Manny Ruiz, 62, retired DFW air traffic controller, wiped sweat off his brow with the back of a calloused hand, the brim of his faded Rangers cap casting a shadow over his pot of brisket chili. The cookoff air reeked of cumin, mesquite smoke, and cheap beer, kids screaming as they chased each other between booths, the local county fair speakers blaring old Toby Keith cuts. He’d spent three days smoking the brisket for this batch, cut the capsaicin by a third after last year’s entry made a 22-year-old rodeo cowboy cry, but he still wasn’t sure he’d place. Old habits die hard, and 34 years of managing hundreds of flights a day had turned him into a perfectionist who hated losing even the smallest contest.
He’d avoided dating entirely since his wife Maria died seven years prior, a stubborn self-imposed rule he’d carved into stone the week after her funeral. Any flicker of interest from a woman at the grocery store or the baseball fields got shut down before it could spark, his gut twisting with guilt at the idea of replacing her, like he’d be tossing 32 years of marriage in the trash for a dinner date and a quick hug. The rule had been easy to stick to, until Lena showed up.
Lena was Maria’s second cousin, ran the peach pie shop on Main Street, 58 years old with a streak of silver cutting through her dark wavy hair and a smirk that had made Manny flustered as far back as his wedding day, when she’d snuck him a shot of tequila before he walked down the aisle. She sauntered up to his booth holding a tupperware stacked high with pie slices, her cut-off denim shorts showing off a constellation of freckles on her thighs, her work boots caked in dust from the fairground dirt. She leaned in close to sniff the chili pot, her shoulder brushing his bare bicep, and Manny’s breath caught. She smelled like vanilla extract and ripe peaches, the same scent she’d had at every family barbecue for decades, but this time it sent a jolt up his spine he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager.
“Cut the heat like I told you to, old man?” she asked, grinning, reaching for a plastic spoon on the edge of the table. Their hands brushed when he passed it to her, and he yanked his back like he’d touched a hot cast iron skillet, his face going red under his sunburn. She raised an eyebrow, snickering. “Easy there, Ruiz. I don’t bite unless you ask real nice.”
He mumbled something about the chili being fine, staring at his boots while she took a bite, trying to ignore the way his pulse was hammering in his ears. Disgust warred with desire in his chest, half of him screaming that this was wrong, that Lena was family, that Maria would roll in her grave if she saw him acting like a nervous kid around her cousin, the other half replaying the feel of her shoulder against his arm, the sound of her laugh, soft and warm.
She ended up sticking around his booth for the rest of the judging, handing out pie samples to anyone who stopped to try his chili, teasing him about his grumpy face when the judges took their time tasting his entry. When they announced he’d won second place, she whooped so loud the people two booths over turned to stare, shoving a whole slice of her award-winning peach pie in his hand before he could protest.
They sat at a rickety plastic picnic table as the sun dipped below the treeline, the crowd thinning out, crickets chirping in the grass at their feet. She was sitting so close their knees kept brushing under the table, every small contact sending a spark up his leg. He sipped his cold Shiner Bock, staring at the string lights strung between the fairground poles, fighting the urge to rest his hand on her knee for 20 full minutes before he finally worked up the nerve to say what he’d been thinking all afternoon.
“I feel like I’m betraying her,” he said quiet, so quiet he almost didn’t hear it himself. “Even thinking about this. About you.”
Lena didn’t look surprised. She set her pie plate down, turning to face him, her knee pressing firmer against his now, no accident this time. “Maria told me two months before she died that if you ever got too stupid and stubborn to move on after she was gone, I had permission to knock some sense into you. Said you’d hole up in that house alone forever if someone didn’t drag you out.” She smiled, no teasing in it now, soft, like she knew exactly how much it cost him to say that out loud. “She loved you enough to want you to be happy, even when she wasn’t there. You know that.”
The weight he’d been carrying in his chest for seven years loosened, just a little, like a valve letting off steam he didn’t know he’d been holding. He didn’t say anything for a long minute, just stared at her, at the freckles across her nose, the way the golden sunset hit the silver streak in her hair. He rested his hand on her knee, slow, like he was waiting for her to pull away, but she didn’t. She covered his hand with hers, her palm soft and warm, lacing their fingers together.
They sat there for another hour, eating pie, not talking much, listening to the distant country band switch from Toby Keith to George Strait, the air cooling down enough that Manny could feel the chill on his arms. When she leaned her head on his shoulder a little later, he didn’t flinch, just took another bite of peach pie and let the warm, sweet taste settle in his chest.
