Ray Ruiz, 53, spent 22 years as a wildland firefighter before a 2015 blaze chewed through his left forearm and his marriage in the span of three weeks. He runs a small firewood and forest thinning service out of his rambler outside Flagstaff now, keeps his social circle limited to old crew guys who stop by for beer once a month, avoids any situation that might require him to talk about his love life, or lack thereof. His biggest flaw, the one his old captain used to rib him for nonstop, is that he holds onto outdated codes like they’re the only thing keeping him from getting burned again. No dating friends’ exes. No letting anyone stay the night. No talking about the fire.
He’d dragged himself to the town Fourth of July potluck only because his neighbor’s 10-year-old kid had begged him to bring his famous smoked brisket, and he’s never been able to say no to a gap-toothed grin and a promise of first dibs on the fireworks show. He’s perched on the edge of a splintered pine picnic bench, picking at a taco loaded with pickled red onions, when Clara Marlow sits down two inches away from him, close enough that the frayed hem of her denim cutoff brushes his bare calf.
He knows who she is immediately. She’s his new next door neighbor, moved in three months prior, the ex-wife of that same old captain, Jake, who retired to Montana two years ago after their messy, public divorce. Ray had seen her unloading moving boxes from a U-Haul back in April, had pretended he was busy tightening the chain on his chainsaw so he wouldn’t have to wave, because the old crew code blared in his head like a fire alarm: Hands off the captain’s wife, even if she’s the ex-wife, even if he hasn’t spoken to Jake in 18 months.
She smells like coconut sunscreen and vanilla lip balm, the kind that gets sticky in 90-degree high desert heat, and when she reaches across the table to grab a can of lemon seltzer, her shoulder presses into his bicep for three full seconds. He tenses up, half ready to stand and leave, before she turns to him, eyes crinkling at the corners from the sun, and says she’s been meaning to knock on his door for weeks, that there’s a dead ponderosa pine leaning over her back porch that she’s terrified is going to fall on her roof in the next monsoon.
Her knee brushes his when she shifts to face him, and he can feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her cutoff shorts. He opens his mouth to say he’s booked solid for the next month, that she should call one of the other tree services in town, before he looks down and sees her staring at the scar snaking up his left forearm, the one that’s still pink and raised at the edges, 8 years later. She reaches out, slow, like she’s asking permission without saying a word, and brushes her index finger along the edge of the scar, just light enough that he shivers despite the heat.
“I was there when they pulled you out of that fire, you know,” she says, voice soft enough that the noise of kids screaming on the swing set and the distant crackle of fireworks testing almost drowns it out. “Jake talked a big game about being the hero that day, but I saw you carry that 19-year-old rookie out on your back, even when your arm was already blistering through your fire line coat. I always thought you were the brave one, not him.”
The old code warps in his head then, fraying at the edges, and he’s torn between yanking his arm away, disgusted that he’s even considering crossing that line he’s respected for 15 years, and leaning into her touch, the first soft, intentional touch he’s felt from anyone who wasn’t a doctor or a distant relative in almost a decade. He can taste the lime of the beer he’d been sipping on his tongue, hear the crinkle of her seltzer can in her other hand, see the faint smattering of freckles across her nose that only show up in mid-summer sun.
He doesn’t yank his arm away. He doesn’t make an excuse about being booked solid. He just nods, and says he can come over tomorrow morning at 9, bring his chainsaw and a couple of heavy-duty straps, take the tree down for half the rate he charges other clients. She grins, wide and bright, and leans in to brush a fleck of brisket rub off the edge of his jaw, her fingers lingering on his skin for a beat longer than necessary.
He shows up at her door the next morning 10 minutes early, chainsaw slung over his good shoulder, a bottle of extra chainsaw oil tucked in his back pocket. She opens the door wearing a faded old 2014 fire crew t-shirt that he recognizes as Jake’s old season shirt, cut off at the sleeves, paired with scuffed work boots and a pair of cargo pants dotted with grass stains. She’s got a cooler of peach iced tea sitting on the porch rail, and a plate of chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven, the smell of butter and semi-sweet chocolate drifting out the door to wrap around him.
She steps aside to let him in, and when he walks past her, she reaches up and tucks a strand of windblown dark hair off his forehead, her palm brushing the edge of his temple. He sets the chainsaw down by the door, turns to face her, and brushes a crumb of cookie off the corner of her mouth before he can overthink the movement.
