Jaxson Rainer, 57, spent 29 years as a wildland fire crew boss before a 2018 burn on his left forearm sidelined him for good. He’s lived in the same clapboard cottage on the edge of Bend, Oregon, for 11 years, sleeps on a twin mattress he dragged home from a thrift store, sells firewood out of his side yard for cash in the winter, and hasn’t let a woman stay the night since his ex-wife packed her bags while he was still in the burn unit. His biggest flaw: he still assumes anyone who’s nice to him wants something—free wood, help fixing a fence, a sob story he’ll feel obligated to throw money at. He avoids neighborhood events like the plague, hates small talk, hates the way local women side-eye his scar like it’s a warning label.
The block party on 8th Street was the last place he wanted to be on an 82-degree July Saturday, but his next door neighbor had begged him to man the grill, said no one else could flip a burger without burning it to a crisp. He was three beers deep, forearm glistening with sweat, the raised pink scar wrapping around his wrist standing out bright against his sun-darkened skin, when he noticed her standing two feet from the grill, holding a crumpled paper plate piled high with dill potato salad. She was 40, he guessed, auburn hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a single strand of silver, charcoal smudge on her left cheek, scuffed Red Wing work boots on her feet, same pair he’d owned for three years. She caught him staring, lifted her chin, and smiled, no awkward look away, no polite little wave that fizzled out fast.
He grunted, flipped a burger, tried to act like he hadn’t been staring for a full ten seconds. She leaned in a little, close enough he could smell her lavender shampoo over the charcoal smoke and beer fumes wafting from the coolers behind them. “Heard you’re the guy to call if I need two cords of dry oak for the winter,” she said, voice low, a little rough, like she smoked a pack a day or spent most of her time yelling at skittish rescue dogs. He nodded, didn’t say anything, focused on scraping burnt grease off the grill grate. She reached for a cheeseburger on the top rack at the same time he did, their knuckles brushing, and he felt the thick callus on her index finger, the kind you get from gripping a dog nail grinder for hours a day. She laughed, pulled her hand back, didn’t over-apologize like most people do when they bump into him. “Mara,” she said, held out her other hand. He shook it, his calloused palm swallowing hers, the rough texture of her skin matching his. “Jax.”
He avoided her for the next week. Saw her out in her front yard planting heirloom tomato seedlings, pretended he was too busy stacking split oak to wave. He’d heard through the neighborhood gossip she was a veterinary tech, moved to Bend three months prior to get away from an abusive ex in Portland, was renting the little blue house two doors down. She was 17 years younger than him, for Christ’s sake. The whole thing felt wrong, like he was some old creep preying on a woman who just wanted to get settled somewhere quiet. He told himself he was doing her a favor, keeping his distance, saving her the trouble of dealing with a broken old guy who still woke up screaming from fire nightmares three nights a week.
She showed up on his porch the following Tuesday, holding a jar of peach jam in one hand, leaning on the porch rail with the other, her left ankle wrapped in a frayed ace bandage. “Sprained it moving 50-pound pavers for my back patio,” she said, held out the jam, the glass still warm from sitting in her car. “Canned these last week with peaches from my sister’s orchard, heard through Mrs. Henderson next door you make the best peach pie in the neighborhood.” He stared at the jam, then at her swollen, purple ankle peeking out under the bandage, then at the smudge of dirt on her jaw. He sighed, stepped aside, let her in. He ended up driving his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150 over to her house, stacking the 30 pavers for three hours while she sat on the porch step and talked, told him about her ex who broke her wrist two years prior after she tried to leave, about the three-legged golden retriever she adopted from the shelter last month, about how she’d worked with his old fire crew buddy Mike’s wife at the vet clinic in Portland before Mike died of a heart attack last year.
They sat on his back porch that night, him grilling two ribeyes he’d thawed that morning, her bringing a bottle of cheap cabernet she’d picked up at the grocery store down the street. The sky turned pink and purple over the Cascade peaks, crickets chirping in the tall grass at the edge of his yard, his old battery-powered radio playing Johnny Cash low on the porch rail. She leaned over halfway through the steak, her bare knee brushing his jeans, and brushed a fleck of ash off his cheek, her palm lingering on his scarred forearm for three full seconds. “I like this,” she said, running her thumb soft over the raised pink skin, no pity in her voice. “Tells me you’re the kind of guy who shows up when people need him, even when it costs you.”
He didn’t pull away. Didn’t make a self-deprecating joke about how the scar was proof he was stupid enough to run into a burning tree when he should have bailed with the rest of the crew. He just looked at her, the way the warm porch light hit her hazel eyes, the little gap between her two front teeth, the way she wasn’t looking at the scar like it was something broken or ugly or contagious. He kissed her, slow, no rush, and she kissed him back, her hand tangling in the gray hair at the nape of his neck, tasting like wine and peach jam and mint.
He woke up at 6 a.m. the next morning, the smell of dark roast coffee drifting from the kitchen, sun streaming through the bedroom window, the faint sound of his old hound dog snoring at the foot of the bed. He walked down the hall, barefoot, and found her leaning against the linoleum counter, wearing his faded 2016 fire crew tee, holding two mugs of coffee, her bare feet on his scuffed kitchen floor. She held out one mug to him, steam curling off the top, extra cream just how he liked it, and he crossed the room to take it, his bare shoulder brushing hers as he reached for the mug.
