Javier Mendez, 52, retired wildlife biologist who spent 22 years tracking gray wolf packs in Yellowstone, leaned against the splintered pine counter of the 4th of July beer tent and sipped his hazy IPA. A scar sliced diagonally across his left cheek, a souvenir from a 2019 encounter with a protective yearling he’d stumbled on while doing den surveys. He’d showed up to the street fair only because the local senior center, where he fixed bird feeders for residents twice a week, ran the food booth, and he owed them a three hour shift manning the drink cooler. The air smelled like fried Oreos, charcoal, and cut grass, and kids darted between legs with glow sticks swinging, their high pitched shouts mixing with the crackle of pre-firework test blasts. He’d worn his beat up Carhartt jacket even though the temperature hovered at 72, a habit from years of backcountry trips where the weather could shift in 10 minutes. He was half watching a group of teens set off a firecracker in an empty soda can when a warm hand tapped his shoulder.
He turned, and for half a second he didn’t place her, until he spotted the tiny gap between her two front teeth, the same quirk he’d laughed at 12 years prior, when she was 16 and crashing his ex-wife’s kitchen table to study with his stepdaughter Mia. Lila. She was taller now, her dark brown hair streaked with honey from the sun, pulled back in a loose braid that fell over one shoulder. She wore cutoff denim shorts and a faded 1977 Fleetwood Mac tour tee, a St. Peter’s Hospital travel nurse ID clipped to her belt loop. “Knew it was you,” she said, grinning, and her voice was deeper than he remembered, smoky around the edges. “Recognized the scar. Heard you moved up here after the divorce.” She leaned against the counter next to him, her elbow brushing his every time she gestured to the crowd, her bare shoulder six inches from his, and he could smell jasmine lotion and beer on her. He stammered a hello, his neck flushing, because he’d always thought she was too sharp for this tiny Montana town, figured she’d moved to Seattle or Portland for good after high school. She told him she’d been back three months, renting the old lake cottage her grandma left her, working ER shifts three days a week. She’d been asking around about him for weeks, she said, because her grandma left a dozen hanging bird feeders she couldn’t get to work, and she remembered he was always tinkering with the ones in his backyard when she was a kid.
Javier’s first instinct was to say no. The town gossips already whispered about him being a reclusive loner, and the last thing he needed was people seeing him pull up to the cottage of his stepdaughter’s childhood best friend, 18 years his junior. But then she reached across the counter to grab a napkin to wipe a smudge of powdered sugar off her lip, and her hand brushed his knuckles, cool from holding her iced lemonade, and he agreed to meet her the next afternoon at 2.
He showed up with his dented metal toolbox 10 minutes early, and she met him on the porch holding two glasses of sweet tea, ice clinking in the mason jars. He spent an hour adjusting the squirrel baffles, restringing the hanging wires, and tightening the perches on half a dozen feeders, while she sat on the porch step next to him, asking questions about his old wolf tracking work, leaning in every time he answered. The air smelled like pine and the lavender she had planted in boxes along the porch rail, and when a red-headed woodpecker landed on the first feeder he’d fixed, she leaned in to point, the end of her braid brushing his cheek. He turned his head, and their faces were three inches apart, close enough that he could see the gold flecks in her dark brown eyes, the faint freckles across her nose that had been there when she was 16. She didn’t pull away. He kissed her slow at first, waiting for her to flinch, to tell him it was a mistake, but she tangled one hand in the graying hair at the nape of his neck and kissed him back, tasting like mint and lemon. He pulled back after a minute, his chest tight. “I’m old enough to be your dad,” he said, quiet. “I was Mia’s stepdad. People will talk.” She laughed, soft, and brushed a stray piece of hair off his forehead. “Mia lives in Portland, hasn’t spoken to you since the divorce, right? I’m 34. I don’t care what Mrs. Henderson from the senior center says. I’ve had a crush on you since I was 17 and watched you carry a baby deer out of the woods after that blizzard, for Christ’s sake. I’m tired of dating guys my age who can’t change a tire or hold a conversation that isn’t about fantasy football.”
He stayed for dinner, she made grilled salmon and roasted asparagus, and they sat on the porch watching the sun dip pink and orange over the lake, her head resting on his shoulder. Two weeks later, they showed up to weekly trivia night at The Rusty Moose together, sat in their usual booth in the back, held hands across the table under the napkin holder when no one was looking, didn’t even flinch when Mrs. Henderson walked past and did a dramatic double take. He stopped on the way to the bar the next Saturday to pick a jar of wild huckleberries off the bush he’d found on his morning hike, and when he handed them to her she kissed him square on the mouth in the middle of the parking lot, not caring who saw.
