Rafe Mendez, 62, retired wildfire hotshot crew supervisor, had dragged himself to the Prescott annual craft beer festival only because three of his former crew members showed up on his porch at 10 a.m. with a cooler and a threat to steal his vintage chainsaw collection if he bailed. It was the first public event he’d attended in nearly three years, outside of the quarterly fire department retiree lunches he sat through for the free pecan pie. His left knee ached when he stood too long, a souvenir from the 2019 Tinder Fire that ended his career, and he’d been half-hidden by a BBQ food truck for 45 minutes, sipping a hazy IPA and avoiding eye contact with anyone who looked like they wanted to swap war stories.
The first bump was soft, just a shoulder glancing off his plaid flannel, before the cold splash of sour ale hit his chest. He looked down, then up, and froze. Clara Hale, 58, owner of the downtown used bookstore, ex-wife of his former crew chief Jim, who he’d worked under for 17 years. The last time he’d spoken to her was 2011, two weeks before she filed for divorce, when she’d dropped off care packages for the crew before a deployment to New Mexico. Back then, he’d never let himself look at her longer than three seconds at a time. It felt like stealing, even when he’d noticed Jim staying out late at the bar after shifts, even when he’d seen her wipe quiet tears off her cheek in the station parking lot once.
She was holding a crumpled napkin, dabbing at the wet spot on his shirt before he could protest, her hand warm through the thin cotton, the lavender scent of her hand lotion cutting through the smoky BBQ and hops hanging in the air. “Sorry about that,” she said, holding eye contact long enough that his ears went hot, the corner of her mouth ticking up like she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Some kid on a scooter cut through the crowd and I lost my balance. You’re still wearing those beat up Red Wings, huh? I’d know that scuff on the toe anywhere, you tripped over a fire hose at the 2010 Christmas party and scraped it on the concrete.”
He blinked, surprised she remembered. He opened his mouth to make an excuse to leave, to say he had to get back to his crew, but then she leaned against the fence next to him, her shoulder pressing lightly against his bicep, and the words died in his throat. They talked for an hour, first about the festival, then about the crew, then about the book shop she’d opened three years prior, how she specialized in old western novels and firefighter memoirs. She laughed at his story about getting stuck 40 feet up a ponderosa pine during a 2017 blaze, waiting for a rescue crew while a squirrel threw pine cones at his head, and her laugh was low, warm, the same one he’d remembered hearing through the station walls when she’d bring the crew homemade chocolate chip cookies before deployments. He found himself telling her about his wife’s cancer battle, about how he’d holed up in his cabin after she died, only leaving to restock groceries or volunteer at the local fire museum twice a week. He’d never told any of his old crew that, hadn’t wanted them to see him as anything other than the tough supervisor who never cracked.
The sun started dipping below the pine trees, the band on the main stage switching to slow, twangy Johnny Cash deep cuts, and most of the crowd started drifting to the after party at the downtown bar. Clara nudged his arm with her elbow, nodding toward the dirt path leading to the creek behind the fairgrounds. “Wanna walk? The after party’s just gonna be Jim telling the same story about the 2007 Cave Creek Fire for the 900th time, and I’d rather not listen to that again.”
Rafe hesitated for half a second, the old voice in his head screaming that this was wrong, that she was his old boss’s ex, that letting anyone get close again just meant he’d have to bury someone he cared about eventually. But then he looked at her, the golden sunset catching the silver streaks in her dark hair, her hand resting on the fence a half inch from his, and he nodded.
The gravel crunched under their boots as they walked, the air smelling like pine and leftover cotton candy, crickets chirping in the brush on either side of the path. When they reached the creek bank, she stopped, turning to face him, her boots almost touching his. “I always liked you, you know,” she said, quiet enough that he almost didn’t hear it over the sound of the water running. “Back when I was with Jim, I thought you were the only one on the crew who ever actually listened when I talked, not just nodded while waiting for their turn to brag about a fire.”
He reached out, tucking a strand of hair that had blown into her face behind her ear, his thumb brushing the soft laugh line at the corner of her cheek. She leaned into the touch, her hand coming up to rest on his wrist.
They didn’t make grand, sweeping promises that night, didn’t talk about moving in or meeting each other’s kids or any of the big scary stuff Rafe had spent seven years running from. They just stood there for another 20 minutes, watching the sun dip below the horizon, before he walked her to her car, and they agreed to meet for coffee at her bookstore at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. He drove home with the window down, the cool night air blowing through his hair, his knee throbbing a little from standing all day, and when he pulled into his driveway, he didn’t even feel the usual hollow ache in his chest that came with walking into an empty house. He turned off the truck, reached for his phone, and saved her number in his contacts under “Clara (Bookstore, Sour Ale Stain)”.
