Elio Marquez, 59, spent 32 years leading wildland fire crews across the Pacific Northwest before a 2021 burn to his left calf forced his early retirement. His biggest flaw, one he’d never admit out loud, is that he’s spent the 12 years since his wife left him treating any hint of romantic interest like a spot fire he needed to stamp out before it spread. He lives alone in a cedar cabin outside Bend, spends most days restoring vintage chainsaws he picks up at estate sales, and only leaves the property for supply runs and the occasional beer with his old crew. He’d avoided the annual Deschutes County harvest festival for seven years straight, but his old crewmate Ron showed up on his porch at 2 p.m. with a six pack of IPA and refused to take no for an answer.
He’s leaning against the side of the spiced cider tent, hoodie pulled up against the crisp fall wind, holding a cup of cider he doesn’t even want, when he spots her. Clara, his new next door neighbor of three months, the one who drives a sky-blue van covered in book-themed decals, runs a mobile library for low-income senior centers across central Oregon. He’d heard from Ron a month back that her ex-husband was Jake Tully, who’d been Elio’s crew lead for his first five years on the job, so he’d written off even casual conversation as off-limits, convinced it would feel like crossing a line with an old friend even if they’d been divorced for six years.
She waves at him from a nearby picnic table, holds up a second cider, yells that she bought it for him after Ron texted she’d see him there. He hesitates for a full 10 seconds, half tempted to slip around the tent and leave, but she’s already standing, grinning, so he walks over. The wooden bench is narrow, their knees brush when he shifts to sit, and he tugs his leg back immediately, face hot, feeling stupid for reacting like a fumbling 16 year old on his first date. She’s wearing a flannel shirt tied around her waist, faded jeans, work boots caked in pine needles, her hair pulled back in a braid with a few crumpled orange maple leaves stuck in the strands. She laughs when he stares at the leaves, tugs one out, holds it up to the sun, says the group of 80 year olds at the Redmond senior center stuck them in her hair earlier that day as a thank you for bringing them westerns.
She asks about the 1978 Homelite chainsaw he’d been restoring on his porch the week before, says she’s been watching him work through her kitchen window when she drinks her morning coffee, thinks the way he strips the rusted metal and tinkers with the carburetors is fascinating. He tenses up at first, convinced she’s teasing him, but her voice is soft, her dark eyes don’t leave his when he talks about how he tracks down replacement parts from old hardware stores across the state, tests each saw out on fallen fir logs behind his cabin to make sure they run right. She leans in to hear him better over the noise of the festival crowd, her elbow brushing his bicep, and he catches the scent of vanilla lotion and cinnamon from the churro she’s been eating, warm and sweet, and for the first time in years he doesn’t feel the urge to make an excuse and leave. He tells her about the 2007 Estacada fire, the one where he carried an injured hiker three miles out through smoke so thick he couldn’t see his own boots, and she doesn’t flinch or look away when he rolls up his hoodie sleeve to show her the thick, silvery scar on his forearm from a falling branch that day.
She suggests they walk through the hay bale maze, says she’s been wanting to go all day but didn’t want to wander through alone. He agrees without thinking, follows her through the maze entrance, the scratchy dry hay brushing his arms, the air smelling like cut grass and roasted hazelnuts from the stand outside. It’s more crowded than he expected, kids screaming as they run past, groups of friends yelling to each other when they hit dead ends, and she grabs his forearm to keep from getting separated when a group of teens cuts between them. Her hand is warm, calloused on the palm from loading heavy boxes of books into her van every morning, and he doesn’t pull away. They turn a wrong corner, end up in a small dead end, no one else around for a full minute. A kid running full tilt out of a side path bumps into her from behind, she stumbles forward, and he catches her by the waist to steady her. Their faces are three inches apart, he can see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, the faint freckles across her nose, and he can still smell vanilla and apple cider on her breath. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, and then she leans in, kisses him soft, her hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck. He kisses her back, slow, his hand still on her waist, the scratch of the hay bale against his back the only thing grounding him enough to believe this isn’t some weird, nice dream.
They walk out of the maze 10 minutes later, her hand tucked in the crook of his arm, neither of them talking about the kiss, both grinning like they just pulled off a prank no one else knows about. He buys her a caramel apple from the stand near the exit, she feeds him a bite, the sticky sugar gets on his chin, and she wipes it off with her thumb, her touch lingering on his jaw for a beat longer than necessary. The sun dips below the mountains, the festival’s string lights flicker on, warm orange and gold strung between the pine trees, and the air gets cold enough that he can see his breath when he laughs at a story she tells about a 92 year old regular at her library who keeps leaving her homemade chocolate chip cookies.
He walks her to his beat-up 2017 Ford F-150, parked at the edge of the lot, and stops by the passenger door. He tells her he has a fresh pot of cinnamon coffee brewed at his cabin, and a box of old fire crew photos he never shows anyone, if she wants to come over and look through them. She nods, says she’d love to, and reaches for the door handle. His hand brushes hers when he pulls the door open for her, her fingers lacing through his for half a second before she climbs into the seat. He shuts the door behind her, walks around to the driver’s side, and smiles to himself when he glances over and sees her twisting the stem off the caramel apple between her fingers, humming a Johnny Cash song under her breath as he turns the key in the ignition.
