Rafe Mendez, 52, retired Forest Service wildfire crew lead, had been pressed up against the splintered beer garden fence for 27 minutes when he decided he was leaving. His flannel stuck to his back under the July sun, the pine sap caked on his work boots melting a little into the gravel, and the cold IPA in his hand was the only thing keeping him from telling his neighbor Jake exactly where he could stick his “you need to get out more” lecture. It had been eight years since his wife Clara died in that car crash on the mountain pass, and he’d made a point of skipping every small town function he could, convinced the pitying looks and forced small talk were worse than spending his nights alone restoring vintage fly rods and working his way through the library’s entire western fiction collection. The air smelled like burnt bratwurst, pine, and sweat, the local cover band was butchering a Johnny Cash song, and he’d already ducked three separate attempts by the fire chief to rope him into volunteering for the upcoming prescribed burn season.
He turned to slip out the side gate, shoulder first, and bumped straight into someone hard enough to slosh half his IPA down the front of a cream linen dress. He froze, already bracing for the sharp rebuke he knew was coming, and looked down to see Elara Voss, the new county librarian everyone in town had been complaining about for the last three months. He’d avoided her like the plague ever since the story broke that she’d “banned” half the town’s favorite hunting memoirs, convinced she was some stuck-in-the-mud coastal transplant who didn’t get how the people here lived. She blinked down at the dark beer stain spreading across her stomach, then threw her head back and laughed, loud enough that a few people glanced over, a snort slipping out at the end that she tried to cover with her hand. “Relax,” she said, swiping a stray strand of auburn hair off her face, “I spilled lemonade on this same spot two hours ago. It was a bad dress day to begin with.” He noticed the tiny Ponderosa pine tattoo peeking out from under the cuff of her faded blue cardigan first, then the smudge of ink on her thumb, like she’d been stamping library books right before she came.
She stepped closer to avoid a group of kids darting past with snow cones, her shoulder brushing his chest, and he could smell jasmine perfume mixed with the charcoal smoke curling off the grill. “I know who you are, by the way,” she said, tilting her head up so her hazel eyes locked on his, no pity in them, just amusement. “You’re the guy who checks out every Louis L’Amour reprint we get before anyone else can get their hands on them. I hold the new ones behind the desk for you, actually. The old guys from the cattle ranch throw a fit every time I tell them they’re already checked out.” He felt his face heat up, something he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager getting caught sneaking beer out of his dad’s fridge. He’d always thought he was invisible at the library, slipping in and out right before closing, no small talk, no eye contact. She explained the book ban drama between sips of her own seltzer, laughing again when he admitted he’d been mad about it too – she’d just moved the memoirs to the adult section, she said, after a group of 12-year-olds wrote book reports about graphic bear hunt scenes that had their conservative parents blowing up her email. When she reached up to wipe a stray drop of beer off his forearm, her palm brushing the old burn scar that wrapped around his wrist, he didn’t flinch. He hadn’t let anyone touch him that casually in eight years.
The fire department started yelling over the speaker for the annual raffle drawing right as they were talking about the best spots to pick huckleberries on the mountain, and she pulled two crumpled raffle tickets out of her jeans pocket, holding one out to him. Their fingers laced for half a second when he took it, her skin soft, warmer than he expected, and he could feel his pulse pick up. The grand prize was a guided three-day fly fishing trip on the Deschutes, something he’d wanted to do for years but never bothered to sign up for, since he didn’t have anyone to go with. The guy calling the numbers read off the first half, and Rafe’s throat went tight when he realized it matched the ticket in his hand. Elara whooped so loud the people next to them cheered, grabbing his arm and hugging him tight, her ribs pressed against his, the soft curl of her hair brushing his chin. He froze for half a second, then wrapped one arm around her waist, the linen of her dress thin under his palm. When she pulled back, her cheeks pink, grinning so wide the corners of her eyes crinkled, she admitted she’d never been fly fishing in her life. He told her he had an extra rod, he knew all the best spots on the river, he could teach her. “I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, her voice low enough only he could hear, leaning in so her breath fanned across his cheek. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to ask you out for three months. Everyone says you’re a hermit who hates all county employees.”
The band switched to a slow Merle Haggard track right then, and she tilted her head, nodding at the small patch of grass people were dancing on. He hesitated, then took her hand, lacing their fingers together before he could overthink it. She stepped close, her free hand resting light on his shoulder, his hand on her waist, and they swayed off beat, no one paying them any mind, everyone too busy yelling over the rest of the raffle winners. He could feel the faint thrum of her pulse under his fingers where they rested on her hip, the warmth of her hand in his, and when she brushed her thumb across the thin scar slicing across his left cheek, soft, like she wasn’t scared of it, he didn’t look away. She told him she was free next Saturday, no library meetings, no parent complaints, no plans. He nodded, said he’d pick her up at 8, bring her favorite iced lavender latte he’d seen her order at the general store a dozen times, the one he’d always thought was too fancy for a guy like him. The sun dipped below the Cascades then, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and lavender, and he didn’t feel the urge to rush home for the first time in eight years.
