Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired forest fire spotter, spent 28 years staffing remote Sierra Nevada fire towers before his wife Ellen’s sudden heart attack pushed him to hang up his binoculars for good. For eight years he’s lived in a one-room cabin off Route 49, only coming into town once a week for propane, canned beans, and the occasional pack of chewing tobacco. He avoids crowds, hates small talk, and has turned down every half-hearted setup the town’s busybodies have tossed his way, convinced he’d already had the only person he ever needed to talk to. His old crew chief talked him into showing up to the town’s annual Oktoberfest shindig by threatening to haul his old fire tower gear up to his cabin and leave it on his porch if he bailed, so Ronan showed, stuffed his hands in his flannel pockets, and hid by the craft cider stand at the edge of the lot as soon as he could slip away.
The string lights strung between ponderosa pines cast warm, wobbly gold over the dirt, the air thick with the smell of smoked bratwurst, pine resin, and fermented apple. The bluegrass band on the small stage cranked through a fast, twangy cover of Folsom Prison Blues, a group of retired loggers yelled along off-key a few feet away. Ronan was just about to toss his half-empty cider cup and head for his truck when Lila Marlow tripped over a half-buried fence staple and stumbled straight into his chest.
Lila, 45, was the town’s new librarian, moved up from San Francisco seven months prior after a messy divorce from a tech exec who’d cheated on her with his 22-year-old admin. Everyone in town had been nudging Ronan to ask her out for months, saying they were both “quiet types who liked books and being left alone,” and he’d avoided her like the flu the entire time, convinced she was too bright, too quick to laugh, too much for a guy who usually spoke less than 100 words a day. Her full spiced cider sloshed over the rim onto his shirt, her free hand flying to his left bicep to steady herself, palm warm even through the thick flannel. She had a smudge of caramel apple dip on her left cheek, dark hair pulled back in a messy braid with a few strands stuck to the sweat on her neck, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, apologizing over and over while swatting at the damp spot on his shirt like she could wipe it away.
Ronan found himself laughing too, a rough, rusty sound he barely recognized as his own, waving off her apologies like the spill was the best thing that’d happened to him all month. She offered to buy him a new cider, and he didn’t argue. They leaned against the splintered split-rail fence while they waited, the band cranking louder, so she leaned in close when she talked, her shoulder brushing his every time she shifted her weight, breath smelling like cinnamon and apple when she told him about the 7-year-old who’d tried to check out 12 dinosaur books at once earlier that week, saying he needed to “brush up for his paleontology career.” He told her about the time he watched a black bear climb the first 10 rungs of his fire tower ladder just to steal his peanut butter sandwich, and she snort-laughed again, her hand resting on his forearm for three full seconds before she pulled it back like she hadn’t even realized she’d touched him.
The whole time he’s torn. Part of him feels sick to his stomach, like he’s cheating on Ellen, like every person in the crowd is staring at them even though most are too drunk to notice anyone outside their own group. Part of him can’t stop looking at the way the string lights catch the gold flecks in her green eyes, the way she tucks that loose strand of hair behind her ear every time she smiles, the faint lavender scent of her shampoo cutting through the pine and sausage smoke every time the wind shifts.
She nods toward the dirt trail leading up to the town overlook a quarter mile up the hill, yelling over the music that it’s way quieter up there if he wants to get away from the noise. He hesitates for two full beats, thinking about the gossip that’ll spread through town by morning, thinking about Ellen’s framed photo on his cabin mantel, thinking about how long it’s been since he wanted to talk to anyone for more than five minutes. He nods.
The trail is gravel, loose in spots, and when she slips on a patch of loose shale he reaches out automatically, his hand wrapping around her wrist. She laces her fingers through his to steady herself, and neither of them lets go even when she’s back on solid ground. The overlook is empty, the town spread out below them, porch lights and festival string lights blinking on one by one as the sun dips below the mountain ridge, the distant hum of the festival faint enough that they don’t have to yell anymore. She turns to face him, still holding his hand, leans in slow, kisses him soft, no rush, and he doesn’t pull away.
They stay there for almost an hour, leaning against the old dented metal guard rail, talking about nothing and everything, her head resting on his shoulder when the cool mountain breeze picks up. He keeps his hand wrapped around hers, his calloused from 30 years of hauling fire tower equipment and chopping firewood, hers smaller, softer, a little cold from holding the cold cider cup. He doesn’t think about the gossip, doesn’t think about Ellen, doesn’t think about anything except the way the cold air stings his cheeks and the weight of her head on his shoulder and the faint twang of the bluegrass band drifting up from the valley below. When she tilts her face up to kiss him again, he meets her halfway, no hesitation left.
