Rafe Mendez, 62, spent 28 years as a US Forest Service hotshot crew superintendent, and he’d never been afraid of a controlled burn. But casual conversation with a woman who wasn’t the cashier at the feed store? That was a wildfire he’d spent seven years deliberately starving, ever since his wife died in a 2016 car crash outside Redmond. His biggest flaw, his old crew chief used to say, was that he’d rather outwait a storm than ask for a spot under someone else’s awning. It had served him well fighting 100-foot blazes, but it had left him eating frozen burritos three nights a week and talking more to his border collie, Mabel, than any other living human.
He hit the Bend farmers market every Saturday at 8 a.m. sharp, before the tourist crowds rolled in, only ever stopping at the stone fruit stand for a half-peck of white peaches. That Saturday, the stand was still stacked with empty crates, the owner running late after a flat tire on his truck. Rafe hovered for a minute, already mentally pivoting to drive 20 minutes out of his way for the orchard stand on Route 20, when a woman’s voice pulled his gaze left.
“Got the sweetest Sun Golds you’ll taste all season if you’re waiting for peaches. They’re not ripe for another three days, anyway.”
Lena Hale ran the heirloom tomato stand two spots over. Rafe knew who she was. Everyone in Deschutes County knew who she was, three months out from her messy, very public divorce from the county sheriff, a man who still had half the local cops and ranchers in his back pocket. The rumor mill had been spinning nonstop about her, most of it ugly, most of it from people who’d never spoken three words to her. Rafe had avoided even glancing her way before, not out of judgment, but because he hated drama more than he hated pine beetle infestations.
He hesitated, then stepped toward her stand. The air smelled like damp soil and basil and the lavender hand lotion she wore, sharp and sweet over the faint, sticky smell of cotton candy from the food truck at the end of the row. She held out a small bowl of cherry tomatoes, her nails smudged with dirt, a thin silver scar running across her knuckle from when she’d crashed her dirt bike as a teen, he’d heard. When his fingers brushed hers to take the bowl, she didn’t yank her hand away. She held eye contact, her dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners, and Rafe felt a hot prickle run up his neck that had nothing to do with the 70-degree sun.
He popped a tomato in his mouth. It burst, sweet and acidic, better than any he’d ever grown in his own plot. He nodded, and she laughed, a low, rough sound that made Mabel, curled at his feet, lift her head. “Told you. I’ve been meaning to flag you down for weeks, actually. Saw you cutting up that fallen Ponderosa on your property last month. I got a 60-foot oak down across my backyard fence, windstorm knocked it over last week. Can’t get anyone to come out for less than $800, and half the guys in town won’t even return my calls, thanks to my ex.”
Rafe’s first instinct was to say no. He could already picture the texts flying between the sheriff’s buddies, the snide comments at the hardware store, the way people would whisper when he walked into the diner. He didn’t need that trouble, didn’t need to let anyone into his quiet, carefully structured life. But then a gust of wind picked up, knocking a stack of jam jars off the edge of her stand, and he lunged to catch the one on the end, same time she did. His hip pressed against hers for half a second, warm through her faded denim overalls and his thick work flannel, her hair falling forward to brush his forearm as they both righted the jar. She smelled like sunshine and tomato vine and that lavender lotion, and Rafe forgot what he was going to say.
He pulled back first, his face hot, and set the jar back on the shelf. “I can come out tomorrow afternoon. Two o’clock. Don’t need your money. Bring me a pie when the peaches come in, that’s enough.”
Her grin widened, and she reached under the counter to grab a crumpled receipt, scribbling her address on the back with a stubby pencil. She handed it to him, and this time she deliberately let her fingers linger on his for a beat longer than necessary. “I make a mean peach crumble, too. Don’t tell anyone I said that, but you’ll like it better than the pie.”
Rafe stuffed the receipt in his flannel pocket, picked up the bag of tomatoes she’d packed for him, and whistled for Mabel to follow. He walked slow toward his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150, ignoring the side-eye he got from the retired deputy manning the honey stand two rows over. For the first time in seven years, he didn’t feel like rushing back to his empty cabin to sit on the porch alone.
He unlocked the truck, lifted Mabel into the passenger seat, and pulled the receipt out of his pocket to check the address again, the smudge of her dirt-streaked pencil still soft under his thumb.
