Rafe Mendez, 53, part-time beekeeper and full-time sourwood honey vendor, swipes a glob of crystallized honey off the cuff of his frayed Carhartt jacket and wipes it on the leg of his work jeans. The Asheville farmers market is half empty by 2 p.m. on the last Saturday of October, most vendors already hauling coolers and folding tables to their trucks, the air sharp with wood smoke, kettle corn, and the faint earthy tang of the mushroom stand two spots over. He’s got 12 jars of wildflower left, enough to sell to the last few stragglers, but he’s already mentally mapping his hives up on Black Mountain, noting which boxes need new mite screens before the first frost hits next week. He’s lived alone in his off-grid cabin for seven years, ever since his wife died in a car crash on I-40, and his days run like clockwork: hives at dawn, market on Saturdays, frozen dinners and old westerns after dark. He doesn’t do small talk, doesn’t let customers linger, and turned down three women who asked him out to the local roadhouse in the last year, convinced they only wanted his secret sourwood infusion recipe, not his company.
The woman he’s seen every Saturday for the last month walks up to his stand before he can start folding his table. She’s got hazel eyes flecked with moss green, wears a burnt orange wool cardigan with a hole at the elbow, and her scuffed work boots are caked in trail mud. She stops a foot closer to the table than most people dare, holds his gaze steady when he glances up, no nervous look away, no awkward laugh to fill the silence. He’s noticed her before: she buys the smallest jar of wildflower every week, pays with crumpled cash, never says more than thank you. He spotted the “single occupant” sticker on her beat-up Subaru parked outside the public library two days prior, so he knows she lives alone, that a small jar of honey should last her three weeks minimum, not seven days.
She leans in a fraction, the pine and cinnamon scent of her shampoo drifting across the table, and asks if he’s got any tupelo left, the small-batch stuff he keeps under the table for long-time regulars. Rafe crosses his arms, the scar on his left knuckle from a 2021 hive collapse pulling tight, and asks why she’s burning through a jar of honey a week if she’s only making tea for herself. She laughs, warm and throaty, no offense taken, and says she’s the new children’s librarian, that she’s been making honey-lemon popsicles for the after-school book club kids who’ve been passing around a cold all month. Then she says her name is Clara, that she’s Jeb’s ex-wife.
Rafe’s jaw tightens. Jeb is his cousin, the deadbeat who stole $12,000 from the family farm co-op 10 years prior, skipped town, and left Clara holding the bill for their trailer and his gambling debts. The whole extended family has spent the last decade badmouthing her, calling her a gold digger, saying she pushed Jeb to steal the money, but Rafe never bought it. Jeb was an idiot long before he met Clara, the kind of guy who’d blow a paycheck on lottery tickets and complain the world was out to get him. Still, the unwritten family rule is clear: you don’t fraternize with anyone associated with Jeb, even the ex-wife he abandoned seven years ago.
Clara leans across the table to grab a crumpled napkin he dropped, her forearm brushing his, her skin warm even through the thin flannel of his undershirt. He hasn’t felt a casual touch from anyone who isn’t a grocery store cashier in six years, and the jolt that runs up his arm makes him flinch. She says she knows what the family says about her, that she moved to Asheville to get away from all that noise, that she didn’t even know Rafe lived here until she saw his name stenciled on his stand last month. She holds up her hands, half-teasing, says she doesn’t want his stupid honey recipe, doesn’t want any drama, she just likes the way his tupelo tastes, like clover and rain.
Rafe stares at her for three long seconds, then bends down and grabs the last jar of tupelo from under the table, slides it across the wood to her. He says it’s on the house, but she has to let him buy her a coffee at the diner down the street, that he wants to hear what really happened with Jeb, that he never bought the garbage the family spread about her. Her fingers brush his when she takes the jar, the tips sticky from the sample of wildflower she dipped a toothpick in earlier, and she holds the contact for two full beats before pulling back. She nods, says she’s got an hour before she has to pick up her foster cat from the vet, as long as he doesn’t mind listening to her rant about the library board cutting the teen book budget.
Rafe locks his stand, heaves his cooler into the bed of his beat-up 2008 F-150, and falls into step next to her on the sidewalk. Their shoulders brush every few steps, neither of them moves away. The sun is dipping below the Blue Ridge Mountains, painting the sky streaks of pink and tangerine, and the diner’s front bell jingles loud enough to hear from half a block away. He pulls the diner door open for her, his hand brushing the small of her back for half a second, light, intentional, no going back.
