Roland Voss, 62, vintage camper restoration specialist, had avoided every small-town community event in Marshall, North Carolina for eight years straight, ever since his wife left him for a guy she’d met on a group whitewater rafting trip. His big flaw: he’d convinced himself every invitation was just a ham-fisted ploy by his neighbors to set him up with some widowed accountant or retired elementary school teacher who thought “fixer upper” only applied to relationships. The only reason he showed up to the fire department chili cookoff that crisp October Saturday was the hand-scrawled note taped to the free ticket left on his porch: Grand prize $200 NAPA Auto Parts gift card. He figured he could eat a bowl of lukewarm chili, slip out before anyone tried to corner him about his love life, and walk away with enough credit to cover the new water pump he needed for the 1972 Airstream he was restoring for a single mom down the road.
He was halfway through his second bowl of extra-spicy beef chili, wiping a smudge of tomato sauce off his stubbled chin with a crumpled napkin, when he turned too fast and bumped shoulder-first into someone half a foot shorter than him. The contact was soft, warm through the thick red flannel shirt she was wearing, and he caught a whiff of pine and cinnamon gum before he mumbled an apology. When he looked down, he froze. Clara Marlow, 58, his ex-wife’s former book club co-leader, the woman he’d caught himself staring at more than once when he’d drop his wife off at meetings back when he was married, was grinning up at him, a streak of orange chili on her left cheek, silver threads catching the sun in her dark braid. She didn’t step back, even though they were standing close enough he could see the faint freckles across her nose he’d never noticed from across a room before.
His first instinct was to mumble another excuse and bolt. He’d avoided her for eight years for a reason: she’d been his ex’s closest friend for a decade, for Christ’s sake, had probably heard every exaggerated complaint about how he “cared more about rusted campers than conversation” a hundred times over. The last thing he needed was to get roped into a lecture about how he should “give love another chance” from someone who’d probably picked a side the second the divorce papers were signed. But she didn’t move, didn’t start in on the usual small town small talk, just held his gaze for three full beats, longer than any casual acquaintance had any right to, and nodded at the half-empty bowl in his hand. “That’s the fire chief’s recipe, right? I put $20 on him to win. Figured if he can put out a cabin fire in 10 minutes in the middle of a rainstorm, he can make a decent pot of chili.”
He found himself leaning against the nearest picnic table, not leaving, as they traded jabs about the terrible bluegrass band playing by the fire station door, the way half the contestants had clearly dumped canned chili into pots and called it homemade, the time his ex had tried to make chili for a book club potluck and forgot to drain the beans, leaving everyone with stomach cramps for three days. Clara laughed so hard at that story she snort-laughed, and when she leaned over to brace her hand on his arm to steady herself, he didn’t flinch. He could feel the calluses on her palm, rough from the pottery she sold at the town farmers’ market, and he had to stop himself from turning his hand over to lace his fingers through hers.
When the crowd roared as the fire chief was announced the winner, Roland didn’t even bother to go up for the raffle drawing. He didn’t care about the gift card anymore. When Clara tilted her head toward the parking lot, he followed her without a second thought, hoisting himself up onto the tailgate of his beat-up 2001 Ford F150 next to her, boots dangling a foot off the gravel. That was when she admitted she’d left the ticket on his porch. She’d quit the book club three years prior, she said, got sick of listening to his ex trash him every single meeting, when she knew for a fact he spent half his weekends restoring old campers for single parents in the town for free, never asking for a dime, never telling anyone about it. “You’re not the grumpy hermit everyone makes you out to be,” she said, so quiet he almost didn’t hear it over the distant sound of the band, and when she lifted her hand to brush the leftover chili smudge off his jaw, her thumb lingered on his skin for two long seconds.
He didn’t overthink it. He told her he had the half-restored Airstream parked behind his shop, had a built-in wood stove and a bottle of 12-year bourbon he’d been saving for no good reason, asked her if she wanted to come over and try it. She nodded before he even finished the sentence, sliding off the tailgate and walking around to the passenger side of his truck without waiting for him to confirm. He pulled the driver’s side door open, glanced over at her already sitting in the seat, twisting her braid around one finger like she was as nervous as he was, and reached across the center console to turn the heater on for the short drive back to his shop.
