Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service firefighter, leaned against the splintered cedar rail of the Bend brewery’s back patio, cold IPA sweating through the paper coozie in his calloused left hand. He’d fought 17 major wildfires in his 32-year career, carried three guys out of burning timber stands, still had a puckered pink scar snaking up his forearm from the 2018 Deschutes National Forest blaze, but he’d almost bailed on this stupid wildfire relief mixer twice before his old crew buddy all but dragged him through the door. His biggest flaw, he knew, was that he’d walled himself off from anything that didn’t involve splitting firewood, fixing his old pickup, or fishing the Deschutes alone in the pre-dawn dark, ever since his wife Linda died of ovarian cancer seven years prior. He’d written off these community mixers as a sad excuse for middle-aged people to drink too much and make bad decisions, and he’d fully planned to slip out before 8 PM.
The sun had dipped below the Cascades an hour prior, crisp October air nipping at the tips of his ears through the frayed cuff of his red plaid flannel, when a shoulder brushed his hard enough to make him slosh a sip of beer down his wrist. He turned to snap a snarky comment, and froze. Maren Hale, 54, ex-wife of his old fire crew chief, was laughing so hard at a volunteer’s bad joke that her eyes crinkled at the corners, silver streaks catching the string light glow in her deep auburn hair. She’d been the forbidden thought he’d shoved down so deep he’d almost forgotten it, back when he was 48, showing up to crew cookouts and watching her pass around potato salad, her smile brighter than the mid-July sun, and scolding himself for even looking, for even thinking of her that way when his chief was the guy who’d saved his life on a fire line outside Sisters back in 2012.
She wiped a tear of laughter from her cheek, and held his gaze for three full beats longer than polite casual conversation allowed, a lazy smirk tugging at the corner of her glossed mouth. “Clay Bennett. I’d know that grumpy ‘I’d rather be anywhere else’ scowl anywhere. You still hide in corners to avoid small talk, huh?” Her voice was lower than he remembered, rough around the edges from years of smoking menthols she’d quit three years prior, and she smelled like pine soap and spiced pear cider, the scent wrapping around him warm enough to make the back of his neck flush. She shifted her weight closer, so their elbows were pressed together on the rail, and he could feel the heat of her through the thick knit of her heather gray sweater.
He fumbled for a response, suddenly 12 years old and tripping over his own feet asking a girl to the prom, and she laughed again, soft this time, not teasing, like she got it. She told him she’d divorced his old chief in 2019, after she found out he’d been cheating on her with a 26-year-old dispatch intern for 18 months, that she’d moved to a tiny cottage on the edge of town and opened a glassblowing studio, that she’d been making pendants and small bowls fused with ash from the 2023 Three Rivers fire to fund reforestation projects for scorched public land. The guilt he’d carried for 10 years for even noticing her warred with the sharp, hot pull of desire low in his gut, and for a second he almost made an excuse to leave, almost stuck to his safe, quiet routine of beer and frozen pizza alone on his couch.
He told her he had a vial of that exact ash tucked in the glove box of his pickup, that he’d scooped it up when he was volunteering on the fire line the previous summer, that he’d planned to make something with it but never had the first clue how. She leaned in even closer, so he could feel her breath on his jaw when she spoke, and when she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear her knuckle brushed the scar on his forearm, light as a moth’s wing. “My studio’s three blocks from here,” she said, fingers brushing the back of his hand, slow enough that he could pull away if he wanted. “I can show you how we fuse the ash into the glass, if you want.”
He hesitated for half a second, the ghost of his old chief’s voice in his head telling him this was wrong, that you don’t mess with your boss’s ex, but then he looked down at her hand resting half an inch from his, at the tiny burn scar on her index finger from a glassblowing accident, and nodded. They walked slow down the dark residential street, oak leaves crunching under their work boots, and when her hand brushed his for the third time he laced their fingers together, his rough, scarred hand wrapping around her softer, warmer one. She didn’t pull away.
She unlocked the front door to her studio, the warm glow of string lights and the faint smell of molten glass spilling out onto the sidewalk, and turned to him before they stepped inside, leaning up to kiss him slow, soft, her palm resting light on his chest over his heart. He kissed her back, the last of his resistance melting away like ash in a fire, and followed her across the threshold. He pulled the crumpled glass vial of fire ash out of his flannel pocket and set it down on the scarred wood workbench next to a tray of her half-finished ash pendants, their edges catching the light like tiny, glowing embers.
