Russel “Rust” Hagerty, 62, retired US Forest Service wildland fire foreman, had to be physically prodded out of his garage by his old crew buddy Jase to attend the Newport block party. He’d spent the last eight years avoiding any event that involved more than three people he didn’t already do chainsaw repairs for, still raw from losing his wife Elaine to ovarian cancer, still convinced letting anyone new into his orbit was just asking for more pain. His left bicep bore a four-inch scar from a falling cedar during 2018 Camp Fire evacuations, his hands were crisscrossed with calluses and old burn marks, and his default expression was a grumpy half-scowl that kept most casual conversation at bay.
He was leaning against the beer keg, sweating through his faded 2016 fire crew hoodie, sipping a lager so cold it made his knuckles ache, when it happened. The new town librarian, Mara, 58, who’d moved to town six months prior after a messy divorce from a Portland corporate lawyer, tripped over a half-buried sprinkler head ten feet away. She was carrying a foil-covered plate of peach cobbler, wearing a pale blue linen sundress that fluttered in the ocean breeze, barefoot because her strappy sandals had broken an hour earlier. A glop of warm, syrupy cobbler splattered right across the chest of his hoodie when she stumbled, her free hand flying out to steady herself against his bicep before she could face-plant into the grass.
The contact made him jump. He smelled jasmine lotion, ripe peach, and the faint salt tang of the ocean in her hair when she leaned in to apologize, her dark auburn braid slipping over one shoulder, silver strands catching the golden late afternoon sun. Her fingers lingered on his scar for half a beat too long, her hazel eyes holding his gaze without looking away, and he felt a flush creep up his neck that had nothing to do with the 78-degree heat. He’d avoided her for months, had fixed the library’s beat-up old riding mower for free back in May and left it on the sidewalk before she could come out to thank him, terrified of the jolt he’d felt the first time he’d seen her restocking western paperbacks by the front door. He’d told himself it was disrespectful to Elaine, that he was too old, too rough, too stuck in his ways to waste either of their time.
“Crap, I am so sorry,” she said, laughing, a low, warm sound that didn’t grate like the high-pitched shrieks of the young moms chasing their toddlers down the block. She swiped at the cobbler stain on his hoodie with a napkin she pulled from her pocket, her knuckles brushing his chest through the thin fabric. “I made this for the potluck, but half of it’s on your shirt now. You wanna share what’s left? I swear I didn’t poison it, even if you do keep running from me every time I try to say thank you for the mower.”
He didn’t have a good excuse to say no. They sat on the concrete curb twenty feet away from the crowd, their knees almost touching, passing the plate back and forth. The cobbler was sweet, warm, the crust flaky, and he learned she’d moved to Newport to get away from her ex, who’d hated that she’d rather hike the coastal trails than go to fancy charity galas, who’d mocked her for collecting first edition Louis L’Amour novels, who’d made her feel like she was too much and not enough all at the same time. He told her about Elaine, about the 32 years he’d spent fighting fires across the West, about the way he still slept with her old flannel shirt tucked under his pillow, about the guilt that had gnawed at him every time he’d caught himself staring at her across the grocery store produce aisle.
The first firework boomed over the beach a few minutes later, painting the sky pink and gold, the vibration thrumming through the concrete under their legs. She leaned in to brush a crumb of cobbler off his chin, her thumb lingering on the rough stubble of his jaw for a full second, and he didn’t pull away. He’d spent so long telling himself he didn’t deserve to feel that spark, that wanting anything other than the quiet, lonely routine he’d built was selfish, that he’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone look at him like he wasn’t just the grumpy widower who fixed chainsaws.
When the last of the cobbler was gone, he offered to walk her home. She lived three blocks away, in the little blue cottage with the rose bushes out front that he’d driven past a dozen times in the last six months, just to see if her lights were on. Their shoulders brushed every few steps as they walked, the ocean breeze cool on their skin, the distant sound of the party fading behind them. When they got to her porch, she turned to him, holding her empty plate in one hand, and smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. She asked if he wanted to come in for coffee, or to borrow the first edition L’Amour she’d mentioned she had, the one he’d been hunting for for 12 years.
He nodded, and she slipped her soft, uncalloused hand into his rougher, scarred one as they stepped over the threshold into her warm, book-lined front hall.
