Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service wildfire crew superintendent, leaned against the splintered cedar rail of the downtown Silverton beer garden, sweat beading at the hairline under his worn ball cap. He’d spent three hours that morning replacing fence posts for his elderly next door neighbor, his calloused palms still dusted with cedar shavings, a half-drunk cold IPA in one hand. He’d avoided the farmers market afterparty for three straight years, hated the crowds, the small talk, the way every single person in town asked when he was finally going to “get back out there” after his ex-wife left him for a real estate agent in Portland 12 years prior. He’d only shown up that night because the bartender, an old crew mate of his, had promised him a free first round and a spot far away from the chattiest regulars.
He spotted her the second she walked through the gate. Mara Hale, 42, the new county public health coordinator who’d been set up at the senior center all week giving out updated COVID boosters and flu shots. He’d snapped at her three days prior when he’d dropped off a stack of firewood for the center’s food bank distribution, her leaning over the folding table in her scrubs, grinning when she asked if he was finally going to stop avoiding her table. He’d told her he didn’t need any government-mandated pokes, turned on his heel, and walked out before she could respond, had felt stupid for it ever since. That night she was out of scrubs, in a cut-off denim shirt over a tight white tank top, scuffed cowboy boots, a bright yellow sunflower tucked behind one ear, laughing so hard at a joke the bartender told her her eyes crinkled shut. She caught him staring, raised her can of hard seltzer in a mock toast, and walked over before he could duck behind the rail.
She leaned up against the rail two inches from his side, their elbows brushing when she set her seltzer down on the weathered wood. He could smell coconut sunscreen and pine, the same sharp fir scent he’d breathed in for 30 years on fire lines. “You gonna apologize for blowing me off at the senior center?” she said, no bite in her voice, just a tease, the corner of her mouth tugged up in a smirk. He mumbled an apology, told her he’d spent three decades taking orders from bosses who couldn’t tell a Douglas fir from a Ponderosa pine, had gotten sick of anyone telling him what to do with his body. She nodded, told him her dad had been a wildfire crew lead too, died in the 2011 Wallowa Mountain fire, that she’d taken the job in Silverton because it was the last place he’d been happy. Clay froze. He’d worked that fire, had been standing 20 feet away from her dad when the tree fell.
The bluegrass band picked up a faster track, a group of kids ran past chasing a golden retriever, and she leaned into him to get out of their way, her bare arm pressing warm against his through the thin fabric of his work shirt. He felt heat rise up his neck, fought the stupid, guilty urge to step back. He was 16 years older than her, had worked with her dad, old enough to have attended her high school graduation if he’d known she existed. It felt wrong, to notice how her chapped pink lips curved when she smiled, how she twisted the silver ring on her index finger when she talked about her dad, how her eyes didn’t dart away when he held her gaze. She asked if he knew how to fix the stuck trailhead gate on the north side of the national forest, said she had a pop-up clinic for seasonal fire crews next week and couldn’t get her Subaru up the road. He offered to fix it, 7 a.m. the next day, meet at the trailhead lot. She scribbled her number on a crumpled napkin, pressed it into his palm, her fingers lingering on his wrist for three full beats before she pulled away. “Don’t stand me up, Bennett,” she said, grinning. “I know where you live.”
He showed up at 6:45 the next morning, tool belt slung over his shoulder, had the gate unjammed and oiled by the time she pulled up in her dented forest green Subaru, a paper tray of coffees in the passenger seat. She handed him a black coffee, no sugar, said she’d asked his next door neighbor how he took it the day before. They walked up the trail half a mile to the overlook, the sun peeking over the Cascade foothills, faint haze from a controlled burn 20 miles east tinting the sky pale orange. She told him she’d had a crush on him since she moved to town three months prior, had seen him carry a 100 pound sack of dog food to the local animal shelter in the pouring rain, thought he was the grumpiest, most solid man she’d ever met. He told her he was too old, too stubborn, still carried too much baggage from his marriage, from every fire he’d ever fought, every person he’d lost on the line. She stepped closer, their chests almost touching, ran one soft finger along the pale scar on his left forearm, the one he’d gotten pulling her dad out of a burning tree stand two years before the Wallowa fire. “I don’t care about your baggage,” she said, quiet enough that only the wind in the pines could hear her.
She kissed him then, slow, the faint taste of vanilla creamer on her lips, and when she pulled back, he rested his calloused hand on her waist and asked her if she wanted to get pancakes at the Main Street diner after she finished her work for the day.
