Arlo Mendez, 62, spent 32 years leading wildfire hotshot crews across the West before a 2020 blaze that took three of his team left him with a limp and a permanent aversion to letting anyone get close enough to lose. He’d skipped the local fire department’s annual chili cookoff for seven straight years after his wife, Ellie, died of ovarian cancer, but his 16-year-old granddaughter had begged him to enter his smoked brisket chili this year, so he’d showed up, worn his old fire-resistant work shirt under a faded Carhartt, and stood off to the side of the beer tent long after he’d placed third, avoiding small talk with the new, 20-something crew members who called him “sir” like he was a stranger to the line of duty.
The wind off the nearby pine stands carried the sharp tang of chili powder and smoked paprika, cut with the sweet steam from the kettle corn stand 20 feet away. He was tipping the last of his IPA down his throat when he heard a laugh he’d recognized before he could place it, warm and a little rough around the edges, the kind of laugh that cut through the roar of a fire radio when you’d been up 36 hours digging line. He turned, and there she was: Clara Hale, 58, ex-wife of his old crew commander Tom Hale, the woman he’d spent 18 years stealing quiet glances at at holiday cookouts and end-of-season parties, too loyal to both Tom and Ellie to ever act on the stupid, low hum of attraction that had lingered in his chest every time she was in the room.
She was wearing a well-worn plaid flannel, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, dirt under her thumbnail from the native plant nursery she’d run for 20 years, her gray hair pulled back in a messy braid dotted with a stray pine needle. She spotted him immediately, her smile widening, and she weaved through the crowd of kids running with popsicles and retired firefighters swapping war stories until she was standing so close he could smell the lavender lotion she wore and the faint, sharp scent of sage on her jeans. “I heard you entered the chili this year,” she said, leaning in a little so he could hear her over the bluegrass band playing on the small stage, her shoulder brushing his bicep when she shifted her weight. “Tom used to beg you for the recipe every year at the post-fire cookouts. Never would give it to him, huh?”
Arlo’s throat went tight for a second, half guilt, half the kind of flutter he hadn’t felt since he was 19 and asking Ellie to prom. He nodded, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, the old burn scars on his wrist catching the sun. “Figured if Tom wanted it bad enough, he could learn to smoke his own brisket instead of buying it pre-cooked from the grocery store,” he said, and she laughed again, so hard she snort-laughed a little, and slapped his arm lightly, her palm warm through the thin fabric of his work shirt.
He knew he should step back, should make an excuse to leave, should shake off the stupid pull he was feeling. Tom had been his boss, his friend, even if they hadn’t talked since Tom left Clara for a 32-year-old realtor from Tampa five years prior, even if Tom had skipped Ellie’s funeral without so much as a text. He’d spent 8 years telling himself he didn’t get to want anything, not after Ellie was gone, not after he’d gotten three kids killed on that 2020 fire, like wanting something good would be a betrayal of everyone he’d lost. But she kept talking, telling him she’d been dropping wild poppies off at Ellie’s grave every spring, the kind Ellie used to plant along the edge of their property, and she leaned in even closer when he told her about the hike he’d taken the week prior to the spot where that 2020 fire had started, to leave beer for the three kids he’d lost, and her eyes didn’t look pitying, they looked like she got it, like she knew what it felt like to carry around a weight no one else could see.
When the band finished their set and the crowd started to thin out, she asked him if he’d walk her to her car, parked on the other side of the park, because the streetlights were out and she didn’t feel like walking alone. He nodded, grabbing his empty chili bowl and tossing it in the trash next to the tent, and when they walked, their hands brushed every other step, his calloused, scarred ones, her softer ones with dirt under the nails, and neither of them pulled away. They stopped at the edge of the parking lot, next to his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150, and she reached up, her fingers brushing the scar on his neck he’d gotten from a falling branch in the 2012 Big Hollow Fire, to flip the folded-up collar of his Carhartt down, because it had been sticking up the whole time they’d been talking.
Her fingers lingered on his neck for a beat longer than necessary, and she looked up at him, her eyes dark in the fading sunset, and he didn’t think, didn’t overanalyze, didn’t let the guilt creep in long enough to stop him. He leaned down, kissed her soft, slow, the taste of her cherry seltzer and mint gum mixing with the leftover beer and chili on his tongue, and she kissed him back, her hand fisting a little in the front of his shirt, like she’d been waiting just as long as he had.
When they pulled apart, he didn’t fumble for an apology, didn’t make up an excuse about having too much to drink. He nodded at the passenger seat of his truck. “Got a cooler of cold beer back at the house,” he said, “and I know you’ve been wanting the chili recipe for years.” She smiled, shaking her head, and climbed in the passenger seat without a second thought, setting her canvas tote bag full of plant cuttings at her feet. When he turned the key, the radio cut on to the old Johnny Cash song they used to blast on crew transport runs back in the 2000s, and she laced her fingers through his calloused ones before he could shift into drive.
