Rafe Mendez, 62, retired DFW air traffic controller, had driven two hours to the Hill Country chili cookoff only to be stuck next to the last person on earth he wanted to see. He’d spent 40 years writing off Elara Voss as his late wife Linda’s chaotic teen cousin, the one who’d spilled fruit punch down the front of his wedding tux and cackled instead of apologizing. He’d avoided every family reunion she’d attended since Linda passed eight years prior, too stubborn to let go of the grudge, too scared of any reminder that life kept moving when his had stopped cold.
The October sun hung low and golden, air thick with the smell of mesquite smoke and cumin, sweat sticking the collar of his plaid flannel to the back of his neck. He was hoisting his 12-quart cast iron pot onto the propane burner when her elbow brushed his bicep, rough with a callus he didn’t expect, and he jerked back like he’d touched a hot stove. She was grinning, silver streaks cutting through her dark curly hair pulled back with a faded red bandana, wearing a Willie Nelson tee that had a hole at the elbow, work boots caked in mud. “You still make that face when you’re mad,” she said, her voice rough like she smoked a pack of menthols a day, and he realized he was scowling.
He meant to snap a retort, but she was already leaning past him to grab a stack of paper bowls from the table behind his setup, her shoulder pressing into his chest for half a second, and he caught the scent of jasmine mixed with beeswax, sharp and sweet, and his throat went dry. She ran the honey booth every year, she explained, selling jars of wildflower honey from her hives outside Fredericksburg, half the proceeds going to a bee conservation program for local foster kids. Rafe nodded, half listening, staring at the scar along her left wrist, a thin pale line he’d never noticed before, from when she’d fallen off a horse at Linda’s 30th birthday party, he remembered suddenly.
She asked to try a bite of his chili, and he handed her a spoon, ready to gloat when she said it was perfect, like everyone else who’d tasted it so far. She took a bite, smacked her lips, and shook her head. “Needs something sweet to cut the heat,” she said, and before he could argue, she’d unscrewed a small jar of honey, drizzled a thin line across the top of the bowl, and stirred it in. He was furious, ready to tell her to get away from his booth, until he took a bite. The honey cut the sharpness of the cayenne, brought out the depth of the slow-smoked brisket, left a warm aftertaste that lingered on his tongue. He stared at her, stunned. “Told you,” she said, winking, and he felt his face heat up, like he was 22 again, fumbling through his wedding vows.
They sat on folding chairs behind the booths as the crowd milled around, her knee brushing his every time someone walked past and she leaned over to wave. She told him she’d been a widow for three years, her husband a ranch hand who’d died in a roping accident, that she’d taken over his hives after he passed, that she’d thought of him dozens of times over the years, wondered how he was doing after Linda died. Rafe told her about the grandkids, the model B-52 he was building in his garage, how he’d not so much as had coffee with another woman since the funeral, convinced it was a betrayal. She didn’t judge him, just nodded, her eyes fixed on his, hazel flecked with gold, no look away, no awkward fidgeting.
When the judges announced he’d won first place, she yelled so loud the people two booths over turned to look, and she threw her arms around him, her chest pressing tight to his, her hair tickling his jaw. “I knew that honey would put it over the top,” she whispered in his ear, her breath warm against his neck, and he felt that sharp pull between guilt and want, the voice in his head saying she’s family, she’s off limits, fighting the part of him that hadn’t felt alive in almost a decade. He pulled back just far enough to brush a stray bee hair off her cheek, his thumb brushing her skin, soft and warm, and he said, “I was an idiot to avoid you all these years.”
She smiled, and handed him a quart jar of honey, a sticky neon pink post-it note stuck to the side with her phone number scrawled on it in blue ink. “Don’t wait 40 more years to use it,” she said, and he tucked it into the inside pocket of his flannel, right over his heart. He walked her to her beat up Ford pickup, leaned against the door frame while she turned the key, the engine sputtering to life. She waved as she pulled out of the parking lot, and he stood there until the taillights disappeared over the hill, then pulled out his phone, typed out a text asking if she wanted to get breakfast at the diner down the road the next morning, and hit send before he could talk himself out of it.
