Dale Rainer, 52, retired Olympic National Forest ranger, had sworn off small-town community events three years prior, right after his wife packed their camper and drove south for a yoga retreat and never came back. Stubbornness was his most consistent flaw: the same one that made him hike 12 miles in a blizzard to rescue a lost teen in 2017, the same one that made him refuse pain meds after tearing his ACL on that trip, the same one that kept him holed up in his one-bedroom cabin eating frozen burritos instead of facing pitying grocery store looks for six months post-divorce. He’d only caved and come to the Port Angeles summer block party because his 78-year-old neighbor Marnie banged on his door at 9 a.m. holding a flyer for the smoked brisket food truck, saying she’d hide his favorite fishing pole in the sewer if he didn’t show up.
He was leaning against a splintered pine picnic table, wiping brisket grease off his calloused, scar-lined fingers with a crumpled napkin, when he heard the laugh. Low, warm, a little rough around the edges, the same laugh he’d heard echoing through his old mountain cabin back when his ex-wife’s younger cousin used to come visit for spring break. He looked up, beer can sweating through the paper coozie in his other hand, knee throbbing a dull ache from standing too long on the uneven asphalt. Clara was 10 feet away, holding a paper plate heaped with peach cobbler, silver hoops glinting in the sun, dark hair streaked with honey from working in her mom’s garden, cutoffs showing the scar on her left calf from the time she’d twisted her ankle hiking with him back in 2003. He’d carried her three miles down the trail that day, and she’d left a handmade thank-you card with a drawing of an owl on his kitchen counter before she drove back to college. He still had it tucked in the glove box of his truck.
She spotted him before he could look away, and walked over, boots thudding against the pavement, stopping so close he could smell coconut sunscreen and the sharp, sweet cinnamon of the cobbler on her breath. “I heard they had to drag you here,” she said, grinning, holding the plate out between them. “Try a bite. I made it.” He hesitated. His ex would lose her mind if she knew they were talking. Half the town still acted like the divorce was some kind of contagious disease, and Clara was family, technically, off limits by every unspoken small-town rule. The rational part of his brain screamed that this was a bad idea, that he’d be the subject of every diner booth conversation for a month if anyone saw them together. But the part of him that hadn’t felt anything but numb for three years leaned forward, taking the fork she held out. Their fingers brushed when he grabbed it, and he flinched a little, the jolt of the contact hot and unexpected, like grabbing a metal fence on a summer day.
The cobbler was perfect, sweet and tart, crust crumbly. He told her as much, and she laughed, shifting her weight so her shoulder brushed his. She said she’d moved back to town two months prior, to take care of her mom, who was recovering from a stroke. She said she’d found his old forest journal when she was cleaning out the attic of the old cabin, the one he’d left behind when he moved out after the divorce, full of his scribbled notes about spotted owl nests and the bioluminescent fungi he’d found in a hidden grove off the Hoh River trail. “I read the whole thing,” she said, and her voice was softer now, no teasing left. “No one ever talks about that stuff, the weird, quiet parts of the forest. You wrote about them like they were old friends.”
A drop of rain hit his cheek, then another, and suddenly the sky opened up, people scrambling for cover, food truck workers yanking tarps over their grills. Clara grabbed his wrist, her hand small and warm against his skin, and said she lived two blocks away, he could wait out the storm with her. His knee was screaming now, the rain making the old injury throb, and he nodded, letting her pull him through the downpour.
Her bungalow was small, cluttered with potted succulents and stacks of used books, porch strung with fairy lights, a weathered wooden swing hanging from the eave. She lit a citronella candle to keep the mosquitoes away, brought out two glasses of bourbon, no ice, just how he liked it. They sat down on the swing, and when she shifted to get comfortable, her leg pressed full-length against his, denim warm through his work pants. She didn’t move away. He could hear the rain tapping against the roof of the porch, the distant rumble of thunder, the soft sound of her breathing next to him.
He didn’t know what made him say it, the thought he’d buried for 20 years, ever since she’d showed up at his cabin that first spring break, 28 years old, bright-eyed, asking him to teach her how to identify wild mushrooms. “I always avoided you back then,” he said, staring at the rain dripping off the edge of the eave. “I thought it was wrong to notice you. Married, family, all that.”
She didn’t say anything for a second, then she leaned in, so close her hair brushed his jaw. “I avoided you because I thought you only ever saw me as your ex’s annoying kid cousin. I’ve had a crush on you since you carried me down that trail.”
He turned to look at her, and her eyes were dark, steady, no hesitation. He kissed her slow, soft, the taste of peach cobbler and bourbon on her lips, her hand coming up to cup his face, her fingers calloused a little from pulling weeds, from turning the pages of his old journal. It wasn’t rushed, not the messy, desperate thing he’d expected, it felt like coming home, like something he’d been waiting for his whole life without knowing it.
They pulled back after a minute, and she laced her fingers through his, her hand fitting perfectly in his, the scar on her palm from a childhood bike accident lining up with the scar on his from a chainsaw mishap. He told her he could take her to that hidden grove with the bioluminescent fungi next weekend, if the rain stopped, if she wanted. She smiled, squeezing his hand, and said she’d been waiting 20 years to go.
The citronella candle sputters, sending a wisp of smoke curling over their tangled hands as the rain taps soft and steady against the porch roof.
