Clay Bennett, 57, retired wildland firefighter with a scar splitting his left eyebrow and a habit of leaving unopened cans of Pabst on the ridge where his crew died in 2017, was manning the raffle table at the county fire department’s annual end-of-summer fundraiser when he spotted her. He’d avoided Mara Hale for close to two years, ever since she’d taken the county health nurse job and given him a flu shot, teasing him so hard for flinching that his ears burned for three hours after. She was Jase’s little sister, for Christ’s sake. He’d first met her when she was 16, showing up to crew cookouts with a stack of homework and a smart mouth, and he’d spent 36 years deliberately not noticing anything about her beyond whether she needed a ride home or help fixing her beat-up pickup.
“Ten bucks worth of tickets,” she said, setting a crumpled 10 on the table between them. When he reached to hand her the stubs, their fingers brushed. His were calloused from decades of swinging axes and tying fly fishing knots, hers rough from years of adjusting IV lines and patching up scraped knees and fixing the leaky gutters on her cabin outside of town. He pulled his hand back so fast he knocked a roll of tickets off the edge of the table, and she laughed, a low, rough sound that told him she still snuck the occasional menthol when she thought no one was looking. “Relax, Bennett. I don’t bite unless you ask real nice.”
He felt his face heat up, and he bent to grab the roll of tickets off the dirt. He’d spent so long wrapping himself in a thick layer of guilt and grief that any kind of teasing, any hint of attention from someone who didn’t look at him like he was a broken ghost, made his chest feel tight. He’d quit drinking four years prior, quit going out to bars, quit letting anyone get close, because he’d decided a long time ago he didn’t deserve to be happy when Jase and the rest of the crew were buried six feet under.
She leaned against the edge of the table, her bare shoulder pressing lightly against his bicep, and nodded at the top raffle prize posted on the board behind him: a guided three-day fishing trip on the Deschutes, gear included. “Been meaning to get back out on the water,” she said, her voice softer now. “Found Jase’s old fly fishing gear in my attic last month. All those rods he spent three years saving up for, just sitting in a duffel, collecting dust. He always said you were the only one who knew how to use ’em right, that I’d probably hook my own ear if I tried.”
Clay’s throat went tight. He hadn’t talked about Jase with anyone besides the old crew’s widows in years. He’d always thought any kind of interest in Mara was a betrayal, that Jase would knock him flat if he ever so much as looked at his little sister twice. But then she turned to look at him, her dark eyes steady, and said she’d seen him up on the ridge three weeks prior, leaving the usual four cans of Pabst on the stone memorial they’d put up. She went up there too, she said, every few weeks, leaves a pack of Jase’s favorite spearmint gum.
The noise of the fundraiser faded into the background for a second. He’d thought he was the only one who still visited that ridge, the only one who couldn’t let go. He felt the tightness in his chest loosen, just a little, and for the first time all night he didn’t pull away when her shoulder pressed a little harder against his.
She finished her root beer, set the empty cup on the table, and tilted her head toward the dirt path leading down to the creek behind the fire station. “I brought one of the rods in my truck,” she said. “Wanna sneak out early? Test it out for an hour or so. No one’s gonna miss us. The chief’s already three deep in margaritas, he won’t even notice you’re gone.”
Clay hesitated for half a second. Every part of him that had spent 18 years punishing himself screamed to say no, that this was wrong, that he didn’t get to have fun, didn’t get to look at Jase’s little sister and want something for himself. But then she smiled, that same sharp, smart smile she’d had when she was 16 and asking him to teach her to throw a tomahawk at crew cookouts, and he nodded.
The creek was dark, the water catching the last of the twilight, crickets chirping loud in the brush along the banks. He walked her through how to hold the rod first, his chest pressing lightly against her back when he adjusted her grip, her hair brushing his jaw, the scent of her lavender shampoo mixing with the smell of damp dirt and moss. He could feel her heart beating fast against his arm, and when she turned to look up at him, her face inches from his, she said she’d waited 18 years for him to stop acting like he owed the world nothing but grief.
He kissed her then, soft at first, then harder, when she tilted her chin up and her hands came up to rest on his shoulders. She tasted like root beer and peppermint lip balm, and when her fingers brushed the scar on his left eyebrow, he didn’t flinch. They didn’t catch any fish that night. They didn’t even bother casting after that first try, just sat on a fallen log by the creek, talking until the moon was high enough to paint the water silver.
He drove her back to her cabin just after 10, his hand resting on her thigh the whole way down the dirt road. When she pulled the screen door open behind him, the faint jingle of the cowbell she hung on the frame mixed with the distant hoot of an owl, and for the first time in 18 years, he didn’t feel guilty for wanting to stay.
