoulder pressed to his, her boots splashing water onto his jeans. He opens the passenger door of his beat up 2008 F150 for her, and before she climbs in, she leans in, kisses him quick on the corner of his mouth, tasting like root beer and cinnamon gum, her hand resting light on his chest for half a second.
He climbs into the driver’s seat, turns the key, and the radio kicks on to an old George Strait track he hasn’t heard in years, and she turns up the volume, tapping her mud-caked boot on the floorboard, grinning at him like she’s known him for years instead of three hours.
