Dale Colton, 58, retired wildfire crew lead, leans against the sticky edge of the Pine Street Pub bar, condensation from his IPA seeping through the hole in the left finger of his work glove to chill his scarred knuckle. He’s only here because his old crew begged, said the charity crawl raised money for the families of the two rookies who got hurt fighting the August ridge fire, and he’d never say no to that. For seven years, since his wife Linda died of ovarian cancer, he’s stuck to routine: cut firewood in the morning, fix up old trucks in the afternoon, eat frozen meatloaf for dinner alone in his cabin, no detours, no surprises. His worst flaw, he’d admit if he ever talked about feelings, is that he’s convinced any spark of joy that doesn’t tie back to Linda is a betrayal.
The bar is packed, the jukebox blaring 90s country, the air thick with the smell of fried pickles, cheap beer, and wood smoke curling from the stone fireplace. He’s halfway through his second beer when someone squeezes past him, hip pressing firm to his thigh for half a second, and he glances over ready to snap, until he recognizes her. Mia Carter, 49, the county fire marshal he’s fought tooth and nail at every county council meeting for six months, the woman he’d written off as a desk jockey who cared more about OSHA checklists than actually saving homes. She’s in jeans and a faded fire department flannel rolled up to her elbows, a tattoo of a Ponderosa pine wrapping around her left forearm, scuffed steel-toe boots on her feet, no blazer, no clipboard, and for half a second he forgets how to speak.
She smirks when she sees him, flags the bartender, orders a neat bourbon for him and a seltzer for herself. “Figured I owed you one,” she says, when she hands him the glass, their fingers brushing for a beat. The jolt that shoots up his arm is sharp, like grabbing a downed power line, and he yanks his hand back so fast half an ounce of bourbon sloshes over the edge onto his wrist. He’s mad at himself immediately, disgusted that a split second of contact makes his chest tight, that he’s noticing the faint laugh lines around her dark eyes, the way her hair falls in a loose braid over her shoulder, the way she smells like pine gear wash and faint lavender hand lotion.
They bicker for 20 minutes, first about the prescribed burn policy she tried to push through last month that would have let the August fire jump the ridge, then about the mayor’s terrible comb over, then about the time Dale showed up to a council meeting still covered in soot from a controlled burn, yelled so loud the fire alarm went off by mistake. He keeps waiting for the guilt to hit, the familiar twist in his gut that tells him he’s doing something wrong, that he should go home to his empty cabin and his frozen dinner, but it doesn’t come. He hasn’t laughed this easy in years, hasn’t had someone talk to him like he’s not just a grumpy old relic brought in to yell about budget cuts.
When the bar gets too loud, they step outside, the October air crisp enough to make their breath fog, red and gold maple leaves crunching under their boots. She leans against the brick wall, crosses her arms, and admits she went back through his 30 years of burn reports after their last fight, that he was right about the contour of the ridge, that her policy would have burned 20 homes instead of the two that were lost. He blinks, shocked, no one’s ever conceded that fast to him, no one’s ever bothered to look through his old work just to see if he was right. “I’ve been trying to talk to you outside of a meeting for weeks,” she says, soft, like she’s admitting something embarrassing, “but you always look so mad I thought you’d tell me to go to hell.”
He laughs, a real, loud laugh that makes his sides ache, and without thinking he reaches up, brushes a stray strand of hair that fell across her face, his thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek. She doesn’t flinch, just looks up at him, warm, and he finally lets himself say the thing he’s been shoving down for months. “I was scared to talk to you too,” he says, “Thought if I liked talking to you this much, that meant I was forgetting Linda.” She shakes her head, tells him her husband died in a logging accident 11 years ago, that she thought the exact same thing, until her 16 year old kid told her his dad would have rather her be happy than mope around the house wearing his old flannel shirts every single day.
They stand there for another 10 minutes, swapping stupid fire stories, Dale telling her about the time he got stuck in a Ponderosa pine during a controlled burn, had to be rescued by a rookie half his age, Mia telling her about the time she pulled a cat out of a burning trailer and it scratched her face so bad she had to get three stitches. When they walk back into the pub, she slips her hand into his, her palm rough from hauling hoses and climbing ladders, a perfect match for his scarred, calloused hand. His old crew whoops from the corner table, one of them holding up a foam fire hat with a glittery tiara glued to the top, yelling that they knew he’d stop being a hermit eventually. Dale flips them off, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt, pulls out a chair for her next to him, their knees pressing together under the wobbly wooden table as he passes her a crispy fried pickle off the shared plate.
