The last judge to make it to his table is Elara Voss, the new town librarian who moved here from Brooklyn six months prior, the same woman who sent three separate formal letters to the council demanding half the town’s sourwood groves be trimmed back to cut down on pollen that triggers her brutal fall allergies. Mace’s jaw tightens when he sees her, wire-rimmed glasses slipping down her nose, silver streaks threading through the dark brown hair she’s pulled back in a loose braid, her boots scuffed from walking the town’s hiking trails on weekends. She leans in before she says anything, face inches from the jar of his award-winning wild sourwood honey, and he catches a whiff of her perfume: cedar and orange blossom, sharp and warm, nothing like the cloying lavender his wife used to wear. Her forearm brushes his when she reaches for a sample spoon, the fabric of her flannel shirt soft against the sun-warmed hair on his skin, and he freezes for half a second before he remembers to breathe.
“Mace Hargrove, Wild Sourwood Reserve,” she reads off his entry card, her voice low, a little rough from seasonal congestion, and he nods, crosses his arms over his chest. He’s ready to snap at her the second she mentions cutting down the trees, but she dips the spoon in the honey, taps the excess off on the edge of the jar, and pops it in her mouth. Her eyes flutter shut, she hums low in her throat, the kind of sound he hasn’t heard from a woman in close proximity in 8 years, not since his wife got sick. When she opens her eyes again, she’s grinning, and she leans in a little closer, their knees brushing under the edge of the table when she shifts her weight. “I had no idea sourwood honey tasted like that. Like burnt sugar and pear, almost. I was this close to buying a bottle of local honey from the grocery store last week to see if it helped my allergies, but I figured it was all a scam.”
Mace snorts, uncrosses his arms, leans against the table. “Store bought is cut with corn syrup half the time. I make a beeswax balm with nettle and local pollen, works better than any of that over the counter garbage you’re probably snorting. Stops the sniffles in 20 minutes, no drowsiness.”
She tilts her head, smirks, pushes her glasses back up her nose. “Let me guess, you sell those for 18 bucks a tin at your farm stand, and you’re about to offer me a discount if I pull those letters I sent to the council.”
He laughs, loud enough that the couple running the apple butter booth next to him glance over. “Nah, I’ll give you one for free. Only catch is you stop sending those letters. Those sourwood trees are 70 years old, half my hives live in them. I’d be out of business if you got your way.”
The band switches to a slower Patsy Cline cover, the sun dips low enough that golden light filters through the oak trees lining the fairground, and she leans in even closer, so close he can see the faint freckles across her nose, the tiny scar above her left eyebrow from a bike crash when she was a kid, she later tells him. “What if I promised more than that?” she says, her voice low enough only he can hear it, and his chest feels tight, like he’s 17 again, asking his first girlfriend to prom, his hands shaking so bad he dropped the corsage. For a second he feels guilty, sharp and hot in the pit of his stomach, like he’s betraying his wife, like he should turn her down, go home to his hives and his quiet house and the old westerns he watches every Saturday night. But then she smiles, soft, not teasing anymore, and he realizes he hasn’t felt this alive in years, not since the last time his wife laughed so hard she snort-laughed at a bad joke he told over dinner.
They announce the contest winners 20 minutes later, and Mace takes first place, the blue ribbon crinkling in his hand when Elara hands it to him, her fingers lingering on his for three full seconds, warm and calloused from turning book pages all day. She scribbles her phone number on the back of a library receipt, shoves it in the pocket of his flannel shirt, and tells him she’s free after the festival wraps up, she’d love to come see the hives, and try that balm, maybe even a slice of the cornbread he mentioned he bakes every Saturday. He tells her he’ll leave the front gate unlocked, he’ll have a pot of black coffee on, maybe a jar of that sourwood honey to drizzle over the cornbread if she’s sweet enough.
He’s sitting on his front porch an hour later, the blue ribbon pinned to the screen door, the bees already tucked into their hives for the night, when he hears the crunch of tires on his gravel drive. He stands up, brushes cornbread crumbs off his jeans, and looks up to see Elara climbing out of her beat up Subaru, holding a six pack of local IPA in one hand, a stack of old John Wayne DVDs in the other, grinning so bright her eyes crinkle at the corners.
