Mace Riggs, 59, semi-retired cattle auctioneer, stood slouched against the metal beer stand at the Union County 4H summer fundraiser, calloused fingers curled around a frosty IPA. The sun baked the back of his neck, dust from the nearby show pens caked the toes of his work boots, and he’d already rolled his eyes three times at neighbors stopping to ask if he’d ever come back to run the annual fall auction. He’d only shown up because his 12-year-old grandson Jax was showing his first steer, and the kid had begged him for three weeks straight.
He turned to head back to the pens, boots scuffing the packed dirt, and slammed straight into a woman carrying two plastic cups of pink lemonade. Half of one cup sloshed down the front of his navy plaid work shirt, cold and sticky against his chest. She yelped, fumbling for the crumpled napkins stuffed in her jeans pocket, babbling apologies as she dabbed at the wet spot before she even looked up.
Her knuckles brushed his sternum through the thin cotton, and he caught a whiff of lavender hand lotion and fresh-cut alfalfa off her. When she lifted her head, hazel eyes flecked with gold locked onto his, and she didn’t jerk her hand away immediately, cheeks flushing pink under the freckles across her nose. She was Lena, Jax’s 4H group leader, he realized, the woman who’d called him two months prior to ask for tips on halter training stubborn calves. She’d moved to the area from Portland six months before, fresh off a 22 year marriage and a corporate marketing job she’d hated, chasing the small-town life she’d grown up with.
The crowd jostled past them, so they had to stand shoulder to shoulder to stay out of the walkway, their arms brushing every few seconds when someone squeezed by. He teased her about having the spatial awareness of a spooked heifer, and she laughed, a low, rasped sound that made the back of his neck tingle. She told him Jax had talked nonstop for a week about his grandpa’s trick for getting skittish steers to stand still for shows, and Mace found himself leaning in to listen, even over the roar of the crowd and the announcer blaring over the speakers.
He hadn’t talked to anyone this long that wasn’t his vet, his grandson, or the feed store clerk in almost eight years, not since his wife Elara died of ovarian cancer. He’d shut himself up on his property, turned down every dinner invite, every half-hearted set-up from friends, convinced letting anyone else in would be a betrayal of the life he and Elara had built. Part of him squirmed now, guilt coiling tight in his gut, but the larger part of him was light, like he’d forgotten what it felt like to talk to someone who actually cared what he had to say, not just what he could do for them.
She reached up suddenly to swat a grasshopper off the collar of his shirt, her palm brushing the side of his neck, and he flinched before he could stop himself, not from discomfort, but from the shock of soft, intentional touch he hadn’t felt in years. She pulled her hand back fast, apologizing, but he shook his head, told her it was fine, that he was just jumpy around bugs after a bee stung him on the neck last spring.
The announcer called Jax’s name for the senior steer category, and they both turned to watch, leaning against the split rail fence at the edge of the ring. Jax took first place, grinning so wide his cheeks looked like they might split, and he ran straight over first to hug Mace, then Lena, chattering about how he’d used Mace’s halter trick right before he walked into the ring. When Jax ran off to get his ribbon, Lena turned to Mace, the corner of her mouth tugged up in a half-smile, and asked if he wanted to split a piece of the famous peach cobbler from the stand by the entrance, said she’d been craving it all day but couldn’t finish a whole serving on her own.
He hesitated for half a second, the ghost of Elara’s laugh flickering in the back of his head, before he nodded. He paid for the cobbler, still warm, crusted with brown sugar, and they sat on a weathered picnic table far enough from the crowd that the noise faded to a low hum. The sun was dipping below the Blue Mountains, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and pale lavender, and her knee pressed against his under the table, neither of them moving away. She took the first bite, moaning soft under her breath, and said it was even better than the cobbler her grandma used to make every Fourth of July. He took a bite, sweet and buttery, and reached for the napkin next to her hand, his fingers brushing hers on the worn wood of the table.
