Ray Voss, 57, spent 29 years perched on 100-foot fire towers scanning the Oregon Cascades for the first wisp of wildfire smoke, so he notices small shifts before almost anyone else. He’s nursing a cold lager at The Pine Tap, calloused fingertips tapping the chipped ceramic coaster along to the last few bars of a fiddle tune, when she slides onto the stool two spots down. The bar’s half-empty, post-jam crowd thinning out fast, so he can’t help but catch the jasmine scent of her lotion under the sharp smell of pine clinging to her winter coat, the sound of her ordering a spiced cider that matches the drink Elara always used to get here.
He recognizes her when she turns to set her purse on the bar. Mara Carter, Elara’s younger cousin, the kid who used to follow them on hiking trips every summer, the last time he saw her she was 22, red-eyed at Elara’s funeral, before she moved to Portland for library school. She’s 47 now, silver streaks threaded through her dark curly hair, laugh lines fanning out at the corner of her eyes when she spots him and waves. She picks up her cider and shifts to the stool directly next to him, close enough that her knee brushes his worn denim jeans when she adjusts her position. He tenses, half out of surprise, half out of the old, familiar reflex to pull away before the town gossips have something new to mutter about over coffee at the Main Street diner.
She doesn’t seem to notice. She says she moved back last month to run the town’s tiny public library, the same one Elara used to volunteer at reading to kids on weekends. She reaches for the salted peanut bowl between them, her forearm brushing the bare skin of his wrist where his flannel sleeve is rolled up, and he flinches so hard he sloshes a little beer onto the coaster. She laughs, soft and warm, and apologizes, says she forgot how skittish he is around people these days, Elara used to tease him about being a hermit even before she got sick.
The guilt hits him sharp, right in the chest, for a second. He’s spent 8 years deliberately keeping everyone at arm’s length, turning down every dinner invitation, every awkward set-up from neighbors, convinced even being friendly with another woman was a betrayal of the 23 years he had with Elara. But Mara’s talking about finding a tattered copy of the wildflower guide Elara self-published in 2003, tucked in the back of the library’s nature section, with his messy handwriting in the margins, notes on where they’d found specific blooms, stupid jokes he’d scrawled when Elara wasn’t looking. She slides the book out of her canvas tote, pushes it across the bar to him, and his fingers brush hers when he takes it. The contact lingers for two full beats, neither of them pulling away first.
The bartender rings the last call bell, flicks on the harsh overhead lights, and the last few stragglers head for the door. Ray glances out the window, sees fat snowflakes sticking to the sidewalk, ice glazing the edges of the street lamp posts. He offers to walk her to her apartment, three blocks over, says the walkway by the city park is always slick this time of year, he doesn’t want her slipping and twisting an ankle. She nods, pulls her coat tighter around her shoulders, and when they step outside, the cold hits him sharp enough to make his lungs burn, the snow crunching under his scuffed work boots.
Halfway to her building, she hits a patch of black ice, her feet going out from under her before she can catch herself. He grabs her waist, hauling her upright before she hits the frozen concrete, his hand splayed across the thick wool of her coat, her hands fisted in the front of his flannel to steady herself. They freeze for three seconds, faces inches apart, her breath fogging in the space between them, and he doesn’t look away when her eyes dart from his to his mouth and back up. She says she’s had a stupid, silly crush on him since she was 19, when she spent the summer working at the park gift shop, but she never said anything because Elara was her favorite person, and she’d never do anything to hurt her. He says he hasn’t felt this awake, this present, since the day Elara took her last breath.
They get to her porch, and she fumbles with her keys for a second before getting the front door open. She invites him in for hot cocoa, says she has the same peppermint marshmallows Elara always used to put in their mugs after long winter hikes. He doesn’t hesitate. He kicks his snow-caked work boots off by the door, hangs his frayed forest service jacket on the hook next to her wool coat, and when she hands him the steaming mug, his palm rests deliberately against hers for a long, quiet second before he takes it.
