Clay Bennett, 58, retired Forest Service hotshot, had manned the same chili cookoff booth for 12 straight years. He still used his late wife Ellen’s venison chili recipe, the one she’d tweaked for a decade to beat the local sheriff’s department’s entry three years running, and he still wore the same faded fire department hoodie under his Carhartt every October, even when the sun was high enough to sweat through the collar. His biggest flaw, one he’d nursed like a bruise for the seven years since Ellen’s sudden heart attack, was that he’d written off any possibility of feeling anything even close to attraction for anyone else, convinced it made him a disrespectful widower, or worse, the kind of creepy old guy who hit on servers half his age just to feel young for five minutes.
The fairgrounds smelled like smoked paprika, burnt hot dogs, and pine from the bonfire lit at the edge of vendor row when she walked up to his booth. She was in a crisp navy public health department blazer, scuffed white sneakers caked in mud from the wet grass, a lanyard with her ID bouncing against her chest: Mara Carter, 32, Environmental Health Specialist. He’d seen the town Facebook posts a month prior, complaining about the new inspector who was writing up every food truck in the county for minor code violations, and he’d rolled his eyes at the time, figured she was some out-of-state transplant who didn’t get how small-town events worked.
She leaned over the booth edge to check the temperature sticker on the side of his crockpot, and her forearm brushed the scar that ran up his left arm, the one he’d gotten pulling a rookie out of a 2019 wildfire outside Nederland. The contact was light, accidental, but he flinched like he’d been burned. She paused, her eyes flicking from the scar to his face, and he held her gaze for three beats too long before looking away, his ears burning. He told himself he was being ridiculous, that she was just doing her job, that he was old enough to be her dad, that the last thing he needed was to get a reputation for leering at county employees.
“Smells too good to be up to code,” she said, and her voice was lower than he expected, rough around the edges like she smoked a pack a day or spent most of her time yelling over construction sites. She nodded at the crockpot. “Can I get a sample? I won’t write you up if it’s as good as it smells. Probably.”
He grabbed a small paper cup, scooped a ladle of chili into it, and handed it to her. Their fingers brushed when she took it, and he noticed she was wearing a silver pinecone ring on her index finger, the exact same one Ellen had bought him for their 20th anniversary at Rocky Mountain National Park, the one he’d lost on a fire call two years before she died. He stared at it for a second, then nodded at the ring. “My wife had the same one. Lost mine ages ago.”
Mara twisted the ring around her finger, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “My dad left it to me when he passed last year. He was a hotshot too, worked out of the Fort Collins station back in the 90s. Said he bought it on his first anniversary with my mom.” She took a bite of the chili, her eyes widening, and she laughed, a loud, unselfconscious sound that cut through the noise of the crowd around them. “Holy shit. That’s the best thing I’ve eaten since I moved here. You’re definitely winning this thing.”
He shrugged, like he didn’t already know he was going to win, but he felt heat rise in his cheeks again. They talked for 20 minutes, her leaning against the booth, him resting his elbows on the counter, the distance between them shrinking by the second, until their knees were almost touching through the gap under the table. He told her stories about her dad, who he’d worked a handful of fires with back in the day, and she told him about moving to Boulder from Portland after her dad died, trying to feel close to the life he’d lived before he had her. He kept waiting for that twinge of guilt he always felt when he talked to a woman who wasn’t Ellen, but it never came. Instead, he felt light, like he’d been holding his breath for seven years and finally let it out.
When the awards were announced, he took first place, like he knew he would, and he scanned the crowd until he saw her leaning against a picnic table on the edge of the grounds, smoking a cigarette, the string lights strung above her gilding the ends of her dark hair. He grabbed a leftover quart container of chili, wrapped it in a paper towel, and walked over to her, his boots crunching on the fallen aspen leaves. He held the chili out to her, and she took it, her fingers brushing his again, this time deliberate, not accidental.
“Was gonna ask if you wanted to get a drink at the Rusty Spur down the street,” she said, nodding at the dive bar half a mile down the road, the one he’d been going to since he was 22. “I don’t know anyone here yet, and you’re the only person I’ve met who doesn’t look like they want to yell at me for writing up their taco truck.”
He hesitated for half a second, the old voice in his head yelling that he was too old, that people would talk, that Ellen would hate this, but then he looked at her, at the pinecone ring on her finger, at the way she was smiling at him like she actually wanted to be there, and he nodded. He pulled his flannel off, the one he’d tied around his waist earlier when the sun was high, and handed it to her; the air was dropping fast, and she was only wearing the thin blazer. She put it on, the sleeves hanging past her wrists, and she tucked one hand into the jacket pocket, her fingers brushing his when he slid his own hand into the same pocket a second later.
They walked down the dark road together, the sound of the cookoff fading behind them, the cold October air stinging their cheeks. He didn’t let go of her hand when they got to the bar, didn’t pull away when the bartender, a guy he’d known for 30 years, raised an eyebrow at him over the counter. He pulled out a stool for her, ordered her a bourbon and himself a beer, and leaned against the bar next to her. When she leans in to tell him a dumb joke about health inspectors and undercooked beans, her shoulder presses warm and steady against his, and he doesn’t bother shifting away.
