Moe Rogan, 62, spent 28 years as a wildland fire crew boss, and the only reason he’d dragged himself to the annual crew reunion at Mac’s Tavern in downtown Bend was because his old second-in-command had called him three times in one week, threatening to drive out to his remote cabin and drag him by the ear if he didn’t show. He’d spent the four years since his wife’s death holed up on his 10 acres, fixing up old fire trucks and volunteering for local fire safety outreach, and he’d avoided any social event that didn’t involve work or power tools like they were a fast-spreading crown fire. His biggest flaw, if you asked the few people who knew him well, was that he’d convinced himself letting anyone new get close meant he’d just end up grieving them sooner or later.
He was leaning against the chipped Formica bar nursing a pale ale, half listening to a story about the 2019 Snake River fire, when her arm brushed his. She was wiping down the stretch of counter next to him, wearing faded jeans and a black bar staff tee that showed off freckled forearms crisscrossed with faint scarring from old gardening accidents, and he caught a whiff of lavender hand lotion mixed with the pine disinfectant she used on the counters. He’d know her anywhere: Lena Voss, ex-wife of his old crew lead, Jim, who he’d worked under for 12 years. He’d thought they were still married, had sent them a Christmas card every year even after he retired, until he’d heard through the grapevine six months prior that she’d left Jim after 32 years of marriage, fed up with him putting the crew before her every single time.
He tensed up immediately, half ready to mumble an excuse and leave, until she looked up at him and held eye contact for a beat longer than strictly polite. “Moe Rogan. I thought you’d be hiding out in that cabin of yours forever,” she said, her voice a little rough around the edges, like she still snuck the occasional menthol even though she’d quit smoking back in 2018. He blinked, surprised she even remembered his name, let alone where he lived. He’d always been quiet around her back when he worked for Jim, convinced she was off limits, that even looking at her too long was a betrayal of the guy who’d given him his first shot on a crew when he was 24. That guilt coiled tight in his chest, warring with the stupid, warm flutter in his stomach that he hadn’t felt since his wife was still alive.
She wiped the spot directly in front of him again, even though it was already clean, and her wrist brushed his knuckles where he was holding his beer. The contact was accidental, light, but he felt it all the way up his arm. “I still have that cast iron Dutch oven you left at our place after the Eagle Creek fire, you know,” she said, leaning against the bar across from him, her hip propped against the cooler behind her. “You used it to make that chili that kept us all alive for three days when the roads were closed. Jim always said he was gonna return it, but he never did. I kept it.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. He’d forgotten he’d even left that Dutch oven there, had written it off as lost in the chaos of that fire. He’d spent those three days at Jim and Lena’s house back in 2017, too sore to move after 72 straight hours on the fire line, and he’d thought Lena had barely noticed he was there, too busy running errands for the crew and patching up Jim’s scraped-up leg. Turns out she’d been paying attention.
She slid a shot of rye across the bar to him, unprompted. It was his favorite brand, the cheap stuff he used to drink after long shifts, and he raised an eyebrow. “You remember that too?” he asked, and she smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. She had a smudge of charcoal above her left eyebrow, like she’d been drawing before her shift, and he had the stupid, overwhelming urge to brush it away with his thumb.
“Jim drank bourbon,” she said, like that was explanation enough. “I always noticed the guys who drank rye. You never complained about the bad coffee or the cold tents or the fact that Jim made you work 16 hour shifts for no extra pay. You just did the work. I always liked that about you.”
The guilt was still there, sharp and bright, the voice in his head saying this is wrong, this is your old boss’s ex-wife, you don’t deserve this, but it was getting quieter, drowned out by the way she was looking at him, like she actually saw him, not just the quiet, gruff ex-firefighter he presented to the world. He talked to her for two more hours, until the rest of the crew had filtered out, until the jukebox had run out of quarters and the only lights left on were the string lights strung above the bar. He told her about his wife, about how he’d been scared to leave his cabin for years after she died, scared that if he let himself have fun again he’d be betraying her memory. She told him about leaving Jim, about how he’d stopped talking to her completely for the last five years of their marriage, how she’d felt like a ghost in her own house.
When she locked up the bar, she slung her canvas bag over her shoulder and turned to him, her boots tapping against the wooden porch. “I live 10 minutes out of town,” she said, not playing games, not beating around the bush. “I got that Dutch oven on my kitchen counter. And fresh coffee. You wanna come get it?”
He didn’t hesitate, not for a second. He’d spent four years running from anything that felt like good news, like happiness, like something he could lose, but he was tired of running. He curled his calloused, fire-scarred fingers around hers as they crossed the dark, empty parking lot.
