Manny Ruiz swiped a bead of sweat off his brow with the back of his calloused hand, glowering at the line of people snaking past his chili booth. He’d only caved to entering the annual Bend cook-off because his 16-year-old niece had showed up at his cabin two weeks prior, holding a plate of her abuela’s tamales and an entry form she’d already filled out with his name. The air reeked of cumin, smoked mesquite, and cheap beer slung from the tent at the end of the field, and his scuffed work boots were already caked with a mix of grass clippings and spilled chili from a kid who’d tripped ten minutes earlier. At 62, three years retired from a 38-year career as a US Forest Service wildfire crew supervisor, he’d spent most of his post-widowhood hiding out on his 10 acres of ponderosa pine, talking to his two hounds more than actual people, and this was the first crowd he’d been around since his wife Linda’s funeral.
He was reaching for a stack of sample cups when a shoulder brushed the 4-inch scar across his left forearm, jolting him so bad he knocked half the stack on the ground. He turned to snap, then froze. Clara Bennett. Tom Bennett’s ex-wife. Tom had been his second in command for 12 years, until he’d moved to Montana after their 2018 divorce, and Manny hadn’t seen her in four years, not since she’d left a tupperware of chocolate chip cookies on his porch the week after Linda died, no note attached. She was wearing a faded Willie Nelson t-shirt, blue flannel tied around her waist, ripped jeans, and the same scuffed cowboy boots she’d worn to every crew cookout back in the day. Her dark hair was streaked with soft gray at the temples, pulled back in a messy braid, and silver hoop earrings caught the late afternoon sun when she smiled. “You still make that brisket chili you used to hide from the new crew hires?” she asked, leaning in so close he could smell her perfume: vanilla and cedar, the same faint scent he’d caught a whiff of at a 2016 campout, when he’d caught himself staring at her across the fire before shaking his head and calling himself an idiot. She was 12 years younger than him, off-limits by every unwritten crew rule, even if Tom had been the one who cheated and left her first.
He nodded, stirring the pot slowly, trying to ignore the way his pulse had jumped. “Thought you were working at the animal shelter out in Redmond now,” he said, keeping his eyes on the simmering chili, not her face. She laughed, a low, warm sound that made the back of his neck tingle. “I am. Volunteered to judge the cook-off when I saw your name on the entry list. Figured you’d still be holed up in that cabin, avoiding anyone who might ask you how you’re actually doing.” He glanced up then, and she was holding his gaze, no trace of teasing in her eyes, just something soft he couldn’t name. She held out a hand to pass him a judging slip, and her seltzer-chilled fingers brushed his for a beat longer than necessary. “Don’t tell the other judges,” she said, leaning in so her lips were almost close enough to his ear that he could feel her breath on his neck, “but you’re getting my first place vote. The guy two booths over put mango in his. That’s a crime against chili.”
He won third place later, the other judges picking the mango chili guy for second and a little old lady from the senior center for first. He was leaning against the beer tent sipping a cold IPA when she walked up, holding a blue ribbon she’d pulled off a prize-winning peach pie on the dessert table. “This is what you should have got,” she said, tucking it into the pocket of his faded 2019 fire crew hoodie. She stepped closer, so close the toes of her boots were almost touching his, and he could smell that vanilla cedar again, over the beer and smoke from the cook-off fires. “Tom called me last month,” she said, so quiet only he could hear. “Said he ran into your niece at a gas station in Missoula. Said you hadn’t been on a date since Linda died. That you were being even more stubborn than you were when you refused to evacuate that 2017 fire even after command told you to.” Manny’s jaw tightened. He’d spent three years telling himself he didn’t need anyone, that dating at 62 was for people with too much free time, that messing around with his best friend’s ex was the kind of stupid move a 20-year-old made, not a grown man who’d spent his whole life following the rules. But then she tilted her head up, and her eyes were bright, and he remembered how she’d never pushed him to talk after Linda died, how she’d just left those cookies and walked away, no pity, no pressure.
He laughed, a rough, rusty sound he hadn’t made in years. “You drive here?” he asked, jerking his head toward the parking lot. She shook her head, grinning. “Got a ride from my sister. She left an hour ago.” He held out his hand, and she took it, her small, cold hand fitting perfectly in his calloused one. They walked to his beat-up 2018 Ford F-150, and she tripped over a curb halfway there, so he grabbed her elbow to steady her, his hand staying on her arm for a long beat, and she didn’t pull away. The drive back to his cabin was quiet, the radio playing old Johnny Cash, pine trees whipping past the windows. He lit a fire in the wood stove when they got inside, poured her a glass of his favorite small-batch bourbon, and handed it to her. She sat down on his couch, set the glass on the coffee table, and ran her finger slow along the scar on his left forearm, the one he’d earned in that 2017 fire.
He sat down next to her, close enough that their thighs touched, and started talking.
