Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew lead who now runs a one-man custom woodworking shop out of his garage outside Missoula, had spent six months ranting about Mara Hale to anyone who’d listen. The new county public health officer, 42, had pushed through the strict seasonal burn ban that got three of Clay’s old crew buddies fined for clearing brush on their own property, and he’d called her a desk-bound bureaucrat with zero on-ground fire experience during a heated public comment Zoom call back in April. He’d avoided all county meetings since, preferring to drink ice-cold IPAs at the fire department’s annual summer block party instead of arguing with people who’d never held a Pulaski or slept in a dirt fire camp for three weeks straight.
He leaned against the beer tent railing that evening, faded 2019 Lolo National Forest fire crew hoodie pulled over his shoulders, work boots still caked with pine sawdust from that morning’s table build, ignoring the real estate developer in a crisp polo who kept trying to pitch him on custom shelves for the new luxury subdivision going up in the fire-prone hills west of town. The air smelled like charcoal, grilled onions, and pine resin, the thud of cornhole bags and the high cackle of kids chasing each other with water guns blending into a lazy summer hum. That’s when he spotted her.
Mara was leaning against the opposite side of the tent, worn high-waisted jeans and a white linen button-down rolled up to her elbows, a faint constellation tattoo wrapping around her left wrist, holding a lime seltzer and laughing so hard at a story one of the retired fire chiefs was telling that she snort-laughed mid-sentence. Clay’s jaw tightened. He’d pictured her in stiff blazers and sensible heels, not scuffed white sneakers and a smudge of dirt on her left cheek like she’d been hiking that morning. He was still staring when she tripped over a stray cooler leg a second later, stumbling forward and grabbing his left forearm to steady herself, her warm palm pressing directly into the thick, silvery scar he’d gotten from a falling snag during the 2017 Lodgepole Complex fire.
She apologized immediately, pulling her hand back like she’d burned herself, then her eyes flicked to his hoodie, then his face, and she grinned, sharp and playful. “You’re Clay Bennett. The guy who called my burn ban a violation of individual liberty on the public comment call. I’d recognize that grizzled scowl anywhere.”
Clay blinked, heat rising up the back of his neck. He’d spent months hating this woman, but now that she was standing six inches away, he could smell lavender perfume mixed with pine, see the faint flecks of green in her brown eyes, and all the snarky retorts he’d rehearsed died in his throat. “Guilty. Figured you spent all your time in a county office, not hanging out with the people your rules fine for having a campfire.”
She rolled her eyes, leaning against the railing next to him so their knees brushed through the thin fabric of their jeans. “I spent three seasons on a wildfire crew outside Bend before I got my public health degree. Got this,” she tapped the thin, pale scar running across her right shoulder, “from a falling branch during the 2020 holiday fires. The burn ban’s not about punishing people who know how to handle fire. It’s about the rich idiots moving here from Seattle who try to burn their Christmas trees in July in tinder-dry grass.”
Clay nodded, suddenly sheepish. He’d been so mad about his buddies getting fined he’d never bothered to look up her background, never stopped to ask why the ban was stricter this year. They talked for 45 minutes straight, about the way new subdivisions were skipping fire mitigation requirements, about the best spots to fish for cutthroat trout in the Bitterroot, about the sourdough starter he’d been tending since his wife passed four years prior. She tapped his forearm when she made a joke about the county commissioner who’d tried to get the ban overturned so he could host a Fourth of July fireworks show at his lake house, her fingers light against his skin. When the volunteer running the beer tent handed him a free hot dog slathered in mustard and relish, he passed it to her first, their fingers brushing when she took it, warm grease from the bun smudging a tiny mark on her wrist.
He was still laughing at a story she told about getting stuck in a porta-potty during a rainstorm on a fire line when she checked her phone, sighing, and said she had to head home to let her rescue dog out. She paused for a second, picking at the label on her seltzer can, then looked up at him, eyes bright. “I’ve been trying to hike the new trail up by your woodshop, but all the maps I have are out of date. You wouldn’t happen to want to show me around sometime, would you? I’ll bring the beer. The good craft stuff, not the cheap swill they’re serving here.”
Clay froze. For four years, he’d turned down every invitation that wasn’t a poker night with his old crew or a lumber run, convinced dating or even making a new friend that wasn’t an old coworker was a betrayal of his late wife, that he was too old for that kind of thing, that it would end messy. He could feel the familiar twist of guilt in his gut, warring with the quiet buzz of excitement he hadn’t felt since before his wife got sick, the way his skin still tingled where her palm had pressed against his scar. He hesitated for two full seconds, then nodded. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
She grinned, grabbing a crumpled napkin from the stack next to the grill, scribbling her number on it in blue ballpoint, and pressing it into his palm, her thumb lingering on his knuckle for half a beat before she pulled away. She waved over her shoulder as she walked to her beat-up forest green Subaru, and he waved back, watching her pull out of the parking lot before he looked down at the napkin, smudged with ketchup and a tiny stain of relish in the corner, folded twice. He tucked it into the inner pocket of his hoodie, right next to the crumpled photo of his wife he kept there, and grabbed his half-empty beer from the railing, twisting the cold, sweating can in his hands. A kid ran past him, spraying a water gun, and a few drops hit his cheek, cold and sharp.
