Roman Voss, 62, retired forest fire spotter, hunches over a chipped plastic pint of hazy IPA at the small town’s annual fire safety fundraiser beer garden, picking at a bowl of stale pretzels like they owe him money. He’s three years removed from 28 years spent mostly alone in 100-foot fire towers scattered across southern Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains, and crowds still make his shoulders hunch up to his ears. His left cheek bears a thin, silver scar from a 2019 falling cedar branch, his hands are crisscrossed with calluses thick enough to deflect a cactus spine, and he’s wearing a faded wool Pendleton shirt even though the July air sits at a humid 74 degrees; old habits of preparing for sudden mountain wind shifts die hard. He’d only shown up because his little sister threatened to stop dropping off fresh peach pie at his cabin if he skipped another community event.
She’s wearing a well-worn gray Oregon State hoodie, a flannel tied around her waist, and scuffed steel-toe work boots, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a single strand of silver at the temple. She smells like lavender hand lotion and cedar, and when she reaches across the table to grab a pretzel, her chipped mint-green nail polish glints in the string lights strung above the table. Her fingers brush his when they both reach for the same salt-crusted pretzel at the same time, and Roman yanks his hand back like he touched a live wire. Clara huffs a low, warm laugh, the same laugh she used to give the crew when they’d bicker over who got the last of the coffee at 4 a.m. on the fire line, and holds his gaze for three full beats longer than casual politeness allows. No anger, no resentment, just something soft and curious that makes his chest feel tight.
He’s torn between the urge to mumble an excuse and bolt, and the stupid, unnameable pull to stay, to hear what she has to say. Guilt curdles in his gut alongside the warm fizz of the IPA; he has no right to be attracted to the widow of the man he still feels he failed, no right to notice the way her freckles stand out across her nose in the golden hour light, no right to like that she doesn’t treat him like the reclusive weirdo half the town thinks he is. She leans forward, her elbow brushing his where he’s resting his arm on the edge of the table, and he doesn’t pull away this time.
“Jake talked about you all the time,” she says, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the band shifting to a Tom Petty deep cut. “Said you were the only spotter he ever trusted to call a fire line correctly, even when the winds were going haywire. I’ve been wanting to track you down for years, but everyone said you hate talking to anyone who isn’t a pine tree.” She teases him, one corner of her mouth tugging up, and he finds himself huffing a laugh in spite of himself. She tells him she knows he blames himself for Jake’s death, that the paramedics told her Jake never would have made it long enough to say goodbye to their two kids if Roman hadn’t dragged him out of the smoke, that she’s grateful, not angry. The knot of guilt he’s carried in his chest for six years loosens so fast his eyes burn a little, and he has to look away for a second, staring at the condensation dripping down the side of his beer can.
He tells her about the little carved wooden birds he leaves on hiking trails for lost kids and disoriented day trippers, a habit he picked up during long tower shifts when he whittled to pass the time, and she grins, says she’s found three of them over the past two years, had no idea they were his. She shifts closer on the bench, their thighs pressed together from hip to knee under the table, and he can feel the warmth of her through both their jeans. He can hear the faint gravel in her voice when she talks, the distant crackle of the food truck’s grill, the wind rustling the maple leaves above them, and for the first time in years, he doesn’t feel like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, for a fire to break out somewhere he can’t reach.
A few of the old crew are at the next table, he notices, glancing over and side-eyeing them like they’re doing something scandalous. He doesn’t care. He teases her back about still drinking the same peach cider she used to haul out to the fire line in coolers, remembers she always added an extra shot of bourbon to hers when the temperature dropped below 50, and she laughs so hard she snorts, clapping a hand over her mouth like she’s embarrassed.
When the band wraps up their set and the sun dips below the tree line, she leans in so close her breath brushes his ear when she talks, asks him if he wants to drive up to the old Mount Ashland fire tower he used to man tomorrow, says she’s never been up there, wants to see the view Jake used to rave about for hours at family dinners. Roman nods before he even thinks about it, no hesitation, no overthinking about what people will say. She scribbles her cell number on a crumpled napkin, presses it into his palm, her fingers lingering on his for a full two seconds before she pulls away. She squeezes his shoulder when she stands up to leave, the weight of her hand warm through his Pendleton shirt, and says she’ll meet him at the trailhead at 9 a.m.
He sits there for another 20 minutes after she’s gone, sipping his warm beer, twisting the napkin in his calloused fingers, the ink of her number smudged a little from the condensation on his pint. A gust of wind blows through the maple tree, carrying the faint smell of burnt pine from the small fire pit by the food truck, and for the first time in six years, he doesn’t flinch.
