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NOTE: All Characters Portrayed are Fictional and over the age of Eighteen. They are happy, healthy consenting adults; however, they are in a fictional environment and should be read as such and not attempted to be replicated. Enjoy!
CW: workplace romance, age gap, loneliness, grief, small/rural town
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I don’t know how I’d managed to get myself stuck in this town. I didn’t hate it entirely but occasionally I’d be sitting in my backyard, or washing dishes, or walking to a town council meeting and come to a halt. Why was I here? How had I become so entrenched? Why was I signing for Charlie’s packages when I walked by his door? Why did I know my neighbor’s marriage was failing? Why did I know the tomatoes from the further farmstand tasted better than the ones from the closer one? How was it that I had opinions about town politics? I knew all the surnames, I knew all the starters for the high college basketball team. I hadn’t grown up here and no one around here would let me forget it.
Everything was of my own fault, my own making and then I fell into a rut and didn’t climb out. I was failing high college and threatening to quit so my mother sent me to my aunt Minnie, who lived here. Not far away, in the same state, just an hour away. I’d never lived somewhere with no street lights. I never lived somewhere with coyotes and houses that sold ‘far woo’ and deer-cleaning businesses. I was attracted and repelled by the silence of the evenings. I started picking out the noises though; storms blowing up the hillsides, some years, cicadas, turkey vultures and fisher cats.
I finished my senior year homeschooling with my auntie. Barely, but done. Not a GED. I didn’t walk for graduation. I got a standard print out saying I had graduated. We made coconut cake and ate it out on the back porch. First I didn’t want to go home, so I didn’t. Then my aunt got sick.
I hated college and hated being a student, but she pushed and pushed for school. I said, at least I’ll get a degree that will get me a job. Something stupid, something simple, something that will get me a job in any city I want to go to. Which I did. And I graduated. Again, but this time well. This time, I just made a cupcake. I made her flan, it was easier for her. We ate it in her bedroom. It wasn’t my intention to stay where I’d done my ‘internship’ such as it was, the town hall. But I just… stayed. I went from interning for the town clerk to being the town clerk somewhere in the four years it took for my aunt to die. And I could have left then. But she left me the house. And I could have sold the house, and left. But somehow, neighbors kept coming by, and filling up my refrigerator, and I couldn’t just pack up and leave with a month’s worth of meals in my fridge and so I just… stayed.
And now I was in my thirties, living alone in a ramble of a house, a yard of mostly wildflowers, those mountain laurel, beardtongues, larkspur and auntie’s particular favorite, prairie feathers. I had a truck that barely worked. I had a bike that worked better. I walked to and from work everyday. Town hall was about twenty minutes down the road. There were three other houses I passed on my way there. All pretty similar to my own. Everything was a half hour walk from my house. The hardware store, the meager grocery, three farm stands (two vegetables and eggs, the other milk), the post office, the town hall. My life was pretty well in that loop. It sounds depressing, when I lay it all out. But it wasn’t. Mellowly content, or secure, anyway. Occasionally lonely. Sometimes frustrating. Sometimes asking ‘why’ but rarely. I still wore red lipstick. Still wore bright clothes. Would flirt with the neighbors who came in for hunting or fishing licenses, building permits for another shed. Everyone, obviously, too young, or too married, or too useless to consider dating. But it was something to do. Work was nothing hard to do, nothing upsetting; just occasionally grinding teeth over patterns and habits unbreakable in the community I’d slid into like a warm bath.
Then Chip, town manager for forty two years died. A bit of a scramble ensued and until a replacement was found the duties were split between me and Sheriff Andy Rathbone. I did not care for Sheriff Andy Rathbone. Andy’d gone to high college here, Andy was born and raised here. So were his parents. And his grandparents. As far as I knew his whole family had sprung fully formed from the dirt as did their rambling farmhouse. He was comfortable which made him confident and sure when he shouldn’t have been. He wasn’t nearly clever enough for how sure he was, nor competent enough to be so confident. I was surprised when the qualified replacement wasn’t anyone from town, but someone hired in. I waited for Andy to throw a tantrum about it, but it wasn’t forthcoming.
Elijah Black had been ombudsman a few towns over, but had been born here in town. Everyone kept referring to it as a homecoming, even though he’d left with his parents before he was a year old. Is it even home if you can’t remember it? I thought. I was already irritated, feeling like I was all the time being put back into the role of the newcomer, and some guy, by sheer dint of being born in a farmhouse a few miles down the road, was more ‘down home’ than me. I was further irritated by the fact that I was suckered into all of his social appearances and obligations. I organized the pancake breakfast for the town to meet and greet him at. I set up the town meeting for that evening, to talk about actual company. I already felt put upon and in a position where I was doing secretarial work for some man. I found myself stomping around my house making blueberry and lavender syrup for the pancake breakfast the evening beforehand. I was thinking about anything else I might have to do, frustrated and feeling work-wived without even the advantage of knowing the man. I wondered to myself, ‘I’ll have to remember to grab Chip’s wildflower honey, too’. Chip used to live across the road, and he kept bees. His bees fed from my auntie’s wildflowers, and then my wildflowers. Suddenly I was struck by a surprise sob, turning off the boiling and burning over syrup, leaning against my counter. I worked with Chip everyday. He was unfailingly kind, interested in everyone’s company without being nosy. Between Chip at work and my auntie at home I had an anchoring kind of pendulum that kept me swinging. I cried and made another batch of syrup. It wasn’t near late enough to sleep yet and I was pacing uselessly around the house, still annoyed, still tearful, feeling untethered and hateful. I decided to take a walk. Helplessly my eyes dragged up the hill as I crossed by Chip’s old house. There was a truck in the drive. And a mower sitting up by the garage. I ran up the gravel drive, reacting out of that sudden grief and that weeklong indignation. Knocking on the driver’s side window of the truck I launched in before whoever was in the seat finished rolling the window down.
“You know, this hillside is all native wildflowers! Sure hope you ain’t planning on mowing it down. You know grass lawns are wasteful and useless.”
“Wasn’t planning on doing a single solitary thing tonight, sweet girl. I’m just hoping the electric is hooked up.” The man leaning on the open window, smiling down at me wasn’t any one of Chip’s multitudinous sons or nephews, older than any of them. Gray haired, dark eyed and bearded.
“Who are you?” I asked, still keyed up, weirdly anxious about talking to a stranger for the first time in nearly two decades.
“Elijah Black,” he said, offering his hand through the window. I shook it numbly.
“And I’m guessing you’re some kind of elf daughter? Some changeling stole by the fairies? Here to protect weeds and other growing things? Strange little will o’ the wisp to take me off my trail tonight?”
“No… uh, no sir,” I stumbled. He smiled again, face breaking open like sunshine, swinging open the door, stepping down. He stood easy and contained, still smiling, eyes flickering across my face. He leaned against the door of his truck, shutting it with his back. Arms crossed over his chest, shirt stained with those tiger stripes of dust from moving furniture.
“Chip’s boy, Junior, he told me the flowers were for the bees. I don’t reckon I’ll be doing any keeping but I think the apiaries only going a few doors down. Fly on by, or disappear into mist, changeling, the bees are safe with me.” When his face was at rest he looked grim, with a low forehead, very dark eyebrows against his all-gray hair and beard. When he joked, calling me a changeling his face fell comfortably into smile lines around his eyes and mouth.
“Well all right then, good deal,” I said, offering my hand again. I just had little hands, and my unconscious compensation when shaking hands with bigger men was using both. I’d shake hard and firm with my right and cover their knuckles and the back of their hand with my left. I did the same with him, not because he was particularly tall, but broad and comfortable and I was vibrating. Helplessly I slid my left further up his hand, nearly circling his wide wrist, his sleeves pushed up, letting me feel the firmness of his forearm, how warm he was. I dropped his hand in a rush when I realized I had been holding it too long and turned hard on my heel. I started tromping back down the gravel drive, waving a hand over my shoulder.
“You have a good night, Mr. Black,” I shouted, face forward, unwilling to let him see my pink cheeks.
“Ain’t going to cause you no trouble, sweet girl,” he called back, a laugh under his words.
I woke up at about four, taking my tea out on my back porch. I’d have to head down to town hall soon, help the women set up breakfast. Help the guys set up the tables and chairs. Give everyone the recap on what the schedule of events was. It was cloudy, the sky seeming low and threatening. Not a surprise. It hadn’t rained in two days, which was long around here. I just hoped we weren’t in for a storm, the town hall’s wiring was old, unreliable even on sunny days. I hardly wanted to be caught in the dark either for breakfast or the meeting in the evening. I hated having to escort folks back and forth to the front door of the hall with a flashlight. I kept an old fashioned heavy silver one in my desk expressly for that purpose. I sighed, went inside and got dressed.
I all the time felt out-of-place in situations like the pancake breakfast. The bustling women who knew just what to do and where to be in the meager kitchen space of the town hall. The men throwing around folding chairs with abandon. Sheriff Andy doing his back-slapping, manly networking. Not to say I was ever ‘left out’ or even unconsidered. But I all the time felt like I was standing with a hoop of ‘don’t touch’ around me somehow, and so I couldn’t just sidle in next to Suellen on the griddle, or kick open tables with Charlie or even shake hands and talk about elections like Andy. I just directed and then stood back. I felt like a wallflower and looked like one too.
It was a very casual sort of morning, a little over an hour before the rest of the town would show up. I was the only one in a skirt. I didn’t notice when Elijah came in. He was being steered around by Andy, with weird, pointedly friendly energy. He came over to introduce us while I was shaking out tablecloths.
“Mr. Black, our town clerk-” Andy started. I was already reaching out my hand to shake again, both hands, the way I did. He tricked me though, trapping mine in two of his.
“Ah. Missus Decoutere, then?” He asked. I still heard that chuckle underneath.
“Just Ms. Or even better, just Dusty,” I said, still shaking.
“Decoutere…” he said, head tipped up, like he was reading through a phone book, “ain’t from town then, are you?”
“I’m Minnie Smith’s niece. Been living here for some time. More ‘around here’ than you, reckon.” He laughed now, easily, eyes still bent on me.
“Well, good then, Ms. Decoutere, I’ll lean on you heavily.” Andy was intervening, pulling Elijah to the next person he had to meet. Over his shoulder Elijah winked at me, just a quick twinkle and was gone in the crowd.
Breakfast was a blur. I had a plate, and ate nothing, which was pretty par for the course. I all the time found myself doing Memorial Day barbecues at ‘block parties’ (such as they were, in a town with no ‘blocks’), Fourth of July roasts, holiday bake-offs et cetera and going home and devouring something cold over my sink. I was always running around, making conversation, trying my best to be known, available and likable. Inevitably someone would pull me aside, do one of those back-to-the-crowd, we’re-having-a-private talk moves, about something like roadwork, someone cutting their bushes, taxes; a lot of things I had no pull on. I escaped into the kitchen when folks finally started dribbling out. I was cleaning up, aimlessly, just tired of the crowd when the door opened. I sighed, wondering which helpful person was coming in with a stack of mess for me.
“Nearly didn’t recognize you in your human disguise,” I turned, back to the sink, already knowing his voice.
“I’m human all the time, sir. Sundown must’ve confused you last night.”
“You knew who I was soon’s I said my name. If you’d done the polite thing, and told me yours, I would’ve known you too.”
“Memorize the town politics roster?”
“I’m a man who likes to be prepared.” I evaluated and started turning back to the counter.
“Can I walk you back home, once we’re wrapped up here, Ms. Decoutere?” My heart felt knocking and disappointed. It cried out to just be called ‘girl’ again. The way that word ground out of his throat.
“Dusty’s fine.”
“I reckon we got to be a little more professional than just ‘Dusty’. Again, seems like, if you’d been more human, less sprite last night, I wouldn’t be in the awkward position of having to be introduced to you by a sheriff.”
“Maybe once you get to know me better then?” I asked, feeling and sounding coltish and flirty.
“Might be,” he nodded, pushing back through the door, leaving me alone, heart pounding, brain useless.
.
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NSFW: yes

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