Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew lead turned custom woodworker, leaned against the splintered wooden rail of the Darby, Montana, fire department beer garden fundraiser, plastic cup of cold amber ale heavy in his hand. It was mid-July, wildfire season, the air thick with the sharp tang of pine and the faint, distant smell of controlled burn smoke drifting over the Bitterroot Range. His Carhartt work shirt still had a fine dusting of cedar sawdust across the shoulders from the walnut dining table he’d been sanding that morning, steel-toe boots caked in the red dirt that coated every surface in town this time of year. He’d come out of obligation, owed the chief a favor for helping him haul a fallen oak off his property last winter, and he’d planned to stay an hour max, slip out before the band started playing the same old country covers they’d been playing since he was 20.
He spotted her across the crowd before she saw him, and his jaw tightened. Mara Carter, 52, his late wife Lila’s younger sister, the woman he’d spent 22 years actively resenting for telling him he was selfish for staying on hotshot crews when Lila was first diagnosed with breast cancer. He hadn’t seen her since Lila’s funeral, had heard through the family grapevine she’d been working as a travel ER nurse for 15 years, bounced from Houston to Queens to Seattle during the worst of the COVID surges, only moved back to town three weeks prior to take care of their 81-year-old mom who’d had a stroke last spring. She was leaning against a picnic table, laughing at something the fire chief said, silver streaks catching the sun in the dark brown hair she’d pulled back in a messy braid, wearing a faded fire department volunteer tee and cut-off denim shorts, scuffed hiking boots on her feet. She looked less like the sharp, judgmental 30-year-old he remembered, softer around the edges, faint laugh lines fanning out from the corners of her forest green eyes.
He tried to turn and melt back into the crowd, but the line for the port-a-potties snaked directly in his path, and before he could step aside, she’d locked eyes with him. She raised a hand, waved, and he couldn’t exactly ignore her without making a scene, not in a town where everyone knew everyone’s business. She wove through the crowd toward him, and a kid darting past with a snow cone bumped her hard from behind, sending her stumbling directly into him. She grabbed his forearm to steady herself, her palm warm and calloused at the fingertips, the pressure firm enough he could feel the heat through the thin cotton of his shirt. “Sorry,” she said, grinning as she righted herself, not pulling her hand away right away, holding his gaze like she wasn’t afraid of him, like she didn’t know he’d spent two decades mad at her. “Clay, right? You look exactly the same. A little more gray, same scowl.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he just grunted, nodded, took a sip of his beer to buy time. He’d spent so long building up this image of her as the villain in his worst memory, but standing this close, he could smell her perfume, sandalwood and wild sage, nothing like the sweet flowery stuff Lila used to wear, and the anger he’d carried for so long felt a little lighter, a little less solid. “Heard you’re doing woodworking now,” she said, nodding at the sawdust on his shoulder, finally letting go of his arm, and he missed the weight of her hand more than he wanted to admit. “I need a custom built-in bookshelf for Mom’s house, her old one collapsed last month when we were moving her medical supplies in. I’d pay you double your rate, no haggling. Everyone in town says your work’s the best around.”
He agreed before he could talk himself out of it, told her to meet him at his workshop at 2pm the next Saturday, scribbled his address on a napkin he pulled out of his pocket. She took it, her fingers brushing his when she grabbed the napkin, and she held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary before she turned to head back to the chief, waving over her shoulder. He stood there for another 20 minutes, staring at the spot where she’d been, finishing his beer, confused as hell at the flutter low in his stomach he hadn’t felt since Lila was alive.
She showed up 10 minutes early Saturday, carrying a six pack of the same microbrew he’d been drinking at the beer garden, said she remembered he liked it from the old Fourth of July cookouts the family used to have. His workshop smelled like cedar and lemon Pledge, old 90s country playing low on the radio he kept perched on the workbench. They leaned over the sketch he’d drawn of the bookshelf, her shoulder brushing his as she pointed to a note he’d scrawled in the margin about adjustable shelves for her mom’s physical therapy books, and he could feel the heat radiating off her skin. “I never thought you were selfish, you know,” she said quietly, not looking up at him, tracing the edge of the sketch paper with her finger. “I was 30, scared my sister was dying, and I took it out on you. I didn’t know how to say I was scared, so I said I was mad at you. I’ve felt like shit about it for 22 years.”
The last of the anger he’d been carrying drained out of him right then, and he didn’t say anything, just reached out, brushed a stray piece of cedar shavings off the top of her braid. She looked up at him, and her eyes were shiny, no anger there, no judgment, just something soft, something he recognized as want. She leaned in a little, and he could feel her breath on his jaw, mint and the faint tang of beer, and he kissed her, slow, not rushing, like they had all the time in the world. She tasted exactly like he thought she would, warm and sharp and alive, and he didn’t feel guilty, not like he’d spent 24 hours worrying he would. It felt like coming home, somehow, like the last 22 years of being angry and alone had been leading up to this.
They spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the sawdust-covered concrete floor of the shop, passing beers back and forth, talking about everything they’d missed. She told him about working 12-hour shifts in Queens ICUs during COVID, holding the hands of people who couldn’t see their families before they died, how she’d quit traveling because she couldn’t take being alone anymore. He told her about the 2021 Lolo Peak fire, the one that made him retire, when he’d watched a 22-year-old kid on his crew get caught in a burn over, how he’d realized he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life running toward danger just to avoid feeling anything.
The sun was dipping below the mountains by the time she stood up to leave, dusting sawdust off the back of her shorts. She leaned against the door of her beat-up Subaru Outback, grinning at him, and asked if he wanted to come over for dinner, said her mom had made meatloaf, the same recipe Lila used to make, his favorite. He nodded, grabbed his flannel off the hook by the workshop door, locked up behind him. He stood on the driveway watching her pull out, her hand hanging out the window waving, and took a slow sip of the last beer he’d pulled from the six pack. The cool evening air bit at his cheeks, and he smiled, tucking his hands into his pockets as he walked to his truck to follow her home.
