Rafe Marquez, 62, retired forest fire spotter, had not attended a single town event in the eight years since his wife’s stroke took her in her sleep. The only reason he showed up to the summer fire department fundraiser beer garden was his old crew chief, Joe, showed up at his mountain cabin at 4 PM, pounded on the door, and threatened to siphon all the gas out of his vintage 1987 Ford F-150 if he didn’t come. Rafe caved. He hated crowds, hated small talk, hated the way everyone in town looked at him like he was a half-burned tree that might fall over if you breathed too hard, but Joe had dragged his unconscious body out of a 2019 blaze on the west ridge, so he owed him.
She was 58 if he had to guess, sun-weathered skin crinkling at the corners of her eyes as she laughed at a kid begging for an extra dollop of whipped cream, blonde-streaked braid slung over one shoulder, a chipped brass bee charm stuck near the elastic holding it together. Flour dusted the forearm of her flannel shirt, and when she wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, she caught him staring. She didn’t look away. She held eye contact for three full beats, then quirked one eyebrow up, a lazy, knowing grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. Rafe’s face went hot, and he stared at the label of his beer like it held the secrets of the universe, kicking himself for being caught gawking like a 16 year old at his first high school dance.
Ten minutes later, she was walking toward him, paper plate with a thick slice of peach pie in one hand, plastic fork in the other. He could see the calluses on her fingers as she got closer, the faint scar across her left wrist from what looked like a dog bite, the way her work boots scuffed the grass. “Saw you staring,” she said, holding out the plate, and when his fingers brushed hers taking it, he felt the rough edge of a blister on her index finger, the kind you get from holding a bee smoker for hours at a time. “I’m Elara. In town for the summer tending hives out by the national forest. Figured a former fire spotter would appreciate a pie made with peaches from the orchard that didn’t burn down last spring.”
Rafe froze. He’d never met her before. He didn’t know how she knew what he did, let alone that the scar snaking up his right forearm was from a 2017 burn, not a construction accident like he told people who asked. “My dad was a spotter,” she said, leaning against the fence next to him, their shoulders almost touching, close enough that he could smell lavender shampoo and wild honey on her shirt, under the flour and cinnamon. “Recognized the scar. All you guys get one, eventually, from hauling that heavy spotting scope up ridges in 100 degree heat.”
He tried to talk himself out of liking the way she sounded, the way she didn’t look at him like he was broken, the way she didn’t mention his wife, didn’t offer the awkward “I’m sorry for your loss” he’d grown to hate. He’d spent eight years building a routine, keeping the world at arm’s length, no surprises, no chances to get hurt again. This was a distraction, a stupid, reckless distraction, the kind of thing that got people burned, literally and figuratively. But he ate the pie anyway, and it was the best thing he’d tasted in years, sweet and tart and warm, and he found himself laughing when she told him about the time a swarm of bees landed on her hat while she was checking hives, and she stood still for two hours so they wouldn’t sting the golden retriever puppy she’d had in the cab of her truck.
Rafe hesitated for ten long seconds, every instinct screaming at him to say no, to go home to his quiet cabin, his cold dinner, his empty bed. But then he looked at her, at the bee charm in her braid, the smudge of flour still on her cheek, and he nodded.
The walk to her cabin took 15 minutes, the air cool against his bare arms, crickets chirping in the trees lining the road. Her cabin was small, cluttered with mason jars of honey, beekeeping gear stacked by the door, the whole place smelling like beeswax and ripe stone fruit. She poured him a glass of mead, thick and golden, sweet with a faint burn going down his throat, and when he took the glass from her, he didn’t pull his hand away. He brushed his thumb over the callus on her index finger, slow, deliberate, and she stepped closer, her chest almost touching his, heat rolling off her skin. She tilted her chin up, and he kissed her, slow, tasting peach and cinnamon and mead on her tongue, no rush, no pressure, just the quiet hum of the refrigerator in the corner and the distant chirp of crickets outside.
He woke up at 6 the next morning, sunlight seeping through the gingham curtains over the bed, the sheets smelling like honey and lavender. Elara was on the porch, wearing his faded old fire department hoodie he’d left draped over the back of a chair the night before, stirring two mugs of coffee. He walked out barefoot, the weathered cedar of the porch warm under his calloused feet, and she handed him a mug, black, exactly how he liked it, along with a small mason jar of peach honey, a tiny hand-drawn bee doodled on the label in blue ballpoint pen. He sat down next to her on the creaky porch swing, and they didn’t say anything for a long time, just sipped coffee, watched a fat bumblebee drift from the clover in the yard to the potted lavender by the door. Rafe twisted the ridged lid of the honey jar between his thumb and forefinger, then tucked the jar into the pocket of his jeans, already planning to leave a jar of his own homemade blackberry jam on her porch before she left for California.
