Hank Collier, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, still wore the scuffed steel-toe boots he’d broken in during the 2007 Mount Hood wildfire season, and held grudges with the same tenacity he used to guard old-growth groves from illegal loggers. It was that stubborn streak that had landed him a $120 campfire citation three weeks prior, from the sharp-tongued new county public health nurse who’d rolled into town last spring, enforcing a stage 2 fire ban he’d dismissed as “city folk nonsense.” He was only at the local fire department’s summer beer garden fundraiser because his next-door neighbor had all but stuffed the $10 ticket in his hand, saying he was turning into a hermit who only held conversations with his basset hound, Mabel.
“Thought you’d be off camping in the restricted zone, flipping off park signs.”
He turned, and there she was, Clara Bennett, 52, the woman who’d written him that ticket, her auburn hair streaked with silver pulled back in a messy braid, a faded Pearl Jam flannel tied around her waist, scuffed hiking boots caked with trail dust. She held a paper plate piled high with grilled brats and potato salad, and she was smirking like she knew exactly how much he’d ranted about her to every cashier at the local hardware store. He tensed, ready to snap back that the ban was overkill, that he’d been lighting campfires on that spot for 30 years without incident, when a kid in a fireman costume ran full tilt into her shoulder.
She stumbled forward, her palm landing flat on the bare skin of his forearm, where his own flannel sleeve was rolled up to show a faded bear scratch scar he’d gotten in 2011. Her hand was calloused, warm, the tip of her thumb brushing the raised edge of the scar for half a beat before she made a move to pull away. He didn’t step back. He could smell vanilla lip balm on her, under the charcoal and beer fumes, and her hazel eyes were crinkled at the corners like she was holding back a laugh, not an apology.
“Sorry about that,” she said, even though she didn’t sound sorry at all. She nodded at the empty spot on the picnic table bench next to him. “Mind if I sit? Bought way too much food, and the fire chief keeps trying to set me up with his divorced cousin who collects vintage lawn mowers.”
He hesitated for two full seconds, then grunted and slid over to make room. He’d spent three weeks calling her every annoying name he could think of, complaining that she didn’t know the first thing about local land, but now he was noticing the smudge of charcoal on her left jaw, the chip in her forest-green nail polish, the way her knee brushed his when she sat down, light as pine needles. The conflicting feelings hit him fast, sharp: the old, stubborn irritation warring with a warm, fizzing pull he hadn’t felt since his wife Linda passed seven years prior. He told himself he was being an idiot, that he was too old for this, that he hated her. But when she held out half a bratwurst on a paper napkin, he took it.
They talked for 45 minutes, their legs almost touching the whole time, her elbow brushing his every time she lifted her soda can to her mouth. She admitted she’d known who he was before she wrote that ticket—she’d checked out all his old handwritten trail guides from the local library when she moved to town, used them to hike the backcountry on her days off when she was stressed about the latest wave of respiratory illnesses going around the county. He admitted, quiet enough that only she could hear, that he’d lit that campfire on the spot where he’d asked Linda to marry him, back in 1987, and he’d been mad less about the ban and more about the idea that one more piece of his old life was being taken away.
She didn’t do that pitying head tilt he hated from everyone else in town who knew Linda was gone. She just nodded, picked at a loose thread on her flannel, and said she still drove 20 minutes out of her way every Saturday to get pancakes at the diner her late husband had loved, even though she hated their cloying maple syrup.
He snorted, said he hadn’t danced since his wedding reception, when he’d stepped on Linda’s dress three separate times. But she stood up, grabbed his hand, her fingers lacing through his, and tugged him up with a strength he hadn’t expected. He stumbled a little, his hip bumping hers, and she laughed, bright and loud, the same sound he’d found so infuriating three weeks prior now making his chest feel light, like he’d set down a 40-pound pack he’d been carrying for years.
He let her lead him toward the dance floor, gravel crunching under his boots, the sound of the music wrapping around them warm as summer air.
