Rafe Mendez, 53, retired U.S. Forest Service wildfire crew lead, wiped pine sap off the blade of a 1950s crosscut saw as the last of the Missoula County Fair crowds trickled toward the exit. The August air hung thick with the ghost of fried Oreos, burnt cotton candy, and the sharp, green scent of the ponderosa pines lining the fairgrounds perimeter. He’d spent the last four days running woodworking demos, showing kids how the old saws cut through fir faster than any modern chainsaw if you knew what you were doing, his left forearm crisscrossed with faded burn scars from a 2018 blaze outside Lolo a constant, quiet reminder of the career he’d left behind when his lungs gave out three years prior. His biggest flaw, as his late wife Sarah had teased him a hundred times, was that he’d rather hike 10 miles in a snowstorm than ask anyone for a hand, a trait that had only gotten worse after she died of ovarian cancer seven years earlier. He’d shut most people out after that, sticking to his cabin outside town, restoring saws and fishing alone, convinced letting anyone new in would be a betrayal of the 22 years he’d had with Sarah.
He was packing his tools into the bed of his beat-up Ford F-150 when Lena Marlow rounded the corner of the demo booth, and his throat went tight. He’d avoided her for three straight years, ever since the night after Sarah’s memorial service, when she’d showed up at his cabin with a pot of chili and a six pack of his favorite IPA, and they’d sat on his porch talking until 2 a.m., leaning so close their shoulders kept brushing, until she’d leaned in and he’d panicked, made up an excuse about being tired, and shut the door in her face. She was 47, the fair’s event coordinator, Sarah’s second cousin, and the only person who’d ever made him feel even a flicker of the same ease he’d had with his wife, a fact he’d spent three years trying to outrun.
She was carrying a half-empty can of cherry hard seltzer, her work boots caked in mud from ten days of 12-hour shifts, half her blonde braid fallen loose around her face, her cheeks pink from the evening heat. She leaned against the edge of the booth, her denim-clad knee brushing his where he sat on a folding chair, and held his gaze for three full beats longer than polite. He could smell coconut shampoo and buttered popcorn on her, and when she reached across the table to pick up the saw he’d just finished cleaning, their fingers brushed for half a second, sending a jolt up his arm that made him fumble the rag he was holding.
“Been avoiding me, Mendez?” she said, a half-smile playing on her lips, no bite in the question, just a quiet knowing that made his ears go hot. He opened his mouth to lie, to say he’d been busy, that he hadn’t seen her around, but she shook her head, cutting him off before he could speak. “Save it. I saw you duck behind the sheep barn when I walked past yesterday. You’ve been dodging me since that night on your porch.”
The conflict coiled tight in his chest, equal parts guilt and sharp, unignorable desire. He’d spent three years telling himself wanting her was wrong, that Sarah would be angry, that he was too old, too set in his ways, too broken to start over with anyone, let alone someone who’d known Sarah, who’d been at their wedding, who’d held his hand when the doctors told him there was nothing more they could do. He’d replayed that night on the porch a hundred times, alternating between kicking himself for pulling away and being relieved he hadn’t messed up whatever fragile, leftover connection he had to Sarah’s family.
“I thought it was disrespectful,” he said finally, the words coming out rougher than he intended, and he looked down at his calloused hands, at the scar across his knuckle from the time he’d tried to fix a chainsaw drunk the week after Sarah died. “You’re her family. I didn’t want to… mess that up. Didn’t want to make things weird.”
Lena sat down next to him on the folding chair, their shoulders pressing together, warm and solid through his worn flannel shirt, and took his hand in hers. Her palm was soft, but her fingers had calluses too, from years of riding horses and fixing fence on her family’s ranch outside town, and she laced their fingers together like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Sarah told me, six months before she died, that if I ever got the chance to kick your ass for being too stubborn to move on, I should take it,” she said, and he looked up at her, surprised, his throat tight. “She said she didn’t want you sitting alone in that cabin for the rest of your life, eating burnt beans and talking to saws. She’d be more pissed at you for avoiding me than she would be for kissing me, Rafe.”
The weight he’d been carrying for seven years felt like it lifted a little, right then, the guilt melting into something softer, something that felt like permission. He didn’t pull his hand away. They sat there for another hour, talking, as the fair lights turned off one by one, the distant sound of the carnival rides grinding to a halt replaced by the hum of crickets in the grass. He told her about the saw he was restoring for the local high school’s forestry program, she told him about the fair board’s plan to double the size of the woodworking demo space the next year, and every time she laughed, her shoulder shook against his, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that calm.
When the last of the parking lot lights turned off, he offered to walk her to her truck, parked all the way at the far end of the lot by the horse stalls. When they got there, she leaned against the driver’s side door, and didn’t let go of his hand. He leaned in first, this time, kissing her soft at first, tentative, until she curled her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer, and he could taste the cherry seltzer on her lips, the faint tang of the mint gum she chewed when she was stressed. When they pulled apart, she smiled up at him, her thumb brushing the scar on his forearm.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said, as she climbed into her truck. “We can talk about the demo space. Maybe get dinner after.”
He nodded, grinning, and stepped back as she turned the key in the ignition. He stood in the parking lot watching her taillights fade down the dirt road, the 1950s crosscut saw he’d been restoring earlier tucked under one arm, and for the first time in seven years, he didn’t feel guilty for looking forward to the morning.
