Leo Marquez, 59, retired wildland firefighter crew boss with forearms crisscrossed with pale burn scars and a permanent squint from decades of staring down smoke and sun, had avoided the town’s weekly farmers market for three straight years. He hated the way neighbors would lean in, voice soft, to ask how he was holding up, the pitying glances at the empty spot on his left finger where his wedding band used to sit. The only reason he’d showed up this Saturday was his 16-year-old granddaughter had texted him at 8 a.m., all caps, begging for white peaches for the thank-you pie she was baking for the crews that had contained the perimeter of the Pine Ridge fire three days prior. Leo had led the backburn that saved the west side of town, a fact he’d told exactly zero people, so he’d grumbled, laced up his scuffed work boots, and driven into town.
He spotted the peach stand first, the yellow hand-painted sign propped up next to crates of blushing fruit, and then he spotted the woman behind it. Marnie Cole. 47, divorced from his old crewmate Jake for 14 years, hair streaked with silver at the temples that she’d pulled back in a messy braid, wiping sweat off her neck with the hem of her faded flannel shirt. Leo’s throat went dry. He’d barely spoken to Marnie since her divorce, had stuck rigidly to the unspoken crew rule that you didn’t make a move on a brother’s ex, even if that brother had been an asshole to her, even if that brother had died of a heart attack last year, even if Leo had thought she was the sharpest, funniest woman within 100 miles since he’d first met her when she was 19 and showed up to a crew campout with a six pack of craft beer and a story about outrunning a bear on a hike.
He hesitated for ten whole seconds, half considering turning around and buying peaches from the grocery store instead, before she looked up and locked eyes with him. Her face lit up, that wide, crinkly grin he remembered so well, and she waved him over. He trundled across the grass, boots crunching on fallen cherry blossom petals, and leaned against the edge of the stand. The sweet, heady scent of ripe peaches wrapped around him, mixed with the earthy smell of garden dirt under her fingernails and the faint vanilla of her lotion.
“Heard you were the one who lit that backburn that kept the fire from eating the whole west end,” she said, leaning forward so her elbow brushed his bicep. The contact was light, accidental, but Leo felt a jolt run up his arm that he hadn’t felt since his wife was alive. He shrugged, looked down at the scuffed toe of his boot, mumbled that it was a team effort. She laughed, a low, warm sound, and reached for a peach to show him the ripest ones at the exact same time he did. Their hands brushed, her palms calloused from months of pruning and lifting crates, warm from the sun, and neither of them pulled away for half a beat.
“Jake always said you were too humble for your own good,” she said, pulling her hand back slowly, picking up the peach and turning it over in her fingers. “Said you’d take the blame for every mistake and give away every credit for a win. I told him he was just jealous you were a better crew boss.”
Leo huffed a laugh, surprised. He’d spent so many years avoiding her, sticking to that stupid unwritten rule, that he’d missed out on how easy it was to talk to her. The bluegrass band playing at the far end of the market switched to a slow, twangy cover of a Johnny Cash song he and his wife used to dance to in their kitchen after the kids went to bed, and for half a second he felt that familiar twist of guilt, before he realized his wife would have yelled at him for being an idiot for hiding away for so long.
She bagged up a half bushel of the softest, ripest peaches, and when he pulled out his wallet she waved him off. “No charge,” she said, leaning in again, her shoulder pressing against his for a split second, her breath warm against his ear. “You can pay me back by coming over to my place for dinner tonight. 7 o’clock. I’m making pork chops and peach cobbler. No one else is coming. I’ve been wanting to talk to you since Jake’s funeral, but you bailed before I could catch you.”
Leo froze, his first instinct to say no, to make an excuse about having to fix the gutter on his cabin, to retreat back to his quiet, empty house where he didn’t have to confront the fact that he still wanted things, still felt things, after all these years. But then she reached out, touched his forearm lightly, her fingers brushing the edge of an old burn scar he’d gotten on a fire in 2007, and her voice softened. “I know you think you’re supposed to be alone forever, Leo. But you don’t have to be.”
He felt that tight, burning feeling behind his eyes he got when he was about to cry, something he hadn’t let himself do since his wife’s funeral, and he nodded, his voice rough when he said 7 sounded good. She scribbled her address on a scrap of brown paper bag, folded it up, and slipped it into the pocket of his Carhartt jacket, her fingers brushing his chest through the thick fabric when she did.
He carried the peaches back to his beat up Ford F150, set them on the passenger seat, and pulled out his phone to text his granddaughter. Told her he’d gotten the peaches, but he had plans tonight so she’d have to bake the pie using her grandma’s handwritten recipe by herself. She texted back a winky face and a comment about him finally getting a life, which he snorted at, shoving his phone back in his pocket. He turned the key in the ignition, the radio flicked on to that same Johnny Cash song, and he smiled, no guilt, no hesitation, just a light, warm buzz in his chest he hadn’t felt in years. He pulled out of the parking lot, tapped his scarred fingers on the steering wheel in time with the music, already mentally noting the unopened bottle of small-batch bourbon he had stashed under his kitchen sink he could bring along as a second peace offering.
