Manny Rios, 59, retired feedlot manager, had dragged himself to the town fire department barbecue only because his 10-year-old granddaughter had begged him to enter the brisket contest. He’d spent 32 years running a 1200-acre feedlot outside Lubbock, retired after his wife’s three-year battle with lung cancer ended, moved to the tiny Hill Country town to be closer to his daughter and her kid. For three years he’d avoided every public event, hated the way neighbors tiptoed around him, looked at him like he was a half-broken stallion one wrong word away from bolting. The only reason he’d stayed this long was the brisket, smoked slow for 18 hours over post oak, the same recipe he’d used for his wife’s birthday every year for 36 years of marriage.
He was leaning against a dented metal cooler nursing a warm light beer when she backed straight into him, jumping out of the way of a kid sprinting with a dripping blue raspberry snow cone. Beer sloshed over the edge of the can onto his flannel shirt sleeve—he’d worn it out of habit even though the heat was sitting at 92 degrees, thick humidity sticking the fabric to his forearms. She turned fast, hands up to apologize, and he caught the first whiff of her: citronella candle, cedar sawdust, a faint undercurrent of vanilla lip balm. She was wearing scuffed work boots caked with red Hill Country dirt, cutoff jean shorts, a faded Texas A&M Agrilife shirt stretched tight over her shoulders, sun-streaked brown hair pulled back in a messy braid, freckles dusted across her nose that looked like they’d been baked there by weeks of working outside.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she said, leaning in to swat at the beer on his sleeve with a crumpled napkin she pulled from her work pants pocket. Her bare shoulder brushed his chest when a group of firefighters passed behind her, shoving each other and yelling about the cornhole tournament. She held eye contact for two beats longer than polite, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners when she spotted the first-place brisket contest entry tag pinned to his shirt pocket. “You’re the guy everyone’s been talking about. Word on the street is your brisket could make a preacher cuss.”
Manny grunted, half amused, half wary. He’d spent so long hiding out at his ranch house on the edge of town he didn’t recognize her. She introduced herself as Clara, the new state wildlife biologist who’d moved to town six months prior to tend to the native pollinator garden planted right next to the pavilion. He’d driven past the garden a dozen times, seen the patches of bluebonnets and milkweed, never stopped to wonder who tended it.
They talked for 20 minutes, leaning against the cooler, the sound of a bad country cover band playing Alan Jackson in the background, kids screaming on the bounce house off to the side. She teased him about wearing flannel in July, he teased her about the barbed wire scar snaking up her left forearm—she said she got it chasing a feral hog off the milkweed patches two weeks prior. Every time she laughed she leaned into his side for half a second, her warm bare arm pressing against his, the rough fabric of her work gloves brushing his wrist when she gestured to the garden behind her. He kept waiting for that familiar twinge of guilt, the voice in his head telling him he was being disrespectful to his wife’s memory, that the whole town was watching and gossiping, but it never came. For the first time in three years, no one was talking to him like he was broken. They were just talking.
When she said she hadn’t had a decent brisket since she moved from Austin, he sliced a half-inch piece off the edge of his resting brisket sitting on the folding table next to him, held it out to her. Her fingers brushed his when she took it, her nails short, chipped with dark green nail polish, caked with a little dirt under the edges. She took the bite, closed her eyes for half a second, made a low sound in the back of her throat that sent a jolt straight down his spine. “Holy shit,” she said, wiping a smear of barbecue sauce off her chin with the back of her hand. “That’s even better than the rumors said.”
The contest announcer called the winners 10 minutes later. Manny won first place, $500 cash and a free year of fire department membership. The crowd cheered, his granddaughter screamed so loud he could hear her over the band, and when he stepped off the tiny wooden stage, Clara was waiting for him right at the bottom, grinning so wide her cheeks were pink. She leaned up first, kissed him on the cheek, her lips warm against his sunburned skin, and before he could overthink it he tilted his head, kissed her soft on the mouth, quick, just a second, and a few people around them hooted and whistled but he didn’t care. He hadn’t cared what anyone thought in so long he forgot what it felt like.
He told her he had a peach cobbler sitting in his fridge at home, baked that morning, still warm if she wanted to come over later, take home half the brisket too. She nodded, pulled a wildflower seed packet out of her work bag, scribbled her number on the back in blue ballpoint, tucked it into the pocket of his flannel shirt, her fingers brushing his chest through the thin fabric. He tucked his hand into the pocket to press the seed packet flat against his palm, already counting the minutes until the barbecue wrapped up.
