Ray Voss, 58, retired smokejumper turned part-time beekeeper, had talked himself into the monthly volunteer fire department potluck only by promising he could leave 10 minutes after he arrived, no small talk required. He hauled his dented Dutch oven of smoked honey baked beans through the screen door of the Missoula-area hall, the smell of pine smoke and grilled ham wrapping around him before he even crossed the threshold. He’d spent the last 12 years avoiding most gatherings, ever since his wife left for Portland a year after he lost three crew members on the 2011 Lolo Peak fire, convinced he was too sharp around the edges, too used to silence to not rub people the wrong way. His biggest flaw, the one he’d never admit out loud, was that he’d started to like the isolation, even when it ached.
He grabbed a paper plate, piled high with potato salad and a slice of glazed ham, and beelined for the only empty table spot in the back, far from the cluster of old crew members yelling about college football. He was halfway through his first bite when the chair next to him scraped against the worn pine floor, and he looked up to see Clara Mendez, the new county ag extension agent who’d moved to the valley three months prior from Seattle. She was still wearing work boots caked with loam from checking drought-stressed hay fields earlier that day, a faded maroon flannel tied around her waist over a white linen tank dotted with grass stains. She held a slice of peach pie in one hand and a jar of dill pickles in the other, and she grinned when she spotted his Dutch oven. “Heard you’re the guy behind the beans everyone loses their mind over,” she said, sitting so close her knee brushed his under the table. Neither of them moved away.
They passed the pickles back and forth while they ate, their hands brushing every time they reached at the same time. Ray noticed the thick callus on her index finger, the same kind he had from prying open hive boxes, and he asked about the small stack of mite test kits sticking out of her tote bag on the floor. She talked for 10 minutes straight about her struggling backyard hives, about how the smoke from this summer’s record wildfires had wiped out half the clover and wildflower blooms within city limits, and she held his gaze the whole time, no polite half-listening nod, no flinching when he mentioned the scars crisscrossing his left forearm from a burn that almost took his arm on that 2011 fire. He felt that familiar tug of war in his chest: half of him wanted to make an excuse and leave before he said too much, before he let himself forget how much it hurt when people left, the other half wanted to sit there all night listening to her laugh, loud and unselfconscious, when he told her about the time a bear broke into his apiary and ate 12 pounds of raw honey.
The power cut out halfway through her story about moving to Montana after her fiancé died in a Seattle bike crash, the old wiring in the hall finally giving out under the strain of the portable AC units running all night. The room went quiet for half a second before someone lit a stack of beeswax candles Ray had donated to the department the month prior, warm golden light spilling over the tables as most of the crowd drifted outside to check the breaker box by the parking lot. They were the only two left at their table, the candlelight gilding the freckles across her nose, and she leaned in closer, so close he could smell peach pie and iced tea on her breath, to ask about the smokejumper patch sewn to the breast of his flannel. He told her about the Lolo Peak fire, about the three guys he couldn’t save, about how he’d thought he’d never want to let anyone get close enough to see how broken he still felt over it. He didn’t even realize he was saying it out loud until she reached out, her thumb brushing a fleck of smoker ash off his cheek, her hand lingering against his jaw for three slow beats before she pulled away. “I get that,” she said, quiet enough only he could hear. “I thought I was only ever going to be the girl whose fiancé died, too. Turns out the valley’s pretty good at letting you be more than the worst thing that ever happened to you.”
The power clicked back on right as she finished talking, the overhead lights buzzing to life as the crowd filed back in, yelling about a loose wire that had been chewed through by a squirrel. She wiped crumbs off her jeans as she stood up, slinging her tote bag over her shoulder, and asked if he was free the next morning to come look at her hives, said she’d make lemon ricotta pancakes with fresh blueberries if he showed up before 9. He nodded before he could even talk himself out of it, a lopsided grin tugging at the corner of his mouth that he hadn’t felt in years.
He walked her out to her beat-up 4Runner, the air cool with the first hints of fall, crickets chirping loud in the grass along the sidewalk, the sky streaked pink and orange with the sunset. He didn’t kiss her, not yet, but he rested his hand on the truck’s door handle for a beat longer than necessary, their fingers brushing when she reached for it too. She waved out the window as she pulled out of the parking lot, and he stood there holding his empty Dutch oven, watching her taillights fade down the dirt road, for a full five minutes before he turned to head home.
