Elias Voss, 53, spent 27 years with the U.S. Forest Service as a hotshot crew boss before a blown knee from a 2021 wildfire put him out for good. His worst flaw, the one his ex-wife cited repeatedly when she left him eight years prior for an RV salesman with a permanent tan and zero impulse control, is that he refuses to step into any situation he can’t map out three contingency plans for. These days he fills his time fixing up old chainsaws and whittling small trinkets for the town’s craft fair, and only leaves his cabin outside Grand Marais when his old crew strongarms him into their annual reunion at The Smoldering Stump, the dive bar off Main Street.
He’d stepped outside to escape the cacophony of his friends yelling about the 2018 Boundary Waters blowout fire when the smell of fried pork and lime hit him, sharp and bright over the faint stale beer and pine in the air. The taco truck parked at the edge of the patio was new, the hand-painted sign on the side reading LILA’S AL PACO’S in chipped red and green paint. He meandered over, ordered a carnitas taco extra spicy, and when the woman behind the counter handed it to him, their fingers brushed for half a second.
She was Lila Marquez, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, 42, who he’d only met a handful of times at family weddings before the divorce. She had the same dark curly hair as his ex, but her eyes were a warmer, honeyed brown, and she had a tiny scar slicing through her left eyebrow that he didn’t remember from the last time he’d seen her. On her index finger was a thin silver ring shaped like a white pine needle, the exact one he’d carved by hand for his ex for their 10th anniversary, the one she’d left tossed in a junk drawer when she packed her bags.
He froze mid-reach for the taco, and she laughed, low and throaty, wiping her hands on the stained apron tied around her waist. “Found it in a box of her old stuff she dropped off when she moved to Arizona last year. Figured it was yours originally, but you never came around to get any of the things she left. I kept it. I always liked the way you made things, you know? Solid, no frills.” She leaned against the counter of the truck, her hip propped an inch from his, close enough that he could smell lavender hand cream mixed with the smoky grease from the fryer, could see the faint smudge of chili powder on her cheekbone.
Elias’s first instinct was to mumble a thanks, grab the taco, and retreat to his truck, drive back to his quiet cabin where no one knew his last name or his messy divorce history. The last thing he needed was the town gossip mill spinning up about him fraternizing with his ex-wife’s family, the same people who’d called him boring and unadventurous when she left. But she held his gaze, steady, no pity in her eyes, just a lazy, teasing smile that made the back of his neck feel warm.
She hopped down from the truck’s step, grabbing a can of cold Modelo from the cooler under the counter, and nodded toward the empty picnic table furthest from the bar’s crowd. He followed, even though every rigid, plan-obsessed part of his brain was screaming that this was a bad idea, that there was no way this didn’t end with more hurt and more gossip. They sat across from each other, their knees knocking under the table when she shifted to cross her legs, and she told him she’d moved back to Grand Marais six months prior, quit her emergency nursing job in Minneapolis after she burned out during the last wave of hospital overcrowding, decided she’d rather sell tacos and tend to the five-acre maple grove she’d bought on the edge of town than watch another person die alone in a hospital room.
When she leaned across the table to tap the thick, silvery scar running up his right forearm, the one he got when a burning tree branch fell on him during the 2018 fire, her arm brushed his, and he didn’t flinch away. “I saw that on the news, you know. You carried that 19-year-old rookie out of the fire three miles on that bad knee. Everyone around here still talks about it. My cousin never gave you credit for how brave you were, just called you too careful.”
Elias felt his throat go tight. No one had said that to him in years, not even his old crew, who mostly just teased him about his overcautious planning. He wanted to tell her he wasn’t brave, that he was just scared of letting anyone get hurt on his watch, that the only thing he’d ever fucked up beyond repair was his marriage, but before he could speak, she was grinning again, nudging his boot with hers under the table.
“I need someone to tell me how to clear the underbrush in the grove, keep it from catching fire if we get another dry summer next year. I’ll pay you in free tacos for a month. And no one has to know if you don’t want them to. Unless you’re too scared of what my cousin might say, or what the town gossips will mutter in the grocery store.”
It was teasing, but there was a softness under it, like she was giving him an out if he wanted it. Elias sat there for a full ten seconds, weighing the pros and cons the way he always did, the urge to run to his safe, quiet cabin warring with the warm, tight feeling in his chest he hadn’t felt since he was 25 and first asked his ex out. He nodded.
She drove them out to the grove in her beat up 2008 Ford Ranger, the radio playing old Johnny Cash songs low, the windows rolled down so the cool September air whipped through the cab. When she pulled up to the gate, she hopped out, grabbed two cold lime seltzers from the cooler in the truck bed, and handed one to him, their fingers lingering this time, no accidental brush, just a deliberate, soft press of skin against skin. The sun was dipping below the treeline, painting the tops of the maple trees pink and orange, and he could hear crickets chirping in the underbrush, the distant call of a loon on the nearby lake. He popped the tab on his seltzer, took a sip, and didn’t think once about contingency plans, or the gossip mill, or his ex-wife. He just watched her unlock the gate, her curls catching the last of the sunlight, and smiled.
