Javier Ruiz is 62, retired border patrol K9 handler, and hasn’t gone on a single date since his wife Elaina died of ovarian cancer eight years prior. He’s got a scar slicing across his left forearm from a run-in with a smuggler’s knife in 2009, a habit of twisting the silver wedding band he still wears on his ring finger when he’s nervous, and a deep, unshakable belief that any pleasure unrelated to working on his vintage pickup or training local search and rescue dogs is a betrayal of the life he built with Elaina. He’s only at the annual south Texas chili cookoff because the organizers begged him to judge, same as they do every year, and he’s too much of a soft touch to say no.
The air smells like smoked brisket, cumin, and cheap beer, the ground crunches under his worn work boots from a layer of discarded peanut shells and sunflower seed husks, and the Tejano cover band on the main stage is cranking out a wobbly version of “Besame Mucho” that makes him smile despite himself. He’s holding a ceramic bowl of chili heavy with habanero and venison when someone slams into his side, splattering red sauce across the chest of his faded navy work shirt.
He blinks, ready to brush off the mishap, when he meets Lena Marquez’s eyes. She’s 48, just moved back to town last month after a messy divorce from a real estate developer in Austin, and her mom was Elaina’s college roommate and best friend for 40 years. Javier has known her since she was 16, sneaking beer out of his cooler during Fourth of July cookouts, but he hasn’t seen her in six years, not since Elaina’s funeral. She’s got the same bright, gap-toothed smile he remembers, a thin streak of silver running through the dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, and she’s laughing so hard at the chili stain she snorts, one hand flying up to cover her mouth.
“Shit, Javier, I’m so sorry,” she says, grabbing a handful of paper napkins from the table next to them and leaning in to dab at the stain on his chest. Her fingers brush his sternum through the thin cotton, and he feels a jolt of heat run up his spine that has nothing to do with the 92 degree heat or the chili he just tasted. He freezes, his first instinct to step back, to make an excuse and leave, but he doesn’t. He stays put, watching her tongue poke out slightly in concentration as she rubs at the splotch of red sauce.
The scent of her lavender hand lotion mixes with the smoky chili air, and he finds himself leaning in a fraction of an inch without meaning to. When she looks up at him, her face is only six inches away from his, and he can see the faint flecks of gold in her dark brown eyes, the fine crow’s feet fanning out from the corners when she grins. “You’re still wearing that ring, huh?” she says, nodding at his left hand, where he’s twisting the band so hard his knuckle is white.
He shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. “Habit, I guess.”
She doesn’t push it, just gestures to the path leading down to the river walk behind the cookoff grounds, where the noise from the stage is softer and the oak trees cast long, cool shadows. “Wanna walk? I’ve been dying to ask how Max’s puppies are doing. I saw the post you put on the town Facebook page about the search and rescue training.”
Javier hesitates for half a second, the familiar guilt nipping at the back of his throat. This is the kind of thing he’s avoided for years, casual, unplanned time with a woman he’s always found quietly, embarrassingly attractive, even when she was married and he was too. But then she tilts her head at him, that same teasing smile she had when she was 19 and asking him to teach her how to shoot a rifle, and he nods.
They walk slowly along the river, fireflies starting to blink to life in the tall grass at the edge of the water, the distant sound of the band fading to a low hum. She tells him about the pet grooming salon she’s opening downtown, the golden retriever puppy she just adopted, the way her ex-husband tried to take her mom’s vintage recipe box in the divorce. He tells her about the new K9 trainee he’s working with, the way he fixed up Elaina’s old rose garden out behind his house earlier this spring.
When they stop leaning against the wooden railing overlooking the river, her shoulder is pressed flush to his, warm and solid through his shirt. She turns to him, and for a minute neither of them says anything. “I always had a crush on you, you know,” she says, quiet enough that he almost doesn’t hear her over the sound of the water rushing past. “Back when I was in college, I’d come home for holidays just to see you at the cookouts. I knew you were happy with Elaina, though. I never said anything.”
Javier’s throat goes dry. He’d known, on some level, had noticed the way she’d look at him when she thought he wasn’t paying attention, had felt the same stupid flutter in his chest every time she’d laugh at his bad jokes. He’d never let himself dwell on it, not when he was married, not when Elaina was sick, not in the years after she died, when he thought he’d never feel anything but hollow again. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just reaches out, brushes a stray piece of hair that’s fallen out of her braid behind her ear. His fingers brush her cheek, and she doesn’t pull away.
“You wanna get tacos later?” he says, suddenly, like the words are being pulled out of him before he can overthink them. “That 24 hour place off I-35, the one with the carnitas that’s been there since we were kids.”
She grins, so bright it makes his chest feel light, like the tight knot that’s been sitting there since the day Elaina died finally loosened a little. She pulls a pen out of her purse, scrawls her phone number on a napkin, shoves it in his hand. “I’d like that a lot. Pick me up at 9?”
He tucks the napkin into the front pocket of his work jeans, already looking forward to the sound of her laugh over crispy pork and cold horchata.
