Clay Bennett, 58, retired US Forest Service wildland firefighter, leans against the scuffed oak bar of The Pine Tap, condensation from his icy Coors Banquet dripping down his left forearm. The silvery, ridged scar snaking from his wrist to his elbow itches like it always does when he’s on edge, a leftover from the 2003 Deschutes National Forest fire that put him in the hospital for three weeks, right when his wife decided she’d had enough of being married to a guy who’d run into a burning tree for a stranger before he’d remember to pick up milk on the way home. He’s lived alone in his off-grid cabin 20 miles outside Bend ever since, only coming into town for monthly fire department fundraisers and the occasional beer when the cabin’s well runs low or the silence gets too heavy.
The air smells like charred hamburger patties, citronella tiki torches, and the pine that hangs thick in Central Oregon’s late summer air. A group of his old crew guys yell from the cornhole set by the grill, a Luke Combs track hums low on the jukebox, and then he spots her. Marnie Hale, 54, ex-wife of his former crew lead Jake, just moved back to town six months prior after the divorce papers went through. He’s avoided her every time he’s seen her at the grocery store or the hardware store, clinging to the unwritten crew rule he’s lived by for 30 years: you don’t mess with a fellow firefighter’s ex, no exceptions. Never mind that Jake skipped town two years ago for a 28-year-old yoga instructor in Scottsdale, never mind that Jake never showed up to the hospital when Clay got burned, too busy getting wasted at a strip club to even call, never mind that Marnie was the one who brought him aloe vera and homemade peach pie every other day when he was recovering.
She carries a stack of foil-covered pie tins toward the dessert table, her sage linen dress swishing around her calves, sun streaks in her brown hair catching the golden hour light. She spots him, pauses, then changes direction, walking straight over. The hem of her dress brushes the top of his scuffed work boots when she stops, closer than most people stand in small towns, close enough he can smell coconut sunscreen and the faint, syrupy scent of peach on her clothes.
“Brought your favorite,” she says, holding out a paper plate with a thick slice of pie, her fingers brushing his when he takes it. Her skin is warm, soft, the callus on the side of her index finger from years of pottery work catching on the dry skin of his knuckle. He glances over at the grill, where three of his old crew guys are watching, beer bottles halfway to their mouths, and tenses, half ready to step away, make an excuse about needing to grab more napkins. She laughs, low and warm, when a stray cornhole bean bag bounces off a tourist’s cowboy hat and lands in the ice bucket next to them, her shoulder pressing light against his bicep through the thin cotton of his work shirt. “They don’t care,” she says, like she can read the anxiety roaring in his head. “Half of them hated Jake anyway. The other half have been placing bets on when you’d stop hiding from me.”
He snorts, a rough, rusty sound he hasn’t heard come out of his own mouth in years. The scar on his forearm itches harder, and she notices, reaching out to run her index finger light along the raised edge of it, no hesitation, no pity, just familiarity. “I still have the scar on my wrist from carrying that first pie up to your cabin,” she says. “Tripped over your damn hound dog on the porch. You acted like I’d broken my arm, fussed over me for an hour even though you could barely lift your own arm to change the bandage.”
The tight knot of guilt he’s been carrying for even looking at her snaps, right then. The code he’s clung to for decades was written for guys who showed up, for guys who had their crew’s back and their wife’s back, not for deadbeat losers who skipped town and left people holding the bag. He leans in, and she meets him halfway, the kiss soft, tasting like peach and the spearmint gum she’s chewed as long as he’s known her, the noise of the cookout fading for a second until someone cheers loud from the cornhole set.
They slip out back to the small apple orchard behind the bar for 20 minutes, talking quiet, his hand resting loose on her waist, damp grass sticking to the cuffs of his jeans, crickets chirping loud enough to drown out the music from inside. When they walk back in, none of the old crew guys say a word, just nod like they knew it was coming, like they’d been waiting for it for years. They slide into a worn vinyl booth in the back corner, she feeds him a second bite of pie, the crust crumbly, the filling sweet and tart on his tongue. He wipes a smudge of peach filling from the corner of her mouth with his thumb, and decides he doesn’t care what anyone has to say about it.
