Clay Bennett, 58, retired Yellowstone backcountry ranger, had been nursing a grudge against Mara Carter for 11 months by the time he ran into her at the VFW beer tent at the annual town fair. He was leaning against a splintered wooden pole, sweat beading at the edge of his faded ranger hat, condensation from his ice-cold Pabst dripping onto the scuffed leather of his work boots. He’d spent the last hour listening to his buddy Earl rant about how Mara had turned down the VFW’s request for a fireworks permit the year prior, and he’d nodded along, even though he’d secretly thought the 2022 show had been a little too close to the dry pine forest on the edge of town.
The first thing he noticed when she stepped up to the bar was the bison tattoo on her left shoulder, peeking out from the strap of her white tank top. He’d only ever seen her in frumpy blazers and slacks at town hall meetings, her hair pulled so tight it looked like it hurt, so the cutoff jean shorts and scuffed white sneakers threw him for a loop. She had a smudge of powdered sugar on the edge of her jaw, leftover from the funnel cake she was holding in one hand, and when she reached for the hard seltzer the bartender slid her way, her elbow knocked hard into his forearm. The cold aluminum of her can pressed against the scar he’d gotten from a juvenile grizzly back in 2014, and he flinched more from the jolt of the contact than the cold.
She apologized immediately, her voice nothing like the sharp, measured tone he’d heard through the mic at town hall. When she turned to look at him, she squinted, then laughed, loud and unselfconscious, the kind of laugh that crinkled the corners of her hazel eyes. “You’re the guy who yelled that I was ‘ruining retirement for every hardworking man in this county’ at the patio rule meeting, right?” she said, and Clay felt his ears burn. He’d had three beers before that meeting, had dragged Earl along for moral support, had ranted so long the moderator had cut him off. He opened his mouth to make a snarky retort, but she took a sip of her seltzer and shook her head. “Don’t worry. My dad is a retired logger, yelled the exact same thing at me over Thanksgiving dinner. I get it. The rules sucked. They were supposed to suck, to keep people alive. Still sucked, though.”
That disarmed him faster than any argument could have. They ended up leaning against the same pole for the next 40 minutes, talking over the noise of the fair rides and the country band playing on the stage 50 feet away. She told him she’d grown up an hour outside of Bozeman, had spent her 20s working as a travel nurse before going back to school for public health, had taken the county job because she wanted to work in a place where her decisions actually mattered. He told her about the grizzly that gave him the scar, about the 10 days he spent stranded in a backcountry cabin during a blizzard in 2019, about how his wife had loved this fair, had entered her peach pie in the baking contest every year until she got sick. He didn’t talk about his wife to people he didn’t know, didn’t know why he told her, except that she was leaning in, her shoulder almost brushing his, listening like she actually cared, not like she was just waiting for her turn to talk.
When a group of kids ran past, yelling and waving glow sticks, she shifted closer to him to get out of the way, her knee pressing against his for a full three seconds before she moved back. He smelled coconut sunscreen and vanilla lip balm, and for the first time in six years, he didn’t feel guilty for noticing how good a woman smelled, didn’t feel like he was betraying the wife he’d lost. He was torn, though—he’d spent almost a year complaining about her to his friends, had called her every name in the book under his breath, had even boycotted the county health fair back in April out of protest. Now he was wondering what it would feel like to brush that sugar off her jaw himself.
She asked him if he wanted to walk down to the river to get away from the noise, and he hesitated for half a second, thinking about Earl sitting three feet away, watching them, definitely going to give him hell about it later. He thought about the grudge he’d carried for almost a year, how stupid it felt now, how he’d judged her entirely based on a 10 minute speech at a town hall meeting. He nodded.
The gravel path down to the river was lined with wild clover, the sound of the fair fading the farther they walked, until all they could hear was the rush of the water and the crickets starting to chirp in the grass. They sat on a weathered wooden bench that Clay had helped the VFW build three years prior, and this time, she didn’t move away when her shoulder pressed against his. He pointed out the heron nesting in the willow tree on the other side of the river, and she leaned in, her cheek almost touching his, to get a better look. When she sat back, she wiped at her jaw, missing the sugar smudge entirely, and he laughed, told her it was still there. She huffed, mock-embarrassed, and reached up to brush a fleck of popcorn off the brim of his hat, her fingers brushing his temple for a split second, warm and soft.
She told him she had fresh tomatoes from her garden and good sourdough at her place, asked if he wanted to come over for grilled cheese. She didn’t flirt hard, didn’t make a big show of it, just said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Clay didn’t make up an excuse about having to get home to feed a dog he didn’t own, didn’t say he had an early fishing trip, didn’t overthink it like he usually did when anyone invited him somewhere that wasn’t the bar or the VFW. He stood up, wiped the grass off the back of his jeans, and held out his hand to help her up. Her palm was calloused, from the rock climbing she’d mentioned she did on the weekends, and it fit perfectly in his, rough and warm. They walked towards the cluster of small houses a few blocks from the fair, the first of the night’s fireworks bursting behind them, painting the sky streaky pink and tangerine.
