Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired Wisconsin DNR game warden, would rather be huddled in his duck blind at 5 a.m. in 30-degree weather than man a booth at the town’s annual apple butter festival. He only agreed because his 16-year-old niece begged him to sell his small-batch maple syrup there, saying she’d split the profits to save for a new dirt bike. His boots are caked in mud from the wet grass, his flannel is already dotted with donut sugar from the kid who ran past him an hour earlier, and he’s counting down the minutes until he can pack up and drive back to his cabin off the county road.
He’s wiping syrup residue off a jar when he sees her. Maeve Carter, 48, his former partner Jake’s ex-wife, standing 10 feet away holding a paper cup of spiced cider, her auburn hair pulled back in a messy braid, a smudge of cinnamon on her left cheek. Ronan’s throat goes tight. He hasn’t spoken to her since Jake’s divorce finalized two years ago, hasn’t let himself even think about her for longer than 10 seconds since the day he turned Jake in for poaching rare grouse back in 2012. He’d always felt like he owed Jake loyalty, even when the guy was cutting corners, and admitting he’d thought Maeve was the warmest, sharpest woman he’d ever met felt like a double betrayal—of Jake, of his late wife Ellen, who’d passed three years before that scandal broke.
She spots him before he can duck behind his stack of jars, and a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as she walks over. The wind shifts, and he can smell her shampoo, pear and honey, over the heavy scent of fried oreos and wood smoke from the festival bonfire. She leans in across the booth, elbows on the splintered wooden table, to get a closer look at the labeled syrup jars, and her shoulder brushes his when a group of drunk college kids barrels past behind her. “You still make this stuff?” she says, picking up a small pint jar, her fingers brushing his when he reaches to pass it to her. The contact sends a jolt up his arm, sharp and warm, and he yanks his hand back like he touched a hot stove.
He mumbles something about it being a side gig, keeps his eyes fixed on the jar instead of her face, tells himself he’s being an idiot. She knows he turned her husband in. She has to hate him, right? But she just laughs, low and soft, and taps the jar with a red-painted nail. “I remember you brought a whole case of this to the hospital when Liam had appendicitis. Jake said you snuck it in past the nurse because you thought the hospital pancakes were garbage.”
Ronan blinks. He’d forgotten that. He’d been so focused on the guilt of turning Jake in a few months later that he’d erased all the small, good moments before that. He glances up, and she’s still looking at him, her hazel eyes crinkled at the corners, no anger, no resentment, just that same easy smile she always had when she’d drop Jake off for stakeouts back in the day. She sits on the empty stool next to him, knees knocking against his under the table when she shifts to avoid a toddler running past with a sticky lollipop. She doesn’t move away.
They talk for an hour, about her new job running the county library’s after-school program, about his niece’s dirt bike obsession, about the flock of turkeys that’s been hanging around his property all fall. He stops tensing up every time their arms brush, stops forcing himself to look away when she licks cider residue off her lower lip. He still feels that twinge of guilt, that quiet voice in his head saying this is wrong, you don’t get to want this, but it’s getting quieter every time she laughs.
The sky opens up without warning, cold October rain pouring down so hard it drowns out the festival music. Everyone scrambles to pack up their booths, tarps flapping, kids screaming as they run for their cars. Ronan fumbles with the blue tarp covering his stack of syrup crates, his hands numb from the rain, and Maeve steps in to help, holding the edge down while he ties the knots. Her flannel is soaked through, clinging to her shoulders, rain dripping off the end of her braid onto the back of his hand. When they finish tying the last knot, they’re both breathless, standing less than six inches apart under the small overhang of the booth’s tin roof.
She tilts her head up at him, rain dripping off the brim of his faded Green Bay Packers cap onto her cheek. “I knew Jake was poaching,” she says, quiet enough that only he can hear it over the rain. “For years before you turned him in. I was waiting for someone to have the guts to stop him before he threw his whole life away. I never blamed you, Ronan.”
That’s the last thing he expected to hear. The last of the guilt he’s carried for 11 years unravels, fast, before he can stop it. He doesn’t overthink it, just leans in, and she meets him halfway, the kiss soft at first, tasting like spiced cider and the peppermint gum she chews, rain running down both their necks. He can feel the cold of her wet flannel under his hands when he rests them on her shoulders, and it’s the warmest he’s felt in years.
They load his syrup crates into the back of his beat-up Ford F-150 in five minutes flat, rain still pouring. He holds the passenger door open for her, and her hand lingers in his for three full seconds before she climbs up. She tucks the pint jar of maple syrup she’d been looking at earlier into her bag, grinning, when he asks her if she wants to come back to his cabin, warm up with hot cocoa spiked with the bourbon he keeps stashed under his kitchen sink for special occasions. He turns the key in the ignition, the radio cuts on to an old Johnny Cash song they both used to sing on late-night stakeouts with Jake, and he doesn’t even feel the slightest twinge of guilt for once.
