Ray Hargrove, 53, has run his small apiary outside Athens, Georgia, for 12 years, selling wildflower and tupelo honey at the downtown Saturday farmers market every week rain or shine. His biggest flaw, if you ask the few people he lets close, is that he’s stubbornly shut down any hint of romance or casual connection since his wife Mia left him 8 years prior, calling any interest in physical or emotional intimacy at his age “juvenile nonsense” he doesn’t have time for. He’s got a scar running up his right forearm from a run-in with a skunk that tried to knock over a hive last winter, and he always wears the same beat-up straw cowboy hat, faded at the brim from years of sun.
It was 9 a.m. on a mid-May Saturday, humidity thick enough to drink, sweat beading on his forearms as he restocked quart jars of honey on his folding table. He was picking at a fresh bee sting on his left wrist when he saw Clara trip over the dented cooler he kept iced tea in at the edge of his booth. She was carrying a stack of heavy linen tablecloths for her vintage textile booth two spots over, and she would’ve face-planted straight into a stack of his honey jars if he hadn’t lunged forward, catching her around the waist with one arm to steady her.
Her linen button-down was thin, worn soft from years of use, and he could feel the warm curve of her hip through the fabric before he registered who she was. She smelled like lavender laundry soap and peppermint gum, sun-bleached auburn strands sticking to the sweat on her neck, and when she looked up at him, grinning like she’d just pulled a prank, he recognized her immediately. She was Mia’s younger cousin, the one who’d been 19 and reckless with a nose ring at their wedding 15 years prior, the one the whole family always called “off-limits” for any man with half a brain.
He dropped his arm fast, flustered, wiping his palm on the leg of his work jeans like he’d touched something hot. He mumbled an apology, turning back to stacking jars, but she didn’t leave. She leaned against the edge of his booth, picking up a small jar of wildflower honey to twist it in the sun, asking how his hives had fared over the mild winter. He gave short, gruff answers at first, fighting the urge to stare at her mouth when she twisted off the lid to take a sample, licking the honey off her thumb slow, like she was savoring it, saying it was sweeter than any she’d ever bought at the market before.
The voice in his head screamed the whole time she hung around. This is a bad idea. She’s ex-family, the whole town will talk, Mia will lose her mind. But he couldn’t stop noticing the little things: the way she leaned in close when he talked about how the tupelo bloom only lasts two weeks a year, her shoulder brushing his so he could smell that peppermint again, the way she laughed rough and warm, like she snuck a cigarette every now and then when no one was looking. She brought him an iced coffee mid-morning, their fingers brushing when he took it from her, the cold of the cup seeping into his skin, and she mentioned the patch of white clover growing wild in the backyard of the old farmhouse she’d just moved into down the road from his apiary, said it would be perfect for his hives if he wanted to bring a few over sometime.
By 2 p.m., when the market was supposed to close, dark storm clouds rolled in fast, thunder rumbling so loud it shook the metal poles of the booth tents. The rain hit hard, fast, drenching everything in 10 seconds flat, everyone scrambling to pack up their stock before it got ruined. Ray looked over and saw Clara’s tent collapse, the metal poles bending under the weight of the rain, her stack of vintage linens about to get soaked through. He ran over without thinking, grabbing armfuls of fabric with her, hauling them under the overhang of the adjacent coffee shop to keep them dry.
They were both soaked to the bone, Clara shivering so hard her teeth were chattering, and he pulled his dry denim jacket off the back of his folding chair, wrapping it around her shoulders. She leaned into him immediately, her shoulder pressed to his chest, so he could feel the heat of her through their wet clothes, and she looked up at him, her eyes dark, rain dripping off the end of her nose. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was 19, you know,” she said, quiet enough that only he could hear it over the rain hammering the awning. “Mia always said you were too boring, too obsessed with your bees to be any fun. I always thought she was an idiot.”
He froze for half a second, that old stubborn voice in his head screaming about gossip, about how he’d sworn off all this mess, about how he was too old to be making stupid mistakes with ex-family. But then he smelled that lavender and peppermint, remembered the weight of her waist under his hand that morning, the way she’d listened when he rambled about bee migration patterns like it was the most interesting thing she’d ever heard, and he leaned down and kissed her. It was slow, no messy fumbling, she tasted like iced coffee and peppermint, her hand coming up to cup the back of his neck, her cold rain-soaked fingers sending a shiver down his spine.
A few of the regular market vendors who’d taken shelter under the next awning whooped and hollered, and Ray pulled away just enough to flip them off, grinning. Clara laughed, tucking a wet strand of hair behind her ear, saying she had a bottle of good bourbon back at her place, and a pile of dry blankets on her couch. He nodded, not even thinking about the half-packed honey jars sitting by his booth, or the angry text he’d probably get from Mia by tomorrow morning, or the gossip that would spread through the small town by the end of the weekend. He laced his fingers through hers, his calloused beekeeper’s hands rough against her soft textile-worker palms, and waited for the rain to slow down enough to walk to their trucks.
