Clay Bennett, 58, spent 32 years with the U.S. Forest Service fighting wildfires across the Pacific Northwest before retiring to a creaky 1920s bungalow outside Bend three years prior. His biggest flaw, the one his old crew used to razz him for even before his wife Ellie died of breast cancer seven years back, was that he hated rocking the boat more than he hated a poorly laid fire line. He’d rather go thirsty than cause a scene, rather walk three miles out of his way than risk running into someone who might ask a personal question. That’s why he’d planned to slip out of the town’s annual summer street fair the second the volunteer fire department bratwurst tent closed up, the one he’d manned for four hours straight in 87 degree heat, his sunburned forearms still prickling from the grill’s radiant heat.
He was leaning against the cinder block wall of the old downtown fire station bay nursing a cold Pabst when it happened. The toe of a strappy leather sandal scraped the scuffed toe of his work boot, and he looked up ready to mumble an apology, only to lock eyes with Mara Hale. He knew who she was, everyone within 20 miles did. She was the mayor’s wife, married to Rick Hale, the same guy who’d beat him out for homecoming king in 1983, who’d cut the volunteer fire department’s annual equipment budget by 40% six months prior, who’d spent 15 minutes on the fair’s main stage earlier that night droning on about “community investment” while Clay stood in the back rolling his eyes so hard his head hurt.
She steadied herself with a hand on his forearm, her palm warm even through the thin cotton of his fire department volunteer tee, and laughed, the sound bright enough to cut through the John Mellencamp cover blaring from the stage at the end of the block. “Sorry, drunk guy in a cowboy hat just shoulder checked me so hard I almost spilled my entire rosé on 12 people.” Her perfume hit him then, jasmine and cedar, not the cloying floral stuff he’d always assumed politician’s wives wore, and her thumb brushed the scar on his forearm, the one he got from a falling branch during the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, before she pulled her hand back like she’d realized what she’d done. She held eye contact for three full beats, longer than polite, and he looked away first, his neck heating up like he was a 17 year old kid again talking to a girl he didn’t have the guts to ask out.
He should have made an excuse to leave right then. Gossip traveled faster in this town than a grass fire in August, and if anyone saw him talking to Mara Hale alone, it’d be all over the local Facebook group by sunrise. He told himself this was stupid, that he hated her husband, that messing with the mayor’s wife was the kind of reckless move he’d spent years avoiding, that the flicker of heat low in his gut was just the beer talking. But then she leaned in closer, their shoulders brushing now, no space between them, and said, “You’re Clay, right? The guy who restores the old fire lookouts outside town? I’ve been trying to find someone to show me the trail up to the Broken Top lookout for months, but Rick says hiking is ‘a waste of time he could be spending at city council meetings.’”
The disgust he felt at the mention of Rick tangled with the sharp buzz of desire in his chest, and he found himself talking before he could stop himself. “I know that trail like the back of my hand. Ice on the north face until mid-July, but it’s clear now, best views of the sunset in the whole county.” She leaned in even closer to hear him over a particularly loud chorus of “Jack & Diane,” her breath warm against the shell of his ear, and he could smell the rosé on her breath, sweet and crisp. “Wanna show me tonight? The sun sets in 18 minutes, we can make it up to the lower viewpoint in 10 if you drive fast.”
He hesitated for half a second, thinking of Ellie’s photo on his kitchen counter, thinking of the gossips milling around the fair, thinking of the way Rick had snubbed him at the grocery store last month. Then he nodded, tossing his half-empty beer can in the recycling bin next to the wall. He didn’t say anything, just jerked his head toward the parking lot behind the fire station, and she fell into step next to him, her hand brushing his every few steps, neither of them pulling away. The fair lights blurred behind them as they walked, the sound of the band fading into the hum of crickets in the oak trees lining the street.
He unlocked the door to his beat up 2012 F150, the one with the Forest Service sticker peeling off the back window, and held the passenger door open for her. She slid onto the cracked vinyl seat, and when he leaned over to buckle her seatbelt for her, old habit from driving his crew out to fire lines, her hand rested on his forearm again, steady and warm, her fingers brushing that same scar. He turned the key in the ignition, the truck rumbling to life, and pulled out of the parking lot, the last of the fair’s string lights shrinking in the rearview mirror. She didn’t move her hand.
