Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew lead, had avoided The Rusty Spur’s annual chili cookoff for seven straight years. The last time he’d gone, his ex-wife Karen had shown up with the 28-year-old crew mate she’d left him for, and he’d dumped a pot of five-alarm chili over both their boots before walking out. His flaw was obvious to everyone who knew him: he held grudges like he held a fire line, unyielding, no room for compromise, and he’d written off every woman connected to Karen’s side of the family as dead to him.
This year, his old crew badgered him into coming, noting the fundraiser supported the local volunteer fire department that backed them up on the August Bitterroot complex blaze, the 40,000-acre fire crews contained only two weeks prior. The bar air hung thick with hickory smoke, chili steam, and sharp, yeasty microbrew tang. Country classics crackled low over the speakers, and the floor stuck under his work boots. He’d grabbed a pint of IPA and angled for the empty corner table when he heard his name, warm and low, from the silent auction table by the door.
He froze. He’d know that voice anywhere. Mia Carter, 49, Karen’s younger cousin, the one who’d brought him homemade chicken noodle soup when he broke his leg on a 2011 fire line, the one who never took Karen’s side during the divorce. She leaned against the table, flannel shirt rolled to her elbows, forearms dusted with faint sunspots, a strand of silver-streaked auburn hair falling in front of her hazel eyes. She held a stack of auction sheets, smiling like she’d waited for him to show up.
He should have turned left, walked out, driven home to his empty cabin. Instead, he found himself walking toward her, boots sticking to the linoleum. “Didn’t think you’d be here,” he said, close enough now to smell the pine soap she used and cinnamon from the chili she’d entered in the contest. She held out a sheet, and when he reached for it, their knuckles brushed. Her skin was calloused, from years of training horses, he remembered, and the jolt shooting up his arm was so sharp he almost dropped his beer.
He stared at the auction listings, half listening as she ran through them: a guided fly fishing trip, diner gift card, weekend stay at the log cabin she’d inherited from her dad up the West Fork road, just a mile from the fire line he’d worked for three straight weeks in August. He bid on the cabin without thinking, scribbling his number higher than the last bid just to have an excuse to stand there a little longer. He told her about the fire, how he’d spotted the cabin through smoke, the roof intact, the porch step sagging like it would give out any day. She laughed, a low throaty sound, and said she’d been meaning to fix that step for six months but never found someone who knew what they were doing.
They moved to a booth by the window, and she brought him a bowl of her chili, spicy just how he liked it. They talked for an hour: fire season, old crew mates, how Karen had moved to Boise with the kid she’d had with his former crew mate. Mia said she’d always thought Karen was an idiot for throwing away a good thing. “I had a crush on you for years, you know,” she said, so quiet he almost missed it over the jukebox, looking down at her beer mug, cheeks pink like she was embarrassed to say it out loud.
Clay’s chest tightened. Part of him was disgusted, disgusted he was even considering this, flirting with his ex-wife’s cousin, that every person in this bar knew who she was and would gossip about them for weeks. The other part, the part that had been cold and lonely for eight years, felt warm for the first time in as long as he could remember. He reached across the table, brushed that strand of hair back behind her ear, his fingers lingering on her cheek, soft, a little rough from mountain wind. She leaned into his touch, eyes closed for half a second, and he knew he wasn’t walking away from this.
When the auction closed, the emcee announced he’d won the cabin rental. Mia leaned across the table, her knee brushing his under the booth, and said she had to go up there next weekend to winterize the pipes, asked if he wanted to come along, help her fix that porch step. He said yes before he could overthink it.
They met at the grocery store parking lot at 7 a.m. the next Saturday, air crisp enough to see his breath, mountains pink with sunrise. He had his tool belt in the back of his Ford F-150, she had a cooler of IPA and a tin of chocolate chip cookies she’d baked for him, she said. She slid into the passenger seat, her shoulder pressing against his when she reached over to turn up the heat, and he caught that faint, familiar pine soap scent again. He turned the key in the ignition, shifted into drive, and didn’t glance at the town shrinking in the rearview mirror as he turned onto the road leading up to the cabin.
