Hank Rainer leans against a warped pine picnic table at the annual Mount Hood Summer Beer Fest, sun searing the faded forest service logo on the front of his well-worn work shirt. He’s 58, retired three years back after 32 years fighting wildfires across the Pacific Northwest, and his biggest flaw is the hard, unyielding stubbornness that’s kept him locked in his small cabin outside Sandy for eight years, ever since his wife Ellen died of ovarian cancer. He’d told himself dating at his age was foolish, a waste of time better spent splitting firewood, training his new golden retriever puppy Mabel, and avoiding the well-meaning matchmaker attempts of his neighbors. He’d only come to the fest because his regular fishing buddy bailed at the last minute with a torn ACL, and he’d already bought the $40 entry ticket.
The IPA in his plastic cup tastes like pine and citrus, bitter enough to cut through the thick summer air that smells like cut grass, fried onion rings from the nearby food truck, and the faint, acrid tang of leftover campfire smoke from the nearby campgrounds. He snorts at a group of 20-somethings in neon fanny packs stumbling past, yelling about a seltzer pop-up, when he hears a laugh he’d know anywhere: low, smoky, a little rough around the edges, the same laugh he’d heard when 10-year-old Clara Bennett caught her first trout on the creek behind his cabin, and promptly slipped in the mud and covered herself in muck.
He turns, and his breath catches. It’s Clara, all right, but the last time he saw her, she was 26, fresh out of grad school, moving to New Mexico for a wildfire ecology job. Now she’s 38, auburn hair streaked with sun from months working in the field, freckles across her nose darker than he remembers, flannel tied around her waist, work boots caked in trail dust, holding a cup of bright pink sour beer. She spots him immediately, grinning so wide the corners of her eyes crinkle, and walks over so fast her boots thud against the grass. She pulls him into a hug before he can even stand up all the way, her shoulder pressing firm against his chest, and he smells cedar shampoo, hop tang, and the faint, earthy scent of sage from her recent work trips.
They fall into conversation easy, no awkward lulls. She tells him about her three-month stint doing controlled burn assessments in the Gila National Forest, about the time a baby bobcat snuck into her camp and stole her lunch. He tells her about Mabel, who’s currently passed out in the back of his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150 in the parking lot, about the 12-point buck he’d spotted on his property two weeks prior. They keep inching closer as the crowd swells around them, every time a group of people jostles past, her elbow brushes his forearm, her knee knocks against his, and she doesn’t step back. She holds eye contact longer than you’d hold it with a former family friend, longer than you’d hold it with someone you see as a surrogate uncle, and Hank’s chest tightens. He feels guilty, stupid, like he’s betraying Jake, her dad, his best friend who died fighting the 2001 Bull Run fire, who made Hank promise on his deathbed to look out for Clara and her mom. He’d always seen her as a kid, for Christ’s sake, the girl he’d taken to softball games, the kid he’d helped with her middle school science project on wildfires. But he can’t look away from the way she bites her lower lip when she laughs, the way her calloused hand (from digging fire lines, she tells him) brushes his when she passes him a sample of her sour beer.
They move to the food truck line a half hour later, Hank already planning to buy her the loaded tater tots she’d loved as a kid, when a group of drunk college kids sprint past, yelling about a live set starting at the main stage. One slams into Clara’s back hard enough that she stumbles forward, and Hank reacts before he can think, grabbing her waist to steady her. His hand fits perfectly there, warm through the thin fabric of her t-shirt, and she freezes for half a second before she turns to look up at him, her face inches from his, her breath fanning across his jaw. She doesn’t step back. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was 16, you know,” she says, quiet enough that only he can hear it over the roar of the crowd and the music blaring from the speakers. “Used to beg my mom to drag me to your cookouts just so I could see you.”
Hank’s brain goes completely blank for a full five seconds. Half of him is screaming that this is wrong, that he’s 20 years older than her, that everyone in town knows him as Clara’s honorary uncle, that he’s betraying Jake and Ellen both. The other half of him is screaming that he hasn’t felt this awake, this alive, in eight years, that no one has looked at him like he’s not just some old guy who fixes fences and sits on his porch drinking beer in years. He doesn’t say anything, just lifts his free hand and brushes a strand of hair that’s fallen in her face behind her ear, his thumb grazing the soft skin of her cheek. She leans into the touch, her eyes fluttering shut for half a second.
They skip the rest of the fest, Hank grabbing a bag of salted kettle corn from a stand near the exit before they head to the truck. Mabel wakes up when they climb in, wagging her tail so hard the whole backseat shakes, and Clara laughs, scratching her behind the ears. Hank drives them up to the overlook he used to take her to as a kid, the one that looks out over the whole valley, where they used to eat popsicles after fishing trips. The sun is setting pink and orange over the pine trees, painting the sky in streaks of tangerine and lavender, and they sit on the tailgate of the truck, sharing the kettle corn, salt sticking to Clara’s lower lip.
Hank reaches over without thinking, wiping the salt off with his thumb, and she smiles, leaning into his side. He wraps his arm around her shoulder, and she rests her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. They don’t talk about what comes next, don’t argue about what the town will say, don’t overthink the 20 year age gap or the promises he made 22 years prior. He just listens to her ramble about the benefits of controlled burns for old growth forests, the crickets chirping in the underbrush, the soft sound of her breathing, the warm weight of her against his side. Somewhere down in the valley, a firework goes off, bright red against the darkening sky, and Clara lifts her head to kiss him, soft and slow, the taste of kettle corn and sour beer on her lips.
