Rafe Murdock, 59, retired smokejumper turned wildfire forensics consultant, shows up to the annual Gallatin County Fire Department charity cookoff only because his old jump crew buddy Mike begs him to bring the oak-smoked brisket he’s spent 12 hours tending. He’s got his exit timed to the minute: grab a beer, drop off the brisket, say hi to three people max, be back in his remote cabin by 8:30 to run his usual satellite weather check and turn in by 10. It’s a schedule he’s stuck to almost unbroken since his wife died eight years prior, a defense mechanism against the messy, unplanned moments that tend to leave him gutted.
The Burnt Pine bar’s back lot smells like mesquite, charcoal, and cheap citrus body spray from the group of teen volunteer firefighters running the soda stand. The late August heat sticks to the back of his neck under his worn baseball cap, denim work jeans clinging to his calves where he leaned against the smoker earlier. He’s propped against the industrial beer cooler checking his watch when someone slams into his left side, a tray of deviled eggs jostling so a dollop of pickled yolk slops onto the scuffed toe of his work boot.
He’s halfway to a gruff “watch it” when he looks down. Elara Voss, 48, the county’s new public health officer who moved to town six months prior, is already dabbing at the mess with a crumpled paper napkin, her shoulder brushing the front of his faded hotshot crew flannel as she leans in. She’s got a scar slashing across the left side of her jaw, silver streaks threading through her dark braided hair, and calluses across her knuckles that he recognizes immediately from years of hauling gear through rough terrain. He can smell pine soap and wild blackberry on her shirt, the faint tang of seltzer on her breath when she tilts her head up to grin at him, holding eye contact a full beat longer than polite small talk calls for.
“Sorry about that,” she says, nodding at the “I <3 Hotshots” sticker peeling off the side of his cooler. “Figured the guy who brings the brisket everyone’s been hyping all week could handle a little egg yolk. Everyone calls you the hermit of the Bridgers, you know? I’ve been trying to track you down for three months, you never show up to county meetings.”
Rafe tenses immediately, the old defensive urge to make an excuse and leave prickling up his spine. He hates when people poke at his routines, hates the idea of letting someone new learn the small, stupid things he still does to cope with his wife’s death—leaving her coffee mug out on the counter every morning, only ever buying the same brand of strawberry jam she liked. He’s halfway to lying about having an early call the next day when she holds up a deviled egg, the edge dusted with smoked paprika, and shoves it into his hand before he can protest.
“Try one. I brined the eggs in dill pickle brine for 24 hours. If you hate it I’ll leave you alone forever, promise.”
He takes a bite. It’s tangy, a little spicy, the yolk so creamy it melts on his tongue, and he can’t help the small, surprised huff of laughter that escapes him. She cheers, knocking her can of seltzer against his beer bottle, and when she leans back against the cooler next to him her knee presses against his, warm through the denim of their jeans. He doesn’t move away, even though every instinct he’s honed for eight years is screaming at him to put space between them.
They talk through the next hour, the noise of the cookoff fading into background static. She tells him she used to be a wilderness medic in Alaska, the scar on her jaw is from a moose that charged her camp when she was on a solo hike two years prior. He tells her about the worst fire he ever jumped, the time he got stuck in a gulch for 12 hours with a broken ankle, the way he still has a piece of burnt pine from that fire on his mantel. He doesn’t mention his wife, not at first, but when he offhandedly mentions he makes brisket every year on her birthday, Elara doesn’t push for details, just nods and says that kind of ritual matters.
A group of teen volunteers runs past chasing a runaway golden retriever, and Elara grabs his forearm to steady herself so she doesn’t get knocked over again. Her fingers wrap around the scar on his wrist from that 2018 gulch fire, and she leaves them there for three full beats, her thumb brushing the raised skin lightly before she pulls her hand away. He feels his chest go tight, half disgust at himself for being so easy to unravel, half warm, sharp want he hasn’t felt in so long he’d forgotten what it felt like.
She asks him to come do a talk for the local high school’s outdoor safety program, says the kids are obsessed with stories about smokejumpers, and he almost says no, almost falls back on the excuse that he’s too busy, that he doesn’t like talking to crowds. But then he looks at her, the way the sun is hitting her face turning the ends of her braid copper, the way she’s biting her lip a little like she’s nervous he’ll say no, and he says yes before he can think better of it.
He doesn’t check his watch once for the rest of the night, not even when the cookoff wraps up, the sky turning soft pink and tangerine over the Bridger Mountains, the crowd thinning out to just the regulars cleaning up the grills. She scribbles her phone number on the back of the same crumpled napkin she used to wipe his boot earlier, shoves it into his hand and asks him if he wants to get pancakes at the diner downtown tomorrow morning, says they serve huckleberry syrup that’s worth waking up early for. He says yes without hesitation.
He tucks the napkin into the breast pocket of his flannel as he gets into his beat-up pickup truck, and doesn’t even think about the 10 PM bedtime he’s kept rigidly for almost a decade.
