Roland Voss, 62, spent 28 years as a smokejumper, now runs a one-man wildfire mitigation consulting business out of a converted garage behind his Missoula home. He’d avoided the county fair for three straight years, but dragged himself out this August afternoon half for the craft IPA tent, half to glare at the re-election booth for the county commissioner who’d gutted the three-year fire preparedness budget he’d lobbied for that morning. He nursed his beer at a splintered picnic table, Carhartt jeans dusted with pine duff from clearing a client’s property the day before, faded 2017 fire season ball cap pulled low over his graying eyebrows. His biggest flaw, as his only daughter liked to remind him, was that he’d locked himself off from any softness since his wife died of ovarian cancer eight years prior, convinced any new connection would only end in the same searing loss.
He recognized her before she got to the table. Elara Hayes, 58, the commissioner’s wife, the woman who’d sat in the back of every budget hearing for six months, giving him tiny, almost imperceptible nods when he laid out data about wildfire risk for low-income rural neighborhoods, even as her husband cut him off mid-sentence. She was wearing a loose linen sundress the color of sage, bare legs dusted with a faint smattering of freckles, a glass of iced lemonade in one hand, silver-streaked auburn hair pulled back in a loose braid. She gestured to the empty seat across from him, all the other tables packed with fairgoers yelling over the carnival ride noise, and he grunted an affirmative, fully expecting her to defend her husband’s vote.
Instead she leaned in, voice low enough only he could hear, the side of her bare arm brushing his flannel sleeve when she propped her elbow on the table. “For the record, I told him that budget cut was the dumbest thing he’s signed his name to in 12 years in office. He doesn’t listen to anyone who’s actually spent time in the woods.” Roland blinked, taken off guard. She reached for the stack of napkins he’d pushed toward the center of the table, their knuckles brushing as her fingers closed around the same one he’d reached for too. Her skin was cold from holding the iced glass, his rough from decades of gripping parachute cords and chainsaw handles, and he felt a jolt shoot up his arm that he hadn’t felt in close to a decade.
They talked for 20 minutes, first about the budget, then about her grandkids who were riding the Tilt-A-Whirl on the other side of the fairgrounds, then about his 10-year-old border collie who spent most of her days napping on his office couch. She held his gaze longer than was polite for a woman married to the guy he’d publicly called “a waste of desk space” at a town hall two weeks prior, laughed so hard at his joke about the commissioner mistaking a Ponderosa pine for a plastic Christmas tree at a local parade that she snort-laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth like she was embarrassed. Roland was torn, sharp war in his chest: part of him was disgusted, this was the wife of the man who’d just screwed over every small landowner in the county, the last person he should be talking to, let alone feeling drawn to. The other part could smell coconut sunscreen on her skin, hear the soft lilt in her voice when she teased him about the chipped navy nail polish on his thumb he’d used to cover a split cut from splitting firewood the weekend before, feel the heat of her arm pressed against his, and he couldn’t bring himself to move away.
A group of the commissioner’s campaign volunteers rounded the corner of the beer tent, holding signs with her husband’s face on them, and she leaned in even closer, face inches from his, like she was hiding. He could feel her breath on his cheek, sweet with lemonade, and she lowered her voice to a murmur. “I don’t wanna go back to that booth. Wanna walk the fairgrounds with me? Pretend we don’t have to deal with any of that crap for an hour?” He hesitated for half a second, all the rules he’d set for himself over the last eight years screaming at him to say no, then he stood up, held out his hand. She laced her fingers through his, her own hands calloused from tending to the 40-acre lavender farm she ran on the side, and he felt the faint indent of a wedding ring on her finger, that quiet, thrumming taboo thrill settling low in his gut.
They walked past the 4H livestock barns, stopping to pet a fluffy angora goat a kid was showing off, then split an order of fried dough dusted with cinnamon sugar. She took a bite off the end of the piece he was holding, crumbs sticking to her lower lip, and he wiped them off with his thumb before he even thought about the motion. She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, just held his gaze, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. They ended up at the far edge of the fairgrounds, leaning against a weathered split-rail fence, watching the sun dip pink and orange over the Bitterroot Mountains, the distant sound of the fair’s cover band playing old Merle Haggard drifting over the fields.
She told him she’d been thinking about asking him out for coffee ever since he gave that fire safety presentation at the public library last month, even though she knew it would start all kinds of gossip, even though she’d already made plans to leave her husband after the election, had been unhappy for 10 years, had stayed only for the kids and the farm. Roland nodded, didn’t say anything for a long minute, turning over all the reasons this was a terrible idea, all the ways it could blow up in his face, then he squeezed her hand, asked if she wanted to come back to his place for dinner. He had venison steaks from a deer he’d shot the previous fall on the grill, cold beer in the fridge, the dog would be happy to see a new face. She nodded, leaned up, kissed him soft, the faint taste of lemonade and cinnamon sugar on her lips. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to his side, the distant hum of the carnival rides mixing with the crickets starting to chirp in the grass at their feet.
