Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, had avoided the downtown Darby beer garden’s monthly charity trivia for three straight years. He’d always written the events off as a magnet for the crunchy wellness crowd he’d blamed for his 2016 divorce, the same group that’d convinced his ex-wife to sell their shared snowmobile and spend six months at a silent meditation retreat in Costa Rica instead of celebrating their 25th anniversary. His buddy Tom had dragged him out this time, claiming the prize package was worth the crowd, then bailed 20 minutes in to help his teen daughter fix a flat on the side of the highway. Clay was halfway through his second Pabst Blue Ribbon, picking at a basket of over-salted fried pickles, when the woman slid onto the bar stool two spots down from him.
He recognized her immediately. Mara Hale, 49, the new county public health nurse, whose face had been plastered on every telephone pole and general store bulletin board for the last two months with warnings about the Bitterroot wildfire smoke: “Wear an N95 outdoors for AQI over 150. Stay hydrated. Avoid strenuous exercise.” Clay had torn one down off his own mailbox two weeks prior, muttering about nanny state overreach. He’d skipped all three of her drop-in smoke screening clinics, convinced he’d spent 32 years breathing pine smoke and ash on fire lines and didn’t need some outsider telling him how to take care of his lungs.
The first round of trivia was wildfire safety, and Clay was fumbling harder than he cared to admit. He’d spent most of his career fighting fires, not memorizing the county’s approved talking points for concerned homeowners. He stared at the sheet, stumped by a question about pediatric smoke inhalation first aid, when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. She’d leaned across the empty stool between them, her shoulder barely brushing his bicep, the scent of jasmine hand lotion mixed with pine resin wrapping around him before she spoke. “It’s cool mist humidifier, not steam. Half the county got that wrong last week.” Her voice was low, rough around the edges, like she spent half her day yelling over wind at trailheads.
He grunted a thanks, filled in the bubble, and tried not to stare. She was wearing faded Carhartt overalls over a faded hole-punched Johnny Cash t-shirt, no makeup, a faint smudge of bike grease on her left jaw. Her nails were short, unpolished, calloused at the tips, and when she crossed her legs under the bar, the toe of her scuffed hiking boot brushed his calf for half a second. He tensed, half ready to make an excuse to leave, until she laughed and nodded at the stack of public health flyers tucked under her arm. “I know those things are obnoxious. The county makes me print 500 a week. I don’t even wear a mask when I’m hiking alone, for Christ’s sake.”
That cracked the wall he’d built up before she even sat down. They bantered through the rest of the round, leaning closer each time they whispered answers back and forth, the empty stool between them abandoned by the third question. When he passed her a napkin to wipe pickle brine off her wrist, their fingers brushed, and he felt a jolt up his arm he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager sneaking into the drive-in with his high school girlfriend. He was torn: half of him still snarled that she was part of the same crowd that’d blown up his marriage, the other half was giddy at the way she threw her head back laughing when he told the story about a black bear stealing an entire cooler of beer off his patrol truck back in 2019.
The final question hit the screen: “What is the OSHA-approved maximum length of time you can wear a single disposable N95 mask in heavy smoke conditions?” She leaned in so close her lips were almost touching his ear, her breath warm against the stubble on his jaw, and he had to fight not to shiver. “Eight hours. Don’t tell anyone I told you the county’s recommendation of four is total garbage to make people buy more masks.” He filled in the bubble, and when the host announced their table had won, he almost spilled his beer.
The prize was a guided two-person hike to the hidden alpine lake he’d spent 20 years patrolling, the one he hadn’t visited since his ex-wife left. He’d been planning to sell it to the first person who offered him 20 bucks, until she turned to him, hazel eyes crinkled at the corners, and said she’d been trying to find the trail for months but didn’t want to get lost alone, would he go with her? He hesitated, the old bitter grudge flaring for half a second, before he nodded.
They met at the trailhead at 7 a.m. the following Saturday, the smoke thin enough to see the snow-dusted Bitterroot peaks for the first time in three weeks. He brought a cooler of cold beer and a bag of homemade jerky, she brought a Tupperware of peach pie she’d baked the night before. Halfway up the trail, she tripped over a gnarled pine root, and he caught her around the waist, her hands fisting in the front of his flannel shirt for three long, quiet beats before they both pulled away, grinning like idiots.
They reached the lake at 10 a.m., the water so clear you could see the trout darting under the surface, loons calling soft from the far shore. She kicked off her boots, rolled up her jeans, and sat on a sun-warmed granite slab, dipping her feet in the glacial melt. He sat down next to her, their legs pressed together from hip to ankle, and handed her a cold beer. She took a long sip, then passed it back, and he didn’t even think about the divorce, or the meditation retreat, or the stupid flyers, for the rest of the afternoon. A loon called again, loud and clear across the water, and she leaned her shoulder against his.
