Roy Pacheco, 62, spent 28 years on a federal hotshot wildland firefighting crew before a blown out left knee and a widow’s grief pushed him into early retirement. Now he runs a one-man firewood delivery and custom fire pit build business out of his garage outside Grand Junction, stubbornly turning down every dinner invitation and community event his neighbors and extended family float his way. The only exception this year was the annual Palisade Harvest Festival, and only because his 16-year-old granddaughter had begged him for three weeks to enter his competition brisket, the recipe he’d honed over decades of campfire cooking on fire lines. He’d placed third, accepted the $50 gift card to the local hardware store without making eye contact with the judges, and was halfway to his beat-up Ford F-150 when the sky opened up, fat cold rain drops soaking through his thick plaid flannel in 10 seconds flat.
He ducked under the closest covered awning, not paying attention to who was already there until his shoulder bumped hard into someone smaller, soft, warm through their own knit sweater. He muttered an apology, stepping back, and froze when he realized who it was. Marnie Cruz, 58, his late wife’s youngest cousin, who’d moved to town 8 months prior to run the town’s community youth garden program. He’d avoided her every chance he got since she’d shown up on his porch last spring with a jar of homemade strawberry jam, chattering about how she remembered him teaching her to fish on the family camping trip when she was 12, how he’d pulled her out of the Colorado River before the current could sweep her away. He’d felt a stupid, unwelcome spark the second he’d opened the door that day, and had spent the months since pretending he didn’t see her waving at him from the farmers’ market, didn’t hear her laugh across the diner when he snuck in for his morning black coffee. It felt wrong, dirty almost, to look at her that way, like he was betraying the woman he’d been married to for 34 years.
She was holding a paper cup of spiced cider, and the impact of their bump had sloshed a half inch of it over the rim, dripping onto his bare wrist. “Whoa, easy there, tough guy,” she said, grinning, and she wiped the sticky liquid off his skin with the hem of her cream colored sweater, her fingers warm even through the knit. The scar across his left cheek, a souvenir from a 2016 blaze outside Durango, tingled when she accidentally grazed it as she pulled her hand back. She didn’t look away when he met her eyes, hazel with flecks of gold he’d never noticed before, and he could smell cinnamon, damp turned soil, and the faint sweet scent of apple shampoo in the space between them, so close their elbows were touching even when they both leaned back a little.
“Thought you’d bailed the second they handed you that prize,” she said, nodding at the crumpled hardware store gift card sticking out of his jeans pocket. “Heard half the women in town were lining up to ask you for your brisket recipe. Figured you’d run for the hills before they could corner you.” He huffed a laugh, surprised she’d paid that much attention. He ran a hand through his wet gray hair, the rain tapping hard on the tin awning over their heads, loud enough that no one passing by could hear their conversation even if they tried. “You’re not wrong,” he said, and he didn’t know why he was being honest, why he wasn’t making an excuse to leave now that the worst of the rain had slowed to a drizzle. “Hate all the small talk. People still look at me like I’m gonna break if they ask how I’m doing.”
She nodded, and her shoulder brushed his again, intentional this time, he thought. “I know. I never did that, right? I never saw you as the sad widower guy. I still see the guy who carried me two miles back to the campground after I broke my ankle on that hiking trip when I was 15. Who left a $20 bill in my backpack before I left for college even though you barely had two nickels to rub together back then.” Her voice was soft, no pity in it, just something warm, something he’d been convinced he’d never feel directed at him again. He felt that twist in his chest, that war between the part of him that screamed this was wrong, that he should be loyal to the memory of his wife, and the part of him that was tired of eating dinner alone every night, tired of waking up to an empty bed, tired of pretending he didn’t crave someone to talk to, someone to touch.
The rain slowed to a light mist, and she tilted her head toward the street, her hair falling over one shoulder. “My place is two blocks over,” she said, and she held up a brown paper bag from the liquor store peeking out of her tote, the label for the small batch Kentucky bourbon he’d once mentioned was his favorite peeking out of the top. “Got that stuff you like. I picked it up when I went to visit my sister last month. We could dry off, have a drink. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He hesitated for three full seconds, his knee aching like it always did after it rained, the ghost of his wife’s laugh in the back of his head, but then he thought of how she’d always told him he was too stubborn for his own good, how she’d made him promise he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life alone once she was gone.
He nodded, and she smiled, bright enough that it made his chest feel light, something he hadn’t felt in 8 years. They walked down the sidewalk, the leaves from the cottonwood trees squelching under their work boots, their hands brushing three times before she laced her fingers through his, her palm soft and warm against his calloused, scarred one. He didn’t pull away. A kid on a bike zoomed past them, yelling about the rain, and Marnie laughed, squeezing his hand a little tighter. He squeezed her hand back, the ache in his knee barely noticeable now as they turned the corner toward her small blue bungalow, the porch light already glowing warm through the mist.
