Rafe Holloway, 62, spent 28 years jumping out of planes into burning western forests before a blown knee forced him to take the trail maintenance lead for the Shoshone National Forest’s northern district. He’s got a scar splitting his left eyebrow, a limp that gets worse when the weather turns cold, and a rule he’s followed for 12 years: don’t get close to anyone that ties back to the day Jax Carter didn’t make it out of the Helena fire. He’s stubborn to a fault, hates asking for help even when his knee aches so bad he can barely climb a switchback, and hasn’t let anyone stay the night at his cabin outside of town since his divorce finalized 10 years prior.
The annual county volunteer fire department cookout reeks of charred bratwurst, charcoal lighter fluid, and pine that’s still dry enough to spark if someone flicked a cigarette the wrong way. The crackle of the community fire pit mixes with the yells of kids chasing each other across the grass and the tinny twang of a country playlist blaring from a portable speaker. Rafe’s leaning against the trunk of a 100-year-old ponderosa, half-empty can of Pabst in one hand, avoiding the cluster of guys who keep trying to get him to enter the cornhole tournament. He doesn’t do crowds, doesn’t do small talk, but the fire chief is an old jump buddy, so he showed up out of obligation, planned to leave as soon as he’d eaten one brat and said his hellos.
Lila Carter rounds the corner of the picnic table, and Rafe freezes. He hasn’t seen her in six years, not since she moved to Denver to work at an equine vet clinic. She’s 48 now, sun streaks in her chestnut hair, calluses on her hands from mucking stalls, the same crooked smile Jax used to have. She’s carrying a tray of homemade chocolate chip cookies, and when she spots him, her step slows, then picks up again, like she’s been looking for him.
She stops a foot away, close enough that he can smell lavender shampoo and alfalfa hay on her clothes. “Heard you were still out there fixing trails,” she says, holding out a cookie still warm from the tray. His fingers brush hers when he takes it, rough work calluses against her equally rough ones, and he feels a jolt run up his arm that has nothing to do with the leftover nerve damage from his knee. He mumbles a thanks, takes a bite, gooey semi-sweet chocolate melting on his tongue. They chat for a few minutes, she says she moved back to take over her dad’s feed store after he had his stroke last spring, he says the trails are holding up okay, most of the 20-somethings on his crew don’t know how to swing a Pulaski right without him hovering over their shoulders. She laughs, loud and bright, and a group of kids runs past, knocking into her shoulder. She stumbles, catches herself on his arm, her hand resting there for three full beats before she pulls back, cheeks pink.
He knows he should step back, should make an excuse to head back to his cabin before he does something stupid. Jax was his best friend, Lila was 16 when he died, Rafe used to bring her mint chocolate chip milkshakes after school when she was grieving, had always thought of her as off limits, like touching her would be a betrayal of the promise he made Jax the night before that fire: take care of my sister if something happens to me. But she’s leaning against the tree next to him now, shoulder pressed to his bicep, talking about how she found Jax’s old jump jacket in the attic of the feed store last week, how she kept it because it smelled like pine and smoke and him. Rafe’s throat goes tight. He hasn’t talked about Jax to anyone that wasn’t a fellow smokejumper in years, hasn’t let anyone get this close to that part of his life.
“I used to have the biggest crush on you, you know,” she says, quiet enough that no one else can hear, not looking at him, picking at a loose thread on her plaid flannel shirt. Rafe blinks, thinks he misheard her over the roar of the fire pit. “When I was 17, I used to hang around the jump base all the time, hoping you’d notice me. Thought you were the toughest, quietest guy I’d ever met. Jax used to tease me about it, said you’d never go for a kid, but that if you ever did, he’d be okay with it. Said you were the only man he ever trusted not to break someone’s heart.”
Rafe’s chest feels tight, like he’s back in that Helena fire, breathing in too much smoke. He’d had no idea. He’d thought about her, sure, over the years, when he’d see her at the grocery store, or at the county fair, but he’d squashed that feeling down, told himself it was wrong, that he was too old, too broken, that she deserved better than a guy who still has nightmares about burning trees crashing down around him. “I thought it was taboo,” he says, finally, voice rough. “Thought Jax would roll in his grave if I so much as looked at you that way.” She turns to look at him then, eyes bright, and she’s so close he can see the faint freckles across her nose, the gold flecks in her brown eyes. “Jax always said you were too hard on yourself,” she says.
He leans in, slow, gives her time to pull away if she wants to. She doesn’t. The kiss is soft at first, tastes like root beer and the same chocolate chip cookie he’d eaten 10 minutes earlier, and when her hand comes up to cup his jaw, her palm warm against his scarred skin, he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull back, doesn’t tell himself he doesn’t deserve this. They stay like that for a minute, until they hear someone holler from the picnic tables asking where the extra ketchup is, and they pull apart, both smiling, a little sheepish. She asks him if he wants to get breakfast at the diner on Main Street tomorrow, says she makes him want to stop hiding from the parts of life that don’t involve fire or trail repairs. He says yes, no hesitation, no overthinking, for the first time in over a decade. When she laces her fingers through his calloused, scarred hand, he doesn’t pull away, for the first time in 12 years not feeling like he’s carrying the weight of the woods alone.
