Rafe Mendez, 57, spent 28 years with the U.S. Forest Service coordinating wildfire hotspot response across the Pacific Northwest before he retired three years back, and if you asked his only sister what his biggest flaw was, she’d say he still treats every casual interaction like it’s a potential blaze he needs to contain before it spreads. He’s lived in the same 2-bed cabin outside Silverton, Oregon, for 12 years, and since his wife left him for a travel nurse 8 years prior, he’s avoided anything that could land him on the small town’s gossip mill radar. That’s why he’d spent the last six months darting out of Lila’s Pie Shop after grabbing his daily black coffee before the shop’s new owner could finish asking him if he wanted a slice of whatever daily special she’d baked that morning.
He’d made the custom carved maple pie server in his garage workshop over three weekends, the handle etched with tiny wild huckleberries, as the prize for the annual harvest fair’s amateur pie contest, and he’d planned to drop it off with the event coordinator, grab another IPA from the beer garden, and hightail it back to his cabin before anyone could corner him into making small talk. He didn’t count on Lila manning the contest check-in table, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, a smudge of cinnamon dusted high on her left cheek, flour caked in the crease of her wrist where she’d wiped her hand an hour prior. The air around her smelled like baked peach and vanilla, cut with the sharp, sweet tang of the fried dough cart two booths down, and Rafe’s boots slowed before he could talk himself into turning around.
He held out the server, still wrapped in brown butcher paper, and told her it was the contest prize, his voice rougher than he meant it to be. She smiled, that wide, unapologetic smile he’d been replaying in his head at 2 a.m. when he couldn’t sleep, and leaned in to take it, her fingers brushing his for half a second longer than was strictly necessary. That’s when a kid in a neon orange football jersey ran full tilt into his side, chasing a golden retriever with a cotton candy stick stuck to its collar, and Rafe stumbled forward, his free hand landing light but firm on the curve of her waist to steady himself, half the IPA in his plastic cup sloshing onto the front of her flour-dusted gingham apron.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t step back, just held his eye contact, her dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners like she was holding back a laugh. He started to apologize, fumbling for a napkin in his jacket pocket, but she shook her head, leaning in a little closer so her shoulder pressed against his, loud enough that only he could hear over the bluegrass band playing a block over. “Easy there, hotshot. You gonna buy me a drink to make up for it, or you gonna run off like you do every time I ask you to stay for a slice?”
Rafe froze, the hand still resting on her waist burning like he’d touched a hot stove, every alarm bell in his head blaring that this was exactly the kind of attention he’d spent years avoiding. Half the town’s regulars were already glancing over, he could see the quilting circle ladies from the Methodist church pretending to admire a jar of pickles at the next booth while they snuck looks at them. He felt that familiar twist of disgust at himself for even wanting to say yes, for letting a pretty woman with flour on her wrist get under his skin so easily, but then she tilted her head, and he saw the faint, nervous bite of her lower lip, and all those alarms went quiet.
He laughed, that rough, low laugh he hadn’t used since his last fire crew assignment, and told her he had two tickets to the outdoor John Wayne marathon they were showing at the fairground after dark, if she didn’t have plans after the contest wrapped. She leaned in further, the side of her face almost brushing his jaw, and he could smell the cinnamon on her skin, the faint coffee on her breath, when she said “I’ll even bring the peach pie you’ve been staring at through the shop display case every morning for three months. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
He admitted he’d been scared of the gossip, that everyone in town still knew him as the guy whose wife left him, that he didn’t want to be the latest topic of conversation over Sunday brunch. She snort-laughed, pulling back to look him in the eye, and said “Honey, the quilting circle had a betting pool going on when you’d finally talk to me. I already won 72 bucks last week when I told them you’d bring me the pie server you carved personally.”
The contest wrapped an hour later, Lila taking first place for that exact peach pie she’d mentioned, and Rafe followed her to her beat up Subaru to grab the wool blanket she kept in the backseat, stopping at the beer garden to grab two more IPAs on the way to the fairground screen. They spread the blanket out in the back row, away from most of the crowd, and she sat close enough that her leg pressed solidly against his the whole first movie, her shoulder bumping his every time she laughed at a one-liner.
Halfway through *True Grit*, when the lead character finally confesses he cares about the kid he’s been traveling with, Rafe reached over, lacing his calloused, scarred fingers through hers, her hand warm in his, a faint old burn scar on her middle knuckle from a baking accident she’d mentioned once in passing three months prior. He didn’t look over at her when he squeezed her hand, but he felt her squeeze back, soft and sure, and for the first time in almost a decade, he didn’t feel the urge to pull away.
