Rafe Mendez, 58, spent 32 years working as a cattle auctioneer across the Texas Hill Country, his drawl so sharp and fast he could move a herd of 200 steers in 12 minutes flat before he retired three years back. His biggest flaw, one he’d never admit out loud, is that he’s frozen solid in his routine since his wife Carol died six years prior—he eats the same breakfast of chorizo and eggs at 6 a.m. sharp, checks his fence line every Wednesday at 2 p.m., and has turned down his old buddy Jimmie’s invite to trivia night at The Rusty Spur 17 weeks running. He caves on the 18th only because Jimmie’s grandson got sick, and Rafe owes him for fixing his pickup’s transmission last winter for free.
The bar smells like fried pickles, stale beer, and the lemon Pledge someone used on the bar top an hour prior. Rafe slumps into a dented folding chair at the back of the team’s table, already counting the minutes until he can leave, when the leg of the chair next to his clatters against his own. He glares up, and there she is: Elara Voss, 41, the new county ag extension agent who’s been sending him certified letters for three months about his barbed wire fence crossing a supposed county easement. He’s left three angry, spittle-flecked voicemails on her office line, hasn’t even opened the last letter she sent. She’s in worn denim jeans caked with red hill country clay, a faded Texas A&M flannel, work boots scuffed at the toes, her chestnut hair pulled back in a loose braid with a few gray strands escaping at the temple. She smirks when she sees him, like she knows exactly who he is, and doesn’t move her chair an inch further away.
For the first two rounds of trivia, her boot brushes his calf four separate times. Each time she mumbles an apology, her voice low and rasped from a half-smoked menthol tucked behind her ear, and he grunts in response, half mad that the contact sends a little jolt up his spine. Their teams tie on a question about heritage cattle breeds, Rafe nailing the answer about Pineywoods cattle before Elara can get the words out, and she holds up her hands in surrender, sauntering over to the bar to bring him back a Shiner Bock as forfeit. When she sets the cold bottle down in front of him, her calloused knuckles brush his, and he notices her nail polish is chipped, the faint scar across her right wrist from a run-in with a barbed wire fence when she was a teen, she mentions offhand.
The jukebox blares old George Strait, so she leans in to talk, her shoulder pressing against his bicep, her hair falling over her shoulder to brush his forearm. She smells like lavender hand cream and peppermint chewing gum, and he can feel the heat of her through the flannel, even through his own thick work shirt. He’s torn between leaning further into the contact and pulling away—he’s spent months hating her, for one, and for another, he hasn’t felt this kind of sharp, warm spark with anyone since Carol died, feels like he’s doing something wrong, something disloyal, even as he finds himself telling her about the fence, how Carol helped him stretch every wire, hammer every post, the summer they bought the ranch 22 years prior, how she carved their initials into the end post right by the easement line.
The bar erupts in cheers when the winning team is announced, a group of college kids from the nearby junior college, and a guy carrying a tray of shots stumbles backward, slamming into Elara’s shoulder. She falls forward into Rafe’s lap, one hand splayed across his chest, the other grabbing his arm to steady herself. She doesn’t jump up right away, just holds eye contact with him for three full seconds, her hazel eyes flecked with gold, her breath warm against his jaw. He can feel her heartbeat through her shirt, fast as a spooked calf, and he finds himself resting his hand lightly on her waist to keep her from slipping further. The whole bar is glancing over, he notices, everyone who knows they’ve been feuding for months staring like they’re watching a train wreck, and the thrill of that secret, of doing exactly what no one expects, makes his chest feel tight.
She pushes herself up slowly, sits back in her chair, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear before she tells him she already pulled the old easement records last week. The county adjusted the boundary two years before he put the fence up, she says, he’s completely in the right, she was going to call him the next week to tell him, bring him the paperwork so he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. He blinks, speechless, and she laughs, a low, rough sound that makes the back of his neck feel warm.
They stay until the bartender locks up, leaning against the brick wall of the bar’s exterior while she finishes her cigarette, the cold November air nipping at their cheeks. He hands her his old wool auctioneer’s jacket, the one with his name stitched on the breast pocket, when she shivers, and she leans in to kiss his cheek first, slow, then his mouth, soft at first, then a little firmer, he can taste the peppermint gum and the root beer she switched to after her first beer. She writes her cell number on the back of a crumpled easement form, shoves it in his jacket pocket, tells him to meet her at his ranch on Saturday, they’ll walk the fence line together, she wants to see the post with Carol’s initials.
He stands in the parking lot long after her pickup’s taillights fade down the dirt road, fingers brushing the faint pink smudge of her lipstick on his cheek.
