Clay Bennett, 58, retired US Forest Service ranger, leans against a splintered pine picnic table at the town’s annual fire department beer garden fundraiser, a cold IPA sweating in his grip. His 7-year-old golden retriever mix, Gus, is curled at his feet, gnawing on a free bratwurst a volunteer handed him ten minutes prior. Clay has not willingly gone on a date, or even had a conversation that lasted longer than five minutes with a woman he found attractive, since his wife Ellen passed from ovarian cancer seven years prior. His greatest flaw, per his only remaining sister, is that he treats his grief like a prize he’s too proud to set down, even when it’s weighing him down so bad he barely leaves his cabin outside of town unless it’s to run errands or hike.
The air smells like charred bratwurst, pine resin, and the faint tang of wood smoke from the bonfire at the far end of the field. Bluegrass trills from a beat-up speaker stack by the grill, and kids scream as they chase each other through the grass with glow sticks. He spots Mara across the crowd first, the woman who opened the vintage book shop on Main Street six months prior. She’s wearing a faded navy linen button-down left unbuttoned over a white tank, frayed denim cutoffs, and scuffed brown cowboy boots, a smudge of charcoal streaked across the left side of her jaw from flipping burgers for the last two hours. He’s been in her shop three times, each time lingering in the outdoor recreation section, too nervous to say more than a mumbled “thanks” when he checked out, terrified of the spark he felt when she first smiled at him.
Gus lurches up without warning, yanking the leash so hard Clay stumbles forward, half his IPA sloshing out of the can and onto the front of Mara’s shirt as he collides with her shoulder. He sputters, face going bright red, fumbling for a crumpled napkin in his jeans pocket to dab at the wet spot. “Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry, that dog’s got more sense when he’s chasing a bear than he does around poodles,” he says, nodding at the miniature poodle across the way that Gus is straining to get to. She laughs, a low, warm sound that cuts through the noise of the crowd, and swats his hand away gently when he tries to wipe the beer off her shirt. “Relax, I already have three grease stains on this thing from the grill. It’s a write-off anyway.”
She leans against the picnic table next to him, close enough he can smell coconut shampoo and wood smoke on her hair, her bare arm brushing his every time she gestures at a passing firefighter or a kid running by. She mentions she dropped off a box of old Forest Service memoirs at the ranger station two weeks prior, and he lights up, saying he picked those up, stayed up half the night reading the one about the 1998 Lolo National Forest fire, the first big blaze he fought right out of college. Her smile crinkles the corners of her hazel eyes, and she teases him about the ratty old forest service hat he’s wearing, the brim frayed, a small bullet hole right above the left ear from a hunting accident back in 2012. He finds himself teasing back, telling her the hat has more stories than half the people in town, and he’d never get rid of it even if someone offered him a thousand bucks.
The conflict nags at the back of his head the whole time they talk, a tight twist in his chest: part of him feels disgusted with himself, like he’s betraying Ellen by enjoying this, by laughing at her jokes, by noticing the way her freckles stand out across her nose in the golden hour light. The other part of him is hungry for it, hungry for the way she listens when he talks about the old fire days like she actually cares, not like most people who just nod and change the subject. He’s halfway through telling her about the time he got stuck on a mountain ledge for 12 hours during a thunderstorm when she leans in, her voice dropping a little, and asks if he wants to walk Gus down to the creek behind the field, get away from the noise for a minute.
He hesitates for three full seconds, every alarm bell in his head going off, telling him to say no, go home, stick to the routine he’s built for himself that’s safe, that doesn’t risk him getting hurt again. Then he looks at her smile, and Gus whines, like he’s voting yes too, and he nods. They walk down the dirt path to the creek, the grass damp against the cuffs of his jeans, crickets chirping loud enough to drown out the bluegrass behind them. Gus splashes in the shallow water, chasing a school of minnow, and she leans against the trunk of an old cottonwood tree, looking up at him. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you since you first came into the shop,” she says, quiet, like she’s admitting something she’s been holding onto for months. “You spent 45 minutes staring at those fire memoirs, and you didn’t say a word the whole time. I thought you were gonna leave without buying anything, then you brought up that Lolo fire book, and I almost said something then, but you left so fast.”
He tells her about Ellen, about how he’s been scared to talk to anyone, like getting close to someone else would mean he’s forgetting the 32 years he had with her. She nods, and says she lost her husband to a heart attack four years prior, that she moved to this town to get away from the house they shared in Boise, that she gets it, that there’s no pressure, no rules for how you’re supposed to grieve. She reaches up, brushes a pine needle off the collar of his flannel shirt, her fingers lingering on his collarbone for a beat, warm and calloused from stacking books all day. He doesn’t pull away.
They stand there for ten minutes, watching Gus chase a dragonfly along the bank of the creek, the sky turning pink and orange as the sun sets behind the mountains. She asks him if he wants to come back to her place later, says she has a first edition copy of that Lolo fire memoir he liked, signed by the ranger who wrote it, and a bottle of small-batch bourbon she’s been saving for someone who’d actually appreciate it, not just chug it to get drunk. He smiles, a real, unforced smile, the first one he’s had that didn’t feel like a performance for other people in seven years, and says he’d like that a lot. He holds out his hand, and she laces her fingers through his, her palm warm and rough against his, as they turn to walk back up the path to the beer garden, Gus trotting ahead of them, tail wagging so hard his whole body wiggles.
