Elias Voss, 57, spent 32 years leading Forest Service hotshot crews into wildfires across the West, and he’d rather face a 50-foot wall of flame than another stranger sidling up to ask how he’s “holding up” eight years after his wife died. He’d been dragged to the Bend summer beer garden fundraiser by his next door neighbor, who’d badgered him for three weeks about “getting out among living people,” and he’d already mapped his escape route: cut past the cotton candy stand, hop the low split rail fence at the edge of the park, cut through the oak grove to his beat up 2008 Ford F-150, and be home to his two coonhounds and a frozen pizza in 12 minutes flat.
He was halfway to the fence, plastic cup of hazy IPA sweating in his hand, when he rounded a stack of folding chairs and knocked a teetering pile of vintage western paperbacks straight out of a woman’s arms. They both dropped to their knees at the same time, his flannel-clad shoulder bumping hers, and when they both reached for the same tattered copy of *Hondo* their hands brushed. Elias froze. Her fingers were calloused, rough at the tips, not soft like the women who’d tried to set him up with their widowed sisters at church potlucks. The scent of vanilla lip balm and pine soap hit him, sharp and warm, and when he looked up she was already staring at him, hazel eyes flecked with gold, no pity on her face, just a half-smirk.
Something tight in his chest unwound a little, but a sharp, sour flicker of guilt hit him right after. He’d spent eight years telling himself that feeling any kind of interest in anyone else was a betrayal of his wife, that he was supposed to stay locked up in his cabin alone until he died, too. He wanted to run, to cut off the conversation before it went anywhere, but when she invited him to stop by the bookstore the next day, to try the cold brew she’d been perfecting, he said yes before he could think better of it.
He showed up 10 minutes early the next morning, his oldest hound Jake in the passenger seat, feeling stupid and jittery like a teenager going to his first prom. The bookstore smelled like old paper and cinnamon and slightly burnt coffee, and she was behind the counter stacking poetry books, her gray-streaked hair pulled back in a messy braid. She handed him a mason jar of cold brew, dark and sweet, no bitter edge like the camp coffee he’d lived on for decades, and when she led him back to the western section to show him a first edition L’Amour she’d picked up at an estate sale, he didn’t step away when her shoulder brushed his again. She reached up to grab the book off the top shelf, her t-shirt riding up a little at the waist, and he caught a glimpse of a tiny pine tree tattoo on her hip, right above the waistband of her jeans. When she turned around, she caught him looking, and she didn’t step back, didn’t adjust her shirt, just smiled, slow and soft.
He lifted his hand, hesitated for half a second, then brushed a stray strand of gray hair off her forehead. She leaned into the touch, and when their lips met it was slow, no rush, no fumbling, just warm and steady, like something he’d been waiting for without even knowing it. The guilt didn’t hit him this time, didn’t feel like a punch to the gut. It felt light, like something he could let go of.
They spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the back porch of the bookstore, sharing a slice of peach pie from the bakery next door, Jake curled up on her feet, while she told him about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone when she was 40, and he told her about the 2017 Eagle Creek fire, the one that almost swallowed his whole crew. The sun was dipping low over the Cascades by the time he stood up to leave, and he reached for her hand, running his thumb over the rough callus on her index finger from turning thousands of book pages, and didn’t let go.
