Manny Ruiz, 62, retired Border Patrol K9 handler, had only agreed to leave his sunbaked ranch outside Sierra Vista that Saturday to grab a dozen pork tamales from the food stand he’d frequented for 17 years. He hated small town events, hated the way neighbors leaned in to ask how he was holding up four years after his wife’s stroke, hated the pity in their eyes when they thought he wasn’t looking. The August heat clung to his denim shirt, red dust sticking to the sweat on his forearms, the scar from a 2018 training bite on his left bicep itching like it always did when he was on edge. He held a styrofoam cup of horchata in one calloused hand, scuffing the heel of his work boot against the cracked asphalt, when a soft shoulder bumped his upper arm.
He turned to snap an apology, and the words died in his throat. Clara Voss, 58, the new county librarian, and ex-wife of his former patrol partner Rick, who’d died of a heart attack two years prior. She wore a loose linen sundress the color of sage, streaks of silver running through her dark wavy hair, freckles dusting her nose that he remembered noticing once at a 2003 unit barbecue, when he’d quickly looked away, guilty for even glancing at his best friend’s wife. She grinned when she saw him, the same crinkles around her eyes he’d memorized two decades earlier, and leaned in half an inch, close enough that he could smell the vanilla lip balm she still wore, mixed with the coconut sunscreen slathered on her shoulders.
“Manny Ruiz. I thought that was you. I’ve been meaning to drop off Rick’s old K9 unit photo albums at your place, but I figured you’d turn me away at the door.” Her voice was lower than he remembered, rough from years of reading aloud to kids at the library, and when she reached out to brush a fleck of churro crumb off the front of his shirt, her knuckles grazed his chest, sending a jolt up his spine he hadn’t felt since he was 20 years old. He shifted his weight back, half out of habit, half out of the sharp, hot guilt that pooled in his gut. This was wrong. Rick was his partner. His wife had only been gone four years. He shouldn’t be noticing how her dress fit her hips, shouldn’t be leaning in a little to smell that vanilla again, shouldn’t be forgetting the tamales he’d been waiting 20 minutes for.
She didn’t push, just tilted her head, like she could see the war going on behind his eyes, and nodded at the empty picnic bench a few feet away, next to the cotton candy stand. “C’mon. I bought extra churros. They’re still warm.” He hesitated for three full seconds, then followed her, his boots heavy on the pavement. When they sat, her knee brushed his under the table, and he didn’t move away. She told him about the new summer reading program for kids whose parents worked the border farms, he told her about the new German shepherd puppy he was training for the local search and rescue team, and when he joked about how the puppy kept chewing up his work boots, she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and he forgot what guilt felt like for a whole minute.
When she reached for a napkin he’d dropped on the table, her hand landed on top of his, and she didn’t pull away for three long beats. He could feel the callus on her index finger, from turning thousands of book pages over the years, the warmth of her skin seeping into his. “I thought about you, you know,” she said, quiet enough that the mariachi band playing 50 feet away almost drowned her out. “Back when Rick and I were married. He even teased me about it once, said he knew I had a little thing for the quiet K9 guy who brought us homemade empanadas every Christmas.” Manny’s throat went dry. He’d spent 20 years shoving that quiet, stupid crush down, convinced he was the only one who felt it, convinced it made him a bad friend, a bad husband.
They sat there until the sun dipped below the Huachuca Mountains, the fair’s string lights flickering on, the air cooling just enough that he could see goosebumps on her arms. He offered her his denim shirt, and she put it on without hesitation, the sleeves rolling up to her elbows, the fabric hanging loose on her frame. When he walked her to his beat-up 2006 F150, he opened the passenger door for her, and she touched his wrist as she climbed in, her fingers soft against the scar there. “I’m glad I ran into you,” she said. He got in the driver’s seat, turned the key, and the radio cut on to the old George Strait track they’d all listened to on late night patrols back in 2005, the same one Rick used to sing off-key when they were stuck in a checkpoint for 12 hours. He pulled out of the fair parking lot, his hand resting casually on the gear shift, and didn’t even think about the tamales he’d left sitting on the food stand counter.
