Rudy Voss, 59, retired high school football coach turned small-scale beekeeper, had planned to drop off his venison chili at the annual Fire Department Cookoff and bolt before anyone could corner him about fixing their fence or setting them up with their sister-in-law. The air smelled like wood smoke, charred meat, and the sharp bite of October frost nipping at the edge of the parking lot, and he’d already pulled his truck keys out of his flannel pocket when the sky opened up. Rain came down hard enough to bounce off the asphalt, turning the dirt path to the parking lot into a muddy stream, and he swore under his breath, shuffling back under the tin awning of the fire station bay.
He wasn’t alone. Clara Bennett, the new county librarian everyone in town had been complaining about for the last three months, was huddled a foot away, holding a stack of water-warped children’s Halloween picture books to her chest, her boots caked in mud. Rudy had avoided her like the flu since she moved from Portland, buying into the gossip that she’d moved south to ban their annual western book sale and yank all the hunting manuals from the teen section. He’d even skipped the last two farmers markets when he heard she was setting up a library pop-up there, too stubborn to ask her if any of the rumors were true.
She shifted her weight, her boot slipping on a puddle of rain that had pooled under the awning, and before she could hit the ground, Rudy’s hand was wrapped around her waist, firm, calloused from 20 years of gripping footballs and lifting beehive frames. Her forearm brushed his silver-flecked beard as she steadied herself, and he caught a whiff of her perfume: pine resin, and a hint of wildflower honey, the exact same scent as the hives behind his house. She laughed, quiet, a little embarrassed, and tucked a strand of rain-soaked auburn hair behind her ear, her eyes locking with his for two full seconds longer than casual small talk required. “Thanks. I swear these boots have zero traction on wet asphalt.”
Rudy grunted, letting his hand fall away from her waist, suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he hadn’t touched a woman who wasn’t his cousin or a grandma selling jams at the market in eight years, not since his wife left him for a solar panel salesman who’d rolled through town in a bright blue Tesla. They stood in silence for a minute, watching the rain pour, before she nodded at the embroidered patch on his flannel, the one that said Voss’s Wild Honey, hand stitched by his niece last Christmas. “I bought a jar of your honey last week. The wild blackberry one. I’ve been putting it in my tea every morning. It’s the best I’ve ever had.”
He blinked, surprised. He’d assumed she only ate kale smoothies and whatever fancy organic stuff people from Portland ate. “You did? I thought all the new folks in town bought the store-bought stuff from the grocery chain.”
She snickered, leaning in a little so he could hear her over the patter of rain on the tin awning, her knee brushing his denim-clad thigh when a gust of wind blew rain under the edge, forcing them both to huddle closer. “Please. The grocery store honey tastes like corn syrup. I asked around, everyone said you had the good stuff. Also, for the record, I’m not trying to ban your stupid western book sale. I just asked if we could add a table of outdoor survival and foraging books for the kids who hunt and hike with their dads. Half the parents around here thought I was coming for their Louis L’Amour collections.”
Rudy barked out a laugh, the tension in his shoulders melting. He’d been a fool to buy into all the gossip, he realized, looking at her: her cheeks pink from the cold, her sweater damp at the cuffs, her eyes crinkling when she smiled. She didn’t seem like the stuck-up liberal everyone had made her out to be. She seemed like the kind of person who’d get a kick out of watching him smoke a hive to harvest honey, who wouldn’t complain about the dirt under his nails or the fact that he still watched old football games on Saturday afternoons.
The rain slowed to a drizzle 10 minutes later, and Rudy offered to drive her home, since her car was parked all the way at the other end of the lot, and her stack of books was already half soaked. Her apartment was above the old general store, the one with the creaky wooden porch and the hanging basket of rust-colored mums by the door, and when they got up the stairs, she invited him in to dry off, holding out a mug of spiced apple cider that smelled like cinnamon and cloves. He hesitated for half a second, his brain screaming that dating anyone in town was a bad idea, that he’d just get his heart broken again, that the gossip mill would run wild if anyone saw him leaving her apartment at 8 PM. Then he looked at her, grinning, leaning against her kitchen counter, and he walked in.
They talked for an hour, sitting on her thrifted leather couch, their knees almost touching, as she told him about growing up camping in the Cascades, and he told her stories about coaching the high school team to their first state championship in 2017. She asked if she could come see his bee hives sometime, said she’d always wanted to learn how to keep bees, and he told her he’d pick her up at 10 AM on Saturday, bring her a free jar of the sourwood honey he’d just harvested. When he stood up to leave, she walked him to the door, and before he could say goodbye, she leaned up, kissed him on the cheek first, then pressed her lips to his, soft, warm, tasting like cider and the peppermint candy she’d been sucking on while they talked. He kissed her back, slow, not caring if any of the neighbors driving by saw them through the front window.
He drove home with his truck heater cranked high, the scent of her pine perfume still clinging to the collar of his flannel. He pulled into his driveway, the bee hives behind his house glowing faint gold in the light of his porch lamp, and he fished his phone out of his pocket to text her to wear old work boots Saturday, the trails leading to the hives were still muddy from the storm.
