Clay Bennett is 57, retired TVA lineman, 32 years climbing 80-foot poles in thunder and ice, left with a bad left knee and a scar snaking up his right wrist from a 2018 line fire that put him in the ER for three days. He’s stubborn to a fault, still holds a year-long grudge against the local library board for pulling his late father’s pulp westerns from the annual summer book sale, calling them “too violent for family audiences.” Widowed four years now, he spends most days fixing up a 1978 Ford F-150 in his garage and drinking PBR at The Rusty Spur every Friday, telling anyone who’ll listen the library is run by out-of-touch busybodies who don’t care about local history.
She was 48, Mara Hale, the new library director the board had hired six months prior, the one he’d heard was undoing a lot of the old board’s stupid rules. She was wearing a faded Johnny Cash tee that hung loose off one shoulder, high-waisted denim shorts, scuffed brown cowboy boots, a tattoo of an open book curled around her left wrist. Her dark hair was pulled back in a braid streaked with strands of silver, and she was laughing so hard at a kid who’d dropped a stack of Dr. Seuss books that her eyes crinkled shut. She looked up, caught him staring, and held eye contact for three full seconds, a tiny, knowing smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth, before she knelt to help the kid pick up the books.
Clay felt his jaw tighten. He’d spent a year badmouthing every single person associated with that library, and here he was, staring like a teenager at a cheerleader. He told himself he was just curious to see if the ban was really lifted, that was all. He finished his beer, wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, and crossed the field, his bad knee creaking with every step.
He scanned the table of used books, and there it was: *Rider’s Revenge*, his dad’s 1987 debut, the exact book they’d pulled last year. He reached for it at the same time she did. Their hands brushed, his calloused, scarred from decades of gripping wire and wrenches, hers softer, a smudge of blue ink on her thumb, a tiny chip in the polish on her index finger. He flinched like he’d touched a live wire, and she laughed, low and warm, leaning in close enough he could smell lavender shampoo and a faint whiff of menthol cigarette on her breath, over the distant smell of funnel cake.
“Looking for this?” she said, picking up the book and holding it out to him. She was so close her shoulder brushed his, the thin cotton of her tee warm against his flannel. “I tracked down 12 copies of this and the other three books your dad wrote. Knew he was a local, heard his son was still around, been wanting to meet you.”
The conflict hit him square in the chest: part of him wanted to turn and walk away, stand by the grudge he’d nursed for a year, not let some pretty new director make him look like a fool for being angry. The other part of him couldn’t remember the last time anyone had bothered to learn anything about him, or his dad, without him having to bring it up first. He didn’t say anything for a long minute, just stared at the book in her hand, then at her hazel eyes, flecked with gold, crinkled at the corners like she was waiting for him to run.
The band started playing *Folsom Prison Blues*, loud and rough, and she grabbed his wrist, her thumb brushing the scar on his right arm, and tugged him toward the dance area. “C’mon,” she said, grinning. “I know you linemen can dance. I’ve seen the videos from the union Christmas parties.”
He protested at first, said he hadn’t danced since his wife’s funeral, that his knee hurt, that he was too old for that nonsense. But she tugged harder, and he followed, tripping a little over a loose patch of grass, and suddenly they were in the middle of the crowd, swaying to the beat, her hand on his shoulder, his hand hovering awkwardly over her waist for a full minute before he let it rest there. Their hips bumped when they shifted, and she laughed, leaning in so her mouth was close to his ear, he could feel her warm breath against his neck. “You don’t have to be mad anymore, Clay,” she said. “I fixed the ban. All his books are in the local history section now, with a plaque with his name on it.”
The fireworks went off right then, bright bursts of red and blue lighting up the sky, painting streaks of color across her face. He pulled her a little closer, no longer caring if anyone he knew saw them, no longer caring about the grudge he’d carried for a year, no longer caring that he’d spent four years telling himself he’d never be interested in anyone ever again.
They danced through two more songs, her hand tangled in his, his arm wrapped tight around her waist, until the band took a break and the crowd thinned out. She nodded toward the oak tree at the edge of the fairground, where a beat-up silver Tacoma was parked. “I got a cooler of hazy IPA in the back,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “And a first edition of your dad’s book in the passenger seat. Wanna come check it out?”
Clay nodded, tucking the copy of *Rider’s Revenge* he’d grabbed earlier under his arm, and let her lead him through the crowd, her hand still laced in his. The distant noise of the festival faded behind them, the smell of cut grass and burnt fireworks hanging thick in the warm summer air. He squeezed her hand a little tighter as they stepped off the festival pavement onto the soft dirt path leading to the tree.
