Javi Ruiz, 62, retired border patrol K9 handler, had occupied the same corner table at the Bandera VFW Friday fish fry for seven straight years. He’d buried his wife Elena two years before moving to the Texas Hill Country, and since then his routine was set as the oaks lining the Medina River: up at 5 a.m. to run the bird dogs he trained for local ranchers, lunch at the Main Street diner, Friday nights at the VFW with catfish and a Lone Star, no exceptions. His biggest flaw, per his old partner, was that he’d rather chew off his own boot than admit he was lonely. He’d brushed off every widow’s set-up, convinced any new connection was a slight to Elena’s memory.
The air that Friday smelled like hushpuppies and burnt grease, the jukebox spitting Johnny Cash cuts over the room’s hum. Javi was scraping tartar sauce off his paper plate when a shadow fell across his table. He looked up to see Clara Bennett, 58, who’d opened the Main Street book swap three months prior, holding a plate of catfish and a sweating cup of sweet tea. The room was packed, every other table stacked with coolers and hunting gear, so she nodded at the empty seat across from him, her canvas jacket brushing his shoulder as she leaned in. “Mind if I crash? The guys at the bar keep lecturing me about my store sign.”
Javi grunted, pushing an extra napkin across the table. He’d seen the sign, the pro-choice poster taped between a Willie Nelson tour poster and a local animal shelter flyer. Half the VFW guys had been calling her a Portland carpetbagger for weeks, ever since she’d moved post-divorce. He didn’t care about the sign, not really, but he’d avoided talking to her to skip his buddies’ teasing. She smelled like cedar and lavender hand cream when she sat, her mud-caked hiking boots propped on the empty chair next to her, and he found himself staring at the frayed cuff of her flannel before he caught himself and looked away.
They talked for 40 minutes, first about the half-blind beagle she’d found wandering the trail behind her cottage that morning, then about Javi’s dogs, then about the oaks already turning burnt orange that fall. When she reached for the last hushpuppy, her knuckles brushed his, and he felt a jolt up his arm like touching an electric fence. He pulled his hand back fast, staring at his beer, face hot. He hadn’t felt that spark in 10 years, a nasty voice in his head saying he was being disrespectful, that Elena would roll in her grave seeing him flirt with the town troublemaker. He saw his buddy Roy staring from the bar, raising his beer in a sarcastic toast, and Javi flipped him off without looking away from Clara.
He offered to drive her up to the Henderson ranch the next morning to return the beagle, and she said yes before he finished talking. He showed up at 9 a.m., the beagle curled up on the seat of his beat-up 1998 F-150, and she climbed in carrying a paper bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies. The dirt ranch road was bumpy, the radio playing old George Strait cuts, and Javi kept stealing glances at her as she watched the hills roll by, hair blowing in the open window. When they dropped the beagle off, old Man Henderson pressed two jars of peach preserves into their hands, winking at Javi like he knew something he didn’t.
On the drive back, a sudden thunderstorm rolled in, rain lashing the windshield so hard Javi could barely see the road. The truck skidded on mud, Clara lurching forward, Javi reaching out automatically to steady her, his hand wrapping around her forearm. He didn’t let go right away, his thumb brushing the soft skin above her wrist, and when he looked over she was already staring at him, eyes dark, no amusement or awkwardness. The rain tapped the roof, the radio cut out for a second, and for a beat neither moved, tension thick enough to cut with a knife.
They stopped at the Highway 16 roadside diner for coffee, sitting in a back booth, their coats dripping on the linoleum. She told him she’d been scared to come to the VFW, that she thought everyone there hated her, and Javi shook his head, stirring cream into his coffee. “Most of those guys just complain about anything new. Don’t take it personal.” He paused, staring at his chipped mug, before saying the thing he’d been turning over all morning. “My wife used to put up the same sign in our El Paso front yard. Got us death threats once. She didn’t care.”
Clara reached across the table, her hand covering his, and this time he didn’t pull away. When he dropped her off later that afternoon, the rain had stopped, a rainbow arching over the hills behind her house. She leaned against the porch doorframe, holding the peach preserves to her chest, and asked if he wanted to come in for a glass of red wine. Javi hesitated half a second, glancing at Elena’s photo tucked in his sun visor, then nodded, wiping his boots on the welcome mat before he followed her inside.
