Leo Marquez, 62, spent 32 years as a Texas Hill Country game warden, and had not voluntarily shown up to any local event that didn’t involve a stranded hiker or a poaching report until last Saturday. He stood leaning against a gnarled live oak at the annual Fall Harvest Festival, plastic cup of dry tempranillo in one calloused hand, scuffing the heel of his work boot into clover-dusted grass. His next door neighbor had begged him to come; he owed the guy a favor for rebuilding his truck’s transmission two weeks prior, and the man’s 16 year old kid was playing fiddle in the bluegrass band set up by the vineyard entrance. He’d spent most of the last three years, since his wife Linda passed, holed up in his cabin fixing old hunting rifles and feeding the feral hogs that wandered through his property line, convinced any attempt to enjoy himself without her was a betrayal.
He stepped back to avoid a group of squealing kids chasing a miniature goat from the petting zoo, and his shoulder connected hard with someone carrying a tray of spiced cider shots. One sloshed over the edge, seeping warm and sweet through the sleeve of his faded red flannel, the heat seeping straight to his wrist bone. He opened his mouth to apologize, and the woman in front of him laughed, low and throaty, like she spent half her days laughing at messes instead of getting mad. She was 58 maybe, gray streaks threaded through chestnut hair pulled back in a braid, hazel eyes flecked with gold holding his gaze longer than polite. She wiped the damp spot on his sleeve with a linen napkin pulled from her canvas apron, her fingers brushing his forearm, rough from pruning vines, and a jolt shot up his spine that he hadn’t felt since Linda was alive. He tensed immediately, jaw tight, pissed at himself for even noticing.
“Leo Marquez, right?” she said, wiping a stray drop of cider off her own wrist, shifting the tray to her other hand. “You brought my 12 year old son back to my car 18 years ago, caught him sneaking onto the refuge to catch leopard frogs. Didn’t write him a ticket. Told him if he came back with a fishing license, he could use your secret bass spot by the creek. He still talks about that.”
He blinked, the memory surfacing slow, fuzzy around the edges. He’d done that a lot, back then, cut kids slack when they were just curious, not hurting anything. He nodded, and she introduced herself as Marnie, the vineyard’s event coordinator, former high school biology teacher, widowed seven years prior when her husband dropped dead of a heart attack on a hunting trip. She invited him back to the tasting room porch, away from the crowd, said the sound of the fiddle carried better there, and you could see the sunset paint the vines pink when it went down over the hills.
He hesitated for a full ten seconds, every part of him screaming he should stay by the oak, leave after the kid played his set, go home to his empty cabin and his frozen pizza. But the cider smelled like cinnamon and clove, her smile was soft, no pity in it, and he found himself nodding.
The porch rail was cool under his palms, the sharp sweet smell of crushed grape must drifting up from the crush pad below them, the fiddle’s trill mixing with the distant low of cattle from the ranch down the road. She sat on the rail next to him, her shoulder an inch from his, passing him a small glass of tawny port when the band started playing an old Johnny Cash cover. Their fingers brushed when he took the glass, and he didn’t pull away. He told her about Linda, how she’d begged him to come to these festivals for years, how he’d always turned her down, called them pretentious, said he’d rather be out on the refuge. Admitted he’d felt guilty about it every day since she was gone. She didn’t say anything, just nodded, said she’d spent three years refusing to go to the old dive bar her husband loved, like stepping foot in there would mean she was forgetting him.
He laughed harder than he had in three years when she told him about the pet raccoon her son had found in the vineyard, kept it in the garage for three months before she found it eating all her homemade jam in the pantry. The sun dipped low over the hills, painting the sky tangerine and rose, the air turning crisp enough that he could see his breath when he exhaled. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, her knuckles brushing his cheek for half a second, and he didn’t flinch. The guilt he’d carried for so long, so sharp it ached, was soft now, like a faint hum, like Linda was somewhere rolling her eyes at him for being so stubborn.
She asked if he wanted to come back the next morning, help her harvest the last of the cabernet sauvignon grapes, said she’d make him pecan pancakes for breakfast, the kind with extra syrup, like he’d mentioned was his favorite an hour prior, she’d remembered. He said yes, no hesitation, no argument, no quiet voice in his head telling him he didn’t deserve it. He stayed until the band finished their set, until the string lights strung across the vineyard blinked on, until the last of the crowd loaded their kids into minivans and drove off. He walked her to her door before he left, the paper napkin she’d used to wipe his sleeve, dotted with amber cider stains, tucked into the pocket of his flannel, the cold Hill Country wind on his face and the taste of port still warm on his tongue.
