Russ Hagerty, 62, spent 28 years as a forest fire spotter perched in 70-foot towers across the Sierra Nevadas, and he carried the habit of keeping his distance long after he retired. His flaw was simple: he’d forgotten how to ask for anything, even a refill at the bar, preferring to sit quiet until the bartender noticed his empty glass. His wife of 34 years had died of ovarian cancer seven years prior, and he’d moved to northern Idaho to be closer to his granddaughter, but most nights he ate frozen bean burritos alone in his one-bedroom cabin, listening to old country records.
It was a rain-lashed Thursday in late October, the kind where the wind off Lake Pend Oreille cuts right through flannel, and he was leaned against the scuffed oak bar at the Sandpoint VFW, fresh off winning the weekly meat raffle. The 10-pound ribeye sat in a crinkly brown paper bag next to his pint of Rainier, grease bleeding through the bottom just a little. The bar was half empty, most of the regulars having bailed early to beat the rain, when Marnie Torres pushed through the door, shaking water off her curly dark hair like a retriever.
Marnie was 58, ran the local home health agency, and was the widow of Russ’s old fire crew partner Javi, who’d died three years prior when his fishing boat flipped on the Kootenai River. Russ had always told Javi he’d look out for her if anything ever happened, and for three years he’d done exactly that by avoiding her unless absolutely necessary, scared that the little thrills he got when he saw her at the grocery store or the farmers’ market were some kind of betrayal.
She slid onto the stool two down from him, her rain-soaked plaid clinging to the curve of her shoulders, and ordered a peach schnapps and Coke. The guy between them finished his whiskey and left ten minutes later, and she shifted one stool closer, then another, until their elbows were six inches apart on the bar. She nodded at the paper bag. “Win the ribeye again, Hagerty? You gonna cook that for someone, or just stare at it on your counter for three days like you did last month?”
He huffed a laugh, twisting the edge of his beer coaster between calloused fingers. “How’d you know I did that?”
“Your granddaughter told my niece when they were at soccer practice. Said you ate nothing but frozen tacos for a week after you won that pork roast.” She reached across him to grab a handful of salted peanuts from the bowl in front of him, and her forearm brushed his, warm even through his flannel sleeve. He noticed the thin silvery scar on her wrist, the one Javi had told him she got when they were 22, clearing brush on their property and she slipped with a chainsaw. He could smell pine soap on her skin, cut with the sharp tang of rain on asphalt, and he felt a twist of guilt in his gut, like he was doing something wrong just noticing how pretty she looked with her cheeks pink from the cold.
He offered to buy her next drink, and she accepted, and for an hour they talked about the flu outbreak ripping through the local nursing home, how her shifts had run 12 hours straight for two weeks, how his granddaughter’s soccer team was headed to the state tournament. She mentioned offhand that her cabin’s heater had died that morning, and the repair guy couldn’t make it out for three days, and before he could think better of it he said he had a brand new space heater in the back of his truck, he could drop it off on his way home.
She hesitated for half a second, then nodded, and they walked out into the rain, him holding the door open for her, the ribeye bag crinkling in his other hand. The asphalt by the door was slick with mud washed down from the hill behind the VFW, and his boot slipped when he stepped off the curb. She grabbed his arm to steady him, and suddenly they were pressed chest to chest under the bar’s small awning, rain pouring down around them, their faces three inches apart. He could taste the peach schnapps on her breath when she exhaled, and he didn’t pull away.
“I thought you’d never make a move,” she said, quiet enough that the rain almost swallowed the words. “I’ve been waiting a year for you to stop acting like Javi would rise from the dead and kick your ass if you so much as bought me a drink.”
He laughed, surprised, and his hand came up to brush a strand of wet hair off her face. “I was an idiot. Figured it was disrespectful, somehow. To him, to Janice.” He paused, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. “Been lonely, though. Real lonely.”
She leaned into his touch, her hand coming up to cover his where it rested on her face. “Me too.”
He drove her back to her small cabin ten minutes outside of town, the space heater rattling in the back seat next to the ribeye. She invited him in, said she had a cast iron skillet and a bottle of good red wine stashed under the counter, they could cook the steak together. He followed her up the porch steps, the rain tapping against the roof of the porch, and for a split second he almost made an excuse, almost said he had to get home to feed his cat, even though he didn’t own a cat. But then she looked over her shoulder at him, grinning, and he stepped through the door after her.
He set the paper bag of ribeye on her kitchen counter, and for the first time in seven years, he didn’t feel the urge to make an excuse and leave.
