Rafe Sorenson is 61, spent 32 years leading Forest Service trail crews across the Bob Marshall Wilderness before retiring last spring, now carves custom hiking staffs embedded with pressed wildflowers and shed antler accents to sell at regional Montana craft fairs. His core flaw, the thing his late older brother ragged on him for nonstop, is that he holds grudges so long he can barely remember the original slight half the time. For 18 years, he’s avoided every one of his ex-wife’s family gatherings, all because he got in a screaming match with her cousin Jake over whether they needed bear spray on a Glacier National Park car-camping trip. Rafe was right—they spotted a grizzly 20 yards from their site the next morning—but Jake called him a paranoid jackass, his ex sided with her cousin, and Rafe decided the whole family wasn’t worth the hassle. He hasn’t spoken to any of them since his divorce finalized 12 years ago.
He’s setting up his booth at the Missoula Fall Craft Fair on a crisp late October Saturday when it happens. He drops a burlap sack full of sanding blocks, bends to grab it, and the top of his head knocks against someone else’s hard enough to rattle his teeth. When he looks up, he’s staring straight into Lena Voss’s face. She’s his ex’s younger half-sister, 52, just moved back to Montana from Seattle earlier this year after her husband left her for a 28-year-old paralegal at his law firm. Rafe had a stupid, helpless crush on her the week before he married his ex, back when Lena was still in college, and he’s carried that tiny, guilty spark in the back of his head ever since.
She laughs, a warm, rough sound that cuts through the hum of nearby food trucks and the distant twang of a bluegrass band set up at the end of the fair row. Her auburn hair is streaked with silver, pulled back in a messy braid dotted with pine needles, and she smells like clove and cedar from the wool wash she uses on the hand-knit sweaters she sells out of the booth directly next to his. When she hands him the sanding blocks she scooped off the dirt, her cold fingers brush his, and he feels a jolt run up his arm all the way to the base of his skull. He fumbles the bag, drops it again, and she laughs harder.
Rafe’s first instinct is to pack up his whole display and leave. He already paid $300 for the booth spot, it’s the biggest fair of the year for his small business, but the thought of spending eight hours within three feet of a member of his ex’s family makes his jaw tight. He tells himself she’s off limits, that engaging with her is just begging for the kind of family drama he’s spent half his adult life running from. But every time he glances over, he catches her looking back, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners like she knows exactly what he’s thinking.
The morning drags. Customers stop by to run their hands over the carved bear and elk heads on his staffs, ask about the wildflowers he pressed into the handles, but Rafe can barely focus. The edge of Lena’s sweater display hangs over the line between their booths, and the soft, scratchy wool brushes his forearm every time he leans out to hand a customer their purchase. At 10:30, she leans over the divider, holds out a thermos of spiced cider spiked with a splash of bourbon she snuck in, and he takes it without thinking. It’s warm, sweet, burns just right going down his throat, and when he hands the thermos back, their fingers touch again.
They don’t talk about the ex, or Jake, or the stupid bear spray argument, for the first six hours. They complain about the wind that keeps blowing their display signs over, laugh at the guy in a neon cowboy hat who tries to haggle every vendor down 50%, swap stories about working terrible retail jobs in college to pay tuition. Rafe learns she moved back to Missoula to open a small yarn shop, that she hikes the same trails he used to maintain every weekend, that she’s just as allergic to chardonnay as he is. He forgets why he ever hated her family in the first place, forgets he’s supposed to be holding a grudge.
The wind picks up around 4 p.m., gusting hard enough to knock over a port-a-potty two rows over. Lena’s sweater display rack tips over, half her inventory blows into the dirt of Rafe’s booth, and they both drop what they’re doing to grab the knits before they get trampled by a group of kids chasing a stray cat. Rafe’s hand lands directly on top of hers on a chunky cream wool sweater dotted with blue flecks, and neither of them pulls away. She’s kneeling so close he can feel the heat from her leg pressing against his through their jeans, can see the faint smattering of freckles across her nose he’d forgotten was there.
“I knew it was you when I saw your name on the booth list,” she says, quiet enough no one else can hear. “I’ve been asking around about you for six months. I never bought that crap Jake pulled at the camping trip, by the way. You were right about the bear spray. Everyone knew it, even him, he was just too much of an ass to admit it.”
Rafe snorts, a real, loud laugh that makes his sides hurt. He hasn’t laughed that hard since his brother passed two years ago. He doesn’t say anything for a second, just stares at her, and she smiles, tilting her head a little like she’s waiting for him to run. He doesn’t. He laces his fingers through hers, where they’re still resting on the sweater, and squeezes.
They pack up their booths together once the fair closes, laughing as they brush dirt off the sweaters and stack Rafe’s staffs in the bed of his beat-up 1998 Ford F-150. He offers to buy her dinner at the dive bar down the street, the one with the pool tables and the jukebox full of 90s country, and she says yes, but only if he lets her borrow one of his extra flannel shirts because she forgot her coat and the temperature’s dropped into the 30s. He pulls the dark green plaid one out from behind the seat of his truck, hands it to her, and she pulls it on. It’s too big, the sleeves hang past her wrists, and she grins up at him as she rolls the cuffs up. His old border collie Mabel, napping in the back seat all day, lifts her head, barks once, and wags her tail like she’s been waiting for this exact moment. Rafe holds the passenger door open for Lena, and doesn’t glance back at the fair grounds as she climbs in.
