Elias Voss, 52, spent 18 years as a smokejumper in Oregon, chasing wildfires across half the West before a blown knee and a messy divorce pushed him to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where he carves custom chainsaw sculptures for tourist shops and lakeside cabins. He avoids the town’s endless community events like the plague, hates the pitying side glances when people ask why he’s alone, hates the stale small talk about the weather or last winter’s snow totals. He only showed up to the fall harvest festival because he owed the mayor a 3-foot carved black bear for the charity raffle, planned to drop it off, grab a cup of spiced cider, and bolt back to his workshop in the woods before anyone could corner him.
The cider line is longer than he expected, and he’s staring at the bluegrass band plucking a fast tune on the far end of the town square when someone slams into his side, warm cinnamon-spiked cider sloshing over the rim of his cup and soaking the cuff of his worn plaid flannel. He huffs, ready to snap, until he looks down and meets hazel eyes flecked with green, crinkled at the corners like she laughs more than most people he knows. She’s Maeve, the new owner of the used bookstore on Main Street, he remembers her name from the stack of western novels she left on his porch last month after she saw him reading a Louis L’Amour at the gas station. She’s wearing a thrifted cream wool cardigan dotted with pine needles, a jar of dill pickles she won at the cake walk tucked under one arm, and she’s already dabbing at his sleeve with a crumpled napkin, her hand brushing the scar that runs up his forearm from a 2019 fire outside Bend.
He tells her it’s fine, that sawdust and sap have stained worse than cider, and she snorts, leaning against the wooden cider tent pole next to him, her shoulder pressing lightly against his bicep when a group of kids in zombie face paint come tearing past. He knows he should leave, knows the gossip mill will start churning before the sun sets—Maeve’s ex-husband is the county sheriff, the same guy who wrote him a $150 ticket last February for burning scrap carving wood too close to the town line, the same guy who glares at him every time they cross paths at the grocery store. It’s stupid, messy, the kind of small town drama he moved 2000 miles to avoid, but he can’t make himself step away.
She asks him about the 12-foot lake monster he’s carving for the marina entrance, and he finds himself talking longer than he intended, describing the way he picks out pine with just the right grain for the scales, the way he leaves the knots in the wood to look like warts on the creature’s neck. She leans in when he talks, so close he can smell vanilla lip balm and the faint tang of dill from the pickle jar, and when he mentions the fire that gave him the arm scar, she reaches out and runs a single finger along the raised edge of the tissue, slow, like she’s memorizing it. He freezes for half a second, a jolt going up his spine he hasn’t felt since before his divorce, and she doesn’t apologize, just smirks, like she knows exactly what she did.
The sheriff walks over ten minutes later, boots thudding on the crushed asphalt, jaw tight. He nods once at Elias, then turns to Maeve, tells her the kids’ soccer gear is sitting on his porch if she wants to swing by and grab it. She says she’ll stop by tomorrow, no rush, and the sheriff’s eyes flick between the two of them for a beat before he turns and walks away. She tucks a strand of auburn hair behind her ear, then tilts her head up at Elias, the corner of her mouth tugging up. “I got a bottle of 10-year bourbon back at my place,” she says, soft enough only he can hear over the band. “You can tell me more about that lake monster. No small talk. No gossip.”
He hesitates, thinks about the ticket, about the sheriff’s cold glare, about the quiet empty workshop waiting for him back in the woods. Then he nods, takes the pickle jar from her to carry because it looks heavy, and she laughs, linking her arm through his as they walk toward the edge of the square. The cider is still sticky on his sleeve, the air smells like pine and burnt sugar from the candy apple stand, and when they turn down her street, she pulls her key out of her pocket, unlocks her front door, and tugs him inside by the wrist.
