Page 6 of Smoked

“No, I was going to ask how the ribs were?”

“You’re such a liar.” I laugh.

She grins. It's unbearable.

"The ribs were amazing,” I reply. “And he seems like a very nice guy.”

But I'm definitely not telling Sloane that Wade’s exactly the type of guy I’m attracted to…big and down to earth in such an honest way. Or that thinking about him driving me into the mattress with that thick body of his will be haunting my daydreams.

Because Sloane will do something with that information. Maybe even tell Ike, and it could get back to Wade. I know how it works.

So I just ask Sloane to drop it for now and I eat potato salad and help Beth hand out cake slices. I talk to people whose names I'm still learning, and I don't look at the cook site more than twice.

Okay, maybe three or four times. Five max.

I keep going over our interaction in my head.

Wade didn’t stare at me like most men. I don't mean he didn't notice. He noticed—I saw the half-second when his gaze traveled over me and then snapped back up. He was gruff and bossy and borderline rude about fire safety, yet when he touched me, he was only worried I was hurt.

Men look. That's not really a complaint. It’s nature. The sky is blue, water is wet, and when you develop early men look. However, some of them are polite about it and some of them are just pigs, and those guys always seem confused when you don't take it as a compliment. I learned in college to read the first five seconds of every interaction with a new man as a diagnostic. Where do his eyes go? How long do they stay?

Wade Dawson passed with flying colors.

Around two o'clock, the crowd thins. Families start packing up their lawn chairs. A cluster of retirees settle deeper into the shade.

The afternoon sun is bright, but it makes the mountains stand out next to the blue sky. It’s as awe-inspiring as the day I arrived.

Des Moines didn't have this. Des Moines had cornfields and committee meetings and a colleague who spent months making me out to be a pariah.

But Montana has trees and good, kind people. One of them a man built like a grizzly bear who smells of cherrywood smoke.

I find myself drifting back toward the cook site unintentionally. Wade’s breaking down the rig, loading things into the bed of his truck as if he’s done it a thousand times. Riley's helping, or trying to, carrying a stack of foil pans and talking at full volume while he grunts responses.

"Hey," I say, and they both look up.

Riley beams. “Hi, Ms. Fields.”

“Great job, today, you two,” I say.

“Thanks, but it’s all him,” she replies, gesturing to Wade. “I just prep.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Ri,” Wade adds. “You know prep is important.”

“I know,” she says, continuing toward the truck.

"I have a question," I say, because I've been thinking about it since the first bite of brisket. "There was something in the rub on the brisket I couldn't place. Almost floral? But not sweet."

He stops and smiles. “It’s my secret ingredient.”

“I can vouch for Ms. Fields, Dad. She won’t tell anyone.”

“Cross my heart,” I interject.

He smirks. "Dried lavender. "Just a pinch. Half a teaspoon per pound, ground fine so it doesn't overpower anything, it just…opens things up. Lifts the pepper without fighting the salt."

"Where'd you get that idea?" I ask.

He tells me about the wood and why oak is the foundation, but cherry gives the color. He tells me about the bark (the crust on the meat) and how the spice and smoke and rendered fat create this exterior that you spend hours building. And in minutes you can ruin it with the wrong wrap. He tells me about something called the stall, where the internal temperature of the meat stops rising and most people panic, but you just have to trust the cook and keep the fire steady.