Mace Rainer, 62, retired wildfire hotshot crew foreman turned small-scale forest stewardship and firewood delivery owner, propped his scuffed work boots on the lower rail of the Cutthroat Bar’s oak counter, his left leg throbbing where a falling cedar had crushed it during the 2018 Lolo Creek blaze. He’d spent three hours at the county commission meeting that night, arguing to loosen outdated controlled burn restrictions, and the cold beer in his hand fizzed cold enough to numb the edge of both his pain and the residual irritation of arguing with a trio of out-of-state developers who thought wildfire risk was just a marketing bullet point to bury. The bar smelled like fried dill pickles, pine tracked in on patrons’ boots, and the faint, sour tang of old beer soaked into the floorboards, the kind of familiar scent that had been a comfort to him for 40 years.
He was mid-sip when the door jingled, and he froze. Elara Voss stood in the entryway, shaking oak leaves out of her thick silver-streaked braid, the same woman he’d only seen once in the last five years: at the funeral of his crew lead, Jake, who’d died in that same 2018 blaze pulling a rookie out of the path of a fire tornado. Mace had carried Jake’s casket, and Elara hadn’t said a single word to him that day. He’d spent the last five years assuming she blamed him, that he should have been the one to run in after the kid, that his survival was a mistake he’d never be able to atone for. He’d avoided every community event she might be at since she moved to the county six months prior as the new extension agent for forest management, too cowardly to face the anger he was sure she carried.
She spotted him before he could slump low enough to hide behind his beer, and instead of turning away, she walked straight toward the bar, pausing for half a second before settling on the stool two down from him, close enough that he could catch the faint scent of lavender hand lotion mixed with the pine stuck to her wool coat. The bartender was tied up with a group of ski bums yelling for shots at the other end of the counter, so she leaned over, the cuff of her flannel brushing his elbow, and asked if he could flag the guy down for a glass of pinot noir. Her voice was lower than he remembered, rougher around the edges, the kind of voice that sounded like it spent a lot of time outside yelling over wind. He flagged the bartender, pushed the bowl of salted peanuts he’d ordered across the counter toward her, and their knuckles brushed when she reached for it. Her skin was calloused at the fingertips, the same as his, rough from digging in soil and handling saws and pruning shears.
She thanked him, took a sip of her wine, and said she’d been at the commission meeting, that his testimony about underbrush buildup was the only thing that didn’t sound like it was read straight off a real estate brochure. He blinked, surprised, and she laughed, a soft, crackling sound like dry leaves burning. “Jake always said you knew the woods better than anyone who ever lived in this county,” she said, and the mention of Jake’s name made his chest tighten. He shifted, his bad leg bumping the leg of her stool by accident, and he mumbled an apology, ready to pay his tab and leave before the conversation got any heavier. She stopped him with a hand on his wrist, her palm warm through the frayed cuff of his work shirt, and said she never blamed him. That Jake had written her a letter the week before that fire, telling her if anything ever happened to him, Mace was the only person he trusted to look out for her if she needed it.
He stared at her for a long minute, the buzz of the bar fading out, the only sounds the gurgle of the beer tap behind the counter and the wind whistling through the cracks in the old building’s siding. He’d spent five years carrying that guilt like a cinder block in his backpack, and for the first time, it felt a little lighter. She moved to the stool right next to him, so their knees brushed under the counter every time one of them shifted, and he didn’t pull away. She told him she’d been wanting to talk to him for months, but she’d heard he was a recluse, that he hadn’t so much as gone on a coffee date since his wife died 11 years prior, and she didn’t want to push. He admitted he’d avoided her, that he’d been sure she hated him, that he’d spent so long shutting everyone out he’d forgotten what it felt like to talk to someone who didn’t treat him like he was one wrong step away from shattering.
When she asked if he wanted to walk down to the river with her to see the full moon over the water, he hesitated for half a second before nodding. He stood up, his bad leg giving a sharp twinge that made him limp for the first two steps, and she didn’t stare, didn’t offer to carry anything, just held out her elbow for him to lean on. He took it, the rough fabric of her flannel scratchy against his forearm, and they walked out into the crisp October air, the ground crunching under their boots, the sky so dark and clear you could see every star. They sat on a splintered wooden bench half a mile down the path, the river gurgling loud enough to drown out the sound of traffic from the main road, and their shoulders pressed together as they watched the moon reflect off the rapids. She brushed a pine needle off the shoulder of his flannel after a gust of wind blew through the trees, her fingers lingering on his collarbone for a beat longer than necessary, and he didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away.
They talked for an hour, about controlled burn schedules, about Jake’s terrible habit of burning toast every morning on fire assignments, about how empty the house feels when you’re used to having someone there to leave coffee out for you. When they walked back to the bar to get their trucks, he held the door open for her, and she paused on the threshold, turned, and pressed a soft, warm kiss to his stubbled cheek, saying she’d call him at 8 a.m. the next day to drive out to the first test burn site. He stood in the parking lot for five minutes after she pulled out, the cold air stinging the spot where her lips had touched his skin, breathing in the familiar mix of pine and distant wood smoke, and for the first time in 11 years, he didn’t feel guilty for wanting to wake up early the next morning.
