Rafe Marquez, 62, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew superintendent, had spent the eight years since his wife Jo passed treating vulnerability like a runaway wildfire: stamp it out fast, before it spreads far enough to burn everything you care about. He’d turned down every blind date his buddies at the VFW tried to set up, skipped every community potluck and mixer, spent most of his days restoring his beat-up 1978 Ford F-150 or hiking the backcountry trails he’d patrolled for 32 years. The only reason he was at the annual county fire department chili cookoff at all was a favor to his 19-year-old niece, who volunteered with the fire auxiliary and begged him to enter Jo’s famous hatch green chili recipe. He’d planned to drop off the crockpot, sign the entry sheet, and bolt before anyone could corner him with small talk or a phone number for their widowed sister-in-law.
The sky had other plans. Fat, cold raindrops slammed down without warning, hard enough to blur the parking lot lines and soak through his wool flannel in ten seconds flat. He ducked under the thin metal awning strung between the beer tent and the public library booth, shoulder to shoulder with a woman he recognized as Elara Voss, the 58-year-old librarian who’d moved to town three months prior. He’d only spoken to her once before, when he’d dropped off a stack of old wildlife magazines at the library, and he’d left with his ears burning, flustered by how the crinkles around her hazel eyes when she smiled made his chest feel tight, like he was breathing thin air at 8,000 feet.
She was holding a stack of flyers for the library’s local senior history workshop when a gust of wind ripped half the stack out of her hand. Rafe lunged to catch them, his calloused, scarred hand wrapping around a crumpled pile at the exact same time hers did. Their knuckles brushed, and a sharp static shock zapped both of them, making them yelp in unison before they burst out laughing. He could feel the rough callus on the side of her thumb, worn thin from turning thousands of book pages, and smell pine soap on her jacket, the same kind he used to wash his fire gear back on the line. Rain drummed so loud on the awning they had to lean in close to hear each other talk, their shoulders pressed together the whole time.
She told him she’d been collecting oral histories from former wildland firefighters for the library’s regional archive, that almost every old crew guy she’d talked to had brushed her off, saying their stories were just a bunch of stupid inside jokes and smoke-choked memories no one would care about. Rafe’s chest twisted. He had a shoebox full of cassette tapes under his bed, recordings his crew had made on fire lines in the 90s, rants about bad rations, stupid stories about pranks they’d pulled, even a recording of Jo singing along to a Merle Haggard tape when she’d come out to visit him at a fire camp outside Bend. He hadn’t touched the box since Jo died, too scared listening to the tapes would crack the wall he’d built around all the old, soft memories he’d buried. He almost lied and said he didn’t have anything to share, but she was looking at him like she already knew he was holding something back, no pushiness, no pity, just quiet curiosity.
The rain slowed to a fine drizzle after twenty minutes, and she offered to help him carry his crockpot to his truck if he was parked close. They stepped off the awning, and his work boot caught on a loose chunk of curb, sending him stumbling for half a second before she grabbed his bicep to steady him, her palm warm even through his thick flannel. They were standing so close he could see flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, smell the lavender lip balm she wore, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t fight the soft, warm pull in his chest. He asked her if she wanted to come over to his place the next morning, have coffee, look through the tapes if she was still interested.
She didn’t hesitate, grinning so wide the crinkles around her eyes deepened. She pulled a ballpoint pen out of her jacket pocket, scribbled her cell number on the back of one of the library flyers, and tucked it into the breast pocket of his flannel, her fingers brushing his chest for half a second. She told him she brought homemade cinnamon rolls, no raisins, and he laughed, surprised he’d even mentioned he hated raisins earlier when they’d been talking about Jo’s chili recipe. She waved and walked to her beat-up Subaru, pulling out of the parking lot with a quick honk of her horn.
He stood there with the crumpled flyer pressed against his chest under his shirt, the faint tingle of her touch on his bicep still warm enough to cut through the crisp autumn wind.
