Ray Voss, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew lead, leans against a splintered pine picnic table at the Missoula County fire department fundraiser, a cold IPA sweating through the paper napkin wrapped around its base in his left hand. His right forearm is crisscrossed with thin, silvery fire scars, souvenirs from the 2017 Lolo Complex blaze that burned 130 square miles of the Bitterroot National Forest. His biggest flaw, the one his late wife used to nag him about nonstop, is that he holds grudges longer than a pine tree holds its needles. Case in point: he still has a faded sticker on the back of his beat-up Ford F-150 that reads “CLARA BENNETT HATES FIREFIGHTERS,” slapped on 10 years prior when the newly hired county administrator pushed through a budget cut that axed six positions from his crew.
He’s halfway through teasing his old crewmate Jax about his 7-year-old son’s terrible aim with a super soaker when he spots her. Clara Bennett, 56, stands 20 feet away by the bratwurst grill, wearing a scuffed denim work shirt with the county seal embroidered on the chest, sleeves rolled up to her elbows to show freckled forearms dusted with fine, pale hair. She’s laughing at a joke the fire chief told, silver hoop earrings catching the golden August late-afternoon sun, a paper plate stacked high with potato salad in one hand. Ray’s jaw tightens. He debates dumping his half-full beer in the trash and bailing, but Jax just dropped a second cold one on the table next to him, so he stays.
She’s heading straight for his table. The only empty spot is two feet to his right. He glares, but she doesn’t flinch. “Relax, Voss,” she says, sliding onto the bench, her shoulder brushing his bicep when she sets her plate down. The contact sends a jolt up his arm he’s not prepared for. “I’m not here to rehash 2013. I just don’t feel like listening to the county treasurer rant about property taxes for an hour.” He snorts, but doesn’t shift away. Her arm is warm even through the thin cotton of his gray flannel shirt. He can smell lavender hand sanitizer mixed with the smoky char of grilled sausage on her clothes, sharp and soft at the same time.
They bicker first, low, about the fundraiser’s overpriced hot dogs, then the new hiking trail the county is paving up Miller Creek, then she mentions she saw his 1978 Lund fishing boat parked at the public ramp on Seeley Lake last weekend. He blinks, surprised. He assumed she only paid attention to spreadsheets and zoning ordinances. “I fish,” she says, smirks when he gapes at her. “Dad taught me when I was 8. I just don’t advertise it. The old farts on the county board still give me grief for ‘not acting like a proper administrator’ when I show up to meetings with fish slime on my boots.” He finds himself laughing before he can stop himself. They lean in closer, knees knocking under the table, neither bothering to move apart. He notices the streak of silver in her chestnut hair right at her temple, the callus on her index finger from gripping a pen 8 hours a day, the way she bites the corner of her lower lip when she’s thinking of what to say next.
The crowd thins out as the sun dips lower, painting the sky in streaks of tangerine and pale lavender. Crickets start buzzing in the tall grass at the edge of the park. Most of the picnic tables are empty now. Ray’s forgotten all about the grudge, all about the stupid sticker on his truck, until she leans in to tell him about the time the county board tried to ban backcountry campfires last spring, her breath warm against the shell of his ear, and he has to fight not to shiver. The logical part of his brain screams that this is wrong, that he’s supposed to hate her, that half the town would lose their minds if they saw them sitting this close. The louder, dumber part of his brain is fixated on the way her mouth curves when she smiles, the way her hand brushes his wrist when she points out a bat darting across the sky.
She pulls back, meets his eyes steady, no sarcasm left in her face. “I’ve got a six pack of that hazy IPA you like in the back of my truck,” she says. “Wanna drive up to the Blue Mountain overlook? Watch the sunset over the valley.” He hesitates for half a second, thinks about all the snarky comments he’s made about her to his friends, all the shouting matches they had at town halls a decade prior. Then he nods.
They walk to her silver 4Runner side by side, his hand brushing hers when he reaches for the passenger door handle. She doesn’t pull away. The overlook is quiet when they get there, no other cars parked in the gravel lot. She hands him a cold beer, their fingers lacing together for half a second before she pulls back to open her own. The whole valley is spread out below them, dotted with tiny house lights, the tops of the mountains glowing pink from the last of the sun. “I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, before he can think better of it. “For all the rude shit I said. For the sticker on my truck. I never asked why you cut the budget.” She sighs, leans against the hood of the truck next to him, her shoulder pressing into his. “I was new,” she says. “The board told me if I didn’t cut something, they’d fire me and hire someone who’d cut the whole crew. I should’ve talked to you first. I’m sorry too.”
She turns to face him, her hand coming up to rest light on his scarred forearm, and kisses him slow. He tastes cherry lip balm and the faint tang of beer on her tongue, and for a second he’s frozen, then he kisses her back, his hand coming up to cup the side of her face, his thumb brushing the soft skin under her ear. He doesn’t care if anyone drives up and sees them, doesn’t care about 10 years of stupid grudges, doesn’t care about anything except the way she fits against him like she was made to.
They sit on the hood of the truck for an hour, watching the stars pop out one by one, swapping stories about bad camping trips, close calls on fire lines, the way his wife used to hate when he came home covered in ash, the way her ex-husband hated that she’d rather spend a weekend on the lake than go to fancy dinner parties. She rests her head on his shoulder, he wraps his arm around her waist, his hand splayed warm over the small of her back. When the air starts to get cold, they climb back into the truck to head down the mountain. “I’m taking the Lund out on Seeley Saturday morning,” he says, as she pulls out of the parking lot. “Wanna come? I know a spot where the cutthroat are biting this time of year.” She grins, reaches over to grab his hand where it’s resting on the center console, lacing their fingers together tight.
He turns the radio up to a Johnny Cash song he hasn’t heard since he was a kid, and doesn’t let go of her hand the whole drive back to town.
