Rafe Mendez, 62, retired wildland fire crew boss, leans against a sun-warmed hay bale at the county harvest festival, sipping spiked apple cider that’s sweeter than he likes. His boots are caked with oak mud from hauling three cords of firewood that morning, the cuff of his frayed plaid flannel singed at the edge from a stray campfire spark two weeks prior. He’d told his buddy Jim no three times before Jim showed up at his cabin with a six pack and practically dragged him out, complaining Rafe was turning into the reclusive mountain man the local kids made up stories about. Eight years since his wife passed, he’s gotten used to the quiet: the creak of his cabin walls in the wind, the thud of his axe splitting wood, no one asking him where he’s going or when he’ll be back. His biggest flaw, the one he won’t admit out loud, is that he’s come to prefer the loneliness, convinced any new joy would be a betrayal of the life he built with Diane.
He’s half debating bailing early and driving to the lake to watch the salmon run when Lila Marlow trips over a loose hay bale tie and stumbles straight into his chest. He catches her elbow automatically, his calloused fingers wrapping around the soft skin just above her wrist, and she freezes, the half-eaten caramel apple in her hand dripping sticky golden syrup onto the front of his flannel. She’s 41, runs the floral shop on Main Street, and he’s known her since she was 12, when Diane would drag her along on family camping trips, her pigtails full of pine needles, begging Rafe to teach her to skip rocks. The whole extended family still calls him “Uncle Rafe” even though there’s no blood relation, a line he’s never dared cross, not even when he caught her staring at him at her mom’s funeral two years prior, her eyes red from crying, wearing a black dress that hugged her curves in a way he’d forced himself to look away from.
“Sorry,” she says, pulling her hand back like she’s been burned, but she doesn’t step away, her work boots planted six inches from his, close enough that he can smell the cinnamon on her breath, the rose water and cedar she uses to treat her flower stems, the faint sweet tang of the caramel apple. Her dark hair is pulled back with a silk scarf printed with sunflowers, the same kind Diane used to tie around her neck when they went hiking. There’s a smudge of dirt on her jaw from planting chrysanthemums that morning, a tiny scar above her left eyebrow from the time she fell off his ATV when she was 14, and he’s suddenly hyper aware of how much she’s grown up, how the gangly teen he used to tease is now a woman with laugh lines around her eyes and calluses on her own hands from pruning rose bushes.
“Relax, the flannel’s already stained,” he says, nodding at the caramel splotch, and she laughs, leaning in a little so her shoulder brushes his bicep. She teases him about still wearing the same beat up leather work belt he had 20 years ago, the one with the fire department buckle Diane got him for their 20th anniversary. He teases her about still stealing bites of his food, just like she did when she was a kid, snatching hot dogs off his grill before they were done cooking. They talk for 20 minutes, the noise of the festival fading into the background: the country cover band off key, the kids screaming on the hay ride, the crowd haggling over pumpkins at the stand next to them. She asks if he can drop a cord of hardwood off at her shop next week, her old furnace is on its last legs and she doesn’t want her potted orchids to freeze. He says sure, no charge, and she shakes her head, says she’s paying him, no exceptions, the same stubborn set to her jaw Diane used to get when she wouldn’t back down.
The band switches to a slow Johnny Cash track, couples swaying on the packed dirt dance floor, and she tilts her head up at him, her hazel eyes flecked with gold in the afternoon sun. “You still dance?” she asks, and he snorts, says he hasn’t danced since Diane’s 50th birthday party, when she made him sway with her in the kitchen to that same song. “C’mon,” she says, holding out her hand, her palm up, fingers a little chapped from the cold fall air. “Just one. For old time’s sake.”
He hesitates for half a second, every alarm in his head going off. This is wrong. She’s practically family. The whole town would talk if they saw them. Diane would roll in her grave. But then he looks at her, the small smile on her face, like she already knows he’s going to say yes, and he takes her hand. Her palm is warm against his, small enough that his hand wraps almost entirely around hers, and she rests her other hand on his bicep as they sway, her head level with his collarbone, so close he can feel her breath through his shirt.
“I had a crush on you when I was 16,” she mumbles into his flannel, so quiet he almost misses it over the music. “Used to make Diane bring me to your house just so I could watch you work on your truck. Thought you were the toughest, nicest guy I’d ever met.” He freezes mid-sway, his throat tight, because he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about her too, over the last two years, caught himself staring at her social media posts of her flower arrangements, driving past her shop just to see if the lights were on, feeling guilty as hell every time, like he was breaking some unwritten rule.
“I thought I was supposed to be the creepy old guy for even noticing you,” he says, and she laughs, pulling back to look up at him, her hand still on his arm. “Diane used to tell me if she ever went first, I better not mope around the cabin alone forever. Said I deserved to be happy, even if it wasn’t with her.”
The song ends, and they don’t let go of each other, even as the next song picks up, faster, louder, kids running past them chasing each other with cotton candy. He asks her if she wants to ditch the festival, drive up to the overlook on the west side of town, watch the sunset over the lake. She grins, takes a bite of her caramel apple, wipes a stray smudge of caramel off his chest with her thumb, and licks it off her finger, slow, like she’s savoring it. He leads her to his beat up Ford F-150, opens the passenger door for her, and she slides in, her knee brushing his when he climbs into the driver’s seat a second later. He turns the key, the radio cutting on to the same Johnny Cash song, and he pulls out of the parking lot, the trees lining the road blazing red and gold in the late afternoon light, the caramel still sticky on his flannel, her hand resting on the center console, inches from his.
