Rafe Ortega, 53, spent 22 years on an Arizona wildland hotshot crew before a blown knee sidelined him for good. Now he runs a one-man tree trimming and firewood delivery outfit out of a beat-up 2007 Ford F-150, lives in an off-grid cabin 12 miles outside Flagstaff, and hasn’t let anyone stay the night since his wife packed her bags and left for Tucson seven years prior. His biggest flaw? He still holds every unwritten rule his old crew ever wrote like it’s federal law, even when half the guys he used to work with don’t speak to each other anymore.
He’d rolled up to the Coconino County Fair just after 4 PM on a sticky late August Wednesday, dropping off a half-cord of split oak for the volunteer fire department’s annual barbecue pit. The air reeked of fried Oreos, charred brisket, and ponderosa pine resin, peanut shells crunching under his steel-toe work boots as he detoured to the concession stand for a lemonade. That’s where he spotted her.
Lena Marlow, his old crew chief’s ex-wife, was behind the honey stand at the end of the craft row, wiping beeswax off a mason jar with a frayed dish towel. The last time he’d seen her was a crew barbecue in 2015, right before he and his crew got called out to a blaze outside Sedona, and she’d slipped him an extra plate of ribs because she knew he’d pulled a 14-hour shift the day before. She looked almost the same now: sun-bleached blonde hair pulled back in a braid, a smattering of freckles across her nose, a tiny bee tattoo peeking out from the cuff of her denim jacket.
He hesitated for a full 30 seconds, lemonade sweating in his hand. The old crew rule was ironclad: you don’t mess with another guy’s wife, ex or otherwise. But he’d run out of raw honey for his morning tea three days prior, and he’d yet to find a local brand that didn’t taste like processed corn syrup. He walked over.
She looked up when he stepped into the shade of her pop-up tent, and for a split second her eyes went wide, then crinkled at the corners when she smiled. “Rafe Ortega. I thought that was your truck parked by the gate. Still got that stupid ‘Smokey Bear Is My Homeboy’ bumper sticker on the back?”
He huffed a laugh, shifting his weight so his scarred left forearm was visible, the faint silvery line from a 2018 brush blaze curving from his wrist to his elbow. “Sticker’s still there. Still holds up. You still selling honey that doesn’t taste like sugar water?”
She reached under the counter, pulled out a small sample pot, held it out to him. When their fingers brushed as he took it, he felt a jolt shoot up his arm, sharp and warm, the kind he hadn’t felt in years. He hated it immediately, hated that he was even reacting, that he was breaking a rule he’d followed for half his adult life. The honey was sweet, thick, tasted like wild clover and sun-warmed stone, and he told her so.
They talked for 20 minutes, the hum of the bumblebees in the hives stacked behind her stand mixing with the distant roar of the fair’s demolition derby. She told him she’d divorced his old crew chief three years prior, that he’d skipped out on child support for their youngest kid, that most of the old crew didn’t even speak to him anymore. He told her about his tree trimming business, about the pair of rescue dogs he’d adopted last year, about the way his knee still ached when the monsoon rains rolled in. At one point she leaned in to point out a group of kids chasing a chicken across the fairgrounds, her shoulder brushing his, and he didn’t step back.
She invited him to sit at the rickety picnic table behind her stand when a lull in foot traffic hit, said she had an extra pulled pork sandwich from the barbecue pit that was still warm. He sat, and when their knees brushed under the splintered wood, neither of them pulled away. She listened when he told the story of the time his old crew chief tripped over a fire hose and face-planted in a patch of prickly pear, laughing so hard a snort came out, and he found himself leaning in closer, just to hear that sound over the fair noise.
The internal conflict hit him like a fist to the chest halfway through the sandwich. He wanted to stay, wanted to keep talking, wanted to lean over and wipe the faint smudge of honey off her lower lip. But he also felt that old, familiar twist of guilt, like he was betraying the guys he’d fought fires with for decades, like everyone at the fair was watching them, gossiping. He must have looked tense, because she reached over, brushed a stray pine needle off the shoulder of his flannel shirt, her hand lingering on his bicep for three full seconds.
“Relax,” she said, soft enough only he could hear. “Jake’s not here. No one from the old crew cares anymore. You’re allowed to stop following rules that don’t exist.”
The words hit him like a cool drink of water, and the tension seeped out of his shoulders, slow and easy. He didn’t argue, didn’t make an excuse to leave, just nodded, and took another bite of his sandwich.
By the time the sun started to dip below the San Francisco Peaks, the fair’s string lights were flickering on, the distant music from the ferris wheel drifting over the grounds. He offered to help her pack up her stand when she closed for the night, lifting the heavy crates of honey jars and stacking them in the back of her Subaru Outback while she folded up the pop-up tent. When he hoisted the last crate, his forearm brushed her hip, and she didn’t flinch, didn’t step away, just smiled up at him.
Before he could turn to leave, she slipped a crumpled slip of paper into the front pocket of his work pants, her fingers brushing the waistband of his jeans for half a second. “I’m here tomorrow too,” she said. “Bring me a cup of that black coffee you drink black as asphalt, yeah?”
He nodded, walked back to his truck, pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket when he got behind the wheel. It had her phone number scrawled on it in bright blue ink, a tiny doodle of a bee next to the digits. He smiled, tucked the paper into his wallet, turned the key in the ignition, and pulled out of the fair parking lot.
