Cole Bennett, 58, retired US Forest Service hotshot crew lead, leaned against the dented metal beer cooler at the county volunteer fire department chili cookoff, the plastic edge of his ACL brace digging into the back of his knee through worn denim. He’d lived outside Boise for six months, still didn’t know half the faces at the event, and preferred it that way. Four years after his wife Linda’s sudden heart attack, he’d left their old home in Missoula to outrun the constant, pitying nods from former crew members who kept dropping off frozen lasagna and asking if he needed help with the yard. His biggest flaw, he’d admit if pressed, was that he’d rather trip over his own bad knee than accept a hand from anyone, even when he needed it.
He twisted the top off a Pabst, the cold aluminum stinging his palm, when a hand reached past his shoulder for a root beer on the shelf below. Their knuckles brushed, and he flinched like he’d touched a live wire. He knew that hand before he looked up: calloused along the fingertips from repotting cacti, a faint white scar across the index finger from when she’d sliced herself opening a bag of potting soil last month. Maren Hale, 46, his next door neighbor, owner of the small nursery on Main Street, and the only person in town who’d had the nerve to call him out for being an ass when he’d snapped at her for bringing him a peach pie the day he’d torn his ACL trimming oak trees in his front yard.
She didn’t pull her hand away right away, just tilted her chin up and held eye contact, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a smirk that made his ears feel hot. He’d replayed that day at least a hundred times: he’d answered the door shirtless, sweating, knee swelling so bad he could barely stand, and he’d snarled that he didn’t need anyone’s charity before slamming the door in her face. He’d fished the pie off the porch an hour later, ate the whole thing over the sink while ice packed his knee, and had avoided her ever since, ducking inside when he saw her in the yard, leaving his truck in the garage until her car was gone for work.
“Came to offer you a peace offering,” she said, holding up a paper plate with a slice of chocolate pecan pie, the crust crusted with flaky salt, a dollop of whipped cream melting down the side. “Figured the peach one didn’t go to waste, so I made your favorite. Linda’s recipe, right?”
Cole froze. He’d mentioned once, when he’d first moved in and she’d brought over a welcome basket, that Linda’s chocolate pecan pie was the only thing that could get his crew through 12 hour shifts on a fire line. He didn’t remember telling her what his favorite was. He took the plate, his fingers brushing hers again, and took a bite. It was perfect, sweet and rich, the salt cutting the sugar just like Linda used to make it. He swallowed, wiping crumbs off his chin with the back of his hand. “Ate the peach one, too. Was an ass for slamming the door.” She laughed, the sound warm, like the crinkle of dried pine needles under work boots, and shook her head.
“Got a source,” she said, like she could read his mind, leaning in a little closer, close enough he could smell lavender shampoo and the faint smoky tang of the cookoff grill on her canvas work jacket. “Your old crew captain lives two blocks over. Told me everything.”
He wanted to step back, create some space, but his knee locked up and he couldn’t move, so he stood there, holding the plate, watching a strand of her chestnut hair fall into her face. She’d been on his mind more than he cared to admit, and the guilt hit him sharp every time: he was still married, in his head, still wearing the worn gold band on his left hand, still buying her favorite coffee every week out of habit. Wanting anyone, especially someone who’d seen him at his most pathetic, felt like a betrayal, like he was spitting on the 32 years he’d had with Linda.
“You gonna stand there staring all night, or you gonna walk me over to see if your chili won?” she said, nudging his elbow with hers. He’d entered Linda’s venison chili that morning, hadn’t told anyone it was hers, just wrote his name on the entry card and dropped it off before anyone could talk to him. He nodded, and they walked side by side across the gravel lot, his boot scuffing the ground every time he put weight on his bad knee. He tripped over a cinder block holding up a tent line half way there, and she caught his arm, her hand firm around his bicep, the heat of her palm seeping through his old forest service flannel. He didn’t pull away this time.
He took third place, won a $25 gift card to the local hardware store, and she won best dessert, got a gift basket full of local wine and honey. It was dark by the time the event wrapped up, soft fat snowflakes starting to fall, sticking to the brim of his baseball cap and her eyelashes. They walked to his truck parked at the edge of the lot, no one else around, the only sound the crunch of gravel under their boots and the distant hum of a snow plow on the main road.
She stopped halfway there, turning to face him, her breath fogging in the cold air. “I know you think this is wrong,” she said, quiet enough only he could hear. “My ex left me six years ago, I spent three years thinking I’d never want to let anyone get close again. I’m not asking you to forget her. I’m just asking you to let me buy you a burger tomorrow, to stop avoiding me when I’m watering my front yard.”
Cole stood there for a long time, the snow melting on his neck, the weight of his wedding band cold against his finger. He thought of Linda, how she’d always teased him for being too stubborn for his own good, how she’d told him a month before she died that if anything ever happened to her, he better not spend the rest of his life alone moping. He reached out, slow, like he was approaching a skittish mule deer he’d spotted on a fire line, and laced his fingers through hers. Her hand was smaller than his, calloused, warm, and when she squeezed back, the tight knot in his chest he’d carried for four years loosened just a little.
He opened the passenger door of his truck for her, waited until she was settled before rounding the front to climb in the driver’s seat. He turned the heat on high, wiped the fog off the windshield with the sleeve of his flannel, and glanced over at her, grinning as she popped a piece of pecan pie into her mouth, chocolate smudged on her lower lip. He shifted the truck into drive, pulled out of the lot, and turned toward the 24-hour diner on Main Street, the snow falling heavier now, sticking to the windshield wipers as they swished back and forth.
