Manny Ruiz, 53, only dragged himself to the Baker County Fair that sweltering August evening to drop off 24 ponderosa pine saplings for the 4-H silent auction. He’d spent eight years as a retired smokejumper running his wildfire recovery nursery, intentionally avoiding all small-town public events to skip the unsolicited setups, the questions about why he still lived alone in the cabin off the national forest road, the sideways glances at the scar snaking up his left forearm from the 2017 Sisters blaze that ended his jumping career. He planned to dump the saplings at the 4-H booth, grab one cold IPA from the beer tent, and be back on his property before the sun dipped below the Elkhorn Mountains.
The beer tent was strung with faded neon beer signs, the air thick with the smell of fried Oreos and peanut shells crunching under work boots. He’d just twisted the top off his IPA when a woman in a gingham sundress backed into him, holding a cherry snow cone so overloaded with syrup it dripped straight onto his forearm, right over the raised line of his scar. She yelped an apology, grabbing a crumpled paper napkin from the table next to her and dabbing at the sticky mess before he could step back. Her fingers were cold from the ice in her cup, soft where they brushed the rough, calloused skin of his wrist, and he flinched not from pain, but from the shock of anyone touching him that gently in years.
He recognized her immediately as Lila Hale, wife of the new county sheriff who’d spent the last three months threatening to cut his nursery’s water access over a paperwork technicality Manny knew was just a power play to shake down local small business owners for campaign donations. She held his eye contact longer than a married woman should, her dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners when she realized who he was. “I’ve been fighting him on that water ruling for weeks,” she said, leaning in so her voice didn’t carry over the roar of the fair’s demolition derby announcement a few hundred feet away. “You plant 10,000 trees a year after fires. That’s way more important than his stupid little power trips.”
Manny’s jaw tightened. He knew better than to talk to the sheriff’s wife. Half the town was already gossiping about how the Hales fought at the grocery store, how the sheriff spent more time drinking at the dive bar downtown than he did at home. He was disgusted with himself for noticing how the sundress stuck to the sweat on her shoulders, how she smelled like coconut sunscreen and cherry syrup, how her knee brushed his when a group of kids screaming with cotton candy darted between them. He should have mumbled a no-problem and walked away. He didn’t.
He told her about the nursery, about the baby sequoias he was trying to grow higher up the mountains where the fires didn’t burn as hot, about the way the ponderosa pines smelled like vanilla on warm days. She laughed when he told her he kept a jar of sourdough starter on his cabin counter that he’d had for 12 years, that he named it Gary because it was as stubborn as his old jump crew captain. They stood so close their shoulders brushed every time someone walked past, and he could hear the little huff of her breath when she found something funny, could see the faint smattering of freckles across her nose that she’d tried to cover with foundation.
The sheriff walked past the tent ten minutes later, his custom leather cowboy hat pulled low, a half-chewed cigar sticking out of his mouth. He slapped Lila’s ass hard enough she flinched, didn’t even ask if she was having a good time, just grunted that he was heading to the rodeo pen to judge the bull riding. Manny felt that old familiar buzz in his bones, the same rush he’d get standing at the edge of a plane door before a jump, the split second where you knew you were about to do something risky, something that could blow up in your face, but you also knew it was the only thing that made sense.
Lila pulled a crumpled napkin out of her purse, scribbled her cell phone number and the address of a small rental cabin she’d been staying at just over the Union County line, where the sheriff couldn’t find her. She slipped it into the pocket of his faded Carhartt shirt, her fingers lingering on the fabric for a beat longer than necessary. “I told him I’m filing for divorce next week,” she said, so quiet only he could hear. “I know you don’t do drama. But I also know you bring a bottle of rye to the feed store every Friday to share with your buddy who runs the place. Bring it tomorrow. I’ll leave the porch light on.”
Manny stood there for a minute after she walked away, the napkin crinkling in his pocket, the last sip of his IPA warm in his hand. He could leave right now, throw the napkin in the nearest trash can, go home to his quiet cabin and his sourdough starter and no one to bother him. He didn’t. He turned toward the 4-H booth to drop off the saplings, already mentally cataloging the bottle of rye he had stashed under his truck seat, the one he’d been saving for a day that felt worth celebrating.
