Cole Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew lead, leaned against the splintered wooden pole of the fire department cookoff tent, a cold Pabst in a faded deer-themed koozie clamped in his calloused right hand. His jeans still held flecks of pine duff from the three miles of trail he’d cleared that morning, and the scar wrapping around his left forearm from a 2019 Lolo National Forest blaze itched the way it always did when the air turned crisp at the end of September. He’d avoided the cookoff the past two years, still tired of the town’s well-meaning but exhausting “you should get back out there” lectures after his wife Ellen died of ovarian cancer seven years prior. He’d showed up this year only because the new fire chief was a kid he’d helped train back in 2012, and he’d owed him a favor.
The hum of 200-some locals talking over cheap country music blaring from a beat-up Bluetooth speaker cut through the sharp smell of smoked brisket, vinegar-based coleslaw, and ghost pepper chili fumes that made his eyes water if he stood too close to the Dutch ovens lined up along the tent’s back wall. A volunteer organizer he recognized as the 17-year-old kid who bagged his groceries at the IGA shoved a stack of scoring sheets and a pile of plastic spoons into his free hand, then nodded at the woman walking up beside him. “You two are on the spiciest chili category. Don’t die, and don’t let anyone bribe you with homemade peach pie, okay?”
Cole glanced over. It was Marnie Carter, 56, ex-wife of his old hotshot crew partner Jimmie, the woman he’d known for 31 years, the woman who’d brought him a tuna noodle casserole the day after Ellen’s funeral and left without asking for anything in return. She’d divorced Jimmie 18 months prior, after he’d left her for a 28-year-old administrative assistant at his construction firm, a scandal that had rippled through the 3,000-person town faster than a grass fire in July. Cole had purposely avoided running into her since, partly out of old loyalty to Jimmie, partly because he’d caught himself staring at a photo of her at a regional horse show posted to the local Facebook group and felt a hot twist of guilt in his gut he couldn’t explain away.
She smiled, and he noticed the faint crinkles at the corners of her hazel eyes he’d never paid attention to before, freckles dusting her nose that the summer sun had brought out deep enough they didn’t fade even as the days shortened. She wore a faded navy fire department t-shirt, a red plaid flannel tied around her waist, scuffed work boots caked in mud from the equine therapy program for veteran kids she ran out on the west side of the valley. She held her own beer in a hand with chipped dark red nail polish, and she was standing just six inches away, close enough that he could smell lavender shampoo mixed with campfire smoke on her hair, a scent that made the back of his neck prickle like he was standing too close to a live power line.
They worked their way down the line of chilis slowly, laughing under their breath when they tasted one that was so hot Cole choked on it, coughing so hard his eyes watered. She patted his back firm, the weight of her hand warm through the thick fabric of his work shirt, and when he grabbed the water bottle she held out to him their fingers brushed for half a second, a jolt that felt like grabbing a burning log without gloves. He kept telling himself he shouldn’t be paying attention to the way she leaned in close to whisper that the fourth chili tasted like dish soap mixed with battery acid, that she was still Jimmie’s ex, that getting involved with anyone at his age was more trouble than it was worth, that he was perfectly happy alone with his 1987 F-150 and his hound dog and the quiet of his cabin up in the hills. But every time she laughed, low and warm, he felt that same twist in his chest, the same spark he hadn’t felt since he was 17 and asking Ellen to their senior prom.
By the time they’d turned in their scorecards, the sun was dipping below the Bitterroot Mountains, painting the sky pink and tangerine and deep bruised purple. The crowd was starting to thin out, the music turned down, a few people lighting tiki torches around the tent perimeter to ward off the gathering chill. She nodded toward the parking lot, where his beat-up F-150 was parked at the edge, and said she wanted to get away from the noise for a minute. He followed her without thinking, hauled himself up into the bed of the truck, and sat down next to her, their shoulders pressing together so close he could feel the warmth of her arm through his shirt.
She didn’t beat around the bush. She said she’d thought about him a lot the past year, had almost called him a dozen times, didn’t want to overstep, didn’t want to make things awkward with Jimmie, didn’t want to push him if he wasn’t ready to talk to anyone new. He sat quiet for a second, twisting the cap off a new beer, then admitted he’d thought about her too, more than he’d ever admit to anyone else, that he’d spent seven years convincing himself he didn’t get to want anything that wasn’t tied to the life he’d had with Ellen, that he’d been scared to even try. She reached over, ran her thumb slow over the raised scar on his forearm, and said she remembered when he got that, Jimmie had called her at 2 a.m. panicking, said Cole had dragged him out of a burning stand of fir trees seconds before a 100-foot ponderosa pine collapsed right where he’d been standing.
He leaned in then, slow, like he was approaching a skittish rescue horse, and kissed her. She tasted like mint gum and Pabst and the cherry Sour Patch Kid she’d snuck from a kid’s candy bag ten minutes earlier, and her hand came up to rest on the side of his face, calloused from mucking stalls and brushing horses, warm. It wasn’t rushed, wasn’t messy, the kind of kiss two people who’ve known each other for three decades have, the kind that doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone.
They sat there for another hour, trading old crew stories, talking about the kids she worked with, about the engine he was rebuilding in his garage, no pressure, no awkward silences stretching between them. When the last of the light faded from the sky and the first stars started pricking through the dark, she turned to him, and asked if he wanted to come back to her place for coffee, that she had that dark roast he liked, the kind Ellen used to buy in bulk from the roaster in Missoula. He nodded, dropped the empty beer can into the plastic trash bag he kept tied to the truck’s tailgate, and hopped down to hold the passenger door open for her.
