Ronan Marquez, 62, spent 32 years perched in fire lookout towers across the Willamette National Forest before he retired last year. His only personality flaw, if you asked his adult daughter, was that he’d turned into a professional hermit in the eight years since his wife passed, turning down every community invite, every set-up, every chance to leave his 12-acre property for anything other than grocery runs or supply runs for the woodworking side gig he’d picked up. He’d told her a hundred times he didn’t need new friends, didn’t need company, was perfectly fine eating frozen meatloaf and watching old westerns alone every night. So when his next door neighbor showed up on his porch holding two tickets to the local fire department’s summer relief fundraiser at the only dive bar in town, he’d almost slammed the door in his face. Only the guilt of knowing half the volunteers at the department had worked with him on the 2019 Holiday Farm Fire made him grab his faded navy fire crew hoodie and follow.
The bar was packed, reeking of fried cheese curds and cheap draft beer, a cover band hammering through a terrible version of a 90s country track in the corner. Ronan planted himself by the back beer tap, beer in one hand, avoiding eye contact with everyone who tried to wave him over. He’d been there 20 minutes and was already mentally mapping his escape route when someone slammed into his left side, hard enough to slosh half her seltzer onto the front of his hoodie.
“Shit, I am so sorry,” she said, leaning in immediately, dabbing at the wet spot with a crumpled napkin she pulled from her jeans pocket. Ronan froze. He could smell jasmine shampoo mixed with the sharp, green scent of pine, like she’d been out in the woods all day. Her knuckles brushed the thick, silvery scar snaking up his left forearm, the one he’d gotten dragging a rookie firefighter out of a burning stand of Douglas fir during that 2019 blaze, and he flinched before he could stop himself. He hadn’t been touched that gently, that casually, by anyone who wasn’t a doctor or his daughter in almost a decade.
He looked down. She was 58 or so, gray streaks in her wavy brown hair pulled back in a loose braid, dirt smudged on the knee of her work pants, a county extension agent lanyard around her neck. She was still leaning in, close enough that he could see the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, and he felt his throat go dry. Part of him wanted to mumble that it was fine, turn around, leave immediately, go back to his empty house and forget this ever happened. Guilt pricked at him, sharp and hot, like he was cheating on his wife just by standing this close to another woman who smelled nice and was looking at him like he was a real person, not just the grumpy old hermit everyone in town knew.
“Really, it’s nothing,” he said, instead of leaving. She laughed, a low, warm sound, and nodded at the scar on his arm. “Looks like that wasn’t nothing,” she said. He found himself telling her the story, all of it, the way the fire had jumped the containment line faster than anyone expected, the rookie who’d frozen up, the three days they’d spent camped out on the ridge waiting for backup. She didn’t interrupt, didn’t check her phone, just leaned against the wall next to him, sipping her seltzer, listening like it was the most interesting story she’d heard all month.
When the band got so loud they couldn’t hear each other talk, she nodded at the back door. “Wanna step outside? It’s cooler out there anyway.” He followed her without thinking. The sun was just setting, painting the sky pink and orange over the ridge line behind the bar, fireflies blinking in the tall grass at the edge of the parking lot. She pointed at the jagged tree line halfway up the ridge, the spot where the 2019 fire had burned hottest. “I was up there last week planting native saplings. Whole area’s coming back fast, but half the undergrowth’s still scrub oak that’ll go up like a match if we get another dry summer.”
Ronan knew that spot better than the back of his own hand. He’d been the one in the lookout tower who’d spotted that fire first, had called it in before it got big enough to hit the local news. He told her that, and she turned to face him, their shoulders almost touching now. He could feel the heat off her arm through the thin fabric of his hoodie, his pulse picking up, that same guilt warring with the warm, thrumming desire he’d thought was long dead. He’d spent so long telling himself he didn’t get to have this, didn’t get to have fun or flirt or feel something other than quiet grief, that he almost pulled away when she reached up and brushed a stray pine needle off his shoulder, her fingers lingering on his collarbone for a beat longer than necessary.
“I’ve been trying to find someone who knows that ridge well enough to show me all the old fire breaks,” she said, looking up at him, not pulling her hand away right away. “If you’re not too busy being a hermit, that is.” She’d heard the town gossip, then. Ronan laughed, a rough, rusty sound he hadn’t heard come out of his own mouth in years.
He asked her if she wanted to drive up to the ridge at 6 a.m. the next day, watch the sunrise, he’d show her every fire break, every hidden spring, every spot he’d ever sat in a lookout tower watching for smoke. She grinned, pulled a crumpled fire safety pamphlet out of her pocket, scribbled her cell number on the back in bright blue pen, and handed it to him.
He stayed for another hour, drank one more beer, talked to her about the best types of grass to plant on burn scars, about the woodworking he did in his garage, about the way his daughter kept nagging him to get a dog. When he left, he hugged her goodbye, quick and awkward, and she squeezed his waist before she pulled away.
He drove home slow, the pamphlet with her number tucked into the cup holder next to his half-empty beer. He’d half expected the guilt to hit him full force the second he got in the car, but it didn’t. All he felt was that quiet, light buzz, like he’d just pulled off a heist no one else knew about, like he was 22 again and had just gotten the phone number of the girl he’d been staring at all semester at community college. He unlocked his front door, left the pamphlet on the kitchen counter where he’d see it first thing when he woke up, and set his alarm for 5:30 a.m.
He cranked the kitchen window open, let the cool summer air hit his face, and for the first time in 8 years, he didn’t dread waking up early.
