Rafe Marquez, 62, spent 38 years leading wildland fire crews across the Pacific Northwest before he retired two years ago, and his only consistent flaw these days is his stubborn refusal to let anyone new get close. Seven years after his wife Linda died from a fast-moving breast cancer, he still sleeps on his side of the king bed, still buys her favorite lemon drops when he stops at the grocery store, still bails on any event his friends drag him to if he suspects they’re trying to set him up. He’d shown up to the annual county fire department chili cookoff only because his old crew had entered a batch they’d named after him, and he didn’t have the heart to skip out on them.
He was leaning against a splintered pine picnic table, picking at a bowl of three-alarm chili that burned all the way down to his sternum, when he felt someone brush up against his left bicep. He didn’t have to look to know it was Clara Hale, the 48-year-old head of the county recreation department who’d moved to the valley six months prior. He’d spent the last four months actively avoiding her, ever since their hands had brushed while passing a chainsaw during a post-storm trail cleanup, and he’d felt a hot, sharp jolt of attraction he hadn’t experienced since he was 22 and first asked Linda out to a drive-in movie. The guilt had hit him so hard afterward he’d lied about having a doctor’s appointment to skip the rest of the work day, and he’d crossed the street any time he saw her pickup truck parked outside the diner.
“Your crew’s chili is even hotter than the blaze you fought on the south ridge in 2019,” she said, leaning in close enough that he could smell lavender lotion mixed with the pine smoke clinging to her flannel shirt, her shoulder pressed firm to his arm. She didn’t move away when he tensed up. He stared at the scuffed toes of his work boots, nodded, mumbled something about the kids adding too much habanero. He could feel her eyes on the side of his face, the heat of her gaze seeping through the gray stubble along his jaw.
She laughed, soft and low, when he dropped his plastic spoon on the dirt at their feet. They both bent down to grab it at the same time, their foreheads knocking gently together, her chestnut hair falling forward to brush his cheek. It smelled like pine and citrus, like the trailheads he hiked three times a week when the weather was nice. He froze, his hand hovering an inch from hers over the spoon, his chest tight with a messy, tangled mix of shame and want that made his ears burn. He wanted to yank his hand back, run to his truck, drive home and lock himself in the house like he’d done a hundred times before. He also wanted to tangle his fingers in her hair, pull her close, kiss the freckles across the bridge of her nose he’d only ever snuck quick glances at from across the grocery store parking lot.
“I’ve been trying to talk to you for months, Rafe,” she said, sitting back on her heels, still holding the spoon, her eyes steady on his when he finally worked up the nerve to look at her. “I know you lost Linda. I’m not here to push anything you don’t want. But Marnie, Linda’s old running partner? She told me Linda used to say if she went first, she’d haunt your ass if you spent the rest of your life moping alone, eating frozen dinners and refusing to let anyone else make you laugh.”
The words hit him like a punch to the gut. He’d spent so long convincing himself that any kind of new connection was a betrayal, that Linda would be angry if he so much as smiled at another woman, that he’d forgotten how often she’d teased him about being too much of a homebody, about needing to get out more, about how she didn’t want him to be lonely if she was ever gone. He stared at Clara, at the crinkles around her eyes when she smiled, at the smudge of dirt on her left wrist from fixing a park bench earlier that day, and the tight knot of guilt he’d carried for seven years loosened just a little.
He stood up, wiped the dust off his jeans, held out a hand to help her up. His palm was calloused, crisscrossed with old scars from axe handles and burn blisters, and her hand fit perfectly in it when she took it. “I got a peach pie cooling on my kitchen windowsill,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended. “Baked it for my granddaughter’s birthday tomorrow, but I can make another. Wanna skip the rest of this?”
She grinned, lacing her fingers through his, and didn’t let go when they walked past his old crew, who hooted and waved from their cookoff booth. The old Johnny Cash cover the local band was playing faded behind them as they walked to his truck, the late afternoon sun warm on their faces, crickets starting to chirp in the grass along the sidewalk. He opened the passenger door for her, waited until she was settled inside before he shut it, and caught the faint scent of lavender on the air when he climbed into the driver’s seat next to her.
