Rafe Mendez, 59, retired wildland firefighter turned small-scale sawmill and firewood delivery owner, leaned against the dented tailgate of his 2008 Ford F-150 and wiped smoked brisket grease off his calloused palms onto the thigh of his worn Carhartts. He’d only showed up to the small Montana town’s Fourth of July potluck because his 16-year-old niece had begged, threatening to hide his favorite chainsaw in the woods if he bailed again. He’d planned to drop off the brisket, grab a beer, and slip home before the fireworks, no small talk required. That plan went out the window 17 minutes after he arrived.
The woman tripped over a half-buried cooler cord at his feet, her plate of peach cobbler tilting dangerously as she stumbled straight into his chest. He caught her by the elbows automatically, his fingers brushing the frayed cuff of her well-worn plaid flannel, and caught a whiff of jasmine shampoo and cedar dust off her hair. She laughed, a warm, throaty sound that cut through the din of kids yelling and firecrackers popping down the field, and held his eye contact for three full beats longer than casual politeness dictated. He recognized her immediately: she was the one who’d bought the run-down homestead three miles down the dirt road from his property two months prior, the one whose old Subaru he’d seen stuck in a mud rut last week, the one he’d driven past without stopping to help because he didn’t feel like making small talk.
She apologized, swiping a stray crumb of cobbler off his shirt collar, her fingertips brushing the raised, silvery scar on his forearm left by the 2017 Lolo Peak fire. The contact sent a jolt up his arm he hadn’t felt in years, and he tensed up, half-ready to brush her off and make an excuse to leave. Then she nodded at the scar, said she’d been a wildland fire seasonal for one summer back in the 90s before she went to school for bookbinding, asked if he got it on a hotshot crew.
He didn’t talk about the fire with anyone. Most people either looked at him like he was a hero, which made his skin crawl, or like he was damaged, which was worse. But she didn’t do either. She leaned against the tailgate next to him, her thigh brushing his every time a group of kids darted past, and listened when he rambled about the three weeks they spent stuck on that fire line, the way the smoke turned the sun blood red for 10 days straight, the way his crew ate nothing but MREs and warm beer for the last four days of the deployment. She teased him when he admitted he still kept his old hotshot helmet on a shelf above his workbench, told him she still had her dented fire shelter tucked in the back of her closet, too.
They talked through the entire pre-fireworks program, the local high school band’s off-key rendition of the national anthem fading into background noise. He learned she owned a small vintage bookbinding shop in Bozeman, moved out to the homestead after her daughter started college in New York, had 12 old ponderosa logs stacked behind her garage she wanted milled into bases for her hand-built book presses. He learned she burned the edges of her peach cobbler on purpose, said the char added a caramel depth store-bought crust could never match, when she held up a bite to him to prove it, their fingers brushed again.
He’d spent the last 12 years deliberately avoiding any situation that could lead to anything more than a 10 minute chat with a stranger, ever since his wife left him for a real estate agent in Missoula, convinced he cared more about fighting fires than he did about her. He’d built his whole routine around being alone, no extra work, no messy feelings, no one to let down. But when she asked if he’d be willing to come look at the logs sometime, he found himself saying he could stop by tomorrow morning, even offered to bring fresh cold brew from the little coffee shop in town, the one that made the oat milk lattes he’d never admit he liked.
The first firework went off overhead then, a burst of electric blue that painted the whole field light for half a second, and she flinched a little, leaning into his side unconsciously. He hesitated for half a beat, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders slow, like he was approaching a skittish deer, waiting for her to pull away. She didn’t. She rested her head on his shoulder for a full minute, the soft weight of it seeping through his thin cotton shirt, and when she tilted her face up to look at him, her eyes glowing with the reflection of red and gold fireworks, he kissed her. It was slow, no big dramatic fanfare, just the taste of peach cobbler and the hard seltzer she’d been drinking, the distant pop of fireworks in his ears, the rough texture of her flannel under his palm.
When the last firework faded and the crowd started packing up coolers and herding sleepy kids into minivans, she scribbled her address and cell number on a crumpled napkin, pressed it into his palm, and told him to knock loud if her dogs started barking when he showed up. He watched her drive off, her Subaru kicking up a cloud of dust as she turned onto the highway, and stood there for five minutes after she was gone, the napkin crumpled in his fist, the ghost of her kiss still on his mouth. He unlocked his truck, tossed the napkin on the dash, and grinned to himself when he realized he was actually looking forward to waking up at 6 a.m. the next day.
