Elio Ruiz is 62, retired commercial beekeeper, three years widowed, stubborn as the gnarled oak trees lining the dirt road leading to his mountain property outside Asheville. He’d avoided the annual fall harvest festival for two years running, but his neighbor’s 16-year-old kid had begged him to bring a few cases of his wildflower honey to sell, said the crowd would snap it up faster than black bears raiding an unguarded hive. He showed up an hour late, kept his faded plaid flannel sleeves rolled to the elbows, the faint white scar across his left knuckle from a 2018 swarm still visible when he passed jars across the rickety folding table.
He sold out in 45 minutes flat, was leaning against the rough cedar post of the hard cider tent waiting for a pint of spiced draft when he caught the scent first: cinnamon, vanilla, a hint of lavender he’d not smelled since his wife’s funeral. He turned, and Marnie Carter was standing 12 inches away, holding a steamy cup of spiked apple cider, her forest green cashmere sleeve brushing the bare skin of his forearm by accident. She was 58, his late wife’s first cousin, recently divorced after 32 years of marriage to a smarmy corporate lawyer in Charlotte, he’d heard through the small town grapevine. He hadn’t seen her in three years, hadn’t let himself think about her for longer than 10 seconds at a time since his own wedding, when she’d caught the bouquet and winked at him across the reception tent.
Her hair was streaked with silver at the temples now, cut short to her jawline, and she was wearing scuffed leather hiking boots instead of the stiletto heels he’d always seen her in at family gatherings. She grinned, the same small gap between her two front teeth he’d always found stupidly charming, and held out her free hand. “Heard you were the guy to bug for honey that doesn’t taste like watered-down grocery store corn syrup,” she said, and when he took her hand to shake it, her palm was warm, calloused at the fingertips from the pottery she’d posted about on Facebook, he realized. He held on a beat too long, felt a jolt go up his arm that had nothing to do with the cold cider he’d just sipped, and immediately felt a sharp twist of guilt. This was his wife’s cousin. The woman who’d been in the family for 40 years. The woman his wife had called her best friend since they were toddlers.
He mumbled something about having one jar left in the bed of his beat-up 2004 Ford F-150, and she followed him through the crowd, her shoulder brushing his every time they had to step around a kid carrying a cotton candy cone or a group of retirees toting homemade peach pies. When he pulled the jar out from under the seat, dusted the pine needles off the hand-printed label he’d designed himself, she reached for it at the same time he did, their fingers overlapping around the cool, sticky glass. He didn’t pull away. She didn’t either. For three full seconds, they stood there, the noise of the festival fading to a low, distant hum, her eyes locked on his, dark and warm even in the bright October sun, close enough that he could feel the heat of her breath on his cheek.
She was the one who pulled back first, laughed soft, tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m renting the old cottage on the west edge of your property, by the way,” she said, and he blinked, confused. He’d hired a property manager to rent it out after his wife died, hadn’t asked who the tenant was, hadn’t cared enough to check. “Saw the hives behind your house when I was hiking last week. Knew they were yours. You always did mark your boxes with that stupid little hand-drawn bee sticker you made in adult art class back in ‘98.”
He sat down on the edge of his truck bed, patted the spot next to him, and she sat, her knee pressing firmly into his the whole time they talked. She told him she’d left her ex after she caught him cheating on her with his 26-year-old secretary, that she’d moved back to the mountains because she’d always hated the noise and pretension of Charlotte, that she’d thought about calling him a dozen times since she’d moved in two months prior but had been too scared he’d turn her away. He told her he’d been sleeping in the guest room for two years because the master bed still smelled like his wife, that he’d almost sold the property last spring because the silence got too loud some nights, that he’d felt guilty every time he’d thought about her since the funeral.
She leaned in then, so close her lips almost brushed his ear, and said, “Your wife told me two weeks before she died that if I ever got the nerve to make a move on you, I had her full permission. Said you’d be too stubborn to do it yourself.” He froze, his brain short-circuiting, the heavy guilt he’d been carrying for months melting fast into something lighter, warmer, something he’d thought he’d never feel again. She pulled back, took the jar of honey from his hand, slipped a crumpled piece of notebook paper with her cell phone number scribbled on it under the lid before he could get a word out.
She hopped off the truck bed, adjusted her canvas jacket, and winked at him. “I’m making peach pie tomorrow night. You can bring over more honey, and show me how you get it out of the hives, if you want. No pressure.” She turned and walked away, weaving through the crowd, her jacket flapping in the crisp autumn wind. He sat there for 10 minutes after she was out of sight, holding the jar of honey, the paper under the lid crinkling when he squeezed it a little too tight. He pulled out his beat-up old flip phone, typed the number in, and sent her a text that said he’d be there at 6, with three extra jars of the wildflower blend she liked.
