Roy Pritchard, 62, retired smokejumper turned part-time fly-fishing guide, leaned against a splintered pine picnic table at the Missoula fire department’s annual fundraiser cookout, swirling warm Pabst in a dented can. He’d shown up only because his old crew buddy Tom had shown up on his porch at 3pm, grabbed his fishing rod out of his hand, and threatened to hide all his favorite dry flies if he bailed on the event again. His wife had been gone eight years, and he’d perfected the art of vanishing from social events before anyone could ask if he was seeing anyone, if he was lonely, if he wanted to meet their cousin who was also widowed. The scar across his left cheek, earned when a burning tree branch clipped him on a 2019 blaze outside Kalispell, usually helped shut down those questions fast—people tended to back off when you looked like you’d fought a forest fire and won.
He was three sips from finishing his beer and making his escape when he turned too fast at the sound of his name, sloshing a good two ounces of beer onto the forearm of the woman standing next to him. She didn’t flinch, just threw her head back and laughed, a low, warm sound that cut through the yells of kids chasing each other with water guns and the crackle of the charcoal grills. “Easy there, hotshot,” she said, and Roy’s throat went dry when he recognized her. It was Elena Marquez, ex-wife of his old crew lead Jake, the woman every guy on the 1990s smokejumper crew had admired from a mile away, the woman none of them had dared so much as flirt with, per the unwritten, ironclad crew code.
He grabbed a crumpled paper napkin off the table, leaned forward to dab the beer off her arm, and his fingers brushed hers for half a second. The jolt went all the way up his arm, to the base of his skull, and he pulled back like he’d touched a live wire. She didn’t move away, just sat down on the bench next to him, close enough that their knees almost brushed through their jeans. He could smell lavender perfume tangled with the smoky tang of burnt hamburger, see the faint smattering of freckles across her nose that he’d forgotten about, the crinkles at the corners of her hazel eyes when she smiled. She told him she’d divorced Jake 10 years prior, he’d moved to Boise and never looked back, she’d moved to Missoula the month before to open a used bookstore specializing in outdoor and western fiction, she’d recognized his scar the second she saw him across the park.
Roy’s chest felt tight. The old code was drilled into his bones, so deep he could almost hear Jake’s gravelly voice in his head: Mess with a brother’s partner, and you’re out for good. He kept waiting for the disgust to kick in, for the urge to mumble an excuse and leave, but it didn’t come. Instead he found himself laughing when she teased him about the 1994 crew picnic, when he’d tripped over a fire hose and face-planted into a bowl of potato salad, a story he thought no one but Tom still remembered. They talked for an hour, about the old crew, about her bookstore, about the cutthroat trout he’d caught two days prior on the Bitterroot, and he forgot all about his plan to leave early.
She leaned in, her shoulder brushing his, when she said she’d been wanting to try fly fishing for years but didn’t know anyone to teach her. The words were on the tip of his tongue to offer a trip before he stopped himself, jaw tight. She smiled, soft, like she knew exactly what he was fighting. “I heard you run guide trips now,” she said, her voice low enough only he could hear. “I’d pay double your rate if you’d take me out next Saturday.” He hesitated for three full beats, the old code ringing in his ears, before he nodded.
He walked her to her truck when she said she had to head out to unpack a new shipment of books, a beat-up 1998 Ford F150 the exact same shade of forest green as his. She stopped at the driver’s side door, turning to face him, and they were standing so close he could feel the heat off her cheeks, see the flecks of gold in her eyes. “For the record,” she said, tilting her head up, “Jake always said you were the most honorable man he ever worked with. That’s why I liked you back then, too.” She leaned in and kissed him, quick, soft, right on the corner of his mouth, before she pulled open the truck door.
He stood there in the gravel, ears burning, until her taillights vanished around the corner of the park. Tom yelled from across the field, waving his beer can and grinning like he’d seen the whole thing, and Roy flipped him off, smiling despite himself. He pulled his phone out of his flannel pocket, opened the new contact he’d saved for Elena, typed out Saturday 7am, meet at the Bitterroot north access. Bring waders, a jacket, and don’t tell anyone I’m waiving the guide fee entirely. He hit send, shoved the phone back in his pocket, and grabbed a second beer off the picnic table behind him, the can cold and solid against his palm, for the first time in eight years not in a hurry to get home to an empty cabin.
