Rafe Ortega, 52, has been a cattle auctioneer in east Texas for 27 years, and he’d rather wrestle a 1200-pound angus steer with a broken halter than attend the annual Smith County Fair. His 16-year-old niece had begged him to run a 4-H demo auction for the kids showing livestock this year, though, and he’d never been able to say no to that kid, not after her dad died in a logging accident three years back. The August heat sticks to his skin like wet canvas, his throat is raw from running the fast, slurred chants for two hours straight, and he’s already mentally mapping the route back to his auction barn, where his old coonhound Mabel is curled up on his office couch waiting for a slice of leftover brisket.
He’s leaning against the split-rail fence bordering the show ring, wiping sweat off his forehead with the frayed cuff of his denim work shirt, when a cold can of root beer presses into the side of his arm. He jumps a little, turns, and finds himself looking down at Clara Marlow, the new county extension agent who moved to town four months prior. He’s seen her at his weekly auctions, sitting in the back row in work boots caked in mud, scribbling notes in a beat-up spiral notebook, but they’ve never exchanged more than a quick nod. Her left hand has a thin, pale scar snaking across the knuckles from a horse riding accident as a teen, and when he takes the can from her, their fingers brush. Her skin is warm, a little calloused, and the contact sends a jolt up his arm that he hasn’t felt since his ex-wife left him eight years prior.
She smells like pine-sol and peppermint lip balm, and her hazel eyes have flecks of bright green in them that he doesn’t notice until she steps closer, leaning against the fence next to him to watch a pair of 10-year-olds lead fluffy sheep around the ring. She teases him about his auction chant, says she’s worked around ranchers her whole life and she still can’t make out half the words he slings when he’s in the zone. He laughs, a rough, rusty sound he doesn’t use much these days, and tells her about the time a guy from Dallas showed up to an auction, thought the chant was some kind of performance art, tried to book him for his kid’s birthday party. She snorts, loud and unselfconscious, and her shoulder presses into his bicep. He doesn’t pull away.
The internal conflict hits him a second later, sharp and unwelcome. He’s spent the last eight years deliberately keeping everyone but his niece and his regular rancher clients at arm’s length. He hates the pitying looks people give him when they find out his wife left him for a real estate agent in Austin, hates the way the local women try to set him up with their cousins and friends like he’s some broken project that needs fixing. Worse, he remembers his ex-wife was friends with Clara’s older sister back in high school. It feels wrong, like crossing a line he’s spent years drawing around himself, and for a second he’s disgusted with himself for even noticing how the sun catches the streaks of auburn in her brown hair, how her laugh sounds like wind through the pine trees that line the road to his barn.
The fair hums around them, the distant whir of the tilt-a-whirl mixing with the low moo of cattle in the stock trailers and the sweet, greasy smell of fried Oreos drifting over from the food stalls. She asks him about the 4-H kids, and he finds himself talking longer than he intended, telling her about the 12-year-old kid who brought a crossbred steer to his auction last month that sold for three times the expected price, how the kid used the money to pay for his little sister’s leukemia treatment. She listens, no pity, no patronizing pat on the arm, just nods, her full attention on him like what he’s saying matters more than any of the other hundred things she probably has to do that day.
When the last of the 4-H lambs gets led out of the ring, she turns to him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and bites her lower lip a little like she’s nervous. Asks him if he wants to split a funnel cake before the firework show starts. He’s already got the excuse on the tip of his tongue, says he’s got to get back to the barn to feed Mabel, but then he looks at her, at the faint smudge of dirt on her cheek from hauling hay bales for the 4-H kids earlier that day, and the lie dies in his throat. He says yes.
The funnel cake is hot, dusted thick with powdered sugar, and they carry it over to a splintered wooden bench at the edge of the fairgrounds, far enough away from the crowd that they don’t have to yell over the noise. She gets a streak of powdered sugar on her right cheek halfway through, and he hesitates for a full three seconds before reaching out, brushing it off with the pad of his thumb. Their eyes lock, and for a second he thinks he’s messed up, thinks she’ll pull away, but she just smiles, slow and soft, and tells him she’s been coming to his auctions for three months, has been trying to work up the nerve to talk to him that whole time. He laughs, says he noticed her in the back row, thought she was a state auditor coming to shut him down for skimming cash off the top of the sales.
The first firework goes off a minute later, bright red, bursting over the fairgrounds and painting the sky in streaks of color. She shifts closer to him on the bench, leans her head on his shoulder, and he can feel the warmth of her through his work shirt. He’d spent so long convincing himself he was better off alone, that any kind of connection would just end in the same quiet heartbreak he’d lived with for eight years, but for the first time in as long as he can remember, he doesn’t feel the urge to run. When the next firework goes off, blue this time, he rests his hand lightly on her knee, and she laces her fingers through his.
