Wendell Hargrove, 62, retired U.S. Forest Service fire crew boss, parked his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150 outside The Wheelhouse on Bend’s Galveston Avenue just after 7 p.m. on a sticky late August Wednesday. The weekly downtown farmers market had wrapped an hour prior, his frayed canvas tote slung over one shoulder holding a jar of pickled okra, a crusty loaf of sourdough, and a dented tin of chew he’d traded a bag of foraged morel mushrooms for back in June. He’d avoided the new peach stand all summer, knew exactly who ran it, had no interest in dredging up old loyalties he’d buried when his old crew partner, Jimmie, dropped dead of a heart attack three years prior at 60.
He slid onto his usual scuffed wooden stool at the far end of the bar, nodded at the bartender who already had his cold IPA poured and set down in front of him before he could open his mouth. The screen door slammed behind him ten minutes later, he didn’t look up until the edge of a frayed denim jacket brushed the bare forearm he’d propped on the bar, the faint scent of sun-ripened peaches and coconut sunscreen cutting through the bar’s usual mix of fried pickle grease, stale draft beer, and decades-old cigarette smoke stuck in the ceiling tiles. He glanced over, and there she was. Clara Bennett, Jimmie’s widow. She was 59, had the same streaks of honey woven through her light brown hair that he’d noticed back at Jimmie’s 40th birthday party, the same crinkles at the corners of her hazel eyes when she smiled that made his chest feel tight even then.
She slid onto the stool next to him, close enough that their jeans-clad knees almost brushed under the bar, and held his gaze for two full beats longer than casual politeness dictated. “I saw you skulking past my stand every Wednesday for two months,” she said, nodding at the bartender who set a glass of crisp Oregon pinot gris down in front of her without asking. “You avoid me for a reason, Wendell?” He felt his ears go pink, something he hadn’t experienced since he was a teenager sneaking beer into the Deschutes National Forest with Jimmie. He stammered out a half-assed excuse about being in a hurry to get back to his cabin, she laughed, a low, warm sound that drowned out the jukebox spitting out a Johnny Cash deep cut for half a second. “Bullshit,” she said, leaning in a little so she could be heard over the music, her shoulder pressing into his bicep for half a second before she pulled back just far enough to make the proximity feel intentional, not accidental.
He fought the urge to lean into her. For 22 years, Jimmie had joked that Clara was too good for every guy within 100 miles, including him, had made Wendell promise never to hit on her even if he kicked the bucket early. That promise bounced around his head while he sipped his beer, but so did the memory of him dropping a stack of split oak firewood on her back porch every winter when Jimmie was on a two-week fire deployment, the way she’d leave a jar of her famous peach jam on his truck seat in return, never saying a word about it to anyone. He’d written that off as neighborly, as loyalty to a friend, but now that she was sitting six inches from him, her hand resting on the bar less than an inch from his, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t thought about what it would be like to kiss her, at least once a month for two decades.
She reached for her wine glass at the same time he reached for his beer, their knuckles brushing, and she didn’t yank her hand away like he expected. She left it there, her skin soft and warm against his calloused knuckles, for three slow seconds, before she picked up her glass and took a sip. “I know you left that firewood,” she said, soft enough that only he could hear over the chatter of other patrons at the bar. “I always knew. Jimmie knew too, said you were the only son of a bitch he trusted to look out for me if he wasn’t around.” That knocked the wind out of him. He’d spent three years feeling guilty for even looking at her, for thinking about her when he was alone in his cabin eating frozen meatloaf for dinner, and Jimmie had known the whole time, hadn’t minded.
She shifted on her stool, turning so she was facing him fully, her knee brushing his under the bar this time, no pretense of accident. “The late frost in May took most of my crop this year,” she said, running a finger around the rim of her wine glass, her nail polished a soft peach color that matched the fruit she sold. “I got about 30 trees left that have good fruit on ‘em, too much for me to pick alone. Wanna come out to the orchard tomorrow? I’ll make you biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast, we can pick peaches all afternoon, you can take as many as you want home for jam. No strings. Just… company.” He hesitated for half a second, the old guilt flaring hot in his chest, then he looked at her, at the way she was biting her lower lip like she was nervous he’d say no, and all that resistance melted away. He wasn’t 25 anymore, wasn’t bound by dumb boyhood promises that didn’t matter if Jimmie had already signed off on them, wasn’t going to spend the rest of his retirement alone just because he was scared of breaking a rule that never really existed in the first place.
He nodded, and she grinned, pulling a crumpled white napkin out of her purse and scribbling her address and cell number on it in bright purple ink. She folded it twice, pressed it into his palm, her thumb lingering on the raised scar across his knuckle he’d gotten fighting a blaze outside of Sisters in 2011, the same fire Jimmie had carried him out of when he’d tripped over a fallen log and twisted his ankle. He folded his fingers around the napkin, could feel the warmth of her hand seeping through the thin paper even after she pulled hers away. He finished his beer while she finished her wine, they talked about the old crew, about the fire season this year that had been milder than usual, about the way the aspen would be turning gold in three weeks up in the mountains. He walked her to her beat-up Subaru Outback when she left, didn’t kiss her, just gave her a small wave when she pulled out of the parking lot, already knowing he’d be knocking on her door at 7 a.m. sharp the next day. He tucks the napkin into the breast pocket of his frayed Forest Service work shirt before he climbs back into his truck, already mentally mapping the fastest route to her orchard come sunrise.
