Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service wildfire crew lead, leans against the sticky beer garden counter at the Bend Wednesday farmers market, one boot propped on the lower rail. He’s wearing the same sun-faded flannel he’s had since 2018, the cuffs frayed where he used to wipe sweat off his face mid-deployment, and he’s already halfway through his second hazy IPA. For three weeks straight, he’s ranted to his old crew buddies about the city council’s vote to slash the wildfire veteran outreach budget, the program that pays retired guys to run safety workshops for new homeowners in the fire zone. He’d yelled so loud at the last town hall his throat was sore for two days, and he’d told his friends if he ever spotted the new council member who led the vote, he’d give her an earful she’d never forget.
He spots her two stools over, ten minutes later. She’s not wearing the crisp navy blazer she had on at the town hall, just a loose white linen tank and high-waisted khaki shorts, scuffed white canvas sneakers on her feet. Her silver hair is braided over one shoulder, freckles dark across her nose from the summer sun, and she’s scrolling through a stack of papers tucked in a canvas tote slung over her arm, no fancy leather bag, no assistant hovering nearby. He tenses, his jaw tightening, already forming the first sharp line of his rant. She flags the bartender, orders the exact hazy IPA he’s drinking, and when the bartender slides the can down the counter, her hand brushes his as she reaches for it.
Her skin is warm, a faint callus on her index finger like she spends a lot of time digging in dirt, and she pulls her hand back fast, apologizing with a half-smile. “You’re Clay, right? The guy who told me I’d have blood on my hands if someone’s house burned down because we cut that outreach budget?” She doesn’t sound annoyed, sounds amused, and he blinks, thrown off by the fact that she remembers his name. He grunts, nodding, and waits for her to get defensive, but she leans forward a little, lowering her voice so the group of retirees at the next table can’t hear. “For what it’s worth, you were right about the program being vital. I voted to cut the old grant because the administrator was siphoning 40 percent of the funds for lake house renovations. I’m submitting a new budget request next week that doubles the original allocation, no middleman, direct payments to the crew leads running the workshops.”
He stares at her, the sharp remark he had ready dying on his tongue. The beer garden is loud, kids screaming as they chase a food truck selling snow cones, a bluegrass band tuning up by the entrance, pine dust hanging thick in the 82-degree air. He can smell lavender sunscreen on her, the faint citrus of the clementine she’s peeling in her other hand, and when she slides one stool closer, their knees brush under the counter. He doesn’t move away. He’d spent three weeks picturing her as a stuck up out-of-state transplant who didn’t care about the people who’d spent decades keeping this town from burning to the ground, but she knows the names of every guy on his old crew, mentions his former captain’s recent hip surgery, says she lost her older brother in the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, that’s why she ran for council in the first place.
He’s torn, half of him still wanting to be angry, to hold onto the grudge he’d nursed for weeks, the other half hyper aware of every time their elbows brush when they reach for their beers, every time she holds his gaze a beat longer than polite, no fake politician smile, just soft, unhurried eye contact. She teases him about yelling so loud at the town hall he made the 19-year-old intern cry, and he laughs, a rough, rusty sound he hasn’t used much since his wife left him mid-deployment in 2011, when he’d been gone six weeks fighting a fire in Northern California and came home to an empty house and a note on the counter. He teases her about the canvas tote covered in dog stickers, and she says she has two rescue mutts that she takes hiking every weekend, that she’s been trying to figure out how to clear the deadfall on the trail behind her house but doesn’t know the first thing about safe felling.
A kid on a skateboard zooms past the counter ten minutes later, yelling a warning too late, and slams into the leg of the stool next to hers, knocking her full can of beer off the edge. Clay grabs her wrist fast, yanking her back before the sharp glass can shatter all over her sneakers, and his other hand lands on her waist for half a second to steady her, his palm flat against the warm soft skin just above the waistband of her shorts. They’re inches apart, suddenly, the noise of the market fading to a low hum, and he can see the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, the faint scar on her left cheek from a hiking accident when she was a kid. He doesn’t pull away, the last of his anger melting completely, the grudge he’d held onto feeling stupid, small, next to the quiet thrumming excitement he hasn’t felt in 12 years.
The market announcer calls the last call for vendors over the loudspeaker, and she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, smiling. “I was gonna head to the taco truck down the street for dinner. I have the full grant paperwork in my bag if you wanna look it over, make sure I’m not lying. And if you’re free this weekend, I could use a hand with that deadfall on my trail. I’ll bring beer, and I’ve been told I make a mean peach cobbler.”
Clay nods, wiping the spilt beer off the counter with a handful of napkins, and pays for both their drinks before she can argue. She tucks her hand into the crook of his arm as they walk toward the taco truck, the setting sun painting the ponderosa pines gold, crickets starting to chirp in the grass along the sidewalk, and he doesn’t even think to text his buddies to tell them he didn’t tell the council member off after all.
