Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew lead, leans against a splintered oak post at the harvest fair beer tent, sipping a hazy IPA that tastes more like citrus than the bitter swill he drank in fire camp 20 years back. He’d shown up three hours earlier only because his next-door neighbor begged him to haul kegs for the volunteer fire department fundraiser, and he’s never been able to say no to a guy who once helped him pull a fawn out of a frozen culvert. The air smells like fried oreos, pine, and diesel from the ferris wheel generator, and a cover band on the main stage slurs through a Johnny Cash deep cut loud enough to rattle the fillings in his back teeth. His knuckles are still scraped raw from fixing the split rail fence at the old Jesse Hale place last week, the one Jesse’s daughter Lila inherited when he died of a heart attack three years prior. He hasn’t talked to her since she dropped off a jar of pickles as a thank you two days later, had just mumbled a thanks and shut the door before he could say anything stupid, like how much she looked like her dad when she grinned.
He’s halfway through his second beer when she bumps into him, hard enough that a drop of IPA sloshes over the rim of the cup onto his worn Carhartt shirt. She’s wearing cutoff jeans, scuffed work boots, and a flannel tied around her waist, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a single strand of silver he doesn’t remember being there last month. “Sorry, shit,” she says, laughing, swiping a napkin from the stack on the counter and dabbing at the wet spot on his chest before he can stop her. Her hand is warm through the thin fabric, and he catches a whiff of lavender hand lotion and cedar, the same soap Jesse used to keep in the crew truck on fire runs. “Clay, right? I’ve been meaning to corner you all month. You didn’t even let me pay you for the fence. My idiot golden retriever would’ve run to Idaho by now if you hadn’t patched that gap.”
He shifts his weight, suddenly hyper aware of how close she’s standing, her elbow brushing his bicep every time someone squeezes past the crowded tent. He’d always thought of her as Jesse’s loud, tomboy kid, the one who used to sneak into crew camp to steal candy bars when she was 12. Now she’s 36, the newly elected county clerk, and half the town’s been gossiping about her running for state legislature next cycle. The logical part of his brain screams that this is a bad idea, that anyone who sees them chatting for more than 30 seconds will spin it into the kind of small town drama he’s spent the last seven years avoiding, ever since his wife left him for a real estate agent in Bozeman. He hates the idea of people calling him a creep, of Jesse rolling in his grave if he knew Clay was even thinking about his daughter the way he’s starting to right now. But he can’t look away from her eyes, hazel and crinkled at the corners when she smiles, and he finds himself saying he doesn’t need payment, that Jesse would’ve done the same for him a hundred times over.
A group of drunk teens runs past screaming, and she leans in closer, her shoulder pressing firm against his, so she doesn’t get knocked sideways. Her hair falls forward, the end of her braid brushing his jaw, and he has to fight the urge to tuck it behind her ear. “This place is way too loud,” she says, leaning up so her mouth is right next to his ear, her breath warm against his skin. “Wanna walk down to the river? The view of the fair lights from the bank is way better than dealing with all these people.”
He hesitates for half a second, then nods. They slip out of the tent, the noise of the fair fading as they walk down the gravel path to the Clark Fork, the only sounds now the gurgle of the river and crickets chirping in the tall grass along the bank. She stops by a fallen ponderosa pine log, sits down, and pats the spot next to her. When he sits, their knees knock together, and she doesn’t shift away. “I know everyone treats you like some kind of hermit,” she says, picking at a splinter on the log, not looking at him for a second. “But I remember when my mom died, you brought us lasagna for two weeks straight, didn’t even knock, just left it on the porch. I’ve never forgotten that. You’re not the grumpy asshole everyone thinks you are.”
He blinks, shocked. No one’s said that to him in years, not even his own sister. He’s spent so long leaning into the gruff, loner persona that he forgot anyone ever saw past it. His chest feels tight, half guilt half something softer, warmer, he hasn’t felt since his marriage fell apart. He opens his mouth to say something, but she reaches up first, brushing a pine needle off the collar of his shirt, her fingers lingering on his neck for a beat too long. He doesn’t pull away. When she leans in, he meets her halfway, the kiss soft at first, tasting like peach seltzer and mint, no rush, no pressure. The voice in his head that screams about taboos, about what people will say, fades to static, drowned out by the sound of the river and the way her hand cups his jaw, calloused from digging in her vegetable garden, warm against his skin.
They sit on that log for an hour, talking about nothing and everything, about her campaign, about the time Jesse made Clay carry a 50 pound bag of dog food three miles up a trail because Lila’s childhood dog ran off on a hike. The fair lights glow pink and gold over the tree line, painting the surface of the river in streaks of color. When they stand up to walk back, she slips her hand into his, lacing their fingers together, and he doesn’t let go, even when he spots two of his old hotshot crew buddies leaning against a food truck across the street, grinning and giving him a slow, exaggerated salute. She squeezes his hand once, and he squeezes back, the rough fabric of her work glove rubbing against the scraped knuckles on his hand.
